It's been quite a week here in our fair city. I don't even think I can
capture the insanity of it all, but I'll try to give you a bit of a
peek into what happens when an entire city divides over money. You
know, the root of all evil? Money, where some of the people have way
more than enough, and some of the people have a lot less than they
need. Money, which divides our city geographically, with the North
being the less well endowed (monetarily, at least) and the South being
where much of the Big Money resides. But not all of it. It's all an
impression, anyhow.
So let's see what's been happening this week.
First,
we have an override campaign in full swing. What's an override
campaign? Oh goodness me, it goes way back to the 1980's when a certain
bitch from Marblehead decided that she paid too much in state taxes and brought
forth a law called Proposition 2.5,
very similar to California's Proposition 13. The law states that the
cities and towns cannot raise property taxes by more than 2.5% per year
without an override vote. This vote means the entire town has to come
out to approve any tax increase over the 2.5% raise per year. Since
inflation alone gobbles up more than the 2.5% per year, cities and
towns in MA have been slowly but surely cutting services they can no
longer afford. Services for veterans, children, the handicapped, the
poor, the elderly, the roads, the buildings, the entire state
infrastructure. You name it, we can no longer afford it.
In our
city the fire stations and falling apart. They are in horrid disrepair.
Plus the firefighters are at war with the Mayor over a stupid mayoral
policy about sick days, and so the Mayor has effectively reduced the
fire department to an unsafe size. We've gotten rid of a lot of the
po-po (no great loss as far as I'm concerned), our bridges are falling
down, our school buildings are in such serious need of repair that we
are in trouble with state inspectors. Our city hall itself is in pretty
poor shape with a leaky roof and peeling plaster.
Needless to
say, our city desperately needs an override. The money the Mayor is
asking for, $12 million, is designated mostly for upgrading the
schools. They need it, everyone in the city agrees that some schools
are literally bursting at the seams from overcrowding while the school
bathrooms are falling apart, the ceilings contain asbestos and lord
only knows what else, and the roofs are leaking. We need to repair
these buildings.
BUT... the city, in it's ultimate bizarro
decision, also voted to rebuild one of our two high schools. Not only
did they decide to rebuild, they hired architect Graham Gund, a
famous residential/commercial architect who has never designed a school
building. Yes, his buildings are gorgeous. No argument here. But he
designed a building for our new high school that is literally an homage
to a VERY unpopular Mayor, with glass walls and a big zig zag design
that will be very difficult to heat and air-condition. A design many
people (myself included) thought was way over the top and way too
expensive.
The
city was so divided over the rebuilding of the high school that we held
a vote just a year ago, and the people (not me) voted to use Gund's
site plan and design. Sigh. So we're building the most expensive high school in Massachusetts at a whopping $197 million,
but not by ANY means the most expensive high school in the country,
despite what claims are made by the folks against any tax override/hike.
OK, with me so far?
So
we have two sides, the people that are rabid Mayor haters and see a
conspiracy behind every door. And the rest of us, who aren't happy with
the Mayor but believe that improvements to the city's infrastructure
are desperately needed.
Back to the override campaign. Again,
the city is divided. The No voters, the people who would rather pull
out their own teeth rather than to pay one more cent in taxes, are
totally up in arms about allowing the Mayor another $12 million to
"mismanage." The Yes voters believe that the Board of Alderman (BOA)
along with the Mayor will use this money to fix the damn schools and fire stations.
Meanwhile, the city is getting major bad press in the Globe and the Herald and
the whole state is laughing at us because we're seen as this richy-rich
suburb that doesn't want to fix anything, while the Mayor is being
portrayed as a total buffoon. Pretty accurately, IMO.
This week, the Mayor, in what can be seen as the worst case of bad timing ever, decides that he's going to increase his salary along with the salaries of many other city employees. OMG, you cannot believe the fallout. This got NATIONAL attention.
Now there is background to this. In 2005 the Mayor was granted a salary
increase by the BOA, which he declined. And declined again every year.
He's only paid $87K to manage over 3000 employees in a city of ~90K
residents. He's not only not near the top of the highest paid city
employees, he's really poorly paid compared to other Mayors in
comparable towns. So he decided that he would take the increase this
week.
And the shit hit the fan!
Now, in all fairness to
our Mayor, I believe that he should be making more. And the deal is,
his pension is based upon the last three years of employment, so
raising his salary for the last 2 years of his gig makes total sense
for his pension protection.
But try and tell that the the malcontents.
Then they Mayor backed down and said he would NOT take the pay raise.
Hysteria ensued.
The
local paper challenged the Mayor to say he would not run for another
term (he has a year left) in order to get the override passed.
Then we all sat and waited.
State employees also asked the Mayor to step aside. As did members of the BOA.
This morning the Mayor held a press conference and said that he would not run for re-election.
Following
this statement, the malcontents started on the city blog, saying that
it was a 'trick' and that voting No on the override is the only way to
get a message through to the Mayor. They don't seen to understand that
we're not talking about the Mayor suffering, we're talking about the
city workers, the children in schools, the firefighters.
Yes,
it has been a very busy week in town. Every citizen I know is talking
about our local politics much more than the national election. It's
been so exciting and crazy here, we just about forgot there even IS a
national election. We're all for Obama anyhow! Except the malcontents.
They're Republicans. What a shock, eh?
