Trenton Mayor Tony Mack Suffers Third-Degree Burns

Mayor Tony Mack, who fell asleep while trying to formulate a plan to bailout the city's beleaguered, money-losing hotel using a Number 2 pencil, colored construction paper, a variety of crayons and a 20-year-old Etch A Sketch, told his park rangers that he awoke to find his buttocks on fire Tuesday night. 

Park rangers, the mayor’s seasonal but full-time elite guard, said they were called to his office at City Hall at 8 p.m. on a whistleblower’s tip that smoke with a fishy smell was emanating from the mayor’s office on the second floor. 

When they arrived they found the mayor who told them he had fallen asleep at his desk and that he awoke to a burning sensation around his rear end. Rangers said the mayor realized he was on fire and that he was able to quickly extinguish the small blaze by rolling up a copy of the federal indictment that he received last year, tapping his buttocks with it expeditiously to smother the flames. 

The mayor was airlifted at taxpayers' expense to a high-priced law firm, where he was treated for severe burns to his honesty and credibility, rangers said. He was released on Wednesday and is resting at his treehouse with the other Keebler Elves. 

Rangers are still investigating the bizarre incident, and they are uncertain if someone else intentionally set the fire, or if it was self-inflicted. 

Several eyewitnesses claim that they saw a well-known Lawrenceville attorney who was seen running from the scene followed by a cadre of plaintiffs, but rangers have not confirmed business administrator Sam Hutchinson's account.

Suppressing the Police Civil War

While the civil war at the Trenton Police Department consumes its leadership, rank-and-file morale, other finite resources, and shafts law abiding Trentonians, my neighborhood in South Trenton is not getting any better, it's getting worse.

The illegal dice games continue in the 500 block of Lamberton Street. Thugs walk past my house openly smoking marijuana. The illegal immigrants that occupy a rental property across the street drink beer on the stoop from open containers.

This activity increases in the summer. Many of my neighbors have been burglarized by thugs and drug users who wander the neighborhood in search of their next bag of dope. Vacant homes on my block have had their copper pipes stolen. A neighbor of mine abruptly abandoned his home when he was threatened with a shotgun by a drug dealer next door. He ran back to South Jersey.

All of this has left me thinking about Trenton Police Director Ralph Rivera Jr.'s plans to use marked units as suppression patrols.

How will these units suppress the criminals dealing drugs from dilapidated rental properties in the alleyway behind my house? How about the thugs—the drug operatives—who sit in their cars blasting gangsta rap in the wee hours of the morning? Drug dealing is a round-the-clock business in my neighborhood.

I'm also interested in learning about how the FBI, New Jersey State Police and the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office will substantially assist the police in reducing the capital city's alarmingly high crime rate on a long-term basis. How will they swoop in to stop, for example, the criminals plying their trade around their own children in Hills Alley? Parents who deal drugs around their children, in my opinion, should be thrown in jail. They are exposing our next generation to guns, violence, illegal cash, and death.

You don't have to be a seasoned law enforcement official to understand that the Trenton Police Department needs additional manpower and other resources. This is the conversation that our political leadership in Trenton city government needs to be having, not one that is centered on the political battle to run the police director out of town.

City Council members need to start focusing on ways to allocate more money to the department to enable it to formulate and deploy a realistic and measured plan to make the city safer, and Director Rivera needs to focus his speech on articulating what that is and not on what's wrong with the department. Publicly bashing the organization that you're trying to lead is counterproductive and cedes power to the devious and subtle forces that seek your undoing.

Trentonians already understand the department's pathology, and quite frankly it's debilitating, to say the least. The Trenton Police Department is an essential organization in our city that needs more support from our communities than it receives. But I think that it is reasonable for Trentonians to demand an end to the internal bickering, back-stabbing and pompous political rhetoric that weakens its performance and leadership framework. We want nothing less than high-quality police work that produces results.

  

So while the economic growth and quality of life in my neighborhood are choked off by unchecked lawlessness, I have installed 22 high-resolution CCTV cameras that protect my property, combined with a sophisticated burglar alarm system with redundant backup systems. I'm not taking any chances. This summer, I'm adding more security technology, including state-of-the-art sensors and facial recognition to protect my property from burglars and home invaders. I've spent thousands on technology to keep my home safe in a neighborhood that is overrun with thugs dealing drugs.

And as I sit in my armored home each night all too aware of the violence and crime just outside my door, I would like to know how the Trenton Police Department is going to execute proactively to prevent the criminals in my neighborhood from destroying what little quality of life is left in South Trenton.

Tony F. Mack: The 30-Minute Mayor

The latest ruse to emerge from Mayor Tony F. Mack's hocus-pocus government is a futile attempt by his aides to create the illusion that His Honor has developed a work ethic.

But before I elaborate, let me first clarify the current structure of our city government, from my perspective.

Trenton has one government, but two executive administrations. Mr. Mack, who, through the art of the shuck and jive, was elected in June 2010, leads the first. Business administrator Sam Hutchinson, an accomplished leader who was handpicked and vetted by the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs, manages the other. Although he reports to the mayor, but not really, Hutchinson cannot be fired by him or harmed with kryptonite.

Both men earn six-figure salaries, but only one, Mr. Hutchinson, manages the day-to-day operations of city government. He interacts with the City Council in a productive and professional manner, while Mr. Mack blows off council members and uses the city's website to attack those who tried to cut his salary and who are not aligned with his agenda of empty policy-making.  He has succeeded only in generating legal claims against the city during his embattled tenure—but don't worry, taxpayers will foot the bill. We always do.

Two weeks ago, when Hurricane Sandy knocked out power to parts of Trenton, Mr. Mack was nowhere to be found. He wasn't on the ground coordinating anything. He wasn't visible to assure Trentonians without power or food that they would be OK. He wasn't on the evening news telling viewers how hard the city had been battered. He wasn't in touch with City Council members so that they could relay valuable information about relief efforts to their constituents.

During one of the most significant weather events to impact our area in the city's history, Mr. Mack was simply missing.

Now onto the smoke and mirrors.

On November 7, Mr. Mack announced in a press release a "constituent-centered initiative" that would give Trentonians a chance to "share their concerns and ideas" that relate to the city.  He would make himself available every Tuesday morning for 30 minutes in a conference room at city hall to connect with the public.

This would be a good idea if the amount of time allotted to connect with him weren't so glaringly inadequate, much like Mr. Mack's leadership skills. A lousy 30 minutes? Trentonians have had to put up with amateur hour at city hall for 28 months, so why not give us at least two hours?

But then, that's been the problem with all of Mr. Mack's ideas. They're never well thought out or executed properly, which is why, for example, his Mayor's Learning Center Library—controversial, costly, intermittent and mostly closed—have not been the success that he probably never envisioned. Unfortunately, the mayor's management style, however you define it, doesn't include getting results.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the city's population exceeds more than 84,000. Of that number, approximately 20,000 families live below the poverty line. Imagine for a moment if just a small percentage of this marginalized constituency showed up to the mayor's conference room to "share their concerns," or how about the families of Trenton's murder victims. By the way, the city recorded its 20th homicide this past weekend.

What if fellow citizen Dan Dodson, a Harvard-educated policy wonk who has a lot of good ideas that could potentially change the city's economic condition, showed up to talk about the city's vanishing ratables and his proposals to reverse this trend. Wouldn't (and shouldn't) that discussion take more than 30 minutes?

Suppose I dropped in to ask Mr. Mack about what he's doing to ensure that Trentonians have a shot at capturing the hundreds of jobs that the online retailer Amazon will create at its proposed distribution center in Robbinsville? I'd probably be maced and clubbed by his elite guard, the park rangers, before I could get the question out.

Seriously, though, communications and real constituent relations can influence to some extent the perceptions of Trentonians, creating favorable impressions of their government and its impact on their lives. But Mr. Mack will not achieve this nexus primarily because "Ask the Mayor" is so obviously phony and too late.

I once suggested to Mr. Mack in the council chambers that he organize a monthly breakfast with Trenton-area business owners at the Marriott Trenton. They would pay a small fee to cover the cost of the food and beverages. To get the idea off the ground, I added, he could tap the local chambers of commerce for help and use the gatherings to learn what's on their minds, and talk about what he is doing to make the city more business friendly. Never happened.

Mr. Mack is not interested in putting in the time that is necessary to lead Trenton toward prosperity. To understand my point, pay him a visit on Tuesday.

Michael A. Walker is a city activist who blogs about the performance of Trenton municipal government. His radio show, Slipstream, airs every Thursday at 5 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM.

Trenton police find Mayor Mack beaten, half-clothed in West Trenton

Trenton Police are trying to figure out why Mayor Tony F. Mack was beaten, stripped of some of his clothes and left unconscious in the parking lot of an Edgewood Avenue strip mall in the city’s West Ward on Wednesday night.

The mayor suffered head injuries among other wounds that seem consistent with the use of a gavel like those in a courtroom or council chambers. He has not been able to speak to detectives investigating the case. Police believe that he was abducted from the kitchen of his Berkeley Avenue home while he was making a package of chicken-flavored Ramen Noodle Soup.

“We are not sure how the assailant gained entry into the house,” Lt. John Ketchyoman said.

Detectives interviewed the mayor’s neighbors, who believe that they saw a black female resembling a local city official who fled the scene in a small convertible that was being driven by a white female with a Scottish brogue.

It is not yet known whether video from police surveillance cameras supported their claim or if anyone from the Trenton PD cared at all about retrieving the footage from the system.

“He was badly bruised,” Ketchyoman added. “His underwear was pulled up completely over his head, which may have cut off his circulation somewhat.”

Unable to talk and barely conscious—a condition that appeared normal at first to detectives—the mayor was taken by ambulance to Capital Health Regional Medical Center, where he was transferred to another hospital's political trauma center and treated for a mild case of buffoonery, fractures to his dignity and a ruptured political career.

Police asked that anyone with information not to call them, given the fact that they are understaffed and not able to investigate crimes committed against damaged politicians. But they did recommend calling Crime Stoppers, which has offered a $2,500 reward to the person who gave the mayor a good old-fashioned ghetto beat down.

Michael A. Walker is a city activist who blogs about the performance of Trenton municipal government. His radio show, Slipstream, airs every Thursday at 5 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM.

Trenton Imperative: Accountability for Mayor Mack

With the defeat of the ordinance to reduce Mayor Tony F. Mack’s annual salary to $60,000 from $126,400 in the rear view mirror, the question I’ve been pondering as I attempt to understand a hopelessly divided and collectively ineffective City Council is. . .What now?

As a taxpayer, the salary reduction ordinance was an issue of performance—Mr. Mack’s productivity versus the size of his salary—and not about politics, economics, or the latest claim—retaliation—as East Ward Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson suggested during a telephone conversation I had with her on Friday. This was a day after her stunning flip-flop that scuttled the measure. The councilwoman had trouble with the language of the ordinance, she said, although she voted for it on October 18 when it was first introduced. All I know is this: division will not achieve Trenton's imperative, which is accountability.

There is no debating the consensus view that since Mr. Mack took office in 2010, he hasn’t produced a single policy that can change the city’s economic condition or quality of life. I see no evidence of substantial private investment that could create jobs or reduce the rate of violent crimes—the shootings, robberies and homicides. Business owners along South Broad Street are robbed at gun and knifepoint almost daily.

Yes, we have newly constructed parks and wonderful tennis facilities; and some roads that were poorly paved. We even have a new county courthouse, a project that was driven by Mercer County government. None of these initiatives, however, were initiated by Mr. Mack, who appears to enjoy being mayor, but doesn’t want to do the work.

In fact, the initiatives that have come down the proverbial conveyor belt from Mr. Mack’s bunker on the second floor of city hall to the City Council’s chambers—his Comprehensive Public Safety Plan (no benchmarks); his Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries (mostly closed); his endeavor to establish trade with African and Caribbean nations (baloney); his committee to make Trenton a destination for travel consumers (non-existent); and his phantom talks to attract the online retailer Amazon (more baloney)—have failed.

The Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries are an example of policy at its worst. They constitute a second library system, one that is unlawful, intermittent, ineffective and expensive. Still, Mr. Mack continues to push for this train wreck in the budget. He’s asked for more than $1 million dollars in new spending and a tax increase that, if passed, will be the highest in the state.  The city already has a public library system with broadband Internet access that has regular operating hours and is staffed with credentialed and competent professionals who manage its collections.

Public and private organizations divest their operations of underperforming assets and people everyday. If Mr. Mack were working in private industry, he would have been fired. Trentonians tried unsuccessfully to recall him from office last year—the effort garnered 8,500 signatures—but the threshold to get it done was too high. The state law that governs recalling elected officials from office should be changed.

Policy-making, I believe, is at the heart of governmental performance. With our current mayor-council form of government—which often appears incompatible with Trenton’s great needs—policy should be formulated by the mayor and introduced to City Council to be voted on, and then, if approved, executed by the mayor’s cabinet. It should be a coalition-based process that is transparent and that includes input from the public, not this obstructionist, bickering, and often uncivilized nightmare that we have now. It’s not rocket science. Government policy can involve innovation that solves problems. Effective policy can attract the resources that the city needs to renovate its condition. It can change people’s perceptions.

The City of Trenton today is a public policy conundrum that has taxpaying Trentonians, state officials, local and national media and others, befuddled by a municipal government that is incapable of governing. Mr. Mack is a fundamental part of the problem. Holding him to account is a no-brainer; figuring out how to bring prosperity back to our great city is the real challenge.

Michael A. Walker is a city activist who blogs about the performance of Trenton municipal government. His radio show, Slipstream, airs every Thursday at 5 p.m. on WBCB 1490 AM.

Devising Accountability for Mayor Mack

The Trentonian’s October 29 editorial raises valid points about the City Council’s ordinance that I support, which is to reduce Mayor Tony F. Mack’s annual salary to $60,000 from $126,400.

As a taxpayer, this is an issue of performance—Mr. Mack’s productivity versus the size of his salary—and not about politics or economics. This is the resounding message that Council President Phyllis Holly-Ward should have sent, but did not. Clearly, Council members need more help communicating with the public and media.

There’s no debating the consensus view that since Mr. Mack took office in 2010, he hasn’t produced a single policy that can change the city’s economic condition or quality of life. I see no evidence of substantial private investment that could create jobs or reduce the rate of violent crimes—the shootings, robberies and homicides. Business owners along South Broad Street are robbed at gun and knifepoint almost daily.

Yes, we have newly constructed parks and wonderful tennis facilities; and some roads that were poorly paved. We even have a new county courthouse, a project that was driven by Mercer County government. None of these initiatives, however, were initiated by Mr. Mack, who appears to enjoy being mayor, but doesn’t want to do the work.

In fact, the initiatives that have come down the proverbial conveyor belt from Mr. Mack’s bunker on the second floor of city hall to the City Council’s chambers—his Comprehensive Public Safety Plan (no benchmarks); his Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries (mostly closed); his endeavor to establish trade with African and Caribbean nations (baloney); his committee to make Trenton a destination for travel consumers (non-existent); and his phantom talks to attract the online retailer Amazon (more baloney)—have failed.

The Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries are an example of policy at its worst. They constitute a second library system, one that is unlawful, intermittent, ineffective and expensive. Still, Mr. Mack continues to push for this train wreck in the budget. He’s asked for more than $1 million dollars in new spending and a tax increase that, if passed, will be the highest in the state.  The city already has a public library system with broadband Internet access that has regular operating hours and is staffed with credentialed and competent professionals who manage its collections.

The question I’ve been pondering lately is what can the City Council do to hold Mr. Mack accountable for his no-show performance and his unwillingness to work with them in common cause on anything?

Public and private organizations divest their operations of underperforming assets and people everyday. If Mr. Mack were working in private industry, he would have been shown the door. Trentonians tried unsuccessfully to recall him from office last year—the effort garnered 8,500 signatures—but the threshold to get it done was too high. Perhaps the state law that governs recalling elected officials from office should be changed.

In government, policy matters. With our mayor-council form of government, policy should be formulated by the mayor and his cabinet and introduced to City Council to be voted on. It should be a coalition-based process that is transparent and that includes input from the public, not this uncivilized, bickering nightmare that we have now. It’s not rocket science. Government policy can involve innovation that solves problems. Evidence of this fact is everywhere. In Philadelphia, the City Council with Mayor Michael Nutter is solving its ATV-terror problem. Trenton just had a death involving one of these things. You just have to do the work.

The City of Trenton today is a public policy conundrum that has taxpaying Trentonians, state officials, local and national media and others, befuddled by a municipal government that is incapable of governing. Mr. Mack is a fundamental part of the problem. Holding him to account is a no-brainer; figuring out how to bring prosperity back to our great city is the real challenge.

Michael A. Walker is a city activist who blogs about the performance of Trenton municipal government. His radio show, Slipstream, airs every Thursday at 5 PM on WBCB 1490 AM.

A Fragile Coalition

East Ward Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson is the key to the mayor’s paycut becoming law

As the city recorded its 19th murder on Saturday amid the absence of any substantive plan from Mayor Tony F. Mack to address a tidal wave of shootings, homicides and robberies that continue to sabotage Trenton’s quality of life and reputation, the City Council on October 18 introduced an ordinance that seeks to reduce his annual salary to $60,000 from $126,400.

The vote was 5-2 with the usual 'no vote' from the duo of defiant do-nothings: Councilman at Large Alex Bethea and Councilwoman at Large Kathy McBride. McBride, I am told, covets the mayoralty—a frightening prospect, to say the least.

According to Jim Carlucci, the nearly superhuman city activist and OPRA-requesting machine, in order for the ordinance to survive a veto from Mr. Mack when it is brought back in November, it will need five votes from the Council to make it law. Therein lies the challenge.

The Council also narrowly passed a resolution issuing a vote of no confidence in Mr. Mack for his shocking inability to lead and for his low profile. His public schedule has been barren for months, according to published news reports.

Despite what Councilman at Large Alex Bethea believes, the genesis of the symbolic effort came from the grassroots good government organization Majority for a Better Trenton (MFABT), and not from some devious and sinister plot to undermine Mr. Mack, who has been shafting taxpaying Trentonians since he took office in 2010. Last month I became a member of the non-partisan MFABT, and I encourage other Trentonians to learn about its work and consider joining. Its website is mfabt.org.

Trenton is in dire need of a public safety strategy with benchmarks; capital improvements to infrastructure; a long-term economic development blueprint; a public/private bank that can assist developers with low interest loans; streamlined permitting and the elimination of certain licensing requirements; and a marketing plan to attract entrepreneurs and prospective homeowners with American Express cards to our city. These are just a few of the potentially transformative ideas that could reverse the city’s economic condition.

But to accomplish these imperatives, the city will need a new, courageous mayor who can work in common cause with the City Council, a reality that appears to be months away. The City Council, since Mr. Mack hijacked city government, has been a divided and collectively timid body on holding the mayor accountable for his non-existent policy agenda and unauthorized, reckless spending that has resulted in a proposal by the mayor to raise taxes to the highest level in the state.

Trentonians will be watching East Ward Councilwoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, who was the critical fifth vote at the October 18 meeting when the salary ordinance was introduced, and who normally has aligned herself with the mayor like a mooring rope to the Hindenburg. She will most likely be pressured by Mr. Mack and his surrogates to not support the measure at the next go-round.

If Ms. Reynolds-Jackson remains independent and part of the coalition of Council members that includes West Ward Councilman Zachary Chester, North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson, South Ward Councilman George Muschal and Council President Phyllis Holly-Ward, she can go back to her constituents with a significant accomplishment and with her dignity intact.

Leaders, I have learned, sometimes do not face reality well. This is the fundamental flaw of Mr. Mack, who has lurched from one misstep to another. Instead of building political currency and linking the right people, strategies and resources together—core processes of effective leadership that could have saved his failed Mayor’s Learning Center Libraries—he has pursued a scorched-earth-style of management that has gutted the government of institutional knowledge, dismantled careers and sandbagged livelihoods.

Leaders step forward of the line to do bold things. I hope that Councilwoman Reynolds-Jackson, who was elected to lead, will demonstrate that she represents her constituents and not Mr. Mack’s bizarre and self-destructive descent into political obsolescence.

Michael A. Walker is a city activist who blogs about the performance of Trenton municipal government. His radio show, Slipstream, airs every Thursday at 5 PM on WBCB 1490 AM.