Siobhan Reardon and Michael Nutter: Bullshit Artists and Bullies
The saga of the arrogant fool continues:
Mayor Nutter, responding this morning to a judge’s refusal to overturn her order blocking the city from closing 11 branch libraries, praised her and pounded the seven library plaintiffs and three City Council members who won that legal victory last week. Nutter painted three options presented this morning to Common Pleas Court Judge Idee Fox by the city as “compromises” in a difficult financial situation.
“I am astounded at the complete unwillingness by the plaintiffs to even discuss a compromise,” Nutter said after Fox met with attorneys for both sides this morning and then rejected the city’s motion to reconsider her ruling from last Tuesday. The city had asked Fox to either reverse that ruling, allow the closures to happen while the city appeals to the state Commonwealth Court or give the city three weeks to “drastically” scale back staffing and schedules at every library branch in the city.
So it’s the patrons who won’t compromise?? Give me a break, Mayor Nutter! You’re the one who told the city the libraries will be closed permanently. You’re the one who set himself up to be slapped by telling every single neighborhood whose time you wasted with your phoney-baloney town-hall meetings that you would not under any circumstances adjust your plan or actually listen to the community. You’re the one that forced a court case, and now that you’re the loser, you want to blame everyone but yourself. You’re a bullshit artist and a bully, and I don’t know why anyone would take you seriously anymore.
Maybe it’s all that time you spent as a municipal bond salesman, hobnobbing with the wealthy and CEOs, but you are clearly out of touch with ordinary Philadelphians, many of who don’t have internet access, or can’t afford to subscribe to netflix, or drive to the mall to buy brand-new books.
[And as an aside, I followed my own advice this weekend and got my own damn library card, which I have to admit I had sadly overlooked. Now instead of paying netflix for the latest season of The Wire, I get to watch it for free. God bless the public library!]
And now, having lost badly, the Mayor intends to punish library users by cutting hours back drastically at all of the branches to about 3 days a week: that’s totally in character for a man who would choose to permanently close libraries in response to a temporary crisis, and one who is so sure of his own rectitude he claims that “city controller Alan Butkovitz’s plan to save the city almost half a billion dollars is more of a publicity stunt than a blueprint for success.” But who can believe the mayor now, when the numbers he’s provided for library closing are under dispute, and his own budget director says that after the cuts, we’ll have a $40 million surplus ($32 million if we keep the libraries)? What’s the phrase lawyers use? Lie about one thing, lie about everything.
Indeed, Amy Dougherty, who leads the friends of the Free Library says that no other city agency is taking such cut. in fact, she says “I believe there is a bloated middle management and upper management, many of who are librarians who could go back to the branches.” Who are you gonna trust? The guy who’s fudging the numbers and locking the public out of decisions that permanently affect the whole city, or a woman who leads a volunteer group that has spent decades supporting the library?
Meanwhile Siobhan Reardon tries on the role of bully herself:
We will not be able to use overtime after this weekend to get the libraries open when there is a shortage.
We expect that there will be at least 20 libraries that will be challenged to open during this coming week due to staffing shortages
Senior staff are in the process of putting together plans, for the Trustees to review, which will reduce days of service system-wide. This will be necessary in order to comply with the judge’s order and set up a sustainable service model. We believe it will be a combination of 4 and 3 days across the system for now.
…and is met with jeers in comments, from actual Philadelphians who have lived here for more than Reardon’s 3-month residency, and know how to call bullshit:
Posted by CleanupPhilly 05:39 PM, 01/05/2009
Or, the city can collect and foreclose on the $522 million in overdue, unpaid property taxes to fund the $40 million total library cost of operation. Why does Ms. Reardon “have to restore the budget for library materials” when she needs money for staff? That makes no sense either. Again, this sounds like more gamesmanship than actual attempts to solve problems.
Posted by snevets 07:09 PM, 01/05/2009
Excuse me, Ms. Siobhan Reardon, instead of threats to reduce city-wide library services because you can’t get your own way to shutter the 11 libraries originally on the cutting board, why don’t you attempt to redirect your energies and flex your influence to REAPPROPRIATE the $30 million set aside by city and state funds originally earmarked to build the new Central Library Annex at 1901 Vine Street? Instead, this money could be appropriated to keep the existing community libraries intact??? Also, you previously indicated in the press that your department plans to build two NEW REGIONAL libraries in South and West Philadelphia! Listen to what you’re “feeding” us….threats to lay off staff if you can’t shut the 11 libraries WHILE, unbelievably, planning to expand and build new libraries! Where’s the common sense? Where’s the leadership?
Posted by John Scanlon 09:16 AM, 01/06/2009
Ms. Reardon- when did you cease being an advocate for libraries? What made you stop? Were you ever an advocate for libraries? Do you really think it is ok for students without home internet to travel 4 miles a day to complete school assignments? Ms. Reardon- please consider the human costs involved in Mr. Nutter’s library decisions.
We are faced with an intransigent mayor, who clings to bad ideas that hurt our city with the tenacity of a lamprey. Now, more than ever, Philadelphians need to call (harass if necessary) their reps on city council and demand that they keep our libraries open.
The Mayor needs to realize what Marc Stier eloquently points out at YPPm:
In the few weeks we have seen a dramatic outpouring of civic energy and spirit. Those of us who have been community and political activists for years in Philadelphia were not surprised by it. We have seen that spirit time and again in one setting after another—in town watches; in volunteers working to renovate public parks, recreation centers, and playgrounds; in campaigns to save historic buildings; in efforts to insure that new development fit our communities; in long meetings to develop plans for the Delaware River waterfront; in struggles to increase education funding; in a citizen run referendum on casinos; and in a fight to protect tax breaks for working people and in many other settings.
And all this energy and spirit has broken through in a political culture that does not welcome of citizen activism at all….
Liberal democracy at its best is not government by elected monarchs or councilors who make decisions among themselves, in private, and who then announce the decisions to us. It is government in which those decisions are openly debated and reviewed before and after the fact and in which political officials take part in those discussions.
We have not really had that kind of government in Philadelphia for a very long time. For reasons and in ways I will explain in a post on my blog, we have had a political culture in which decisions are made behind closed doors and in which our public debate, when it took place at all, was essentially a farce—-a song and dance by electeds and appointeds that was meant to give the impression of real democratic interchange but that had nothing really to do with how the government worked or why it did what it did….
Mayor Nutter’s reliance on experts has actually added to the problem. For now it is not just contempt for those outside the inner circle of politics that leads to opaque, secretive government. That contempt is still there. But it is reinforced by the assumption on the part of the administration officials that they know so much more than the rest of us.
If the Mayor continues along this self-destructive path, I predict a massive backlash should he decide to run again. Stop trying to steamroll the citizens of this great city Mr. Nutter. Stop acting like you’re better than the rest of us. Stop playing games with the numbers, and start dealing honestly and openly with us, like you promised when you were a candidate.
The scales are falling from the eyes of your constituents, especially in the working class neighborhoods. Sooner or later, this Samson is going to wake up and bring down your temple.
January 6th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Yo B–thanks for keeping us up to speed on this issue. i am so bitterly disappointed with our new mayor. What a betrayal. It is understandable if a public official must make painful choices but Nutter’s stance during this whole thing has been shameful. I love Lovett Library in Mt. Airy–i take my kids there once a week–WTF is Nutter thinking?
Don’t let up. I think the work you and others have done have kept this issue alive.
Thanks
January 6th, 2009 at 8:51 pm
[...] Siobhan Reardon and Michael Nutter: Bullshit Artists and Bullies The saga of the arrogant fool continues: Mayor Nutter, responding this morning to a judge’s refusal to overturn her order blocking the city from closing 11 branch libraries, praised her and pounded the seven library plaintiffs and three City Council members who won that legal victory last week… [...]
January 7th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
[...] Siobhan Reardon and Michael Nutter: Bullshit Artists and Bullies [...]
January 7th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
[...] Senior staff are in the process of putting together plans , for the Trustees to review, which will reduce days of service system-wide. This will be necessary in order to comply with the judge’s order and set up a sustainable service …[Continue Reading] [...]
January 12th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
[...] Original post by Brendan [...]