TRENTON – It’s like high school all over again.
Kathy’s “cabal” is in the driver’s seat, at-large councilman Jerell Blakeley said. And the three council members who aren’t apart of council president Kathy McBride’s clique can’t do much to break it up.
That became clear during Thursday night’s meeting. The big-ticket item was the failed reappointment of deputy clerk Cordelia “Dee Dee” Staton.
But it’s a controversial ordinance change that didn’t get as much attention because the Staton matter took the oxygen out of the room that may signal the council president’s – and the so-called “gang of four,” as council members have taken to calling McBride’s minions – stranglehold over the legislative body.
“Our distinguished president doesn’t like dissent,” at-large councilman Santiago Rodriguez said. “For her, rules don’t count. She has to have her own imposed. It’s always, ‘I, I, I.’ She never said, ‘we.’ She said, ‘I will not tolerate.’ Singular. Herself. That reminds me of dictators, ‘over my dead body.’ No, it’s ‘we.’ We have to work together for the city of Trenton.”
Blakeley criticized the faction of four – South Ward Councilman George Muschal, North Ward Councilwoman Marge Caldwell-Wilson, East Ward councilman Joe Harrison and council president McBride – for its so-far consistent pattern of voting together.
Holding true to the pattern, Caldwell-Wilson, Harrison, Muschal and McBride voted in favor of the ordinance change.
Blakeley let Kathy’s clique have it at the meeting, at one point slamming them as an uneducated, petty bunch pointing out he, Rodriguez and West Ward Councilwoman Robin Vaughn have graduate degrees.
Degrees don’t matter on this council, which has so far been ruled by mob mentality.
That doesn’t seem likely to change now that Blakeley said McBride consolidated her – and the clique’s – power with the passage of Ordinance 18-46.
The ordinance change amended the council’s rules of procedure, capping their civic comments to 10 minutes, an “unnecessary” maneuver Rodriguez believes was designed to “quiet down” Blakeley and Vaughn.
Blakeley called the crackdown on civic comment an “unconstitutional” attack on free speech and voted against it along with Rodriguez and Vaughn.
Rodriguez said he felt it was “undemocratic.”
Rarely do council members hit up against that 10-minute limit, but Blakeley and Vaughn, the two most loquacious council members, have used their closing remarks to pound issues, and sometimes colleagues, for their positions on those issues.
The change in the rules of procedures also calls for council members’ proposals to be funneled through McBride, prior to being put up to the floor for a vote, a move some fear gives McBride unfettered veto power.
For proposals that do make it to a vote but are rejected, council members must wait a year before reintroducing failed measures, perhaps fittingly dubbed the “Robin Rule.”
The ordinance change threw the kibosh on Vaughn’s plan to reintroduce her voted-down resolution denouncing the state’s Memorandum of Understanding with the city.
Vaughn, who didn’t respond to a phone call requesting comment, plans to contact an attorney to seek guidance on whether the ordinance change is legal, Rodriguez said.
“Doing this just to get even, that could backfire on the president,” warned Rodriguez, who voted to make McBride the council president. “She’s the president now, but who knows what happens?”
Council members have pointed to McBride’s overreach in expelling resident Paul Bethea from a meeting this week for critical comments he made about Caldwell-Wilson.
After being ejected Tuesday, Bethea returned to speak at Thursday’s meeting.
Blakeley let him know he disagreed with McBride’s decision to toss him out of the last meeting and said his comments were welcomed.
“What you’re doing here is democracy,” Blakeley said.
McBride has also been criticized for refusing to allow Blakeley to address failed council candidate Taiwanda Terry-Wilson during public comment because the council president ordered it was the next speaker’s turn to address the body.
“This is disrespectful,” Terry-Wilson said. “And then you’re asking for respect. Respect is earned.”
Residents wonder if this council’s bitter relationship is what’s in store over its four-year term.
“We have to start working together. We need leadership. We need a leader who can create a cohesive group. It’s not happening so far but it will happen,” Rodriguez said.
So far, division has reigned supreme as certain council members have blackballed the so-called “Radioactive Robin,” Blakeley said.
Rodriguez believes the West Ward councilwoman sealed her hate fate when she alone voted against making McBride president.
Since then, the gang of four has taken a position of opposition for opposition’s sake to any of Vaughn’s measures, council members said.
Another of her non-binding proposals, expressing the legislative body’s opposition to Assemblyman Wayne DeAngelo’s Trenton Water Works bill, died after the same four council members voted it down.
Mayor Reed Gusciora and city leaders have publicly denounced DeAngelo’s proposal as a “takeover” bill. And Vaughn, Rodriguez and other community stakeholders attended Thursday’s legislative hearing to testify against the passage of the bill.
Blakeley said the council unanimously supports the idea of TWW remaining a city-owned utility.
Yet, council members voted down Vaughn’s TWW resolution because “they don’t like councilwoman Vaughn.”
