Some budget cut suggestions

The City of Trenton faces a potential $7 million shortfall in the fiscal year 2009 budget, Palmer administration officials told City Council Tuesday. Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum said even that shortfall would come, even with an anticipated 13-cent tax increase, following the tax hike Trentonians saw this year.

Mayor Douglas H. Palmer and his city business officials ought to seriously deliberate on cutting major positions and department sectors to make up the deficit, instead of consecutive, large-scale tax-rate increases.

This suggestion comes out of the reality that Trenton’s city government is extremely top heavy, especially in the amount of gratuitous positions of employment attached to Mayor Palmer himself.

There are mayor’s aides, and a chief of staff who is only needed because of Mayor Palmer’s infrequent presence inside Trenton’s borders. There are three separate drivers assigned to the mayor, all of which earn about $70,000 or more that a Trenton Police Department detective earns annually.

Despite having significantly less population, Trenton’s city government is way larger than it was under the Holland administration, and significantly larger than the government of Hamilton Township, which has several times more area and about 6,000 more people in population.

Judging by Mayor Palmer’s recent treatment of longtime city employees as cannon fodder in the ongoing residency case, it is likely that the monetary axe will fall on lesser employees, and not any of the high-ranking and highly unnecessary positions that currently suck salary and benefit money out of the city coffers, at an increasingly prodigious rate.

City Council should seriously consider using its statutory budget powers to fleece the hell out of the crowd of unnecessary city employees that make a living off of performing unneeded work for the mayor of a relatively small urban municipality. A couple hundred thousand dollars could be made up in that area alone, through some careful cutting and elimination of positions.

This is Trenton, and Mayor Palmer is not the mayor of a massive city that requires an equally massive administrative bureaucracy. Paired with Trenton’s size, such an organization only serves to interfere with the rest of the city’s finances.

Council members, please take an axe to such an edifice.

Are we a bunch of idiots?

Only in Trenton’s topsy-turvy world of city government would City Council be on the receiving end of two harebrained schemes asking for hundreds of thousands of city dollars, following a presentation on just how cash-strapped the city’s fiscal future is looking.

Rumors about the city’s dismal finances have abounded for a long time, but in recent days they have grown into a crescendo of nervous whispers here in New Jersey’s capital.

Those voices talk of 10-percent budget cuts, layoffs, firehouses closing, and other symptoms of a city government whose finances have finally broken, after 18 years of mismanagement under Mayor Douglas H. Palmer.

But to add injury to insult, at tonight’s council meeting representatives from a wireless internet company trying to sell council on the merits of a citywide Wi-Fi system – which council members have already rejected once – will make another desperate appearance to try and get a city contract worth over $200,000 from the doubting city representatives.

That is scheduled only an hour after council members receive a nightmarish briefing on the city’s failing finances.

At around the same time Tuesday as that dandy, Police Director Joseph Santiago will try and convince council about the necessity in paying $200,000 to another gun company for handguns for Trenton’s police officers, despite the fact that the current supplier has offered to replace the whole weapons cache for free.

What is wrong with this picture?

A good way of looking at the behavior of Mayor Palmer and his officials in their treatment of city residents and the legislative branch of city government is that they act like they’re talking to a bunch of idiots.

They say one thing, then do another, which nearly always contradicts their earlier positions and policies. Whether it’s finances or residency or any other issue, it has become quite apparent that many Palmer administration officials – including the mayor, a Trenton native – have little or no respect for the rest of the city, or its government.

Maybe it’s time for a change.

BREAKING: residency news…

Court papers filed today only further revealed the despicable conduct of officials in the Douglas H. Palmer administration, which has grown worse in recent weeks.

According to papers filed in Mercer County Superior Court today, Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum and others began threatening about a dozen or more longtime city employees with termination a few weeks ago, in a ploy to bully City Council into amending the city’s residency ordinance to save the hide of Police Director Joseph Santiago.

Attorney Jim Manahan has now filed an order to show cause, which seeks to save the livelihood of the employees and have the court block Mayor Palmer’s unthinkable decision to terminate them, only to save Mr. Santiago.

Mr. Manahan, in section of 17 of his brief, said it best:

“In fact, this course of action by the City is not based upon any legitimate and honest interpretation of the ordinance in light of the court’s decision…but rather is a politically motivated action designed to coerce the City Council of the City of Trenton to revise the ordinance in such a manner as to legislatively overrule the court and allow the public official (Santiago) named in that action to remain in office.”

Mr. Manahan hit the nail right on the head. Once again, Mayor Palmer’s officials seem to have lost all touch with reality, willing to stop at nothing to save the Police Director from the judge’s gavel.

What is ridiculous about the city’s position is that the employees in question were not granted a residency waiver under the city’s own ordinance, but actually had their residency waived by the Department of Personnel, which manages the hiring and testing of city workers.

Note to Palmer and his lawyers: state law supercedes Trenton’s law, no matter how the two might conflict, and Judge Feinberg did not throw out the state statute regarding waiving residency, just Trenton’s.

Also, it is unthinkable that Judge Feinberg, in throwing out the city’s waiver provision, was calling for any employees waived under that rule to retroactively be subject to termination.

In a letter to City Council that later morphed into a Times of Trenton Op/Ed, Mayor Palmer said administration officials had begun reviewing the files of city employees, and only recently “discovered” some had received waivers under the city’s ordinance, and now faced termination.

All of these statements were broad lies made to the entire public.

Not only did Mayor Palmer and company know about these waivers, as evidenced by employment certifications that disclosed in no uncertain terms that these employees had their residency waived, but they knew they were state-waived, and not waived under the provisions of the city’s own residency ordinance.

But, despite all of this, Palmer administration officials were ready to fire these city workers tomorrow morning, on the tenuous theory that because a judge threw out Trenton’s residency waiver provisions last month, these Department of Personnel-waived employees were subject to termination.

In fact, sources said the only reason they didn’t terminate the employees weeks ago was that union representation, before turning to Mr. Manahan, actually told administration officials they would lobby City Council to amend the law to save the workers.

Smelling blood in the water, Mayor Palmer and Ms. Feigenbaum apparently delayed the termination date, until tomorrow.

Even that date now faces a delay, because with the filing of the papers today Judge Feinberg has scheduled a 10 a.m. conference on Thursday, where she could potentially confront city officials and ask exactly what power gave them the ability to terminate these state-waived employees, retroactively, because of her own decision.

Should get interesting in those chambers. Stay tuned.

Hypocrisy: Mayor Palmer and "Live where you work"

Talk about “do as I say, not as I do.”

Mayor Douglas H. Palmer advocates for the “Live Where You Work” program, which he unveiled at his State of the City address last fall.

That program seeks to have highly-paid executives and other people working in Trenton actually move into the city, through incentives like reduced mortgage rates and assistance from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs.

But Mayor Palmer does not really practice what he preaches, as evidenced by the whoe Police Director Joseph Santiago affair, and the mayor’s treatment of other high-ranking and highly-paid city officials who should be living here, under the city’s residency law.

Trenton’s economic and social problems coincide with a decline into an impoverished state, with fully one-fifth of the city’s population living under the federal poverty line.

Getting executives to move into the city is a good idea, but an even better and easier idea is to force well-compensated city officials to abide by the residency ordinance, which is a much more effective method of economic redevelopment than simply offering incentives and hoping for individuals to bite.

These employees are being paid straight out of the city’s own coffers, rather than being a group of people working in Trenton for the state or some other business.

Let’s start with enforcing the residency ordinance, and getting city employees to live in the community of Trenton, and then go after the others.

Dennis "Rasputin" Gonzalez deserves termination

Considering the bungling conduct of Douglas H. Palmer administration officials when it comes to city redevelopment projects, it should come as no surprise to people living near this city that another project seems headed to the scrap pile.

The record of these officials speaks for itself, now that it looks like it is becoming the time to hand out blame for the failure of yet another project, the proposed K. Hovnanian project at the old Champale site in South Trenton.

The only thing that has been successful with this project is emminent domain, controversy, and the creation of anger, coming from city residents screwed over by the City of Trenton and the developer.

Mr. Gonzalez and the Palmer administration are probably one out of seven when it comes to real redevelopment projects in the city, with the lone project counting as a success being the Broad Street Bank building, which has only recently begun to get off the ground after around a year of the usual city government screw-ups.

Despite this extensive record of failure, Assistant Business Administrator Dennis Gonzalez and other Palmer administration officials continue with name-calling and arrogance when dealing with City Council, like they did in today’s Times of Trenton.

“Coston is the biggest perpetrator,” said Mr. Gonzalez, of council members being responsible for alleged but unsubstantiated falsehoods and lies, that are usually more often the material of Mr. Gonzalez and company.

City Council candidate Zachary Chester was right to call out Mr. Gonzalez last year on his failures in bringing tangible results to Trenton.

And what did Mr. Chester get in return?

A threat of a lawsuit and demands for an apology from Mr. Gonzalez, who ended up failing to follow through on any of his apparently empty threats.

This same kind of disrespect has been experienced by both City Council members, and residents living around the Champale site, who have had their lives turned upside down for years now, all because of the blind desire of Mayor Palmer’s officials to get the project off the ground.

Enough is enough.

City Council should find a new developer, and tell Mr. Gonzalez and the others that they have screwed up for the last time.

Remove this man from his position.

All it takes is a five-person City Council vote.

Revisit residency editorial

The Times of Trenton misrepresented events in the Police Director Joseph Santiago residency controversy in an editorial Wednesday.

The most glaring factual errors in the piece were statements regarding the reasons behind the invalidation of a residency waiver granted to Mr. Santiago by the court. The editorial states that happened because Mercer County Superior Court Judge Linda Feinberg ruled that the residency’s waiver provision was inconsistent with state law.

The real reason why the waiver was tossed was out of recognition that Mayor Douglas H. Palmer never had the ability to grant such an extra-legal waiver.

All Mayor Palmer actually did was issue some piece of city stationery that stated Mr. Santiago did not have to abide by the residency ordinance, unlike nearly every other city employee.

Judge Feinberg saw that such an action had no legal weight at all. It did not even follow the path prescribed by the City of Trenton’s old residency waiver provision, which was eventually thrown out.

She correctly recognized that Mayor Palmer granted no waiver, but rather simply decided that Mr. Santiago did not have to follow the law, because that was the supreme will of the mayor at the time.

Responsibility for the total elimination of any waiver provision lies squarely on the shoulders of the attorneys for Mayor Palmer and Mr. Santiago, who saw that the best defense was to take a stance that the ENTIRE ordinance was invalid and should be thrown out, after apparently recognizing the earlier waiver was illegal.

They based this defense on the notion that the city’s residency waiver provision was not perfectly consistent with the language of state law that delineates how residency laws and waiver should work.

All that succeeded in doing was having the entire waiver provision thrown out, leaving Trenton with the super-strong residency ordinance that worked so well for nearly 20 years, without waivers or exemptions, when the city had around 60,000 more inhabitants and a much better economy.

Unlike what was stated in today’s editorial, what has actually happened was that Judge Feinberg stated to the world that Mayor Palmer is not some sort of superhuman god who can bend and change the law as he sees fit.

She saw that he is a democratically elected official who swore to uphold the residency law, without regard to his preference for certain employees over others.

Broad Street Bank building event today

A long-awaited grand opening celebration at the Broad Street Bank building today hopefully signals the start of renewed efforts by the officials from the City of Trenton in ensuring the historic building and architectural landmark will enjoy some measure of success in attracting tenants to live in downtown Trenton.

George Fakiris of Bayville Holdings LLC – the company that pumped $34 million into renovating the building – was right on with some of his comments in today’s Trentonian about the city’s efforts on both Bayville’s building itself and the city government’s overall efforts in the downtown area.

“I’m not putting anyone down, but we expected more from the City of Trenton,” he told the Trentonian Tuesday. “We thought they would take care of the abandoned buildings near our property. Who wants to look out of their window and look at buildings that not being developed?”

These are the words of a frustrated man from a company that saw the prospects of getting a good return on an important investment for both Bayville and the City of Trenton itself dwindle because of the dragging of feet by city officials, in helping the company secure both a Certificate of Occupancy and parking for future tenants of the building.

Numerous tenants – like me – originally signed up for apartments in the building but delays stemming from paperwork problems caused many prospective Broad Street Bank building residents to find housing elsewhere, and now only eight apartments out of 124 are filled.

These complaints are similar to those coming from other developers who try and work with the city, like Full Spectrum LLC, which wanted to undertake a massive development in the same area as the Broad Street Bank building.

Judging by the condition of Trenton’s downtown – as a business and living area that all but dies after 5 p.m. and on weekends – it would probably behoove city officials to go out of their way for people like Bayville, whose project offers the best hope of returning downtown to its condition decades ago, as a regional shopping and business center.

Trenton needs projects like the Broad Street Bank building to help bring the city back to an acceptable level of economic and social activity. City officials should treat the developers of such projects accordingly. Hopefully assistance from the Trenton Downtown Association and Richardson Commercial, along with renewed effort from the city government, will do the trick.

Where we stand on residency

Some in this city continue to miss the bigger picture in the ongoing Joseph Santiago residency case, as has been evidenced by people speaking publicly in City Council chambers and in letters to the editor in the pages of Trenton’s two papers.

Such confusion in the community means that maybe it is time to offer one take on where this issue has come from, where it is going, and where it stands today.

Right now the issue is in limbo, with a hearing scheduled for June 3 in New Jersey’s Appellate Division.

There a panel of three judges recently granted an extremely short stay and an accelerated appeal schedule, g iving the impression that they want to see this issue settled, and not dragged out forever in the courts as Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer has publicly vowed to do.

In the meantime Mayor Palmer has asked City Council again and again to quickly swoop in and amend the residency law to allow the mayor to grant waivers, and effectively reverse the initial court decision in which City Council members were victorious plaintiffs along with nine city residents, including me.

Last week Mayor Palmer even wrote a letter to City Council members, which was eventually published an Op/Ed piece in the Times of Trenton.

It again called upon the seven members of council to amend the law because of the presence of unnamed city employees with “special skills or talents” who the administration has determined are violating the city’s residency law, likely because of either carelessness on the part of Mayor Palmer’s staff, or simply more unequal application of the law.

But it seems that people like the city’s Communications Director and other politically-favored employees continue in the employ of the city despite not maintaining bona fide residences here.

That only goes to show that for Mayor Palmer, this is not about “special talents or skills” but simple political favoritism and cronyism, and blatant disrespect for the law.

Part and parcel with this call for a hasty ordinance amendment is a position that public safety is in danger because of the possible removal of Mr. Santiago, which is also plainly false.

The Trenton Police Department is made up of hundreds of brave and capable police officers who have the skills and talent necessary to perform the job, with or without the ephemeral presence of a man who is frequently nowhere to be found during many of the city’s most dire public safety emergencies.

Even if Mr. Santiago has done a good job – which is highly debatable – it should be remembered that an employee’s performance on the job has nothing to do with why they should or should not be allowed to remain in office when openly violating city law.

Such arguments have never been applied to the 20 or so employees who have been terminated in the past by the Palmer administration, many of whom have likely performed valuable services to the city while violating this long-standing rule.

In the earlier court decision, Judge Linda Feinberg stated that she believed Mr. Santiago had done a good job, but that those sentiments did not save him, or anyone else, from the weight of the law. She stated this in no uncertain terms in her ruling that Mr. Santiago had to vacate his office, and when denying a stay or appeal on the same decision.

Just like any other residency violation case, this is not about one man. This is about the law.

It still remains to be seen whether the City Council will move to amend that same law in the future to install some sort of waiver amendment that would allow non-residents the ability to take office here.

It at least bears some consideration and public discourse, especially if a system could be installed that would prevent the kind of political favoritism that has been applied to the law up to this point by the Palmer administration.

That being said, there is absolutely no rush to consider amending the ordinance until the Santiago affair has been settled by the court system, which should happen sometime in June.

Only after that dust settles should the seven members of City Council begin deliberations on revising the law, which served the city so well without waivers or exemptions for nearly four decades.

It should be pointed out as well that while Mayor Palmer cries and whines for a waiver amendment and talks of his support for residency, it was his own group of high-paid lawyers who argued that the entire residency law should be thrown out, which was the only reason the waiver amendment was tossed in the first place.

That same argument also resulted in a ruling by Judge Feinberg that the only waiver provision that can possibly be considered is a state statute that likely precludes Mr. Santiago from ever being able to attain the position again.

It requires a classification system that weights job candidates according to their proximity to Trenton. Candidates living in Trenton, the towns surrounding Trenton, Mercer County residents, and the counties surrounding Mercer would all have to be offered the directorship before Mr. Santiago could ever even have a chance of getting the job.

It is obvious that the residency ordinance is a great tool in contributing to the economic well-being of this city, by keeping high-paid city officials contributing to Trenton’s fragile economy and tax base.

Mayor Palmer himself said in the State of the City address that these are the types of economic mover and shakers that need to live in Trenton if the city is to reverse its downward economic trend.

Live Where You Work, right Mayor Palmer?

But for Mayor Palmer the trend that has developed is the perception that Mayor Palmer cannot decide whether he likes residency or not. He says he supports it, then instructs his lawyers to seek to have the entire law invalidated, for the sake of Mr. Santiago.

Maybe he is just saying whatever it is at the moment that he and his tax dollar-funded attorneys think will best suit his obvious desire to keep Mr. Santiago in office and win a battle with his own constituents.

Whatever Mayor Palmer’s stance is, moment to moment, it is obvious that Mr. Santiago has plainly been proven to be in violation of the law, and as it stands, he should be removed from office for that decision.

That should be done despite claims made by Mayor Palmer and Mr. Santiago regarding their belief that there are currently few or any high-ranking police officials within the department who could take over the position. These claims seem to be entirely untrue.

First, there are several captains and others who could take over the position and move to Trenton.

Like the invalidation of the waiver provision, this is also the fault of these two men. Mayor Palmer and Mr. Santiago orchestrated the elimination of the three deputy chief positions years ago. These positions, if filled, would have provided ample talent to take over the directorship.

And, for argument’s sake, it should not be forgotten that at one time Mayor Palmer installed an interim director who never attained a rank higher than patrolman, which means that person never had any administrative experience, or even command experience in leading any number of sworn officers, let alone an entire department.

There are plenty of equally-capable law enforcement officers that could take over the purely administrative functions of the Police Director position, and some of them would likely move to this city and become part of the Trenton community.

And that simple fact probably makes them a better candidate for the position than a non-resident director like Mr. Santiago could ever be.

Let Trenton residents not forget that it has been the decision of Mayor Palmer, Mr. Santiago, and their lawyers to continue this costly fight through the court system despite the very letter and spirit of the law standing in their way.

The residency law, its importance, and the arrogant fashion in which Mayor Palmer and Mr. Santiago have carried themselves through this affair will not be forgotten by the electorate either, a majority of which seems to support the equal application of the law.

Any elected official rushing to amend such an important law to save the skin of one man should remember that the people in this city support the law, as is, and will vote accordingly in 2010.

Santiago given another six weeks in office

Police Director Joseph Santiago has been granted a short-term reprieve from a March court decision that would have ousted him from office for violating Trenton’s residency ordinance.

Three judges from the state’s Appellate Division granted the stay after reviewing competing briefs from both sides of the issue.

They also granted a fast-pace briefing, argument, and opinion schedule that surely dashes the previously expressed hope of Mayor Douglas H. Palmer to “drag this out in the courts.”

Lawyers for Mr. Santiago and Mayor Palmer have to turn in their case briefs by April 28, and the judges have scheduled a June 3 court date for arguments with a decision likely to be rendered soon after that.

Mr. Santiago’s lawyer – Salvatore Alfano – already began spinning the decision on the stay by making claims that the decision vindicated the position of Mr. Santiago and Mayor Palmer, because in general stays are only granted when there is at least some likelihood of success.

But other legal sources have said that the oddly-crafted court schedule – which usually stretches months and even years – means that the Appellate judges compromised on the decision, basically saying “we will grant you this stay, but we are going to decide this one very quickly.”

Plaintiffs in the suit to remove Mr. Santiago like me were told from the beginning that there was a very good chance that the entire affair could take a year or more before coming to a close, and the Appellate Division judges have precluded that from happening.

Also, the plaintiffs in this suit seem to have the law on their side, while Mayor Palmer and Mr. Santiago only have a bunch of convoluted and contradictory arguments that go against many public statements made by both men for years.

This one is not over yet.

Palmer’s people jump the gun

It seems At-Large Councilwoman Cordelia Staton and Council President Paul Pintella jumped the gun in attacking South Ward Councilman Jim Coston about posting a public document on his Web site this week.

The document was a letter from Mayor Douglas H. Palmer threatening City Council members with the firing of city employees who are living outside of Trenton and outside of the city’s residency law. It was not a private letter, and it ended up being published in the Times of Trenton as an Op/Ed piece.

But it seems that Mayor Palmer’s City Council lackeys were not informed about the mayor’s plans to have the letter published in one of Trenton’s two newspapers.

The two prematurely went into attack mode about Mr. Coston’s posting of the letter on his Web site.

They said Mr. Coston violated council protocol agreed upon for the Joseph Santiago residency case, which continues as Mayor Palmer and the director seek a stay and appeal of an earlier decision to oust the director.

Mr. Coston has always expressed a desire for more open and transparent government, while other council members seem content in following Mayor Palmer’s lead in running a city government in the shadows and behind closed doors, while the public is left with little to no knowledge about what occurs at City Hall.

Perhaps the Palmer machine and its allies would be better served by maintaining better communication, before jumping on such an exemplary city representative as Mr. Coston, who was only doing his constituents and the rest of the city residents a favor by posting the mayor’s letter about changing an ordinance that could affect the lives of many a Trentonian.

Mr. Pintella also seems to be an unlikely candidate to be crying about so-called council protocol, when he authored his own protocol mishap this week by rescinding a council resolution calling for an appearance by officials from. K. Hovnanian.

Single council members – even the president – do not have the ability to unilaterally rescind a council resolution that successfully passed on a vote.

Please remember protocol, Mr. Pintella.