After reading today's L.A. Parker's column three times, I offer some advice to my fellow Trentonians. (1) Forget where a candidate was born, raised, educated; (2) Ask what the candidate has been doing since reaching adulthood - successful?; (3) Ask what the plan is to solve the financial problems (and don't accept some vague, let's be prosperous again bullshit); (4) Check closely to find out if the candidte is strong enough to play hardball with the police (and I mean hardball). The next mayor of Trenton should understand money - income, outgo, credit, debit, debt - everything. And should be willing to tell us, the Trentonians, "Don't ask for anything because there is no money." The mayor of Trenton should have the spine* to tell the police, "We can no longer afford this Cadillac contract. We can afford a bicycle contract, but that's all." As I've said so many times, we have to live on bread and water for awhile, and the bread will be stale and moldy. Until we accept that, nothing will change. We also need a mayor who will stop whining to the state - yeah, Trenton is the state capital. Trenton is also the county seat, but I never hear anyone bitching and moaning about the county not helping us. Policing, for an example. And we must stop the blame game. We are all at fault, yes, we the Trentonians, because so much happened, but we said nothing. We did nothing. We elected the same man for five terms straight. Then we elected our current mayor because he's charming. He's great on the campaign trail. He's generous with ice cream for the kids. The past is prologue. We know what the problems are. Who created them really doesn't matter. What does matter, how are we going to solve them?
*I use this word because it's gender neutral; if I were a sexist, I would use the word, "balls."
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