Gambling the city away
You almost have to feel sorry for Mayor Murphy. He gets blasted--and rightly so--for ramming a budget through City Council in 2003 that relied on nonexistent tax revenues. So now what happens? The state-appointed oversight board that is supposed to right the city's sinking fiscal ship rejects Murphy's five-year budget plan--because it failed to include $17.6 million in gambling revenues that don't yet exist. It's almost enough to make you laugh--unless you are a city resident like me, in which case it makes you want to curl into a fetal ball and sob.
posted by Jonathan Potts at
8:28 PM
5 Comments:
No free pass for Tom Murphy. You can't feel sorry for him. This phony budget comes after TWO prior years when the budget was simply illegal.
Think again!
Turn up the heat. He has to resign. That is the first step to healing this city.
9:05 AM
I'm with Mark: Murphy has to go.
He has starved the neighborhoods and bankrupted the city. Even his closest confidants, Mulu Birru, Sal Sirabella, and Steve Leeper have fled like rats off a sinking ship.
And when the going got really tough, what was the first thing Murphy did? Why, close those budgetary black hole known as senior citizen centers, keeping grandma from her bingo. It was a desperate ploy to whip up public ire against state government, shifting blame away from his own failed economic policies.
When you call 911 and get put on hold, something is wrong and it ain't too many school crossing guards.
Murphy needs to move on and find his life's work, maybe as dog catcher of Jackson Township, Butler County.
2:28 PM
It should be clear from previous posts on these issues that my expression of sympathy with the mayor was rooted in sarcasm.
3:20 PM
I would go for more schradenfreude (I wish I could spell better) for the one time that Murphy chooses not to either defer a problem, count on a deux ex machina or rely on the magic money fairy, he gets slapped down because he is supposed to rely on the magic money fairy.
12:02 PM
If only we could pay the city's bills with irony and hypocrisy.
12:52 PM
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