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Darren Green Is Not Entertained. That's a Good Thing for Trenton

There may not be a more unconventional mayoral candidate in Trenton this election cycle, than Darren “Freedom” Green.

There may not be a mayoral candidate who knows more intimately about how government – at all levels – in Trenton fails so much for so many in this city, than Darren Green.

There may not be a mayoral candidate known by first name by as many people of this city, than Darren Green.

There may not be a mayoral candidate as underestimated this election cycle, than Darren Green.

He is, I think, worth a closer look by voters.

I first met Mr. Green when he was an At-Large candidate for City Council in 2010, the same year I ran in the West Ward. He had made it to the June run-off, whereas I was eliminated in the initial round that May. I was impressed by his quiet intensity and granular knowledge of life in Trenton for many of its citizens. After that election, and after the 2014 election in which he did not stand as a candidate, Darren – almost alone among most of Trenton’s candidates, from whom we hear and see only every four years – has walked the walk, and continued to talk the talk. He’s been a presence at Council and other community meetings, and on social media.

He was an early and vocal supporter of the movement to recall Tony Mack – which again distinguishes him from all of the other mayoral candidates. Writing on her blog at the time that the recall movement fell short, recall committee member and now former Trenton resident Christine Ott wrote about Mr. Green’s work on that effort, “Darren Freedom Green is just pure decency and compassion, and I might just have to make a Darren Freedom Green Action Figure to keep with me at all times for inspiration.”

His professional background does not suggest that he comes with the requisite experience I’ve been seeking from other candidates. He’s not served, as far as I know, in any management capacity in an organization similar in size and complexity to the City. One of his positions over the last several years was as a special aide worker for the Trenton School District, a job I only know about by the fact that his departure from the job in 2014 after his salary (along with other in similar positions)was reduced was reported in the Trenton Times. His website does not include detailed discussions of his previous career.

Were he to somehow find a path to election as Mayor this Spring, I think he would end up being overly dependent on hiring a staff,  Department directors and other personnel and board appointees whose knowledge of the technical nuts and bolts of their jobs would likely far exceed Mr. Green’s. I think that would be the case for him much more than for the other candidates this season. The rest of his website is similarly lacking detailed exposition of the issues he identifies as well as his prescribed solutions.

And yet, his knowledge of and feel for the issues is personal and dead on. For instance, on a page discussing the crisis in vacant and abandoned buildings and the many pressures on the many small business owners to make a living, he introduces us to one of these businessowners. He tells us about Leroy Nevius and the properties he owns. He tells us,

Last year the City of Trenton did a property revaluation and Mr. Nevius’ tax bill increased by thousands. I know our City needs revenue, but I am, and have always been for sensible, socially responsible development. What type of administration provides a 10 year tax break to a millionaire politician who lives outside the City (the owner of the Starbucks property), but brings the hammer down on small business owners who have lived here their whole lives? Not the administration I would support. Not the administration you should support.

I have to tell you, I read that and I nod my head in approval. Do I think that Mr. Green has the right experience and toolset to take the kinds of action and make the kinds of changes that would help Leroy Nevius, and those like him? I don’t know, but I don’t see many other people asking for votes this season talking about either the horrible revaluation this City went through last year, OR the City’s scandalous record in handing out tax abatements like candy to those who least need them while ignoring those like Mr. Nevius.

His Issues page is brief and cursory in both diagnosis and prescription. In that respect, he shares with Councilman Alex Bethea. Yet for the last eight years at least, he has been much more detailed, much more consistent and – above all – much more coherent than Mr. Bethea.

And Mr. Green uses words such as “bold” and “revolutionary” on his website and in his speech almost as much as Councilman Duncan Harrison does.

Regarding Mr. Harrison, I said the other day that the only “revolution” Trenton might be ripe for would be a French one. From my rather removed, privileged and distant online perch, whose experience of Trenton is surely much, much different than many if not most of the people who are born, grow up and live here having gone through city schools and whose experience with city services is more frequent, necessary and unpleasant and frustrating than mine; from my perspective if, similar to the French people in 1789, Trenton were to put forth an authentic voice to speak and work for the disenfranchised and powerless, I think that person would look and sound a lot like Darren Green. He’s been to more funerals and celebrations in this town – as a friend – than most other candidates and officeholders, I would speculate.

On another of his website pages, he says – and I will quote that in its entirety:

During last night’s NAACP Town Hall Forum, I was asked about my thoughts on the two new “entertainment districts” being proposed for our City. My response was clear. Money comes into Trenton, but rarely ends up benefiting Trentonians. Councilman Harrison said he supported these districts, and the creation of others across the City — but my position is that until we have full accountability for how our money is being spent; until we have rules in place that prioritize the training, hiring, and contracting of TRENTON residents, I will never be for any of these developments.

The State announced on Fountain Ave last year that it was giving Trenton 11.5 MILLION to demolish up to 500 abandoned buildings. This picture was taken only days ago, a few feet away from where Governor Christie and our current Mayor made their announcement. Things have only gotten worse. Do you see what I’m talking about when I say accountability? Real people going through real things are going to feel this. We don’t need to be sold dreams about some entertainment district. We borrowed millions to build a new hotel and look where that has gotten us?

I am not entertained. I am enraged that our kids continue to deal with the trauma of blight and abandonment when they walk outside, while people in power pull the wool over our eyes as they quietly enrich their friends using our tax dollars. Trenton FIRST or no deal. Simple.

I have to tell you, “I am not entertained?” I love that! I cannot think of any other candidate this year who has earned the right to channel Russell Crowe in what passes for Trenton’s poor excuse for a gladiator arena. I think we’re the better for having him run this year.

I don’t know what Mr. Green’s electoral chances will be in May. I wouldn’t think that his campaign is as adequately funded as many of his opponents. I don’t see any “Green (or ‘Free’) for Mayor” signs around town, another sign that his effort is being run on a shoestring. On the other hand, he doesn’t have any of the huge, annoying, Baconator-sized billboards-on-lawns that Walker Worthy is planting around town, and that’s a good thing. We’ll learn more about that, and other candidates’ efforts, later this week, when the Election Law Enforcement Commission starts to post the required 28-day campaign financial reports due tomorrow.

As mentioned above, his unconventional background and skillset may not at this point provide him with all of the tools he would need to be the effective Executive this town has desperately needed for way too long.  He may not have what it takes to do the job.

But I will predict that – based on the resonance to his message, the many, many people in Trenton who have long known him, and know him to be direct, honest, passionate, consistent and committed – he will finish higher than at least half the field. Darren Green is definitely a wild card.

His presence alone in this race is classing it up. He is saying things, and taking positions that – even though his background may not be the most conventional – few others this year are taking.

Even if he is not successful in May, or June, he will continue to be a strong voice in this city. Whoever is elected Mayor, if it’s not Mr. Green, will be well advised to find a spot for him where he will have certainly earned a chance to serve the City and the people he loves.

If We Had Ham, We Could Make a Ham Sandwich, If We Had Bread

I don’t know why it is, but during this political season I find myself most annoyed by the pitch being made by the mayoral campaign of one-term At-Large Council member Duncan Harrison. It might be due to my reactions to his increasingly overwrought and buoyant campaign promises and rhetoric. With every new press release and newspaper article – he’s definitely playing The Trentonian like a violin, as they post breathless “articles” that seem like word-for-word transcriptions of Harrison releases and conversations, without any vetting or fact-checking – it seems that he is both over-promising what can be delivered during one four-year mayoral and Council term, and under-delivering in terms of his experience and qualifications.

This space first discussed one of his campaign pronouncements a few weeks ago, when he tried to spin a rather mundane and routine action taken by Council – to prefer one kind of bidding over another in seeking to allow the City to process credit and debit cards for several types of business transactions – into a revelatory game-changing accomplishment. Listen to how he described this vote’s impact on the city: “This is an important change that will move Trenton into the 21st Century and help us build a bright, new future for our city.”

I still shake my head every time I read that.

He was just getting started. The Biography page on his website leads off by describing him as “the new leader Trenton needs. He has the experience we need to fix the challenges Trenton faces, but also recognizes the strength, creativity, and innovative spirit that define our city. Duncan understands what Trenton needs right now, but he also sees what our city can become, and he has the skills we need to build a vibrant, new Trenton – a real Trenton renaissance.”

I don’t know how you over-promise more than that. A Trenton renaissance? Seriously? His “vision” strikes me as the kind of wishful thinking expressed in the line “If we had ham, we could make a ham sandwich, if we had some bread.” He knows where he wants to go, but doesn’t seem to be aware of all the steps on the path to get there.

Let’s review – very briefly – what’s happened over the last four years in Trenton, during the time that Mr. Harrison has been serving on City Council, while consistently and dependably providing his vote for the failed Eric Jackson Administration. I know I repeat myself here, but I feel the disastrous experience in Trenton of these last four years taints every elected official in the City and every senior appointed manager, and that tarnished record can’t be repeated often enough in this election to suit me.

One of the City’s own vendors stole $5 Million Dollars in payroll tax funds. This happened under the noses of all of the City’s financial management. In its aftermath, the Mayor and his Administration refused to talk about both how this was allowed to happen and what actions they were taking to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Ever since that theft, I haven’t heard any Council members – including Mr. Harrison – calling for Accountability.

The City of Trenton in 2015 was labeled by the US Government “a high-risk grantee of Federal funds.” The actions leading to this designation mostly preceded the Jackson Administration and Mr. Harrison’s Council years. But a couple of years later, in 2017, the City agreed with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to give back over $3 Million in grant funding because after three years the Jackson Administration had failed to fulfill pledges it made to improve its administrative processes and procedures. Again, hardly a peep from Council about this.

Over the last four years, the Trenton Water Works continued to decline, leading to a record number of fines and violations and raising frequent concerns from customers and public officials around Mercer County about the quality and safety of its drinking water, due in large measure to the significant under-staffing of the Utility. This Administration and this Council bears all the responsibility for four years of drift, neglect, and lax oversight.

And, as described just yesterday, City Council – with Mr. Harrison’s votes – approved several contracts for goods and services that at best could be called mis-guided, and at worst wasteful and inappropriate. Please remember, again, the Information Technology contract from Hell, the public swimming pools contract, and the property reassessment contract. This last one resulted in wildly inconsistent property revaluations that vastly increased the property tax burden – doubling and tripling the local property tax burden for many home and business owners, while slashing many others.

If you search for Duncan Harrison’s name in connection with any objections or disagreements with any of the above, I predict you will find few results. In fact, Trenton’s Council has had a reputation for many years of being a rubber stamp for whichever Administration has then been in office. The last four years have been no different. During these last four years, Duncan Harrison has been one of the dependable rubber stamp votes that enabled the Jackson Administration to take so many of their misbegotten actions.

Even this Administration’s and Council’s own initiatives had trouble getting done. In November of last year, Jim Carlucci posted two informative pieces narrating the sad fate of the Local Employment Initiative, and its stillborn Trenton Employment Commission. Undertaken with much fanfare (and Harrison’s vote) in 2014, this initiative was abandoned after only one year. Money approved by Council to pay the consultant hired to prepare plans and studies wasn’t fully paid. No study or reporting was delivered and a Commission intended to help expand career training and hiring of local employees was never formed. Despite Mr. Carlucci raising the matter months ago, there’s only been silence from Council. As on so many other occasions!

The record of this Council for its term is entirely undistinguished, frankly disastrous. As a member of the voting majority, he has to own his share of that record. Which does not recommend his promotion to the Mayor’s Office.

Part of Harrison’s pitch is the professional experience and record he’s had as the Associate Executive Director of the Union Industrial Home (UIH) here in Trenton. I’m sure he does outstanding work there, but his is an organization with an annual budget under $2 Million, only 1% of the City of Trenton’s, according to the most recent tax return I could find for the organization, for 2016. On that return as well as earlier ones in 2014 and 2015, on Page 7, is a listing by name of UIH’s “Officers, Directors, Trustees, Key Employees.” Mr. Harrison does not appear on this list. Serving in middle management of a small community non-profit really doesn’t suggest the relevant training at this point to run a complex organization like Trenton’s government.

It’s too bad, actually. I like him personally, he has a real feel for people – good in a politician –  and is full of energy. I think he has the makings of a good and productive Council member, the last four years notwithstanding. I think he has the potential and talent to develop as an independent voice on Council, representing and responsive to Trenton’s voters, and acting as a true check and balance on the Executive. Instead, he’s convinced himself – or been convinced – that he’s ready after four years as an Administration yes-man and a community middle manager to take on the massive dysfunction that is the City of Trenton. A shame.

I think, frankly, he fell in with the “wrong crowd” on Council. He and Zachary Chester and former member Verlina Reynolds-Jackson were consistently supportive of the Jackson Administration. Along with the less-consistent (in so many other ways) Alex Bethea, they all backed the Administration, for better or for worse.

Along with Chester and Reynolds Jackson, I think that Mr. Harrison’s downfall was his going along to get along. They didn’t rock the boat in Trenton, and they didn’t go against the program, in the expectation perhaps that such loyalty would be later rewarded. In Ms. Reynolds-Jackson’s case, her entirely undistinguished career on Trenton’s Council was rewarded by a significant bump upstairs to first being the Chair of the Mercer County Democratic Committee, and then to the appointment by that Committee to serve the remaining term in the State Assembly of former member Elizabeth Muoio, now NJ’s State Treasurer. In Mr. Harrison’s case, his reward for loyal and dependable service is the support he is receiving for his mayoral campaign. He benefits from much of the same support that would have lined up behind Eric Jackson, had he decided to run for a second term.

That support apparently includes some of the same campaign consultants who have worked on past New Jersey campaigns including US Senator Cory Booker, Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, and the NJ Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee. A few weeks ago, in The Trentonian, one Marc Matzen was identified as Harrison’s “campaign manager.” Matzen is one of the Principals in a political consulting firm called FiftyOne Percent. I’m sure that the services of a firm such as that don’t come cheaply.

It’s possible that Mr. Matzen may be volunteering his services to Harrison’s campaign, since the gentleman lives in Trenton. However, along with the services being provided to the mayoral campaign of Walker Worthy by Vision Media Marketing of Secaucus, whose Dan Knitzer was quoted this week defending Worthy from anonymous charges of personal financial problems, his presence is a sign that at least these two mayoral campaigns enjoy significant support and resources from outside the City, from many of the same sources that supported Eric Jackson and Tony Mack previously. Past performance does not predict future results, but it is worth noting by Trenton voters.

I’m guessing that his consultants have been advising Mr. Harrison to stake out as his own distinctive territory by branding himself as the “Vision” candidate, offering his proposals with as many synonyms of “bold,” “vision,” “innovative” and “revolutionary” as he can cram into a press release. Sometimes, as in his Credit Card victory lap, it doesn’t really work. And it seems to me that the only “Revolution” Trenton is primed for is a French one. Because after the last four years as briefly recounted above, it sure feels that Trenton needs to re-learn how to make itself work again, well before it can ever think of either Mr. Harrison’s “Revolution” or his “Renaissance.” I wrote just a few days ago about Mr. Harrison’s rhetoric compared with some of his more prosaic and grounded opponents, and don’t need to revisit that further.

I will just finish by citing one of Duncan Harrison’s more specific proposals as evidence that he may want to tone down some of the exuberance in his proposals order to concentrate some on their nuts and bolts, because there’s a lot missing there.

Take his proposal on neighborhood revitalization, offered this week. As part of his plan, Harrison proposes to re-open the four neighborhood branches of the Trenton Free Public Library that closed and have been allowed to rot since 2010. As reported in the Trentonian this week, Harrison intends “Reopening community library branches by partnering with library management, City Council, and the State to procure capital funding and state library bond funding.”

It’s a very laudable objective. But the reason that the branches closed in 2010 wasn’t due to a lack of capital funds. It was due to the lack of Operating Funds, and a reduction in the City’s subsidy of the Library System. In 2010, the Mack Administration cut the Library’s budget by $1 Million. The remaining budget of $2.1 Million was not enough to keep the four branches open. The Library Director at the time estimated the minimum operating budget needed to keep the branches open for only four hours a day five days a week was $845,000. In 2010 dollars. The City didn’t have it then. That amount will surely have grown by now.

Flash forward to 2018. The FY 2018 budget approved by Mr. Harrison and his Council colleagues appropriated $2 Million Dollars to operate the Main Library downtown. The state-mandated minimum Library tax revenue for the Library is only $786,000. The remaining $1,214 Million comes from the City’s main operating budget.

Does Mr. Harrison think the City can afford another $845,000, plus inflation? If so, why didn’t he didn’t propose this before now?

Even Harrison’s proposal to “procure capital funding and state library bond funding” – money to build and/or repair the buildings and physical property – raises questions. Last November, New Jersey voters statewide approved a ballot measure to raise $125 Million in bond revenue to be used to support capital grants to communities for local public libraries such as Trenton. We can certainly apply for a piece of that funding, as Mr. Harrison proposes. By all means.

However, those State grants would fund only 50% of a local project. Towns and cities would be responsible for raising the remaining 50%, as well as, of course, the operating monies.

Does Mr. Harrison think the City can raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital monies, as well as another Million or so in operating monies? If so, why hasn’t this been done before this? Why hasn’t he sought to do this before now? Perhaps because he wasn’t running for Mayor before this year.

The same vague lack of specificity tied with a blithe assumption that details will take care of themselves informs much of the rest of his neighborhoods plan. Again, according to the Trentonian, the plan includes “Revitalizing abandoned buildings and holding landlords accountable by working with the Housing and Economic Development department to secure grant funding for neighborhood improvement projects, creating a marketing package to attract colleges and corporations to Trenton, and enforcing a graduating fine system for landlords who put their tenants at risk by violating housing laws.”

D’oh, why hasn’t this occurred to anyone before now? Hey, Duncan Harrison’s proposals aren’t as thin as, say, Alex Bethea’s. But they are detailed enough and optimistic enough to raise voters’ expectations unfairly. He thinks a lot can be done in only four years to transform a City that has trouble getting snow off City streets. His proposals have merit, but they lack the sense that Harrison knows how to actualize them. Ideas without resources are dreams. Dreams are definitely worth having, but after Tony Mack and Eric Jackson we need prose not poetry.

The truest sentiment attributed to Duncan Harrison is at the end of that Trentonian article. “Harrison knows City Hall has let Trentonians down.”

Yes, it surely has.

As much as I like him, as Mayor he would also let us down. Trenton can’t take another failed mayor,


It's Time to Be Responsible

Each time I want to write about what the various and sundry candidates for election in five weeks actually propose to do if they’re elected, the current elected officials go off and do something new to show why we need a clean slate of new people. We’re already going to get a new Mayor; I think it’s also time to do a clean sweep of every member of City Council, and try again. How much worse could an entirely new crowd do? Not much.

Case in point: Trenton’s City Council has screwed up what should have been a routine contracting process. The Trentonian reported yesterday about the ruckus surrounding a contract awarded by the City to Cole Media for public relations work for the City. This firm raised some eyebrows back in September, when Council first approved a $50,000 contract with them for public relations work done for the outgoing one-term Mayor Eric Jackson, due to the fact that, as reported by Kevin Shea of the Trenton Times back when the Times reported actual news about Trenton and not simply local sports scores – but I digress – “Although not the lowest bid, Cole Media won the contract after being evaluated by a bid committee.”

That evaluation, and the committee’s decision, has been called into question by one of the other firms, the EFK Group of Trenton, which submitted one of the losing proposals for the contract. I won’t recap the substance of the current mess, leaving you to click on the links above for those details.

I want to point out what I think what should be the main point here. Isaac Avilucea reports in his Trentonian piece, “City council last year approved a resolution for a $50,000 payout to Cole Media to do PR work for Jackson, according to news reports. The city didn’t explain at the time why it needed the services, and it wasn’t immediately clear what work contributions Cole Media has made to the city.”

I’ll say that again: it is not at all clear what work Cole did for the City to have earned its $50,000. And now the City has struck another deal with the firm.

What is objectionable about this is that Council – and the public  – has  no way of evaluating what connections other than their contracts Cole Media – and every other vendor the City has contracted with over the last four years – has with Eric Jackson.

Because the outgoing one-term Mayor has failed to file any of the legally-required quarterly campaign finance reports since October of 2014, it is impossible to know if Cole Media – or every other vendor the City has contracted with over the last four years – has made financial contributions to Eric Jackson which in turn benefit them by getting lucrative contracts from the City.

Now, I realize this is entirely unfair to Cole Media – and every other vendor the City has contracted with over the last four years – but Mayor Jackson has single-handedly created the current situation. Because of his ongoing failure to file his reports and identify the funds coming to him during his entire term, companies like Cole Media – and every other vendor the City has contracted with over the last four years – are now under a cloud of suspicion every time they do business with the City.

In the case of Cole Media and EFK, the allegations made by one of the losing bidders has put this one deal under the spotlight. We’ll have to see how that unwinds over the next couple of weeks or months, and whether this matter ends up in court.

However, this won’t be the last time this happens. A big part of the legacy that Eric Jackson leaves behind is that, for the next several years, whenever the City proposes a contract with a company like Cole Media – and every other vendor the City has contracted with over the last four years – we will wonder if they got their foot in the door to get a piece of the City’s business because of donations made to Eric Jackson between 2014 and 2018.

And we won’t know. Because Eric Jackson has failed in his legal obligations to report, and failed to fulfill his promises to voters four years ago to be The Ethics Mayor.

You know, when Tony Mack left office, we all had a pretty good idea that most of his dirty laundry and dirty deals had been publicly revealed, courtesy of the FBI and the US Attorney’s Office for New Jersey.

We can’t say that about Eric Jackson. Although there’s been no suggestion publicly made of criminal behavior, it’s now unfortunately impossible for him – or anyone else in City Hall today – to credibly deny that there hasn’t been any.

There are two lessons I think we can learn here, and I hope we learn them in time for Election Day.

First, we are seeing the damage done – even long after they leave office – to the way the City does its business when the campaign finances of its Mayor are shrouded in secrecy in violation of New Jersey law. We can’t afford another Eric Jackson again!

That means that any candidate for the office of Mayor who demonstrates they either can not or will not comply with the law with their campaign reporting should not be trusted with the office, no matter how otherwise compelling their qualifications or campaign platforms. I’m looking at you, Paul Perez.

And, second. For the last four years, we’ve seen time after time that the City – Administration and Council – has very. very serious problems with its purchasing and contracting process. Not only has it screwed up the Cole Media deals, the City has also made a mess of – for example – its Information Technology contract, its public swimming pools contract, its property reassessment contract, and, most infamously, its payroll service contract. You’ll recall with this last deal that the City continued to renew its contract with Innovative Payroll Services even while IPS was stealing Five Million Dollars from the City.

What can be done to clean this situation up? Well, for a start, I would just absolutely love it if one or more current Mayoral and Council candidates pledged that he or she would make a great start by ensuring that they would follow the law.

What do I mean by this? Trenton already has in its City Code a built-in check and balance on the city’s purchasing process, and it has NEVER used it.

It’s called The Board of Review. It’s on the books in Section 2-74 of the City’s Ordinances. The language of the complete Ordinance can be found here. I’ll just quote a few key lines:

Section 2-74 D.Appeals

In such cases where a prospective bidder desires to appeal the decision of the Purchasing Agent with respect to a particular public works or public contract previously advertised and desires to have a review and decision by the Board prior to the time for submission of bids on the contract, the request shall be filed not less than five days prior to the final date for the submission of bids, and the Board shall hold a hearing and act upon the request not less than two days prior to the date fixed for the next opening of bids on such public works or contract. The request for any such expedited review shall state with specificity the need for an accelerated review stating the time and subject matter of the impending bid. Such accelerated review shall also be available to any person who receives notice of disqualification or notice of potential rejection pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40A:11-32 following the opening of bids and prior to the award of contracts.

This Board would not have authority throughout the entire bidding process. It’s not designed to have board input after the actual award of contracts, for instance. But it does allow a mechanism for bidders prior to that point, who might feel the purchasing process has been “fixed” or otherwise stacked against them, to have their voices heard by an independent body not beholden to the current Powers That Be. Also, if the Administration in office knew that much of their work would be subject to Board review, I think one could argue that the very existence of a Board of Review would have a pretty mighty deterrent effect.

By the way, the Board would consist, per the Ordinance, of “one member of the City Council to be designated by motion of the City Council and two citizens of the City to be designated by motion of the City Council.”

Might any of the purchasing disasters of the last four years have been avoided if there were such a Board in place? I can’t really say.

What I can say is that we have not had a Board of Review and we have had all of these disasters over the four years. And I can say that Trenton City Ordinance requires such a Board to be in existence. And the City has ignored this mandate for years.

I think that does explain, in part, the situation we have now. I am tired of it happening again, and again.

I’ve written about this before, as far back as 2011. Here, and here. I think it’s well past time to comply with the law and convene this Board.

So, any Mayoral and Council candidates or managers reading, what do you think? Who will go on the record as saying,

“It’s time to stop tolerating purchasing disasters. It’s Time to comply with the Law. It’s Time to give the Public the Check and Balance the Law provides. It’s Time to be Responsible. “



Alex Bethea's Got Nothing

Since Election Day is now less than five weeks away, I think it’s time to start focusing on the issues, don’t you? Trenton has a lot of problems, big and small, and it’s appropriate now to get an idea of how the candidates intend to deal with them. In fact, it’s important to know what issues they even identify as important, and note the ones they don’t. First up, the candidate with the least to offer, therefore the quickest to dismiss.

On his campaign website, Alex Bethea has a page titled “On the Issues.” Here’s a screengrab:

bethea

Let me save you some time this morning. There’s no need to go to this page to look at the details of his Five Point Plan.

There aren’t any. There are no further links out of this page. None.

This is The Plan.

However, there is more! Elsewhere on the website, under “News,” there is a link to a YouTube video, 5 Minutes and 51 seconds in length, wherein Mr. Bethea does discuss his 5-point plan in detail. Well, at least a little more detail. It’s still pretty thin. I’ll summarize his proposals.

Bethea doesn’t actually get to his “Plan” until 2:09 into the video. The first portion of the piece is devoted to personal biography.

Public Safety – At the 2:09 mark, Mr. Bethea tells us he believes in community policing. He promises to deploy officers on street patrol. This will help to narrow the disconnect between the police and the community. He also promises to make it more attractive to police officers to make the city they patrol their home, with a mix of tax incentives and no-interest loans to officers to help them afford to buy homes in Trenton.

Bethea provides no detail as to how he would make this possible. He doesn’t describe how TPD would have to deploy its force in order to put cops on foot patrol. Neither does he offer any estimates to the city of the cost of his “tax incentives” and “no-interest loans.”

This discussion on Public Safety takes all of 1 minute and 5 seconds.

Education – He’s the “Education Candidate,” he starts to tell us at 3:14, due to the years he’s spent with the Trenton School District as a teacher and administrator. He intends to focus on the early student years, from Kindergarten to 3rd Grade. Early on, he promises a “thorough assessment of what each child needs,” adjusting the curriculum accordingly. Here again, he provides no sense of the resources needed to provide individualized student assessments and curricula. He doesn’t describe how his proposals differ from the current status quo, and he doesn’t explain how a Mayor of Trenton can have much influence on schools. The City provides directly only a small portion of the system’s funds. And the only role that a Mayor typically plays is in the appointment of School Board members.

Education is checked off in one minute flat.

Housing and Economic Development – At 4:14, Bethea tackles this huge problem for the city. Bethea’s vision for Development extends only so far as the “thousands and thousands of boarded-up and abandoned houses in our city.” As Mayor, Bethea will “take an aggressive approach to revitalize those houses and get them back on the tax rolls.” Having disposed of that topic in all of 20 seconds, Mr. Bethea assures us that this accomplishment alone will accomplish his next goal.

Property Taxes – The revitalization of these thousands and thousands of homes – no mention or discussion of local businesses or commercial properties crushed by the 2017 reassessment Councilman Bethea endorsed, sorry – will by themselves achieve his goal of “stabilizing” property taxes. He doesn’t explain what he means by “Stabilization.” Keep them at current rates throughout his term? Roll them back? Keep any increases to a minimum? We don’t know, because he devotes only four seconds to this topic.

Employment – Mr. Bethea apparently believes that getting all of those thousands of houses back on the tax rolls will provide a windfall for the city under his Administration, because “at the same time” (4:38 in) that he is “stabilizing” property taxes, he will be able to pay for an ambitious Apprenticeship program for Trenton’s unemployed residents, providing opportunities for training in trades such as Plumbing, Roofing, Carpentry, and Electrics. Again, he provides no details or numbers, which would have been awfully hard to do in the ten seconds he allots for the topic.

And that’s it. Mr. Bethea describes his Five Point Plan in well under three minutes of video. He takes another half-minute to wrap up, characterizing the plan he’s just presented as “aggressive,” which will lead to a return of the “glory days” in Trenton.

There’s not much else to say about this video, and Alex Bethea. I watched and summarized his “Issues” video so you won’t have to.

It’s been long clear from his eight years on Council that Alex Bethea was unprepared for the job. He’s often uninformed about the matters that come before him in Council. I’m not a regular attendee at Council sessions, but there has not been a one that I’ve been sitting in Council Chambers when a lot of time is spent by someone – whether the City Clerk, the Business Administrator or other Administration official, or his Council President – explains in very simple words and concepts the substance of the matter before him.

He has been an ineffective member of City Council for eight years. It’s hard to watch that video knowing that this man has been on the governing body of this city for over 93 months. He’s been involved in eight years of city budgets, contracts, grants, and ordinances, among other things. You don’t see ANY of that in this video.

He has no idea of the issues facing the next Mayor, and clearly has no idea of what kinds of solutions are needed. He has no business being Trenton’s next Mayor. Thankfully, I don’t actually believe that there really is much chance of that happening.

Since running for Mayor ruled out any re-election campaign for his current position, the next Council will definitely not include Alex Bethea. That by itself should vastly improve the effectiveness and productivity of that body no matter who the other six members are.

Everyone in the Mud Pile!

Readers of this space may recall that a few weeks ago, I hearkened back to the 2014 season, when eventual mayoral election third-place finisher and still current Deputy Mercer County Clerk Walker Worthy, Junior (a very important distinction to make, as it turns out), held a press event outside the personal residence of one of his opponents, eventual winner and now outgoing Mayor Eric Jackson. The sole purpose for that event was to fling mud on Mr. Jackson by publicizing several personal financial problems Mr. Jackson had experienced over the previous several years. In the words of a Trenton Times article of the time,

Among the issues Worthy raised during a press conference yesterday were a bankruptcy filing, a foreclosure, state tax liens and a judgment for a debt to his college alma mater…  Jackson filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in December 1996 and the bankruptcy was discharged a short time later in March 1997. [Emphasis mine- KM]

What goes around often does indeed come around. This week, Mr. Worthy is shocked – shocked!! – that charges of similar personal problems  of Worthy’s have been publicized. This time the charges are anonymous, made on a Facebook page with no attribution. A piece in today’s Trentonian by Isaac Avilucea reports, “The post outlined Worthy Jr. was subject to five default judgments for debt associated with credit cards, student loans, auto financing, and condo association fees.” Worthy angrily denied all of the charges on another Facebook page quoted by Mr. Avilucea, writing “This politically motivated slander posted by the ‘Stay Informed Trenton, NJ’ Facebook group is not only absolutely false, it is also extremely offensive.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

Worthy claimed that the Facebook post confused debts accruing to his father, Walker Worthy, Senior, with those anonymously attributed to him. A spokesperson for Worthy also criticized the anonymous authors of the Facebook post for bringing up old debts over 20 years old, saying that such financial problems were “in no way relevant to his financial status as of now.”

I will assume that this spokesperson wasn’t associated with Worthy’s campaign four years ago, because Worthy – personally, remember! – went off on Jackson over alleged bankruptcies filed 18 and 14 years prior.

Worthy’s accusations against Jackson in 2014 didn’t get much mileage. That story, and probably Worthy’s chances of winning that election, faded away soon after. The original charges were not substantiated, and there was no further press attention. Worthy’s reputation as a dirty campaigner, however, lingered well after and was brought up by the Trentonian in today’s piece.

One big difference between the accusations four years ago and now? According to the Trentonian, despite Worthy’s denial that the accusations were “absolutely false,” the Trentonian reports “The Trentonian has uncovered that a majority of the debts brought to light actually belonged to Worthy Jr., while at least one other cited on the list was debunked as debt that belonged to his dad.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

I write about this not because I think our city’s elections should be dominated by charges of personal problems and difficulties, but because this incident reveals Worthy as a hypocrite. The same candidate who in 2014 said – in front of Eric Jackson’s home – “We must hold our elected leaders to a higher standard and they must demonstrate they are worthy of the voters’ trust” is incapable of recognizing how ironic it is to now be held to the very same “higher standard” he called down on an opponent. Karma’s a bitch, indeed.

Today’s reporting in the Trentonian shows Worthy’s “absolutely false” statement to be, frankly, a crock.

Worthy, in my opinion, added to the hypocrisy of his response when he cloaked his self-righteous outrage in religion. “[I]t is especially disgusting that during this holy week that should be spent with family and in worship, this vile filth is instead being circulated in our city.”

Please. Just. Don’t.

I also want to say that I am really, really sick and tired of all of the anonymous Facebook pages and assumed false identities that have sprung up this season with the sole purpose of trolling other candidacies and praise their favorites. I despise those on social media who won’t use their own names when making charges of doubtful authenticity or of outright lies. I even object to truthful charges, anonymously made. It’s often the case that trolls will ration out some true tales with their lies, which has the effect of muddying the waters and casting doubt on truth as well with fiction. As one who takes some care to report factual information truthfully, I can say that writing under one’s own name rather than an alias allows readers and other audiences to make their own judgements on what they read and hear, based in part on the reputation for care and honesty of the writer. Anonymous or pseudonymous writers have no true reputation. They have no dependability. And, to this guy at least, no honor. I won’t link to those pages, I won’t name them here, and I will usually avoid mentioning them entirely. The only exception, as in this case, is when those posts themselves, for good or worse, make news and lead to legitimate news coverage.

I’d like to think that after this incident they’ll cease, or just slow down, but that ship has sailed long, long ago. And not just in Trenton. If there’s any upside to all this mud, at least it’s probably safe to say that this is all locally-sourced mud, manufactured only in Trenton and certain other NJ townships such as Hamilton or Secaucus. Not St. Petersburg, Moscow, or any other place names in the Cyrillic alphabet. We don’t rate those, thank goodness!

Finally. On March 15, I wrote in this space,

I’m not quite ready to write off Walker Worthy’s campaign just quite yet. However, so far all he has done is wrap himself up with the party “machine” – remember, his word! – and throw mud at his opponents.

He has an opportunity now to become competitive, if he starts to present serious ideas, proposals and policies that would have a chance to help this city out of its mess.

But the window on that kind of opportunity is closing fast. If, after the Machine and the Mud we’ve seen so far, all he offers is more Mush, I think he’ll be done.

I wouldn’t exactly call the Trentonian’s debunking of Worthy’s denial, and the confirmation of several personal financial problems in his background – the same ones he claimed in 2014 disqualifed Eric Jackson – “Mush.” It’s more like boomeranging Mud, but I think the effect will be the same.

He’s done.

Starbucks Versus Dunkin Donuts

Back in May of 2017, when the Starbucks coffee chain announced plans to open its very first (and only) store in New Jersey’s capital city, you’d have been forgiven if you got the impression that this move would single-handedly bootstrap downtown Trenton into a new Renaissance. Everyone associated with the project claimed a piece of the good news, and basked in the reflected glory of all the Venti Mochas that would start flowing from the place that November.

Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson set the tone: “Starbucks will be a welcome addition as we continue revitalizing our downtown business corridor. Through this store’s unique model of investing in local contractors, suppliers and youth, Starbucks is stepping up and investing in our community in a way that will open up exciting opportunities for all. We hope more businesses will appreciate Trenton’s resurgence as we work together to drive economic development locally.”

The City’s Congressional representative Bonnie Watson Coleman claimed her piece of this landmark accomplishment: “About a year ago, I was on a Congressional Delegation in Seattle where I had the opportunity to visit  Starbucks’ headquarters. While I was there, I mentioned to every person I interacted with, including Howard Schultz, (then CEO of Starbucks) how New Jersey’s capital city didn’t have a Starbucks. Earlier this month, Trenton did not just welcome a run-of-the-mill Starbucks, but a specialized facility that is going to invest in our community and help build the future. Young men and women will be able to work there and be provided with management training to go off into other areas of our state and country and run their own stores.”

Don’t get me wrong. Starbucks is a fine addition to our downtown. It’s a clean, modern and pleasant store, offering a good product line, doing brisk business 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. Glad to have it.

But here’s the thing, to me. Starbucks presence , for all of the grandiose rhetoric of the people quoted above – “investing in our community in a way that will open up exciting opportunities for all” Really, Mayor Jackson?? – is only one store. The company waited until 2017 to announce it was moving to Trenton to “help build the future,” and make some money doing it.

Let’s compare Starbucks with its more plebian and working class competitor, Dunkin Donuts.

No one has claimed that the double DD will “build the future,” or “open up exciting opportunities for all.” The coffee is only ok and the food menu could never be described as part of a healthy or even trendy lifestyle, in the way that the colossus from Seattle is seen.

But, I want to argue, Dunkin Donuts represents a more important presence to Trenton’s economy. For one thing, it’s been a much bigger presence for much longer, and likely employs far more residents of the city and contributes more in property taxes to the town. Our elected officials and city machers should be shouting praise for the chain from the rooftops as much as they shower Starbucks with overblown compliments.

Why am I so up on Dunkin? Because within the city limits of Trenton there are no fewer than nine –count them, nine – stores logoed with the orange and purple. Many are open 24 hours. There’s one Drive-through store, in the West Ward. You can grab a coffee and donut in the Train Station on your way out of town. Their sizes are Small, Medium, Large and Extra Large. And they all offer (with varying degrees of reliability) free WiFi.

Dig it!

Yeah, for sure Dunkin Donuts isn’t nearly as sexy as Starbucks. There’s no comparison between the corporate auras of the two caffeine providers. But, as far as Trenton is  concerned, to me DD is by far the better, and for much, much longer, corporate neighbor in the city, contributing much more to Trenton’s economy than Starbucks ever will, even though it will hardly ever get any official love from any officials, at any level of government. Our elected and appointed leaders have long preferred the big, bold transformative projects that never seem to transform anything. Hotels, stadiums, nursing schools and now Starbucks. The bigger, the better.

What’s my point to all this? We are in the middle of another city election. It’s known as “Silly Season,” for all the inflated promises and rhetoric that come from many candidates, as they try to stake out positions and personas that distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack.

Allow me to compare and contrast the “Starbucks” candidates to the “Dunkin Donuts” candidates.

On the one hand, this season’s wild and overblown promises are coming from current At-Large Councilman Duncan (no relation) Harrison. When he announced his candidacy for Mayor, he did so with the grandest of rhetoric: “I am running for Mayor because it is time for a new Trenton revolution…A revolution that will take place in our homes, in our families, and in conversations with our neighbors. That will take place on our streets, in our parks, and at our schools. A Trenton revolution that will bring a bright new future to our city, because it will start and it will thrive in each and every one of us.”

A revolution? In Trenton? Seriously? I get that Mr. Harrison, who by many measurements is among the least qualified of the mayoral candidates, needs to amp up his campaign rhetoric. His own website summarizes his pitch this way: “It is time for a leader with a vision for a bright, new Trenton and the leadership skills to make that vision a reality.”

What is his vision? What are his leadership skills? His is definitely the Starbucks candidacy. Promise the world, say “vision” and “bold” a lot, and soft-pedal his lack of experience. “Big” and “Bold” have been for too long code words for projects destined to bankrupt us. No, thanks. Not this year.

Mr. Harrision means well, but I don’t see quite the leader he does. I was in attendance at City Council on February 1, when Mr. Harrison took the lead on what has promised as a major hearing on the Trenton Water Works on February 1. I’ve written about this session, and won’t re-visit it here. I will only say that the list of 12 questions that Councilman Harrison asked the Administration were mostly softball, avoiding most of the serious issues well known by then to the public. He also allowed the Administration to offer a presentation – still on the City website – which failed to include basic information such as organizational charts and financial statements for the Water Works. It was good enough for the Councilman, it seemed, as well as the rest of his colleagues. This event had been intended by Harrison as a major showcase for his “leadership” and “vision.” I frankly did not see much of either at that Council session.

His transformational and revolutionary rhetoric extends to his fundraising appeals. In one note, his vision sees “a city that will once again be the center of innovation and industry.” He doesn’t provide any details on how a Harrison Administration will transform Trenton into the next Cupertino. But he does proudly point to one achievement from his single City Council term that he claims qualifies him for the Mayor’s Chair: “Most importantly, as a member of the budget committee, I helped turn Trenton’s deficit into a surplus for the first time in years and put in place safeguards to keep our budget balanced.” [Emphasis in the original – KM]

Mr. Harrison is oblivious here to the irony of proudly pointing to the City of Trenton’s budget surplus as a positive, considering the way we’ve earned it. Trenton’s paper “surplus” over each of the last few fiscal years is an accomplishment made mostly if not entirely possible by starving the Trenton Water Works of needed employees, capital infrastructure spending, and competitive salaries for those few employees left on the payroll. The City’s recent surpluses come from the Water Works, a fact that the rest of Mercer County and the State now strongly resents and seeks to repair. It’s really not something that Mr. Harrison should really be proud of, you know? But that’s about the best shot he’s able to take, at least right now.

Now let’s briefly contrast Mr. Harrison’s pitch to those I see as the “Dunkin Donuts” candidates for Mayor.

Last week, The Trentonian posted a series of 3-minute videos shot with each of the mayoral candidates. Darren Green and Paul Perez both independently spoke of what I find to be the most important – and most realistic – task the next Trenton Mayor will face.

PAUL PEREZ (from 1:12): In order to bring private investment back into the city, you must demonstrate we are fiscally responsible… If we can’t get ourselves together when it comes to governing, we’re not going to lure anyone into the City. We have to be responsible in demonstrating to them that we can count our money, we can provide services, we can clean our city, we can keep it safe. And we can start to close the achievement gap in this city. If we don’t do that, private industry is not going to be a friend to Trenton.

DARREN GREEN (from 1:55): The first thing we need to do is clean up internally. Begin to bring competent, qualified and committed persons who are invested in the excellence of Trenton itself, where each department is running like an efficient and effective machine. Once people externally see that internally we’ve got our act together,  they’ll begin to be drawn here.

Those are not sexy statements. They aren’t “bold” or “decisive.” The only “vision” they’re based on is a common dream of basic municipal competence.

How badly have we waited to hear that kind of approach over the last 8 years, and longer?

I might be reading way too much into those single, short sound bites. But Mr. Perez and Mr. Green both implicitly, to me, admit that the ability of city government to act as rainmakers or matchmakers in bringing in big, splashy, sexy marquee projects intended as economic game-changers, is really very, very limited. Especially for a city in the condition that Trenton is. The private sector has the resources to invest, but will not go to a town that is the shit show we’ve become.

The best we can hope for – and based on the last decade, it’s no small task by itself! – is to become, at its most basic level, competent. Well-managed. Well-motivated. Well led. That approach, successfully implemented, might draw not only new private investment as Mr. Perez and Mr. Green believe, but new residents. If we can run it well, They Will Come.

I hope to hear more from these two, and all the other candidates for Council as well as for Mayor, along these lines. I don’t want to hear any more promises of “revolution” and “bright new futures.” What I want, what I think Trenton needs right now, is boring, dependable, basic competence. I want to see more of that from our more serious candidates this Spring.

Starbucks is nice, and I’m glad we have one, finally.

But, make no mistake, Dunkin Donuts has been much more of a presence in Trenton. It contributes more to our local economy in town and employees more people than the new guy in town. Heck, it’s been more LOYAL to Trenton for years.

Trenton runs on Dunkin. I hope our candidates – and voters – pay attention.

Still Waiting for Paul Perez

It seems like only a short while ago, but it’s been six weeks since this space featured two pieces on the 2014 NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) filed reports from the once and current Trenton mayoral candidate Paul Perez. I discussed several apparent reporting problems in those pieces, including several questionable cash expenses, and the total lack of any cash contributions reported for his first campaign.

When I posted those pieces in February, I was assured – personally by the candidate in phone conversation, and also by his lawyer – that the faulty ELEC reports would be fixed. Mr. Perez told me he “had people fixing them,” and attorney Rudolph Palombi wrote “Mr. Perez and his staff are addressing your concerns forthwith.”

Well, as of Tuesday morning – 41 days since he promised to fix the problems and 42 days until the election, a perfect midpoint – the ELEC shows no revised 2014 reporting from Mr. Perez and his campaign. Time is getting late to fix the 2014 problems. Until he does, Mr. Perez risks the same type of complication for his campaign that Eric Jackson had during his successful campaign four years ago.

Jackson’s ELEC problems in 2014 didn’t prevent his election then, but he never did resolve them – to this day – and his campaign finance problems proved an all too accurate predictor of the kind of slapdash and sloppy Administration he ended up running.

Mr. Perez blamed his 2014 reporting on his staff during that campaign. He also ascribed his reporting problems from that race to the fact he’d run “a novice campaign.” This explanation is a little hard to swallow, given that Mr. Perez presents himself as a seasoned and experienced manager. As he puts it on his campaign website, “Paul is an experienced leader, administrator and skilled problem-solver, and has extensive experience in the areas of crisis management, law enforcement, emergency management, intelligence, and government administration and international relations.”

It’s a little difficult to square that description with his messy 2014 campaign reporting. ELEC reporting isn’t really that difficult to master. Compared to everyday governmental accounting and bookkeeping, with its myriad grants, funding cycles and multiple deliverable and reporting requirements, it’s far less complicated and onerous. Six weeks after the fact, we really should have seen revised reporting for 2014 on the ELEC website. But we haven’t. I wonder why.

His 2014 ELEC reports are drawing attention from others as well. I won’t link to them because they appear under assumed names – and therefore should be considered suspect as the product of his political opponents – but there are Facebook posts and YouTube videos popping up online that raise questions about the lack of revenue and expense detail in the ELEC reporting associated with several of Perez’ 2014 fundraising events, such as the May 3, 2014 event I discussed in my last piece. This kind of attention is only likely to increase over the next several weeks as we get closer to Election Day on May 8.

Some similar questions are coming up from the ELEC reporting to date for the current 2018 Perez campaign. For instance, on November 15 of last year, Mr. Perez announced his candidacy at an event – featured on his website and in press accounts – that took place at the St. Mary’s Gymnasium.  The announcement event was well attended by supporters. It’s pretty typical that on occasions like this supporters will bring contributions for the candidate, wither in cash or check. Yet, on his ELEC report for the last quarter of 2017, which can be found here – Mr. Perez lists only one contribution with the date of November 15, for $100. The next three reported contributions are dated November 19, November 20, and November 26.

Now I should say that I have no definite knowledge of any contributions that have not been listed here. It’s certainly conceivable that at this event there was no revenue, but it is curious not to see any receipts.

It’s also curious to see no expenses recorded for this event. From photographs posted on the Trenton Times site one can see that this wasn’t a very extravagant event. There was at least some staging: tables and chairs for the audience, and podium with a Public Address system for the candidate. There was also the room itself.

But there are no expenses listed for room and equipment rental. Even if the hall was donated by the church, there is an in-kind value to all of those things that is required to be recorded on ELEC reports. But there is nothing on the report filed with ELEC on January 11.

In theory, I can kinda sorta accept that there may have been no contributions received by Perez on the occasion of his campaign kickoff. But no expenses? That just doesn’t sound right.

One thing I still find problematic with the 2014 reports is the total lack of cash contributions reported by the campaign, as well as several large, unexplained cash disbursements. This time around, there are several reported cash contributions, which seems right for a campaign of this type. The presence of cash contributions in the 2018 reporting just makes their absence from the 2014 all the more glaring.

There are also some reported cash expenses that are not fully detailed, such as a 12/30/17 cash payment of $500 for an “Event Bond” to one Roy Richardson, without any further required detail on the vendor or the expense, as you can see here.

roy richardson

In 2014, Eric Jackson blamed his three-year failure to close out his 2010 ELEC reporting on losing.  “My mind was other places losing. You’re despondent,” he told the Trentonian.  As I wrote above, despite his ELEC problems being well known, Jackson was elected by Trenton’s voters in 2014. We’ve seen what happened in the four years after that.

This time, are we seeing something similar with Paul Perez? Perhaps.

The 2014 campaign reports from Paul Perez raise lots of questions, as reported last month. That’s troubling.

The failure to date of the campaign to fix those problems, despite being assured by the candidate and his lawyer that they would be addressed six weeks ago, is more troubling.

That the current reporting for the 2018 has problems is also unsettling. It may be too soon to make the call that 2018’s reports are as problematic as the ones from four years ago still are. However, with his previous campaign finance reports still a lingering, unresolved problem, one can’t help but view his current campaign statements with some continuing reservations.

What should be extremely troubling this spring to Trenton’s voters is Paul Perez’ explanation that his 2014 ELEC reporting problems were due to “a novice campaign.”

Because if Paul Perez is elected Mayor this spring, he will be – even with all his prior governmental experience – “a novice mayor.”

Are we ready for that?

To the City of Trenton

E-mailed this morning to Trenton Mayor Eric Jackson, Public Works Director Merkle Cherry, and Council President Zachary Chester –

Good Morning –

Last month, as news broke that the City of Trenton had missed a deadline to submit proposals for grant funding from the State’s Transportation Trust Fund, you Mayor Jackson called that failure a “debacle,” and your Director of Public Information promised that the single city employee deemed responsible would be held accountable “to the fullest extent that New Jersey civil service rules allow.” That eventual discipline is heard to have been a 10-day suspension for that single employee.

Yesterday, the State Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee held a public hearing to advance four separate pieces of proposed legislation written to help to repair the broken Trenton Water Works. Including the members of that Committee, individuals were in attendance representing many of the various stakeholders who have a strong interest in the future of the Water Work. In fact, every stakeholder was represented there, except the City of Trenton, and the Water Works.

Gentlemen, what would you call the failure to send anyone to that hearing? Who will be held accountable this time?

Many of the Mercer County Townships served by the Water Works attended and testified. Hamilton Mayor Yaede was accompanied by 4 out of 5 Township Council members. Lawrence Mayor Chris Bobbitt was there, as was Ewing Business Administrator Jim McManimon and Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes. Several staffers from the State Department of Environmental Protection were in attendance, and provided testimony.

Where was Trenton? Why was there not a single person from the City and the utility there to appear on behalf of the City?

Mr. Mayor, you were all about accountability last month when the topic was the Transportation Trust Fund. A single employee was identified as solely responsible for that debacle, and action was taken against him.

Will you gentlemen do any less in the aftermath of yesterday’s failure? Will you, or anyone in the City, be held as accountable as Hoggarth Stephen was?

Yesterday’s debacle – yes, the word fits here, all too well – raises a larger question that is relevant to all of us Trentonians: do you gentlemen intend to continue governing this City between now and June 30?

Mayor Jackson, you appeared before Council last week to defend your prerogatives as the City’s Mayor until the end of your statutory term. Why, then, did you fail to do so yesterday?

Mr. Cherry, you head the Department of Public Works and oversee the Water Works as part of that portfolio. Why did you fail to attend yesterday’s meeting, or send another representative in your place?

Mr. Chester, you and your colleagues just last week defended continued City ownership of the Water Works. All of you individually pledged to oppose any potential sale of the utility to private interests. Yet neither you nor any of your colleagues chose to attend yesterday’s meeting, as 4 out of 5 Hamilton Council members did. Why did that happen?

Gentlemen, the example you just set in the matter of Hoggarth Stephen and the Transportation Trust Fund “debacle” now compels you to take similar action in this case.

People, including yourselves, must now be held accountable.

Gentlemen, what will you do?

Where Was Trenton?

A hearing on four Trenton Water Works (TWW)-related bills was held this afternoon by the State Assembly Telecommunications and Utilities Committee. These proposed bills were announced last month by Committee Chair and 14th Legislative District (D-Hamilton) Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo, as the first major legislative response to the vast problems of the Water Works over the last several years. As such, this was actually a pretty significant hearing.

Since yesterday’s weather became today’s dig out from under, nicely assisted by spring sunshine, I happened to be around town in the afternoon. I went to the hearing, which was pretty well attended by officeholders and officials all around Mercer County and the State. Well, mostly all around.

About the only people not in attendance were any representatives of the City of Trenton. No one, nada, nobody. No one from City Hall, Administration or Council, and no one from TWW. Only two current city candidates showed up, which to me just highlighted how pathetic it was that no one else was there.

Where was Trenton??

Let me just run down the names and positions of several of those who were in attendance and who testified, by way of showing how notable Trenton’s absence was.

Hamilton Township was heavily represented. Mayor Kelly Yaede was there, as were 4 out of 5 Township Council members: Council Vice President Jeffrey Martin and Members Ileana Schirmer, Richard Tighe, and Ralph Mastreangelo.

Lawrence Township was represented by its Mayor, Christopher Bobbitt. Ewing’s Business Administrator James McManimon attended. As did Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes.

The State’s Department of Environmental Protection, the lead agency for most of TWW’s dealings with the State, sent a delegation of four officials, headed by DEP Compliance and Enforcement Assistant Commissioner Ray Bukowski.

Both of the Assembly members representing Trenton, Reed (mayoral candidate) Gusciora, and Verlina Reynolds-Jackson briefly spoke, Gusciora stopping in from another legislative hearing he was participating in one floor above in the State House Annex.

Finally, the only other Trenton voice was provided by mayoral candidate and Deputy County Clerk Walker Worthy. He was the only person who didn’t have a job in the building to show up.

Here are links to each of the four bills, with brief descriptions provided by the Legislaure:

A2420 Water testing-reimb. resid. customers
A3352 Drinking water notices-req certain
A3353 Pub water sys-req publish certain info
A3354 Water supply operator-take exam

Discussion during the hearing indicated that each of these will likely go through at least some revisions and mark-ups. Nearly everyone who spoke spoke in favor of the bills. Many other people listed their names as in favor but declined to speak. NJ Sierra Club Executive Director Jeff Tittel was one of those. Mr. Bukowski indicated that he and his colleagues hoped to spend some time with the committee members to mark up each of the bills – amending the bills before further action.

These bills, as they stand now, may not pass. But they do represent the latest – and not the last – major push by the State of New Jersey, and encouraged by all of the other TWW customer Townships as well as the County Executive, to fix the Trenton Water Works.

That hearing room was THE place to be in the entire state to discuss the future of Trenton’s Water Works.

And no one from Trenton was there.

You know, last week at Trenton’s Council meeting, every member of Council pledged their undying pledge to oppose any sale of the Water Works to private interests. That’s something that is not even remotely on the horizon right now. It’s the wrong thing for Trenton’s Council. and the Administration, to focus on.

The best thing that Trenton can do right now, to oppose a hypothetical sale in the long run, is to demonstrate that the City is committed to the job of responsibly fixing the utility, and then running it well.

Unfortunately, the City has failed twice in the last week to show that kind of commitment. Council failed last week to recognize that my request to them to administratively separate out TWW items out from other City business and treat them deliberately and openly would demonstrate Council’s accountability and responsibility to those outside the City dependent on the utility.

And today, the City showed again that it didn’t even make the effort to be in the room when other stakeholders in the County,  in the DEP and in the Legislature met to talk about Trenton’s Water Works.

My feeling after attending the hearing today is that, whatever the fate of these four specific pieces of legislation, the process is now begun that will inevitably lead to major change at the Water Works. Count on it.

I feel that all of the other major stakeholders will give Trenton something  of a grace period to get its shit together. The two private engineering firms contracted at the beginning of the year, Wade Trim and Banc3, will be given time to make their mark. And the upcoming May elections in Trenton may result in genuinely new and genuinely competent City leadership taking the reins from the current incompetents. The window – of any – that the rest of the state is willing to grant to the city to do this may be very narrow indeed, measured in short months if not weeks.

I do think those are the stakes in play right now. Everyone’s patience with Trenton is real thin right now. Trenton has, finally, to step up.

Based on today, though, I am not hopeful.

Where was Trenton?? Nowhere to be found!

Premature Victory Lap? Or, Not Ready For Primetime?

If I were a one-term Trenton City Council member seeking, as At-Large Member Duncan Harrison is, a promotion to the Mayor’s Office after a Council term that was – you pick the best word: Lackluster? Disappointing? Disastrous? – I might grasp at anything that could conceivably be called an “accomplishment” to point to with pride. In a large field of mayoral candidates, you have to find a gimmick, I suppose. It’s just too bad that Councilman Harrison chose to hype up a really minimal action taken by Council week as something that – honest to God, he said this! – “an important change that will move Trenton into the 21st Century and help us build a bright, new future for our city.”

Really, he did. Aided and abetted by the Trentonian, whose utter lack of fact-checking allowed Mr. Harrison to take a very, very premature Victory Lap over the weekend. Instead of taking proportionate credit for a Council initiative, I fear Mr. Harrison is continuing to prove that, although he may have some potential as an effective Council member in the future, he is simply not ready for Primetime as a potential Mayor of Trenton.

On Friday, the Trentonian published a short piece in its “Trenton Election Rumblings” series of reports leading to the May 8 City Elections. This piece was attributed as a “Trentonian Staff Report,” so we don’t know who to blame for it.  The headline is “Harrison praises move that allows residents to pay with credit card for city services.” This piece quotes Councilman Harrison as saying,about an action taken by Council the previous evening,

“I am proud to see my advocacy to accept credit and debit card payments on our city website be enacted. This will result in real change that will help Trenton residents and businesses save time and money.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

I attended that Council meeting. I spoke at that Council meeting. I don’t recall anything like that kind of action taken. What could Mr. Harrison possibly be referring to?

Turns out he was referring to Resolution #18-110, which you can find here. This Resolution was passed as part of Council’s Consent Agenda that night, which approved many actions in one vote. There was no separate discussion prior to the vote that would have drawn attention to it for any reason. It was actually a fairly innocuous action, hardly one heralding “a bright, new future for our city.”

This Resolution’s title says what it does, and ALL that it does. “Resolution Authorizing the Use of Competitive Contracting in Lieu of Public Bidding for Credit Card Services for the City of Trenton.” That’s it. This action authorized one method over another for bidding and contracting for instituting  debit and credit card processing for customer and taxpayer payment for city service. Again, that’s ALL it does.

Let me give you an analogy. It’s like if you were to say today, “I decided I will buy my next house instead of renting. My House-Warming Party will be Saturday. See you there!”

There are just a few important steps that have to be taken between the start of the process and putting your beers on ice! And they can’t be skipped.

Same here. The action taken by Council on Friday simply allow Trenton’s Purchasing Agent to begin the process of putting Requests for Proposals out to credit card companies and/or banks, and wait for proposals to come in. From those proposals, Competitive Contracting allows a quicker and more streamlined process for evaluating proposals and negotiating a contract.

That’s where we are now. As you will see from the backup attached to the Resolution (Page 3), on February 2 of this year Isabel Garcia, the City’s Purchasing Agent sent a request to the NJ Department of Community Affairs (DCA) requesting the authority to use Competitive Contracting. Two weeks later, on Feb 16 (Page 2) DCA Legislative Analyst Paul Urbish agreed to the City’s request. The Council Resolution adopted Thursday night, again, allows the City’s Purchasing Agent to start the process.

At this point, there are no proposals back from potential vendors, and certainly no “enacted” deal in place to start accepting Credit and Debit cards for City Services.

That’s not what the Councilman would have you believe. He told the Trentonian that last week’s action “will help Trenton residents and businesses save time and money.” [Emphasis mine – KM] In an indirect quote, the paper additionally claims,

“Accepting credit and debit card payments will cost the city nothing and will make it more convenient for Trentonians to pay bills and fees. It will also expand the city’s budget by making it easier for those who live outside Trenton to pay their bills and fees on time.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

The Councilman can’t truthfully make claims like that, although he has. Remember, WE HAVE NO PROPOSALS yet, let alone actual AGREEMENTS.

Yes, the sample [the City’s emphasis, not mine – KM] scope of services to be sent to potential bidders says (Paragraph 14, Page 6), “The City of Trenton will not be obligated to pay for any fees specified in the proposal.” [Again, the City’s emphasis, not mine – KM]

That’s what the City would like to see in the proposals it hopes to receive. But, you know, we haven’t gotten any proposals back yet. We don’t know if any potential vendors will actually include in their proposals that it will cost the City nothing to do business with them.

But that’s not what Councilman Harrison promises. To him, it’s a done deal.

Also, without a deal in place, how does the Councilman intend to resolve the problem as to who WILL actually pay for credit card processing. He claims both that the City will pay nothing to accept debit and credit cards, AND that this action “will help Trenton residents and businesses save time and money.” [Emphasis mine – KM]

When banks and credit card companies process payments, someone always pays for the service, whether it’s a merchant (in this case, to be the City) or a Customer. Here’s a sample chart, selected at random, showing the range of charges per transaction listed as a percentage of the transaction. Sometimes credit card companies charge a “flat convenience fee” of $3.95 or $4.95 per transaction.

card fees

The point is, this process has its costs. If Mr. Harrison tells us the City of Trenton won’t pay any fees, that means the customer will. And how does the Councilman square that against his statement that using credit cards will save time “and money?” If you want to pay your $100 water bill with a Credit card, and the “convenience fee” is $4.95. Congratulations! you will pay a premium of 5% on top of your bill for the privilege. You might be saving time, but you sure as hell will not be saving money!

Is this a good deal? I don’t know! I do know that, from the Trentonian article Friday, Councilman Harrison said this program had been “Enacted.” That is, a real plan, adopted and ready to implement. We are far, far away from that point. Any real deal or system ready to implement is at least months away. That, however, would likely be after the May 8 election. So, to get the biggest bang out of this very dubious “plan,” he had to play this up now.

On Saturday, I wrote to Mr. Harrison with a list of questions about this proposal. As of Noon Monday, he has not yet responded. In the absence of any clarification or new information from him that would put more meat on the bones of this very thin announcement, I have to believe that my interpretation of this proposal – that it’s nothing more than hype, and months away at least from a real plan – is correct.

I thought Duncan Harrison was better than this. I didn’t expect that he’d try something like this, schmoozing a newspaper to highlight his personal role in “enacting” a deal that is only just smoke and vapor at this point. But this is Trenton’s silly season. You can’t blame a candidate from trying to put one over on the electorate, but you also can’t blame the electorate for calling out bullshit when it sees it.

The Trentonian also needs to be called out on this. Whichever anonymous writer put this “Staff Report” up did so with zero fact-checking. He or she bought all of what Councilman Harrison was selling. Hook, line, and sinker.

We have less than two months until the May 8 election. I hope the candidates can play it straighter, and that the local press watches them with at least a little deserved skepticism.

In the meantime, this one mayoral candidate, Councilman Duncan Harrison, looks much less mayoral and professional after this. His apparent record and qualifications going into this race looked to be among the thinner end of the field. He does his reputation, and his electoral chances, no good at all in the aftermath of this.