The Ruins of Trenton

There is help on the way for the City of Trenton and the numerous persons, businesses, and other entities that have become crime victims during the dramatic surge in metal thievery.

Criminals in many areas of the state have begun plotting out methods for absconding with anything containing certain metals, like copper and aluminum, which have experienced significant price increases in recent years.

Assistance for those beleaguered by this crime wave comes in the form of legislation proposed by a trio of Republican legislators from South Jersey who have apparently taken notice of the trend and plan to legislate the problem away - Sen. Christopher Connors, Assemblyman Brian Rumpf and Assemblyman Daniel Van Pelt, all R-9.

Under their proposal scrap metal business owners would be required to engage in better record-keeping practices, since they are the usual recipient of the stolen metals.

“Unfortunately, honest operators of scrap metal yards unknowingly become entangled in these crimes by virtue of being the only venue where thieves can turn a profit from their stolen property,” said Assemblyman Brian Rumpf, R-Little Egg Harbor, in a statement.

The law requires such businesses to request identification from anyone making scrap metal sales. On that basis they would be required to maintain records for up to five years consisting of the name and address of metal sellers, which could be used by law enforcement officials to prosecute metal thieves.

Other portions of the law require businesses to disclose sale information to law enforcement officers and to promptly report suspicious sales. Scrap metal businesses found in violation of the disclosure and reporting stipulations would be subject to various penalties, according to the legislation.

Economic revitalization should be priority number one for any city government in Trenton, but current city fiscal policies have resulted in a multi-million dollar budget shortfall that threatens the city with a massive tax rate increase that will create tax conditions that are adverse to redevelopment.

It also looks like such a tax increase won't even cover the budget gap, likely forcing the city into asking for a state-funded bailout sure to come with the institution of state oversight on the city's finances.

Right now the City of Trenton proposes a budget that assumes that the state Board of Public Utilities will approve a plan to sell outlying Trenton Water Works infrastructure to a private company for $100 million.

Despite that infusion of $100 million, the proposed budget carries a 13-cent tax rate increase, bringing the City of Trenton's property tax rate to $2.58 per $100 of assessed value. That rate hike, plus other measures including layoffs, will go towards closing a $7 to $8 million budget gap.

Already, lower property values in much of the city and a lack of up-to-date property assessments result in a city tax rate that is one of the highest in the county. A lack of growth in ratables and ineffective cost-saving measures in the government means constant, large-scale tax increases.

But now, regardless of those conditions, both city and state officials are saying the proposed water works sale may not receive approval, which would balloon the city's budget shortfall up to an astounding magnitude of $27 million.

No one is quite sure where such a shortfall will be made up, but adding significantly to the city's tax rate will result in a situation where anyone considering the purchase of property in the city is going to think twice, as soon as they see Trenton's large and growing municipal tax rate.

Perhaps the only good thing that could come out of such a large budget shortfall is that the city could be forced into begging for a state-funded bailout.

Given the financial footing of state officials, who recently identified falling state tax revenues and their own budget shortfall, such a bailout will likely come with a stipulation of state control over the city's finances.

Given what the Palmer administration has been doing with the city's money lately, this could certainly be a good thing.

Federal and state investigators are probing the activities of former administration officials who worked under former Perth Amboy Mayor Joseph Vas, who was soundly defeated in the mayoral election earlier this year by new Mayor Wilda Diaz, The Asbury Park Press is reporting.

Mr. Vas, who also serves as a state assemblyman for the 19th legislative district, ran Perth Amboy for 18 years after being elected in 1990 as the city’s first Hispanic-American mayor.

Although what exactly is being probed remains unclear, Mayor Diaz has confirmed that her administration is indeed cooperating with the investigation, after rumors began swirling this week, alleging widespread visits from FBI agents and the issuing of subpoenas to both former and current city workers.

Some were even visited by investigators at their homes, according to published reports.

Reports published earlier this year, prior to Mr. Vas’ exit from the mayor’s office, stated that city workers were ordered to shred thousands of city documents and papers, following the former mayor’s defeat in the 2008 mayoral election, according to The Asbury Park Press.

But Mr. Vas denied that the papers were being shredded for any nefarious reason, and said that records and documents with electronic back-ups were not prohibited from being shredded.

It has become increasingly evident that officials in Trenton are hellbent on leaving residents on the hook for their boneheaded decision-making.

This most disturbing trend of mismanagement continues at a time when the city faces a potential $27 million budget shortfall that, if unfilled, promises a dramatic tax rate increase for all property owners in the city.

Most recently, an external audit firm official told City Council on Tuesday that the city received a clean audit, despite major discrepancies, in the form of a $16 million grant the city never received from the state and some questionable Public Works time sheet activity.

Solidifying the trend of mismanagement is the fact that over the last month the city and its officers have been named as defendants in no less than three separate and highly avoidable lawsuits. Two center on the former communications director and present police director, Irving Bradley, Jr.

The first was filed by dispatchers who used to work under Mr. Bradley. They allege that Mr. Bradley engaged in racially-charged employment practices and harassment in an effort to drive white employees out of the communications center.

The second suit was filed by a group of residents, including me, over Mr. Bradley's residency status, in renting an apartment in the city while maintaining a family home in Rahway that Mr. Bradley is known to frequent on the weekends.

The director's residency status was consistent with that of dozens of employees the city has fired over the years for non-residency, yet city officials did nothing about Mr. Bradley's apparent violations, which opened the door for another costly round of unnecessary legal battles over residency enforcement.

The sad thing about the lawsuits targeting Mr. Bradley is that the man should not have been employed by the city, in any capacity, due to his being unqualified for the communications directorship in addition to his highly questionable residency status.

If the city’s elected officials had done the right thing and cut him loose, hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs would not be headed into the pockets of expensive, high-class lawyers.

Finally, the outlying townships that rely on water from the Trenton Water Works filed their own lawsuit against the city this week, seeking to put a stop to the recently instituted 40 percent water rate hike.

City Council members dutifully passed the rate ordinance at the behest of officials from the Douglas H. Palmer administration, despite overwhelming evidence of malfeasance regarding the city’s water works budget practices, very public threats of costly lawsuits from the townships, and numerous requests from outside officials for cooperative discussions on the matter.

And now, all these chickens are coming home to roost, and once again, Trenton’s residents will be left holding the bag because of the poor governance of their elected officials.

Some state employees granted the use of vehicles from the state's Central Motor Pool abused the privilege numerous times between 2005 and 2007, according to a report from last year that has become political fodder for state Senate Republicans.

Of interest is that these apparent abuses occur despite the fact that the state uses an intricate policy system to govern the usage of such vehicles. The City of Trenton, which has somewhere around 100 taxpayer-funded vehicles, does not have a single vehicle policy in use at this time.

The state Central Motor Pool consists of approximately 7,600 total vehicles, which cost the state somewhere around $20 million annually, excluding administrative expenses. Some of the governmental entities using the largest amounts of state vehicles include Children and Families, Corrections, and Human Services, at 2,511, 1,092, and 1,016, respectively.

The report - put together by State Auditor's office in late 2007 - demonstrated that at times approximately 10 percent of the vehicles logged gasoline purchases in amounts that exceeded the total capacity of the vehicle's gas tanks, perhaps indicating employees were using their vehicle privileges to purchase items other than gasoline.

Also, nearly 160,000 gallons of expensive gasoline were consumed without appropriate documentation, without indication of what the gas was used for or even which vehicle it went into.

"To me, widespread abuse like this means we should eliminate the majority of state vehicles," said state Sen. Jennifer Beck, R-Monmouth, in a statement. "The oversight of taxpayer funded motor vehicle usage is lax or non-existent."

Also of interest was the fact that the state auditor found that many of these vehicles were making same-day gasoline purchases, indicating the owners were driving the vehicles so frequently that they were draining entire tanks of gasoline in a single workday, requiring additional stops for gas.

If this state report is any indication of the trends in taxpayer-funded vehicle abuses, then it appears that reining in Trenton's motor vehicle pool could be a prime place to look for cost savings in the battle to plug the looming $27 million budget shortfall.

If the government can't take that step, the people sure can.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine's future gubernatorial aspirations could hinge on whether or not the legislature passes a slew of bills called for by the governor earlier this month in an effort to seriously restrict pay-to-play and wheeling, which continue to hamper public opinion of New Jersey government.

It could be a showdown - between the value of real ethics reforms versus control of the governorship - that would certainly be interesting and quite telling for New Jersey residents, who have revealed in recent polls that the corrupt perception of their government weighs heavily on their minds.

Of course, the only real reason that the party in power, the Democrats, might actually face such a conundrum is because of the man Gov. Corzine will likely face off with in 2009.

Whether he means real reform or not, current U.S. attorney and likely Republican candidate for governor Chris Christie will have the support of many a New Jerseyan.

That's because many of us have become quite tired of the endless tales of corruption, whether it be actual cases of criminal activity or the disproportionate influence of money and political bosses on what is supposed to be a democratic process.

People see the corruption cases that Mr. Christie has so successfully prosecuted, and equate that record of success with some sort of unfounded judgment that the ugly practices and dirty government going on right now will somehow stop with Mr. Christie's ascension into Drumthwacket.

But in reality things will probably continue in much of the same way, as they did when Republicans were last in power.

That's why all these calls for blood over the recent government grant revelations made during the ongoing Wayne Bryant trial ring so hollow. As many have written recently, the Republicans have done and would have done exactly the same thing in the same or similar situations.

But regardless of the equally poor ethics records of both major New Jersey parties, when it comes to the 2009 governor's race, Mr. Christie surely has some sort of an advantage over Gov. Corzine, that is, unless the state legislature advances those ethics reform bills, despite whatever negative effect the laws may have on the ability of Democratic bosses to raise funds and solidify power.

Does controlling the governor's office matter enough to power-hungry politicians to sway them into voting to significantly dampen their own ability to hold onto the reins of power?

That is the question.

Trenton residents could take over many of the functions of their city government through what would be similar to the formation of a large, unofficial lower house of city legislature.

That's because the piece of state law governing how this city's government is run, the Faulkner Act, hands Trenton residents the power to initiate their own ordinances or suspend and send them on to City Council, and eventually the ballot, as long as residents successfully collect a certain number of signatures from the registered voters of the city.

This would require the participation of 800 or so registered voters, willing to meeting, communicate, and vote on various ordinances, either proposed by members or taken from the dockets of City Council. Binding votes would mean that all members would have to affix their signatures onto official petitions bearing the ordinances.

With the combined signatures of all members, such a group would assume the power to propose its own legislation and strike down anything proposed by official City Council members or the city administration, with everything going to referendum vote.

The 800 or so number comes from the statute, which dictates that the number of signatures necessary for certain actions. The number is either 10 or 15 percent of the total number of voters who voted in the last election in which state Assembly members were elected.

Due to the depressed economic and social conditions that have become the hallmark of the city under Mayor Douglas H. Palmer, few voters come out to vote for state legislators. The statutory 10 or 15 percent is traditionally a fairly low number.

Sure, it may sound like a rather cumbersome and ineffective way to run the city government, but it sounds a little bit better when compared with the current city government. The people in power now, especially Mayor Palmer, have been so cumbersome and ineffective that they allowed the city's finances to reach the point where Trenton now faces a $27 million budget shortfall.

City residents are looking at what could end up being one of the largest municipal tax rate increase in recent New Jersey history, especially if the sale of outlying Trenton Water Works infrastructure falls through.

Maybe it's time Trenton residents get together and put together a government of their own.

By all accounts, Police Director Irving Bradley Jr. is a big hit with many in the City of Trenton.

He has attended civic gatherings, carried himself well at government meetings, and suggested what appear to be new, innovative ideas. He even seems to be gaining solid acceptance among the rank-and-file of the city’s police force, unlike his predecessor.

That’s why it is so disturbing that the City refuses to elaborate on the director’s living situation, which has been questioned so frequently since Mr. Bradley emerged on the scene last September, at nearly the same time as former director Joseph Santiago was questioned and then ousted over his own non-residency.

That legal battle, over Mr. Santiago, cost the City hundreds of thousands of dollars and painted Mayor Douglas H. Palmer as a mayor dedicated to establishing the power to decide which workers are subject to residency rather than spending time working on the city’s problems.

Now, another director is on the scene who also appears to be breaking the same residency law, and despite the presence of a similar lawsuit that threatens the city’s funds all over again, the only thing Mayor Palmer says is that Mr. Bradley is in compliance.

Such a position loses credibility because of the continued existence of Mr. Bradley’s well-known family residence in Rahway, where the director’s children attend school and where the director has taken City vehicles. He was even seen there, about a month ago.

The city’s established position on residency - based on decades of court rulings - is that employees are not in compliance when they rent an apartment inside the City while occasionally visiting immediate family members who live in a larger, owner-occupied home far away.

But that is exactly what Mr. Bradley appears to be doing, and that type of double-standard, evident in Mr. Santiago’s case and now in Mr. Bradley‘s, is exactly why people like me are suing the city.

It is abhorrent to supporters of democracy when laws apply to most but not to all, because such activity is reminiscent of the shackles of monarchy that Americans fought so hard to throw off in the Revolutionary War, communist Russia, or the segregationist laws that kept people of color down in the South earlier this century.

If this is not the case and Mr. Bradley has some sort of living arrangement or situation in play that makes him in compliance with the law, then it would behoove Mayor Palmer and Mr. Bradley to reveal that information, before the City wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars in an unnecessary court battle with its own residents.

If there is some sort of arrangement that only emerges in court, be it a legal separation or divorce, then it shall prove that the Palmer administration would rather fight a costly court battle with City residents to prove those residents wrong than save City dollars and allow Trenton to move on, under the capable leadership of Mr. Bradley.

Mayor Palmer will likely ignore this request for this cost-saving information, and that’s fine.

But should the court battle continue and facts emerge establishing that once again the mayor has ignored the city’s own, long-established law, then City residents ought to get working on ensuring that someone else takes over following the 2010 election.

Top Trenton officials received pay raises earlier this year despite the city's disastrous fiscal situation, according to South Ward Councilman Jim Coston.

Rumors attesting to this fact were heard months ago, but when no resolutions or ordinances that specifically mentioned the raises appeared on City Council's dockets, many assumed that the raise rumor was just that, a rumor.

But apparently members of the Douglas H. Palmer administration - before warning the city about the closure of city libraries, the laying off of dozens of city workers, and the slashing of municipal services - thought that in handing the city a $27 million budget deficit they had done a good job, and they deserved more money.

Almost equally disturbing as the news of these pay raises was the response that Councilman Coston received when inquiring about how exactly the raises were instituted.

"You voted for them," said one administration official, according to Councilman Coston's Web site.

Let's get this straight. Administration officials received pay hikes while the city's budget is in tatters, and City Council members, the stewards of the city's budget, didn't even know about them?

With instances such as these, it is really no surprise that this city faces such a massive, debilitating budget shortfall. The people who are supposed to be looking out for the interests of the residents at City Hall are apparently asleep at the wheel.

But perhaps all is not lost.

City Council, despite its obvious shortcomings, needs to get its act together immediately, and use its power to investigate this situation and immediately repeal whatever pay raises were handed out to Palmer officials.

Perhaps some deserve these raises, but with the city dealing with such a large budget gap and residents facing a double-digit tax increase, it is hardly the time to be handing out more money.

The city simply cannot afford to do so.

Some say that things are looking up in Camden.

Campbell’s Soup Company recently broke ground on a $90 million, brand-new Camden corporate headquarters, and the state, county, and city governments are sinking an additional $23 million into the area’s infrastructure.

The complex includes an 80,000 square-foot employee services building, as well as 200,000 square feet of office space, to be built on an adjacent parcel and redevelopment site. According to the office of Gov. Jon S. Corzine, the project will retain nearly 1,200 jobs and “anchor the redevelopment of the surrounding area.”

But projects such as these represent minimal, baby-sized steps towards the revitalization of cities, when compared with the single easiest step that the state could take to jump start economic revitalization: end the residency exemption given to firemen, policemen, and teachers.

If these groups were subject to the residency ordinances of New Jersey’s cities, all of these relatively well-compensated workers - numbering in the thousands in each city - would fill in city neighborhoods and help these urban areas take the first steps back towards economic vibrancy and tax revenue self-sufficiency.

Until state legislators take such a drastic step and face off with the powerful unions of teachers, firemen, and police, Camden will remain the same. The nice part of the city, the waterfront, Cooper Street and near City Hall, will remain a bombed-out wasteland of empty hotels, empty storefronts, and empty high-rises – just general emptiness, all because no one lives there.

Even the better-off cities of Newark and Trenton have similar traits. Both have downtowns that adopt the same emptiness once the buzz and din of worker activity stops at the end of the day, and thousands of vehicles flee the cities for the suburbs.

What’s missing is the kind of stable, middle-class population that brings economic activity, property ownership, and a good tax base. These things fled to the suburbs over the last five decades, and with them went the days of prosperity, at least for the vast majority of New Jersey’s cities.

The residency-exempt Civil Service positions could help bring prosperity back. Sure, the unions will kick and scream, but that can be reduced through the establishment of a grandfather clause for current residency-exempt firemen, police, and teachers.

Only new personnel, hired after a certain effective date, should become subject to residency.

To address the certain lack of candidates that may emerge when some downtrodden places like Camden start searching for employees, the state should up the ante, and provide extra salary or compensation to whomever is willing to take the job.

Cities can engage in similar activities, like offering vacant homes or other incentives to residency-required employees.

It may seem excessive to spend extra money to fund such incentives, but the current status of these cities means that nearly all of their municipal and school dollars come from the state, so revitalization through removing residency exemptions becomes a more lucrative tactic.

It is truly a good first step towards bringing cities back from the abyss.

The reasons for supporting the proposed sale of outlying Trenton Water Works infrastructure to a private, foreign-owned company for $100 million just don’t add up, no matter what side you look at.

The folks reviewing the matter have apparently begun taking the same position lately, as evidenced by reports detailing vague feelings of doom on the part of city officials, who are apparently aware of what is going with the deal.

For the City of Trenton, this appears to be a cheap, one-time injection of revenue to shore up a $27 million budget gap caused by years of financial mismanagement. But regardless of the city’s budget problems, it bears remembering the words of wise financiers, who almost always say that selling off a long-term asset to fix a short-term problem is never a good idea.

Even worse than selling of a long-term asset to fix a short-term problem is selling that asset off for less than half of the original price.

That’s apparently what the city faces now, after independent experts told the state that the City of Trenton should only get a little over $50 million for the infrastructure instead of $100 million, because much of it was built by the townships and developers, rather than the city.

Constantly putting forth lame excuses for the deal is Trenton Mayor Douglas H. Palmer, who is always quick to point out that the city will continue to profit from the water infrastructure because the company, New Jersey American Water, has signed an agreement to continue buying water from the city for 20 years or so.

But after that, there is no guarantee that the city will receive any revenue from the outlying infrastructure, especially given the existence of numerous connections to other areas of New Jersey American Water infrastructure that could be used to pump in outside water in the future.

Apparently Mayor Palmer could care less about the city's long-term future.

For the suburban townships surrounding Trenton – which, with Trenton, make up “one family”, according to Mayor Palmer – this deal makes no sense whatsoever. They will be taken over by a company that has just made a $100 million expenditure, which, in addition to other costs, will eventually be recouped, right out of the pockets of ratepayers.

Also, the new company that will be providing them water under the deal has shareholders, pays dividends, and operates as a for-profit venture, unlike the Trenton Water Works.

City officials have said that suburban customers will get a better deal because New Jersey American Water will do a better job of maintaining the infrastructure and providing better service. But that's not so, according to people from other areas where American Water has taken over. They have said that the real trend is almost always a drop-off in service.

Arguments over better regulation are ridiculous as well.

While it is true that the City of Trenton’s rate hikes are not regulated by the state, such regulation is not really a safeguard against significant rate hikes, especially when the company requesting them can demonstrate that they recently spent more than $100 million.

Also, companies like American Water are known to repeatedly ask for exorbitant hikes, knowing the state will grant increases lower than what the company requests. But if a company makes enough of these requests, the end result is the same: higher water rates and poorer ratepayers.

Under the city’s control, rates are hiked by city ordinance. The state may seem like a better bulwarj against unnecessary rate increases, but in reality, if the city continually tried to hike water rates, there would be outcry, both immediately and probably later, at the city ballot boxes.

Also, Trenton citizens wary of exorbitant rate increases could take to the streets and defeat any ordinance effecting a rate increase through a petition drive, which would get the rate hike ordinance on the ballot. It is quite a stretch to imagine city residents voting to pass rate hikes on themselves.

In sum, this is a bad deal for Trenton, a really bad deal for the suburbs, and a good way of seriously damaging relations between the two. The only entity that benefits from such a deal is the Palmer administration, which will be able to plug budget holes for a year or two, until the mayor and his people are safely out of town.

Once again, Trenton will be left holding the bag.

Palmer administration officials warned City Council Tuesday night that help may not be on the way regarding the city’s massive, $27 million budget deficit, because things aren’t looking good with the proposed sale of outlying Trenton Water Works infrastructure to private water company.

Business Administrator Jane Feigenbaum dropped the bombshell as she went over some of the cost cutting measures being instituted by the city. They include the layoff of 80 city workers, the demotions of numerous fire captains, and the canceling of the hiring of additional police officers that was so highly touted by Mayor Douglas H. Palmer during his 2007 State of the City address.

But despite these measures, which some fire and police officials have labeled as a threat to public safety, the city still faces an addition $19 to $20 million budget gap if the aforementioned sale of water infrastructure doesn’t go through.

Given the frequency of tax rate hikes, water rate hikes, and the growth in the cost of government in Trenton prior to this fiscal disaster, a gap of this magnitude seriously calls into question the budget practices utilized by Mayor Palmer, who has been in power for nearly 20 years.

Residents paying for this poorly managed operation, from both the city and outside in the rest of the state, should demand an independent state audit of the city government’s financial dealings. The vast majority of money spent in Trenton is state money anyway, so demanding such action should not require too much heavy lifting or lobbying with state officials.

When it comes to this city's fiscal practices, there is obviously something that is simply not working very well, and it needs to be taken seriously. Such fiscal mismanagement threatens any future renaissance the city could experience in the future, by threatening to bankrupt the city government and force more prohibitive tax hikes onto property owners.

There must be an immediate end to all official perks, including the use of vehicles and gasoline by employees who clearly do not require them. All expensive trips must end, and that should include special training for police officers and other officials and the purely political junkets frequently taken by Mayor Palmer.

Finally, the mayor’s protection detail must be disbanded and folded back into the Trenton Police Department to make up the growing manpower gap.

But, in the end, the best solution of all is brand-new leadership in 2010. The current government is obviously too stupid and too expensive for this city to bear, and it’s time to get a new one.

Trenton could be in even deeper fiscal trouble than it already is.

It appears the proposal to sell outyling Trenton Water Works infrastructure to New Jersey American Water for $100 million could fall through, or be seriously reduced in value, according to industry insiders.

Apparently the valuation process that resulted in the $100 million figure was seriously flawed, and because of that, state staffers could recommend that the state Board of Public Utilities kill the sale outright, or reduce it in value.

The city's valuation firm inappropriately chose to include in the $100 million portions of infrastructure financed by developers and residents in the suburbs surrounding Trenton that was handed over to the city at no charge, and that has proven problematic for the deal.

In most official valuations of this kind such infrastructure should not be included in the sales price, according to testimony given to BPU staff by independent authorities like Howard Woods.

Mr. Woods and others have said the infrastructure belongs to the ratepayers that have rented or purchased the properties serviced by the pipes, pumps, and other water infrastructure and is not Trenton's to sell.

It remains to be seen whether the city would accept a much lower sale price - said to be in the neighborhood of between $50 million and $70 million - but given the city's financial straits, such a firesale of a valuable asset will likely be construed as necessary by city officials like Mayor Douglas H. Palmer.

The city administration was relying on the deal to provide a $20 million infusion of cash into the city's coffers that would help close a massive budget shortfall, but if the deal falls through, the $7 million hole could increase to $27 million.

The city already plans on cutting 150 jobs from the municipal payroll to help deal with the $7 million deficit, but increasing that budget gap by another $20 million would likely result in a nearly catastrophic cut in municipal services.

The City of Trenton will be eliminating around 150 municipal position from the city’s payroll in an attempt to address a $7 million budget shortfall, according to The Times of Trenton.

These layoffs will come at a time when Mayor Douglas H. Palmer apparently thinks it is appropriate to spend thousands of dollars in court defending a employee from a lawsuit that could have been avoided, and the utter hypocrisy of that is astounding.

Even worse, many in this city seem to accept the actions of a mayor who is constantly talking out of both sides of his mouth, especially when it comes to breaking the law, the budget, and unneeded lawsuits.

This particular avoidable lawsuit, like the one that ousted the previous police director, challenges the claim that Mr. Bradley has taken up permanent residency in Trenton, as required by law.

Despite comments from Mayor Palmer and misleading stories in the local media, the claim that Mr. Bradley established permanent residency in Trenton is something that nearly everyone in Trenton knows to be false.

Remember that Mr. Bradley was first caught with a city vehicle at his old family home in Rahway. Then he was involved in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike, nearly 30 miles outside the city at a point on the most direct route from Rahway to Trenton. Finally, he was caught at the home again, fully a year after he and his family should have moved into the capital city as required by law.

In trying to help out his favorite mayor, Trentonian columnist L.A. Parker wrote a story detailing how Mr. Bradley produced a state driver’s license and a rental agreement, which was purported to somehow demonstrate that Mr. Bradley is a bona fide Trenton resident and that people challenging that claim are foolish and misguided.

Apparently Mr. Parker – and City Council for the matter – have forgotten that simply renting an apartment and changing personal documents to reflect that information is not enough when it comes to residency. That is clearly established by decades of law that everyone who supports Mr. Bradley’s appointment seems to have forgotten.

But the actions of Mayor Palmer and his officials demonstrates that at least they are aware of what residency means. They fired dozens of employees for residency, and many of them had similar or equivalent living situation to what Mr. Bradley is currently claiming.

These employees rented apartments, changed their driver’s licenses and voting records, and made other changes to make it look like they were following the law. The Palmer administration successfully prosecuted nearly all of them.

Until recently, the City of Trenton never supplied funding for an employee’s legal defense for such things as residency violations, and especially not for employees who face significantlegal problems like Mr. Bradley. He is already the subject of another lawsuit for allegedly pursuing a “racialist” agenda when he worked in the city Communications Division.

But now, when the budget is broken and the city cannot afford unnecessary expenditures, Mayor Palmer and City Council have thrust another man into the police director’s position who does not meet the requirements of bona fide residency, again opening the city up again to taxpayer-funded legal challenges.

What is says is quite clear.

Such an action means that Mayor Palmer would rather fight a costly and unnecessary battle in court against his own constituents than be forced to follow the city’s residency law and appoint a real city resident to the police director’s position.

That’s a pretty sad situation for Trenton to be in.

Members of the Trenton Residents Action Coalition stand for the rule of law and the betterment of Trenton, and do not conspire with anonymous and perhaps even nonexistent police who may or may not be racists.

Yet some in Trenton have been taking a ridiculous, contrary position and have been pushing it lately, on the pages of local newspapers, on the airwaves, and in the chambers of City Hall.

This happens because TRAC members and the plaintiffs who sued and successfully ousted former Police Director Joseph Santiago, a man of Hispanic heritage, have now sued his black successor, Irving Bradley Jr., over what the group believes is a similar residency infraction.

Because of the color of the skin of these two men, and not the motives of TRAC, the group is now being painted as some sort of "supremacy" group. Apparently the only defense left to supporters of Mayor Palmer is making vague reference to racial motivations.

The basis for these accusations is a worldview that holds that the Trenton Police Department, prior to the institution of a civilian director in 1999, was led by white chiefs and the infamous "good ol' boys network", which was apparently unsympathetic to the city's black residents, according to some in the city.

Now, because TRAC took a contradictory position on his views about residency, Mayor Palmer's supporters have made public statements that TRAC is somehow hellbent on ignoring the city's demographics and pursuing a "whites-first" agenda for the leadership of the police department based on the aforementioned "good ol' boys network".

The only basis for this, however faulty, is that some anonymous police officers have publicly supported TRAC and the ouster of the former director. TRAC is somehow associated with the views of these unnamed officers, according to Mayor Palmer's supporters, but such arguments gain little traction with reasonable persons.

Quite simply, TRAC's 15 or so members have no control over the opinions of the people who express support for the group's activities, just as the people advocating for the funding of the city's libraries remain unassociated with the self-described Bloods gang member who recently supported their cause at a City Council meeting.

Sen. Barack Obama has been publicly endorsed by despicable terrorist organizations, yet no reasonable person can construe that such an event is an indication of Sen. Obama's personal views on terrorism.

In fact, the truth is just the opposite when it comes to TRAC. Its members take the position that racism and bigotry have no place anywhere in America, and especially not in Trenton.

Despite TRAC's public positions, Mayor Palmer's supporters have continued to fan the flames of racial tensions for cheap political gain. But for good, reasonable people, it is quite easy to look right through such political smoke and see that TRAC's only goal, like many other city organizations, is a better government and a better Trenton.

Let it be known once and for all that TRAC condemns the views of racist individuals of any ethnicity. This author pledges strong support for having a person of color as the city's civilian director, as long as that person is a qualified, bona fide resident of the city.