The milestone has been reached and breached, and Hizzoner Unca Dennis has not been impeached. Not formally, anyway.
Impugned, mebbe. Even importuned. And in the strictest sense of the word, yeah, his credibility has been questioned and accusations have flown. But official impeachment? No such thing under the T-Town charter.
To put it mildly, it’s been a chaotic First Hundred Days of the D. Mikey Collins administration.
Flippin’ and floppin’
It began long before raising his calloused right hand in January. Soon after election, our Unca Dennis swore that his administration would be disciplined, transparent and ever-so-loyal to our fair metropolis. So much so that he foreswore ever using any airport other than our good ol’ Toledo espresso as he sauntered off to meetings and conferences for newbie mayors.
Apparently someone reminded him that passenger service out of T Express is a bit, shall we say, limited. Within moments of his homer announcement he was blithely corrected by FOCer (Friend of Carty) and then-as-now Chief of Staff Herr Reinbolt. Now Hizzoner has a more nuanced policy. His administration will use T espresso when it is cost efficient and convenient; while the crick stays within its banks and the moon is in the seventh house. Which translates to just north of never unless they durned well feel like it.
This dizzying flip flop was merely a portent of things to come, especially as the budget battle with Council loomed. Consider the revelation that there would be no money to open city owned pools for the summer. Mebbe money could be jimmied from the Police Athletic League coffers to do the job? No, the Police Enforcement Trust Fund could be raided. Wait, that might not be an allowable use of these funds, so mebbe we can pay some other expenses that way and shift the money over here, a little over there, a drib here, a drab there, three card Monte style?
Put another way, the most dreaded two words in the governmental lexicon. Trust us.
Of course, Unca Dennis made good on his pledge to reopen the Northwest District Police Station, to the tune of more money than one could count. In doing so, he effectively broke another key pledge, that of reducing the amount of cash scooped up from the roads funds and poured into the general fund. In fact, his budget shifted the exact same amount from hither to yon as the budget of his election opponent, then-Mayor Mikey P. Bellbottoms.
The rest of the budget was similarly all whackadoo. Unca Dennis seemed unable to figure out whether the numbers his own administration proposed actually balanced. He scolded City Council for believing the surplus his budget predicted actually existed. “There is no surplus!” he thundered, contradicting the budget breakdown he had provided mere minutes before.
Council should have known better because of vague musings about undiscovered expenses, according to Hizzoner. Put another way, the most honest thing you’ll never find in the governmental lexicon. Don’t trust us.
Hot on the heels of this budget balderdash, Hizzoner seemed willing to consider the ill-defined plan to privatize the Toledo airports. A committee meeting was scheduled by Councilman Rob Who? deman to hear from the investment broker Dock Treece (and sons). Then it was canceled. Then Unca Dennis called a press conference declaring his sudden but staunch opposition to such shenanigans. We can’t go around jeopardizing federal grants, he said, and threatening the 180th Air National Guard Fighter Wing, and blah, and blah. Flip, flop, and fly.
Can’t give ‘em credit
Now the latest. Seems Bellbottoms and his staff were quite the profligate spenders on the public dime through fast and furious use of City credit cards. Unca Dennis is hoppin’ mad, citing squalid and sundry questionable charges.
Until many and most of them were explained as reasonable. Never one to let the truth get in the way of his vein-popping tirades, Hizzoner was unphased. Flowers shall never again be purchased with a teensy weensy smidgen of the City budget! Gas will never again be purchased with plastic on steroids, as he so oddly called the card purchases by the Bellbottoms bilge rats!
City employees simply can’t be trusted with credit cards, so Unca Dennis has canceled their use. Caish will carry the day and wait for reimbursement later.
Remember that the people who had the credit cards in the previous administration are long gone from One Guvmint Center and back to private life. So the folks Unca Dennis now sez we shouldn’t trust with public monies are him and his own administration.
On this, we say, “Trust him!”
