Beacon Hill bailing out Lawrence
The lines in the sand are drawn, if Lawrence wants the 35 million in bailout money from the State,newly elected Mayor and State Rep William Lantigua must resign his State Rep seat. Under pressure from Deval and the R's the State Rep is collecting two salaries for two jobs, 100,00 for being Mayor and 61,000 for his State Rep job. Part of the requirements Beacon Hill has put on the deal, is that Lawrence hire a financial overseer at a salary of 120,000 a year to oversee the money spent.
This guy has singled handily made the case for part time legislators and I hope he doesn't resign his House seat until he is forced out. As many of you already know, most House Reps have other jobs and incomes and the Mayor is going to make more trouble for those who insist on him leaving.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 11:01 AM
9 Comments
9 Comments:
Maybe a state rep is a part time job, but being the mayor of a city in financial trouble is NOT a part time job. He can not do both. Seems like that should be clear to anyone with a brain in their head. He has to give one job up and I applaud the state house for insisting that he do that.
I don’t often disagree with you Jim, but I do on this. As a mayor, this guy has to be available 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, for any issue that may require his attention in Lawrence. He can not do that if he is also required to be at the state house to cast a vote. What if there is an instance where he has to be at both locations? He only does one as that is all he can do, but he is paid for doing both. It does not work that way. Other reps may have other jobs, I won’t argue that point with you. But I will say if they miss a vote at the state house because they were working there other job, that I would raise a stink over. This guy is double dipping, and he is doing that into a pot funded by my money, sorry, I just don’t agree with that.
This idiot ran for the position of mayor in a city going bankrupt, with apparently no plan on how to prevent that from happening expept to hold his hand out for the state and his fellow reps at the state house to bail him out. What did this guy do before running for political office, work for AIG?
I think the real issue is bailing out a city that has been financially mismanaged. New mayor may solve the problem, but based on what I consider this guys greedy, self-serving attitude, I doubt he is going to fix anything. I am all for the requirement that they hire someone to manage the money since I have no faith this guy would do anything more than be sure as much as possible ends up in his pocket.
I know you think the state rep job is part time, and I am not saying I disagree with that. But I do agree with my fellow bloggers here that the mayor’s job is a full time job, and one that requires more than a M-F 9-5 schedule. This guy can not be allowed to treat both of these jobs as part time and as his own personal gravy train. He needs to quit one or the other, his choice which one that is. By that way, it is stupid fiscal choices like the one he is making here, taking salaries from 2 jobs, that have put Lawrence in a position where they are going bankrupt. I think they guy should be impeached for being such a financial incompetent anyway.
So we require they hire a someone at $120,000 a year to oversee the money we give the city? That does not sound exactly above board to me. Why are they setting a salary without having any idea what they need to pay in this economy. I am a VERYexperienced CPA who is out of work and would be thrilled to take on this job, and willing to do it for a lot less than $120,000 a year at this point. I would think in Lawrence there are CPA’s willing to work for even less than me. This smells to me like they are creating a job for someone they know to fill. Havent’t we been down this road before with this governor?
How much bailing out are we going to do before we make people accountable for their own bad judgements. We either should bail out nobody, or everybody. I don’t see no one looking to bail me out of the poisiton I am in so why should my money be bailing out the city of Lawrence?
I can’t believe you are backing this guy Jim. Really, how can you think this is ok for him to be collecting 2 paychecks from the state, and his city is betting bail out money, some of which will be used to pay one of those salaries?
Let me be clear about this... there is no law forbidding a State Rep from also being a Mayor and collecting two salaries. He was elected by the people as both Mayor and State Rep in separate elections. No one... from either side balked at this before.. .it's only now, the R's have come out and condemned him for not being at the hearing yesterday on the Hill, where the 35 million in loan guarantees by the State was heard.
The Mayor could not testify on behalf of his city, because of conflict of interest, but most of the important people from Lawrence were there.
Refusing the loan guarantee will only hurt the residents of Lawrence. The Mayor in less than a few weeks has already taken steps to get control of the cities finances, which were already in dire straights, as Lawrence is one of the poorest cities with the highest unemployment in the State.
Missing a vote on the Hill... folks, there are a bunch of reps who consistently miss votes and a small group who's attendance records fall below 70%.
Double dipping was supposedly taken care of in the recent ethics overhaul, but as we know now, ethics reforms, EXCLUDED, all elected officials at the State level.
The legislature is a part time job and should be paid part time salary. Being a Mayor is truly full time job in a city this size. But no one has been forced to give up their law practice, joint ownership of companies dealing with the State or any other second income.
Unethical as it appears to be, there's nothing anyone can do about it... not even Deval and DeLeo.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home