Big Mac Suffering In Silence

Health is precious, and you only understand how true that is when someone close becomes sick or injured and the healing process interrupts their usual life events. In Tom’s case, he probably has enough sick days to recover according to physician instructions.

My advice to Tom might be to STOP, LOOK & LISTEN while you have this time available. STOP relates to talking to cover the immediacy of actions in which he has been involved that unnecessarily hurt others, especially those with less power. Andy mentions the situation of Tom White. As much as I have claimed City Council members are overtasked in Committee responsibilities as well as representing constituents, I have also stated they are undertrained and understaffed. That means Tom McCarthy pulled the plug on their one and only employee dedicated to serving City Council members. And how did he pull the plug?

Well, he did not attend the Legislative Department meeting that some CC found troubling for the questions Tom White raised. Curiously there was no public stenographer present at that meeting either. So we need to depend on the abilities of Bob Curwen who posted minutes that are at significant variance to notes and memories of the public members who were there. Tom, why was there no stenographer at this and two other B&A meetings in the days before the CC vote? What’s the story? Take your time and write it down so all may know. (Saving money doesn’t cut it by the way, because the multiple meals ordered show frugality is not the CC style!) And how did the idea of eliminating a ‘live’ position by unfunding evolve and get into the City calculations if not because of you? Do you remember this unfunding was the only one not reviewed (or approved) by B&A and not even known by every Council member on May 7?

LOOK at the minutes of that meeting and of all of the B&A hearings this year, and connect the dots to show the CC members understood how many “ghost positions” were present and yet how few they eliminated, and see where you showed any caring about this subject through words or actions. LOOK at the failure of your Mayor to provide your Council with regular monthly fiscal reports and with training to request better reports (as used by other cities, businesses and non-profits in this area) to perform fiscal analysis, and ask why you as President have allowed that to continue. And where was your leadership on simple matters like Sikorsky Airport where a facility that broke even when Fabrizi was Mayor is allowed to continue with 13 employees and a $300,000 deficit, and no one asks why? So the tax increase charade is ultimately modified, less by eliminating real expenses (like Tom White compensation or the other Legislative Department salary that was a “ghost” for several years) than by increasing some revenue items that require very careful watching in the 2013 budget year. It is easy to “assume” and project at budget time, but if they are overstated, the discrepancy needs to be faced ultimately.

And LISTEN Tom, as a few of us do who attend your meetings with some regularity. Take yourself to the other side of the railing in the City Council Chamber. As a matter of fact, stand where the video camera is and LISTEN to a CC meeting. Do you hear the sound of great governance? Do you hear addresses that grab the attention of the people in the gallery? Or do you only hear the sterile words of Robert’s Rules of Order processing a consent calendar? Or the giggling and joking of elected representatives, perhaps a little embarrassed at the way these meetings are orchestrated?

There is danger in crossing RR tracks. That is the reason for STOP, LOOK and LISTEN. There is a danger, Tom, in the way local Bridgeport governance culture ignores conflicts of interest, limits citizen rights to know in various fashions, and rations discussion time and energy about ongoing public matters. When the power of speech returns to you, and I hope it does, will you use it to better effect than observed this spring? Time will tell.