Posts Tagged ‘City Council’

It’s like a kiss of death when I support a candidate.   The plain fact is that the vast majority of Trentonians aren’t in favor of actually doing the hard work to reinvent the city.   If they were we would have never elected Tony Mack or Eric Jackson or Doug Palmer 5 times.  It was obvious to anyone who really looked at those campaigns that they would never do what it takes to really improve the city.

I haven’t gotten involved in any of the campaigns this cycle for a number of personal reasons, but I still live here and I have written about economics in Trenton for many years. Therefore, it behooves me to say something about this campaign and in particular the relative likelihood that each of the candidates will move the economic needle.

I’d encourage readers to review the platforms of each candidate and consider that if a candidate can’t publish a plan then they probably don’t have one.

My Criteria

In years past, I’ve developed complicated issue by issue spreadsheets to evaluate candidate positions.  I read all the web sites, read candidate questionnaires, went to candidate forums, etc.   It occurs to me though that while all that is useful the decision can be a lot simpler.

Instead this cycle I’ve boiled it down of a few basic questions with associated positive or negative points.

Are they an Incumbent (-5 points): The last 18 years have been riddled with monumental government failures from using government money to build a bankrupt hotel, to corruption and now stolen payrolls and dirty water.   Council members were charged with oversight through all of that.  They have failed time and again to either notice when things were going wrong or know what to do to fix a problem.   This includes people who’ve been on council before.

Support from Status Quo (-5 points): There are king-makers who have been shaping Trenton politics for many years.  They’ve clearly not been shaping a good city.  If a candidate is a product of these people, then they can’t be trusted to do the right things.

Are they supporting an incumbent (-3 points): A candidate who has the bad judgement to support an incumbent, can’t be trusted.  We’ve simply had enough failure.

No Web Site (-3 points): My gosh if you can’t put up at least a basic page to say hello, what are you doing.  This means you’re not really living in the 21^st century.

Focus on Homeowners (5 points): Homeownership in Trenton has declined 35% over the last 28 years.  That’s what happens in a failed city.   If a candidate doesn’t have their head around this then they shouldn’t be running for office.

New Governance Ideas (3 points): We clearly have a problem with how our city is run as evidenced by the poor annual report cards this site has given the city over the years.  Does the candidate have any suggestion on how to improve governance?

Fleshed Out Platform online (3 points): Does they candidate thoughtfully address the important issues, especially the list of issues identified by the Fans of Trenton’s Irresponsible Blogger election group.

Follows Reinvent Trenton (2 points): I’m partial, but Reinvent Trenton has been discussing economic policy for  a long time.  Even if you don’t like the policy, to not be engaged enough in the discussion to keep up with the page means you’re not a serious policy candidate.

Tiebreak – I like them (1 point): I know most of the candidates so if there’s a tie, I’ll do what everyone does. Vote for who I like.

And now the races.

Mayor – Paul Perez

Think long and hard about what your expectation of a Mayoral candidate is.  I have.  I expect a thoughtful platform that explains how they will get good governance and improve the economy, especially how they will improve the attractiveness of Trenton to homeowners.   I expect that the candidate assumes all voters are serious minded about policy and the important decision in from of them.

For the most part my review of this year’s candidates demonstrates a disregard for the intelligence of the voter.
Most web sites have very scant platitudes about the economy with limited policy ideas:

Reed Gusciora, Walker Worthy and Darren Green fall into this category with Reed at least saying something about downtown and promoting a resident incident line (which is sorely missing).

Some candidates have absolutely nothing to say:  Annette Lartique and Alex Bethea are in this category.  At least one has a website that doesn’t appear to work (can this be true?): Duncan Harrison’s site loads so slowly that its unusable.

And then there’s Paul Perez.
Paul and his team have written a book on economic development, linking issues with home ownership and rentals to the fundamental attractiveness of Trenton as an investment choice.  They’ve created a treatise on good governance and took the time to research model governance that would be helpful

His web site deals with economic policy on how to fix abatements, some specific issues about downtown, our abandoned property policies and citizen engagement among other policy ideas. I was wrong when I said a couple of weeks ago that none of the candidates are addressing our decline in home ownership directly. Paul is.

Some of the other candidates mention good government and economics but compared to the detail and thoughtfulness Paul has put into his policy, the others look silly and trite.

Two of the candidates are incumbents and as such have presided over our failed government. Duncan Harrison is backed by the same person who backed Doug Palmer and gave us the failed city hotel.  Walker Worthy is back by the Democratic establishment, including Doug Palmer, who have stood by and watched Trenton fail.

Paul, Darren and Reed have no obvious loyalties to Trenton’s political establishment.

It’s not close, Paul Perez is my strong recommendation for Mayor of Trenton.

Points	Total
Paul Perez	13
Darren Green	2
Reed Gusciora	0
Annette Horton-Lartigue	-3
Alex Bethea	-5
Walker Worthy Jr	-5
Duncan Harrison Jr	-8

At Large Council – Blakeley, Rodriguez, Montero,

You’ve got to pick three candidates and admittedly that was tough to do.

Over the years I’ve not seen eye to eye with Jerell Blakeley.   Quite frankly he comes across as interested in something other than economic revitalization.  He’s more of a “lift up the people” guy.  My problem with that is, that without economic revitalization, who’s left to do the lifting.

That said, he checked a few boxes in my candidate criteria.  He’s included a fair bit on policy, some of it good, some of it not so much (for instance, you have to be a Tier 1 city to collect a commuter tax).  He does go in to good government issues which is great but he doesn’t address home ownership.   He’s not an incumbent and as far as I know, no one’s pulling his strings.

After Jerrel it drops off dramatically and we immediately get in to bad candidates.   Santiago Rodriguez doesn’t have a web site so that means he doesn’t have a platform.  His one saving grace is that he actually follows Reinvent Trenton which has lots of policy ideas.

The next batch include two candidates that have used terrible judgement in supporting and co-campaigning with failed City Council President Zac Chester.  Between Elvin Montero, Rachel Cogsville-Lattimer and Nathaniel McCray I had to pick one, so the tie went to Montero.  He at least mentioned a few issues on his web site though it was in the most shallow of terms.

Points	Total
Jerell Blakeley	6
Santiago Rodriguez	-1
Elvin Montero	-2
Rachel Cogsville-Lattimer	-3
Nathaniel McCray	-3
Kathy McBride	-8

North Ward – Algernon Ward

I’ll vote in the North Ward and am very familiar with two of the candidates.

Marge is the incumbent and though she’s frequently been useful in constituent services, that’s just not the real role of a City Councilperson.  Rather, it’s to oversee the administration.  In that capacity she’s overseen failure after failure.  She can blame it on others but she was there and the failures happened on her watch.   Also, bizarrely, she doesn’t have a working web site so we don’t even know what kind of platform she’s pitching.

Algernon Ward is a geek.  That’s a good thing.  He’s a scientist and a history buff which you’ve got to love.   He’s got positions listed on his web site but unhappily they’re also of the “lift up the people” variety and not “fix the city”.   In fact, Algie once told me that he thinks corporations are evil and that he hopes that big business never relocates to Trenton.  On the other-hand he worked with me on the “Fix Trenton’s Budget” group, so that’s good.

My criteria favors having written opinions and not being an incumbent.  Algie’s an independent guy and also fairly experienced in Trenton politics.

Points	Total
Algernon Ward Jr	5
Eboni Love	-3
Marge Caldwell-Wilson*	-8

South Ward – Damian Malave

Although, I can’t imagine anyone outdoing George Muschal in constituent services, that’s not the real job.  His Council (and he was Council President during the Mack years) was a failure in government oversight.

Neither Damian or Jenna say much useful on their web sites but at least they have them.   Jenna, unhappily has joined up with the current President of the failed City Council, Zac Chester.   This is a big knock against her and therefore pushed my vote to Damian Malave (if I lived in the South Ward).

Points	Total
Damian Malave	0
Jenna Kettenburg	-3
George Muschal*	-8

East Ward – Joe Harrison

None of the East Ward candidate web sites say much at all.   That’s obviously a disappointment.   However, two of the candidates do follow Reinvent Trenton which is like saying they at least get exposed to policy thinking.   However, Taiwanda lied to me about her support for failed Council President Zac Chester.   I was disappointed that she’s supporting him but really disappointed by the lie.

Trenton East Ward candidate called out for ‘lying’ about support of Chester

Joe Harrison has been participating in Trenton politics for a while and quite frankly would be a breath of fresh air on City Council.

Points	Total
Joseph Harrison	2
Perry Shaw III	0
Taiwanda Terry-Wilson	-1
Elmer Sandoval	-3

West Ward – Robin Vaughn

Obviously, the incumbent is out of the running.  Two of the candidates don’t even trouble themselves to have a web site that might explain their platforms.   Robin Vaughn and Atalaya Armstrong have web site but they fail to discuss issues at all.

That forced a tie.  I give the nod to Robin because she’s at least dared to stick her toe in the hotbed of Trenton’s political policy discussion, the Facebook Group, Fans of Trenton’s Irresponsible Blogger.  In that forum she’s gotten beaten up a bit for not being specific, but she’s still there and that’s a good sign.

Points	Total
Robin Vaughn	1
Atalaya Armstrong	0
Dr. Shirley Gaines	-3
Zachary Chester*	-6

——————————————-

The full article with point allocation for each candidate can be found in the pdf linked below.

Full Election Selection Criteria Article

Candidate Evaluation Spreadsheet with Web Site Links

Let’s imagine the City of Trenton was managed like a company.   Many have pondered this notion including a few of our Council members.

Of course no one really thinks cities and companies are the same thing.   I certainly don’t.  But I do know that a few basic business principles apply to any organization.

At the top of the list of basic tools is “managing by objective (MBO)”.

Managing by objective is when you give your employees targets to hit and compensate them with a bonus or raise for reaching or exceeding them.    Sounds pretty basic doesn’t it.  Many, if not most management level employees in this country work under some form of MBO plan.

Not in Trenton city government.

We not only do not have objectives; our administration has proposed a 15% raise for the city’s top brass in the face of management failure after failure.  Some of the most egregious of those are listed below.

• Trenton’s tax base has been stagnant and our tax rate has gone up not down.
• Was asleep at the wheel while payroll taxes were stolen – ~$5M hit to the budget.
• Operated without an approved budget for both of its fiscal years.
• Hired an incompetent IT firm.
• Messed up the swimming pool contract and wasted money to hire a new contractor.
• Stole a Christmas Tree from a city park.
• Set a new record in spending on lawsuits
• Oversaw a downgrade of the city’s credit rating.
• Epically failed to plow the streets during our one snow storm in 2016.

The Business Administrator made the pitch for his and the Mayor’s raise by suggesting that it would otherwise be tough to attract talent.   City Council is being asked to consider ONLY this pay hike as a solution.

But consider the argument.

Our Mayor spent $100s of thousands of dollars to get the job he’s got and he knew the salary going in.    All of the employees knew their salaries.  It’s as if a salary pay hike were the only possible improvement the administration could think of to make Trenton a great place to work.

I can think of plenty of ways to make working in Trenton City government attractive.

How about setting objectives for the city and its departments?

People love having clear goals in their job.   Great companies are great because their employees are fixated on common measures of success.  For instance, should top city execs be working towards objectives for increasing our tax base, lowering crime rate, increasing the population, improving our per capita income, increasing the graduation rate and lowering taxes?

What if we gave bonuses tied to meeting or exceeding those objectives?

If I’m an aspiring economic development director, I’d love a chance to put my plans in to place and profiting from my effort.   I’m sure most citizens wouldn’t mind at all if a Department Head made a big bonus based on our property tax rate going down.

What if we got rid of our residency requirement?

It’s just common sense that a high performing local employee from a neighboring city would be wary of uprooting her family to move from East Windsor or Princeton just to take a job 7 miles away in Trenton.  What company forces their employees to move 7 miles in order to take a job?

What if we improved working conditions?

This is a broad category but do we really think Trenton is the best organization on the planet to work for?   Does it provide a transparent management environment?   Are goals clearly communicated?   Do customers (i.e. citizens) respect the organization?   Do we provide employees modern tools like E-Government?  Do departments have ways of measuring success, for instance citizen satisfaction?

Handing out raises beyond the 1-2% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is just throwing money away.   We need to be smarter than that.   Trenton does need to attract top performers, but they need to be the kind of people that are OK with tying rewards to success.

What can you do?

Trenton’s leaders are immune to this kind of thinking as is evidenced by City Council’s positive vote on an ordinance to grant the administration’s salary increase request.   Every member of the pubic that spoke at the meeting was against it, yet our Council voted for it anyway.

A group of petitioners has set in motion an effort to overturn the measure should it succeed on its second reading in two weeks on September 15 (all ordinances in Trenton need two successful votes).    The petitioners are asking citizens to sign an e-petition in advance of the vote to provide an indication to Council on the likelihood of a petition fight.  If the ordinance passes, the petitioners will have 20 days to collect just over 800 signatures.  The e-petition will make that task easier.

Link to Petition to oppose Trenton’s 15% salary increase for top management

Trenton “peaked” decades ago.   My cursory research into the city’s history points to a high point either the late 1920s when the city’s population was around 140,000 or perhaps in the 1950s when much of America was enjoying a post war boom.   However, since then broad, and well known economic and social forces have conspired to challenge industrial cities like Trenton.

Some cities have responded to the challenge and have reinvented themselves.   We know about Savannah, Pittsburgh and to some extent Cleveland and Cincinnati.   Cities in the South like Winston-Salem and Richmond managed their way through the change.   It can be done.   Trenton didn’t do it.

Instead of revitalizing, Trenton has sunk to lows unimaginable in America’s new suburban townships.   We’ve squandered millions of dollars on publicly owned hotels and parking garages.   A Mayor has been sent to a Federal penitentiary.  Our graduation has sunk to below 50%.  Below 50%!   Our murder rate has flirted with being the highest in the nation.  We’ve had almost $5,000,0000 stolen from right under our noses.  Our water has been unsafe.  Our taxes are the highest in New Jersey.  We’ve lost population.   Over half of the land in the city is tax exempt.   We’ve closed our libraries.   Our City Council has failed to provide oversight and occasionally Council meetings turn in to fist fights.  The list goes on.

However, the people of Trenton are not helpless.  We can take control of this problem and provide the ultimate fix.

We can tear down our form of government and start over!

In 1962 Trenton did just that.  The Trenton Council at the time formed a citizen’s commission to study the problem of whether the current form of government was appropriate for the times.  That group took a year and developed a very considered opinion that “no, it wasn’t”.  They therefore recommended that the City adopt the now familiar, Strong Mayor form of government as outlined under the Faulkner Act of the State of New Jersey.   The Faulkner Act spells out several different forms of government including a strong Mayor, a weak Mayor and a City Manager approach.  So no, we’re not locked in to what we have now which spells out 7 council member (4 of them At Large), a Mayor and a Business Administrator.   We can decide that this isn’t working for us.   The evidence (population decline, tax base decline, income decline relative to the State, graduation rate decline and high crime rates) would suggest that it hasn’t “worked” for some time.

Link to 1962 Commission Report

Link to 1962 Ordinance Forming our new Government

One of three things can happen:

1)      The Trenton City Council can take action to form a citizen’s commission to look in to the matter and if needed propose a change.  The change, if recommended would be voted on in a city referendum.  This process would take about a year.

2)      Citizens can form a committee on their own to force the creation of the citizen’s commission.  This action would be similar in scope to Trenton’s recent recall ballot measure, our Pay to Play ballot initiative and smaller ballot measures to simply stagger terms in office for City Council

3)      We can do nothing and hope for the best

The most interesting of the several options under the Faulkner Act is the Council – Manager form of government.  This would allow our elected City Council to hire a professional manager. Typically, this is used in smaller cities where the local talent pool isn’t likely to produce a professional city administrator.   The upside is that we can give this “employee” goals, they can be selected from a national pool of candidates with resumes and the Manager can be fired if they aren’t doing a good job.  The downside is that, much like a school superintendent, the positions is very political and the manager serves at the whim of City Council.

It’s worth thinking about.   Much has changed in Trenton since 1962.  We’ve gone downhill.  Our city’s population has radically changed, the industrial economy has collapsed and the Internet economy has been established.   Not much has changed in Trenton’s government.

Activist like myself and Kevin Moriarty have talked openly about mounting such an effort.  Others have voiced support.  But like the recall, it’s a big effort, especially if our City Council stands in the way of at least considering a change.   We assume they and the current administration will resist even thinking about it.   But that shouldn’t stop the long suffering citizens of Trenton.

Voice your support for the idea of considering a change to our form of government.   Let us know.  From where I sit, it’s much easier to lead if you know you have support.  Better yet, let our City Council know that you want to consider a Faulkner Act change.   A Council action to form the commission will immeasurably simplify the effort by avoiding a costly public referendum.

I’ve been patient both on this blog, on Facebook, in private emails and in person trying to explain how low income housing projects can’t generate enough tax revenue to offset the cost of supporting the residents.  I’ve gone on to explain what level of market rate development Trenton needs to achieve self-sufficiency.  I’ve made specific recommendations.  I’ve even started a citizen’s budget group to work with the Mayor and City Council on the budget and revitalization. Read the rest of this entry »

 Not every big revitalization idea takes big money.  There are low cost policies that Trenton can either implement on its own or begin lobbying for that will fundamentally change how our city works.

I’m hopeful that our current city council will be inspired to act on these ideas as it has shown signs of willingness to move in a new direction.  I’m encouraged by many of their private and public comments especially around the subject of refocusing our economic development efforts on attracting disposable income.  Read the rest of this entry »

The theme for last night’s City Council Special Session on the budget was, “The mess we’re in isn’t my fault”.

The administration officially proposed a budget that raises property taxes by almost 20% which would make Trenton’s rate by far the highest in NJ.

The Mayor spoke first.  Let me summarize. Read the rest of this entry »