Neither of our candidates, Manny Segura or Tony Mack have a real plan for Trenton.  They both talk revitalization gibberish so it’s really a bit of a ugly toss-up from a policy perspective. 

Both want to go begging to the state for more money without offering anything in return.  If asked, both oppose the water sale even though they don’t have a good reason why.  Both would support the new HOPE VI project at Miller Homes even though they have no idea whether or not it will have a positive economic impact.  Both talk about selling off Trenton’s foreclosed homes though they have no clue as to how or whether it will matter.

If there’s no real difference between the candidates, then how can voters make their choice?

Voters need to consider the ethical character and financial motivations for Segura and Mack.

Consider Segura who wants no financial commitment from Trenton.  He’s on full disability and therefore says he won’t take a salary.  Ok, great but how can a person on full disability perform a demanding full time job like being mayor.  Mr. Segura won’t talk about this even when asked point blank.  A reasonable person would think he’s hiding something.   

So how will Mr. Segura make a buck as mayor?

Turns out he’s taken a big pile of money in the form of campaign contributions from politicians in North Jersey.  He won’t explain why those politicians felt so generous to him so here’s a guess.  As mayor of Trenton,  Mr. Segura will be in control of nearly $500M in municipal and school spending.  Let’s say contracts happened to go to companies friendly with those same North Jersey politicians.  And in return, those companies made generous donations to the same politicians.  How would we ever detect this form of pay to play?  Is this just a wild allegation?  Perhaps;  but it makes sense and since Manny won’t explain himself and say anything different, we have to go with the most likely story.

Now let’s turn to Tony Mack. 

Tony is apparently hard up for cash.  That by itself is no crime and we can only hope that he finds better financial times.  However, he shouldn’t be doing it on the backs, or behind the backs, of Trenton residents.

Mack owes back property taxes which again wouldn’t be a serious problem, except that he’s running for the job of chief tax collector.  It’s at least a conflict of interest for a mayor of the city to be in charge of foreclosing on his own house. 

So here’s a guy with some serious financial problems and he’s running for mayor, which is a very expensive proposition.  It seems that desperate times call for desperate measures.  Enter Jo Jo Giorgianni. 

Jo Jo is famous in Trenton as the quarter ton rapist.  There’s a long saga from back in the 1980’s where he was convicted for raping a 14 year old girl.  Furthermore, if you ask long time Trenton residents, he’s also been connected to other types of illicit activity. Why does this matter? 

Turns out, Jo Jo is a major contributor to Tony Mack’s campaign.  Election records show that he has donated $2600 (the maximum allowed).  In addition, it is widely rumored that the $20,000 Tony loaned to the campaign actually came from Jo Jo.  It couldn’t have come from Tony because he owes the back taxes, right?

So what does Jo Jo want for all that money?

Tony wouldn’t answer that.  He won’t address the charges.  We can only assume the worst.

Here’s the summary.

One candidate is defrauding the government and owes favors to North Jersey politicians.  The other candidate owes back taxes and owes favors to a convicted rapist.  With only two days to the election and no other options, why bring all this up?

The papers have let us down by not explaining these issues and the candidates have done nothing to explain themselves (I personally asked both candidates to address the allegations).  Somebody needs to let the people know what kind of candidates they’re voting for.  Voters have a difficult moral choice to make.   

As for me, Reinvent Trenton advises on revitalization policy not moral judgments.   You’re on your own.

Eric Jackson, Frank Weeden, John Harmon, Keith Hamilton and Annette Lartigue are left on the Island along with me.

Don’t even consider voting for any of the others. They have policies and / or personalities that are dangerous to Trenton’s future.

So where are we with these five? I’ll use the Trenton Times, Fix Trenton’s budget survey and Mill Hill forum responses to compare and contrast.

Jackson and Lartique are the most Developer friendly
Hamilton, Harmon and Weeden seem to think forcing developers to hire Trenton workers is the way to encourage development. Jackson and Lartique are less clear about this. Furthermore Hamilton is the only candidate who favors forcing developers to pay prevailing wages. Increasing ratables is our #1 priority and to make life complicated for the developers that might make that happen is the ultimate in counter-productivity. It also demonstrates an attitude that government can and should control the economy. This is currently the Palmer Admin policy and look where its gotten us. People wonder why I’m running and this is it. We can’t afford to have four more years of anti-business policy in city hall.

Lartique is the most aggressive on the budget
Weeden says he will cut budget and hopes unions and Governor will cooperate. He opposed the reassessments necessary to correct our tax policy at the Mill Hill Forum.

Lartique is probably the most open and aggressive in her stance on re-working the budget, creating a strategic plan and doing reassessments. She’s not quite 100% correct on her explanation of zero based budgeting but she’s trying and I’d be glad to help her.

Jackson is the second most aggressive in his stance. He’s a bit more vague in his approach and doesn’t support zero-based budgeting. But he’d at least try. He told Mill Hill he opposing reassessments but changed his mind on the Fix Trenton’s Budget survey.

Harmon keeps saying he can’t explain his policy to reduce costs in limited space. What he doesn’t realize is that by not being able to simply express his approach he’s fairly much saying he doesn’t have one. He opposed reassessments at the Mill Hill forum and was tentative about it in the survey.

Hamilton says he’ll be able to find a $40M surplus. That kind of crazy talk gets people voted off the Island. His answers on reassessment show that he hasn’t thought about it.

Finally I’d have to say Jackson has the best temperament to be Mayor, in 2014
Jackson appears to be as serious and earnest as he comes across. Harmon, wants to be everbody’s friend and keeps talking about resources he’d bring to Trenton. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean or why he hasn’t brought those resources before. Lartigue has had some troubling and well documented anger management issues. Weeden is a “lone wolf” and hasn’t solidified support among the very people he thinks should support him, including me. Hamilton doesn’t seem to have serious notions about running a city and his policies don’t seem to be based on a philosophy.

As for me.You can be sure that developer hiring practices would be left to developers. Our city budget would undergo zero-based budgeting which means each department STARTS with no budget and has to prove why they need one given goals agreed by the Mayor and Council. And while I’m sure my temperament isn’t perfect for Mayor it is pretty good for making “by the numbers” business decisions. I won’t care about my political future, just about turning around the city.

For At Large
Jim Carlucci for his knowledge. Al Ward for his smarts. Christine Donahue for her process based business background.

For West Ward
Moriarity for his tenacious exploration of our financial issues and for exposing LA Parker and WIMG.

For North Ward
Roland Laird for making reassessment central to his campaign

For East Ward
Kesner Dufresne for talking about the wage tax and about being pro-business

For South Ward
Carlos Avilla for doing well on the budget survey even though he complained

However, I live in Trenton and own enough property so that high taxes and declining value could be a substantial economic blow.  I am not alone in this precarious situation.  Every home and building owner in Trenton is at risk as our city’s budget comes closer to falling into the financial abyss.

I’ve listened to the candidates and just don’t hear a serious “by the numbers” explanation of how they think we can rescue ourselves.  Instead, I hear a lot of blame being laid on the State.

I also know that many of our candidates have been in public life for many years but have never jumped up and down screaming about the fact that we were so dependent on the State.  Even now, several of the candidates are asking for votes so they can do more for the poor citizens of Trenton.  We’re sinking, as a city, and yet there are candidates talking about new social programs.

There are candidates who either believe or know that citizens want to hear, “that fixing the schools will revitalize Trenton”.  That notion is absurd and tells me that I’m listening to a “Know Nothing”  politician.  In order to magically fix the schools, we’d have to start with the young kids and put them into some magical environment that hasn’t even been invented, wait 12 years, and then perhaps we’d have a graduation rate worth bragging about.  It could be decades before Trenton’s schools are better than surrounding suburbs.  Nobody moves to a city for the schools that are “almost as good”.  Trenton schools need to be “as good, or better”, but we can’t make that happen in time to save our city.

We need a no-nonsense, and dare I say pragmatic (another word for Republican) approach to our problem.  We need a “Bull in the China shop” much like Chris Christie has become for NJ.  We need to do the opposite of what we’ve been doing in Trenton for the past 20 years.

We don’t need balance, we need imbalance.  Trenton has gone out of its way to be attractive to the poor for quite some time and has done little to attract middle class and high income residents.  We’re going to have to change that balance.  We’re actually going to have to find a way to appeal to people with disposable income and lots of them.

As I look at the candidates and at myself,  I’ve come to the conclusion that I have something to offer Trenton.  As a Management Consultant, my job is often to help organizations improve and to do the best things first.  We help our clients manage by the numbers.  As a volunteer in Trenton, I find myself drawn towards the challenging problem of urban revitalization.  It’s one of the great challenges of our time and I want to be a part of meeting that challenge.  ReinventTrenton.com is all about that as is TrentonLofts.com and FixTrentonsBudget.com.

Running for mayor is a thankless job and being mayor would involve some personal and financial pain for me and Michelle (Michelle doesn’t like the idea).  However, if voters look around and decide they just can’t tie their futures to any of the existing candidates and would prefer to take the opposite approach, I will serve.  Probably only for one term, but I’d serve long enough to give the opposite approach a chance to take shape.

I understand that many Trentonians have been fed a diet of rhetoric on revitalization over the years and I’ve written quite a bit to debunk much of it. But, just so there aren’t any surprises, a few of the ingredients a Dodson administration include are listed below.  If you can’t depart with the notion that these sacred cows need to be cast out, then don’t vote for me:

• Create and institutionalize a meaningful budget process
• Reassess on a 5 year cycle and adjust our tax rate accordingly
• Lift the residency requirement for all city workers (we need the best minds possible on the case)
• Call in outside law enforcement support to augment our police
• Reinvent our city processes to enable our staff to have a bigger impact for less
• Make every aspect of Trenton the MOST business and development friendly in the US
• No support at all for subsidized, deed restricted, housing
• Negotiate a fair deal with the State, to gradually get us off of state aid
• Lobby, maybe through the US Justice Dept., for integration of schools in Mercer County and NJ (that equates to busing)

For those that have read my blog over the years, none of this is new.  I just want to make it clear that my firm belief is that protecting the above “sacred cows” is in the way of Trenton’s progress.  Adopting the above is the “opposite” of what we’ve been doing and the “opposite” of the positions for many of the current candidates.

In the end, it’s the voters choice. If called I’d serve and would love the challenge.

Dealing with Trenton’s budget in the long term means

• Having clear goals and focused priorities,
• Turning Trenton into a developer-friendly city,
• Re-tooling our tax system to stimulate investment and to be fair
• Putting a budget process in place that lets our city adapt to change

We weighted the question areas as follows

• Budget goals and levels at 30%,
• Development issues at 40%,
• Re-balancing at 20% and
• Budget process at 10%.

Scores were between 1 and 10.  “No answer” got a zero.

Below are the results of our Scorecard survey.

Christine Donahue and Jim Carlucci both scored well in the At Large race.  Carlos Avila was the only respondent from the South Ward.  Eric Jackson and Frank Weeden did best in the Mayor’s race.  Roland Laird gave the best responses in the North Ward.  Kevin Moriarity was the only respondent in the West Ward.  Verlina Reynolds-Jackson was the only respondent in the East Ward but is far out of alignment with our budget priorities.

Candidates who didn’t respond either don’t have clear positions and know it or are don’t consider it a priority.  The survey took 15 minutes to complete, shorter than many canvassing visits.  The Budget Committee doesn’t recommend any of these candidates.

In this cycle the situation has improved dramatically.

All eight of the mayoral candidates have web sites and 16 of the 27 city council candidates have sites.  Most of the candidates appear to also have a Facebook presence and I’m Facebook friends with many of them or have “Liked” their campaign pages.

In addition several of them are showing up on blogs in town (Keith Hamilton has a recent comment on Reinvent Trenton).

I’d like to think my chastising the group has had something to do with it but I suspect that’s not it.  Rather, the politicians are following the voters onto the web, have availed themselves of relatively inexpensive web solutions (Kevin Moriarity’s blog is an effective mechanism for communicating his views on campaign issues) and are following their Barrack Obama’s example of effective grassroots use of the Internet.

This is a good thing.

It’s inexpensive for the candidates and that’s good for them and for us as voters as they are less beholden to non-citizen funding interests.  It’s good for voters because we get to quickly read more about a candidate’s position than they’ll ever be able to communicate verbally or with their printed material.  Furthermore, many of the websites enable online donations.  I appreciate all of this.

Candidate Websites

With the tax hike as currently proposed our tax rate will go from $4.69 / $100 with an effective rate of $2.784 / $100 to a rate of $5.49 / $100 and an effective rate of $3.26 / $100.  On a $100,000 home tax would go from $2784 to $3260 or up $476.

We will move into 4^th place in NJ for highest taxes and 1^st place for towns over 25k residents.

That’s all very nice, but we as citizens still have some high finance to sort through.

1)        First, a new administration could decide to abandon the sale all together.  We may not have

2)        If the issue does go to a referendum (and I think it should despite the new administration)

• The ONLY question you should have as Trentonians is: is it a fair price?
• Despite all the risks and loss of future revenue, there is a price at which we should sell.
• The question is, “Is $80M that price?”
• Astute financial analysts should presumably be deployed on both sides of the debate to convince the public as to the correct valuation
• Since the general public, doesn’t typically understand what a valuation is, both sides will resort to non-financial arguments, that will no doubt distort the issue (as they already have)

3)       In reality, you would be voting one way or another because you either trust the people who negotiated the deal to have negotiated in good faith, or you don’t trust them

In the long history of this debate, I’ve not found a single person who would turn down the deal if it were priced at $1B.  OK.  What about $500M?  $100M?

See how it’s really about valuation.

There are plenty of risks:

• Will the company actually buy water from us in 20 years?
• Will our neighbors be mad at us?
• Might our neighbors agree to pay us more money for water in the future, and we would have lost out on our opportunity to squeeze them?
• All future cash flows carry some risk and therefore need to be discounted and turned into a present value

All of these risks can be factored in to a proper valuation and hopefully they were.  An intelligent question for the administration would have been, and may still be, could you show us your math for valuing these risks.

As for whether this is a stop-gap or not, that’s a different issue.

The current plan was to use 80% of the proceeds to pay down long term debt.  When selling off a long term asset, it’s generally wise to pay off corresponding long term debt.  We could argue about whether 80% or 100% should be applied to debt, but the effect will generally be to reduce Trenton’s future interest expense.  This should offset the loss of net income from the water wholesale business.

I understand how this issue got to be emotional, but really it should have just been a business deal.  That said, it’s a BIG business deal and the owners should have had a vote.

Here’s the candidate info we have so far

The below represents information that neither the Beautiful Trenton committee or the OMHS candidate forum (which I’m on) could NOT find.  Between us, we’re still keeping a running list so you have leads on these candidates please send to me on FaceBook, dan@livingonthenet.com or post it on this web site.

Ask any Trenton native and they’ll tell you how proud they are of the city, “I’m Trenton Proud”.

What?

We’ve done such a great job running the place that our industry has left town, our education level is among the lowest in the state and we’re on the verge of bankruptcy.  Yea for us!

And now here come the candidates.

You’d think running on Trenton’s record of achievement and their role in it would be a dubious strategy.  But you’d be wrong.

The very first words on candidate Eric Jackson’s web site are, “Born and raised in Trenton ….”.  He’s as much as saying yep I’ve been part of this mess all along.

Keith Hamilton takes a curious nostalgic view.  The first words on his site are, “Keith grew up in Trenton, making him a part of its past.”  Candidate Hamilton is directly linking himself to our past failures.

Alex Brown holds out to the end of his Mayoral pitch to provide his Trenton bonafides, “As a life long resident of Trenton and a graduate of Trenton Central High School”.  Of course Brown may have bigger issues if he’s running on his record as a school board member of the under-performing Trenton School System.

In a refreshing respite from the Trentonitis that infects our municipal elections, candidates Pintella, Lartigue and Mack have chosen to refrain from playing the “born and bred” card.  Instead their web sites deal mostly with their positions on issues.  Whether or not you agree with them you’ve got to respect a candidate who doesn’t resort to nativism in a potentially divisive campaign season.

Candidates Segura (not born and bred), Weeden (also not born and bred), Watson (not born and bred), Harmon (born and bred) and Fuller (nobody is certain of his origin) unfortunately don’t have web sites preferring to remain mysterious.

So what’s really wrong with “born and bred” as a campaign platform?  What harm can there be in making this accident of biology and geography central parts of the stump speech?

In a campaign, candidate’s messages have meaning.

• When they make a virtue out of one thing, they imply its opposite is a vice.
• When they brag about a quality they possess, they are saying those without said quality are lesser in stature.

It came up in the 2006 election cycle when Councilman Coston was attacked for his relatively short eight years of Trenton residency.

It’s as if the candidate is saying, “The other guy is no good because he wasn’t born here”.  By extension, they’re also saying that every newcomer to Trenton is inferior due to the unfortunate circumstances of his/her birth city.

As one young native Trentonian pointed out on a recent FB discussion on the subject:

“Hell, we have had homegrown folks (the Mayor and most of City Council were born and raised in Trenton) running this city into the ground for the last 20 years and look where it has gotten us”

It seems a bit counter-intuitive to run on “Born & Bred” as a strength unless you had another message in mind.

“Born and bred” divides Trentonians into us and them.  It’s code to other Trenton natives that newcomers can’t be trusted.  “All those sneaky “carpetbaggers”, they’ve moved here to take advantage of you.  Stick with me and we’ll show them”

So who is the code language aimed at?  Me, for one.  I’ve been here only nine years.  Similarly it refers to all of the other new Trentonians that have invested in neighborhoods like Mill Hill, Hiltonia, Glen Afton, Cadwalader Heights and Trenton Ferry.  Trenton’s new middle class are easy targets.

But who else?  Well, a big majority of Trenton’s various Hispanic communities weren’t born here.  They’re foreigners for gosh sake!  Just like in Martin Scorsese’s “Gangs of New York”, nativist candidates are creating a sense of us versus them. It’s an ugly political tactic we see playing out in national politics as well.

Most importantly the “born and bred” crowd is suggesting that non-native candidates like Segura and Weeden are simply unqualified because they didn’t spend their formative years watching Trenton decline.

Some might think this doesn’t matter much.  After all don’t we have bigger issues?  We do, but let’s not continue to brand newcomers as outsiders.  It’s important to Trenton’s revitalization that it be perceived as a place where you can quickly put down roots and be part of the community.  Creating an extra qualification for inclusion in the inner circle of city life is counter to the objective of growing the city.

I’m sure the apologists and campaign workers for the candidates will say, “they’re just being proud of their heritage”.  I say, words have meaning.

Show your pride with campaign platforms that will make a difference.  Don’t beat us poor unfortunate non-native voters over the head with the superiority of your birth pedigree.

I suspect none.

I know plenty of entrepreneurs (some successful) but not one has started a successful industrial, much less “green”, company. One can argue that the U.S has regulated all industrial production green or otherwise out of the country.

The fact is that there just aren’t that many new industrial scale companies including “green” companies making solar panels, electric cars and alternative energy production equipment.

And yet politicians at all levels of government have the arrogance to suggest that they are smart enough to prefer “green” companies over all of the other endeavors that men can set their minds to. Why so arrogant? Well, because the public buys it.

Most of us aren’t sophisticated enough to know that new business formation is extremely risky. We typically don’t understand that even when things seem obvious that they’ll work they won’t. We don’t understand the depth of investment and commitment a new industrial scale business takes. That’s why forming a successful business, needs to be very rewarding. Because, more often than not, they fail.

Yet politicians at federal, state and local levels continue to champion “green” over all other businesses. Do they know something that the rest of us don’t? Yep they know that the public will eat up their rhetoric and doesn’t understand the underlying economics of business formation. “Green” is the darling of moment and talking about it is like using candy to entice a child.

The Obama administration has perhaps taken it further than even the most arrogant politician could imagine. They are putting “green” patent applications ahead of all others. Effectively this means that a process for increasing fuel efficiency in lawn mowers will step ahead in the already long line for other patents. Fuel efficient lawnmowers could beat out a process to cure cancer. How warped. How arrogant.

Trenton has its share of arrogance. There are politicians running in the 2010 municipal elections who are touting green jobs in Trenton. Really? Are those politicians prepared to invest their own money in a solar panels or electric cars? Not likely, it would be far too risky an investment given the uncertainty of the underlying technology and the scale of worldwide competition chasing an industry that survives on government subsidies.

Instead they are counting on us to think they are singlehandedly finding jobs for the unemployable and combating global warming with just their words. If anything they’ll look for ways to use our money (tax dollars) to fund risky investments that they’ll claim are beneficial.

It’s a con.

Really, is Trenton so picky that it would turn down “non-green” business investment?

As an alternative, Reinvent Trenton suggests you pay attention to politicians who propose to create a better overall business climate in Trenton. Short of bribing businesses to locate here, how will they improve the investment atmosphere?

Today’s Trenton business atmosphere is toxic. Development is hard and cumbersome. The tax rate is high. There are few wealthy residents living here that might invest. There are few educated workers. And, Trentonians are generally hostile to industry.

Yet, in the face of these hurdles, Trenton’s politicians are talking about “green” jobs. Who do they think they’re kidding?

Last Christmas, I wrote an article about how community spirit is a necessary and present ingredient for Trenton’s revitalization.

“Community spirit as an economic engine”

Beautiful Trenton is the best example of that spirit to date but there are problems.

A small group of citizens have taken it upon themselves to assemble a larger group of Trentonians (around 150) to discuss Trenton. All of the organizers and most of the 150 are people who’ve been civically engaged before but many were new. I always wonder what the other 82,850 residents are doing.

The Beautiful Trenton meeting was interesting not so much for the content but in the assemblage of both veterans of Trenton’s civic life and newcomers. I hope the newcomers stick with it. I really hope those newcomers find their way to reinventtrenton.com.

However, as wonderful as it was to meet new people, the Beautiful Trenton movement is fatally flawed and I sincerely hope the organizers will address the issues.

The current process includes:

1. Inaugural Community Café to identify and examine emerging themes and questions for a vision of the future of Trenton

2. Written Responses from invited participants exploring the questions and ideas generated from the Café.

3. A day of reflection, using a model of reflective discourse, in which invited participants will move beyond their authored pieces and engage each other in conversation.

4. A Culminating Community Café, held after the day of reflection, in which both the general public and invited participants will seek to identify actions Trenton residents can take to guarantee effective and responsive leadership in Trenton.

5. The results of the culminating Community Café will be used to produce a Candidate Questionnaire for all mayoral and city council candidates.

If it sounds “New Age”, that’s because it is.

As I see it, there are several important problems with this process.

The expected output is unsatisfying.

• The output is a questionnaire, not too different from the countless questionnaires produced by various groups every election cycle
• There’s a lot of time and effort being spent to produce an output short on the depth necessary to show the way forward and teeth sharp enough to make insure plan is followed.
• There is no plan for building a lasting political force in Trenton
• We don’t need talk, we need rocket scientist level thinking and in your face political force to change Trenton

Beautiful Trenton is undemocratic

• Beautiful Trenton seeks to be part of the democratic process, however the group’s outputs will be interpreted at the whim of the organizers
• The organizers will then be free to represent their interpretation as the will of the participants. Notice that the written pieces are written by “invited” / hand selected people
• There is no democratic check and balance over the interpretation (i.e. no vote)
• There’s nothing stopping the organizers from using this exercise as a power building platform
• By the end of the process not a single vote will have been cast and no membership role will have been created

All is not lost however, the organizers just need to make some modifications to their process.

I suggest Beautiful Trenton become a “new” political party

• A new political party could build its platform using a process similar to Beautiful Trenton’s current plan
• Citizens would explicit identify themselves as members of the group
• Meetings would be held with citizen volunteers to develop different aspects of the platform

• Debates on platform planks would be held
• Beautiful Trenton Members would vote on the resulting platform
• They would also vote on the leadership of the group
• Members would vote to support candidates who adopted the platform
• The party would take an oversight role going forward (for instance budget and policy reviews)
• The group doesn’t ever have to run a candidate just organize people to keep the ones we have in line
  

Community spirit is only useful when it turns into tangible results rather than meaningless talk. Voting is the difference between serious political action and a mob rally.