The Mayor’s New Clothes
By Nicholas Mercier | CPOA President at May 31, 2024 | 8:30 am | Print
In the classic folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, first published in 1837, a vain Emperor is tricked by two tailors. The tailors claimed they would weave him a wondrous set of clothes from a fabric so magnificent that it would be invisible to those who were unworthy of seeing it. In our modern version Mayor Tim O’Brien plays both the role of the Emperor and tailors. The clothes he has spun for the citizens of this city many threads so splendid they are impossible to believe.
They include a budget with revenue predictions with no basis in reality, fees and fines that have doubled or more, bonding proposals which have been promised to solve all our problems, and a promise of “no new taxes” that no one I’ve talked to believes to be true. When anyone criticizes this budget the Mayor has responded incredulously. He has repeatedly claimed that his budget is balanced. He is as devious as the tailor’s claiming that anyone unable to see the “fabric” is obviously too stupid or ignorant.
However, just as the young boy in the folktale declared the Emperor was naked, there have been people willing to stand up to the Mayor’s insults and point out that he and his budget are naked lies. Finally it seems that the spell the Mayor has woven over the citizens and the Common Council is beginning to unravel. Just last week several members of the Common Council’s Admin and Finance Subcommittee asked direct and pointed questions of the city’s acting finance director.
Unfortunately it was Director Becky Salerni in the hot seat before the Common Council, and not O’Brien himself. She couldn’t tell the council what she truly thought. I am sure that all department heads have been told not to answer questions regarding the Mayor’s inflated revenue projections. But I am confident that she, like everyone else in the city, doesn’t believe that the Mayor has any basis for his projections.
The Common Council needs to hold the Mayor himself accountable for his numbers, after all he came up with them. In their department requests every department put forward what they thought would be a realistic expectation for revenues. In the Mayor’s proposed budget he raised every single line, seemingly without consulting those departments. That means the Mayor needs to answer these questions. If he can’t then the Common Council should stand up to him and call his budget what it truly is, it is the only responsible thing to do.
Nicholas Mercier is a member of the Citizens’ Property Owners Association of New Britain. Once a month he writes a column concerning issues facing the group.
