We deserve an explanation — and a solution

 


 My Dear Columbia,

One does so hate to be the bearer of bad news, but someone must pick up the pen when the borough's affairs have once again curdled like cream left out too long. Gather close, dear readers, for there is much to discuss and precious little of it is flattering.

After a mere four months in the officially minted role of borough manager, Mr. Jack Brommer has announced his resignation, leaving the town to wonder whether the ink on his contract had even finished drying.

This is a gentleman who was received with accolades, handed a six-figure income complete with benefits, and provided with not one but two consecutive part-time assistants to ease his transition, a courtesy so generous one might have mistaken him for visiting royalty.

One suspects a rather tidy payout awaits him on his way out the door, a parting gift the town can scarcely afford, particularly since the council president has already confessed the borough's coffers are bare.

With Mr. Brommer's exit dissolving a partnership with Mayor Lutz that has endured for over a decade, one cannot help but observe that this presents Mr. Lutz with the opportunity for the most graceful of exits. Timing, dear readers, is everything, and this opportunity practically begs to be seized.

The public, ever trusting and ever patient, accepted Mr. Brommer into his post without a flicker of doubt, and now finds itself owed an explanation it will almost certainly never receive due to the ongoing silence of officialdom. Officials, will likely retreat behind "personnel matters," that convenient rug, under which all manner of nonsense may be swept.

However, in a moment of candor, the borough council president, through his public postings, has all but admitted there are internal problems a-brewing.

One now shudders to imagine officials scouring their address books for an old friend, or perhaps a relative of a relative, to slot conveniently into the vacancy, as has been the custom in the past. But such appointments, history assures us, often end badly, and abruptly. It is merely a question of which particular flavor of badly and abruptly we shall be treated to this time.

And as we are now also without a finance manager and no money, the situation, dear readers, is DIRE. Someone must, at long last, take responsibility for this fiasco.

Something is sick at the core of our local government, and one need not be a physician to diagnose dysfunction when the symptoms present themselves so plainly and so often.

Perhaps the moment has arrived for a rather thorough cleaning. A clean sweep, if you will. Surely these are not such radical demands from a town that only asks to be governed with something resembling competence and transparency. 

A CONCERNED Observer of Columbia's Affairs,

With Love,  

Cassandra

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