No sooner had the $12.5 million payment from Wynn Resorts been received then it was gone.
Gone. Just like that. With the snap of a finger.
This tells a story about money and municipalities.
It tells a story about Everett. No amount of money is enough.
The implication of the $12.5 million gone before it was deposited into the city treasury is obvious. There is no subtlety to it.
It shows spending is out of control in this city.
If you want to know how out of control it is just listen to homeowners howling about their property taxes.
We hear this all the time – homeowners outraged by their rising taxes.
We know this $12.5 million went to reduce property taxes but it was just a drop in the bucket.
$12.5 million gone before we get it! That’s a problem.
The mayor more than ever must watch what is being spent – which means he has to spend less to sustain his dreams of grandeur for himself and for the city.
We write this in the knowledge that the mayor will make every effort to cut school spending every way he can instead of cutting his own budget.
No energy will be spared by the mayor and his sidekick, the city’s CEO Eric Demas, to cut school spending as though school spending is the city’s great villain.
The schools are the city’s great hope.
The mayor wants to be running the schools, mainly for one reason.
What is that?
To control hiring and firing of the 1,250 school department employees.
This would make him supremely powerful in the city where he already controls about 500 jobs.
Controlling 1,750 jobs is better than controlling 500, isn’t it?
This will not be accomplished as long as Superintendent of Schools Fred Foresteire remains in his position.
The mayor can try and try but he will not succeed in cutting funds from and dismantling the public schools so he can ultimately seize political control of them.
The mayor will attempt to make every cut he can from the schools, to strip the schools of their panache.
He needs to put a check on spending on his side and to leave the schools alone.
The mayor must become fiscally conservative when spending the taxpayers money.
$12.5 million come and gone in the blink of an eye reveals a serious problem.
The serious problem isn’t with the school department.
It is with the mayor’s insatiable spending habits and dreams of grandeur.