Kickback Carlo on Permanent Vacation
By Josh Resnek
When the casino opened at the end of June, the mayor delivered a tearful speech, speaking emotionally about the great sacrifices he and his family had to make to get this project done.
He congratulated Steve Wynn, whose disgraced name he recalled publicly at the opening affair. He said he was a loyal guy that he’d always be loyal to Wynn even though he has been shown to be a sexual predator by the Wall Street Journal.
A few days later, the mayor flew to Hawaii where he spent about ten days on what was ostensibly a badly needed vacation.
When he returned from Hawaii, it wasn’t a week or two before he hopped on a plane and flew to Italy, where he remains today vacationing for longer than two weeks.
During last winter, the mayor took at least four trips to Aruba for vacations.
During one of the longer stays on that island retreat, we published a cartoon in the Leader Herald revealing that the mayor treats Aruba as one of his mayoral offices.
At least one of those Aruba trips lasted two weeks.
The others were a week or longer.
Then he took another vacation to the Bahamas several months back. That was about ten days.
There were also vacation jaunts to Arizona.
During the summer months when not in Europe, he is at the pool in his backyard nearly everyday.
By our guestimate, the mayor has taken as many as 50-70 vacation days during the past 12 months.
In addition, the mayor spends almost no time at city hall.
He tells us he can run the city without being at city hall as long as he holds his cell phone in his hand.
What might he say to a city employee making the same claim! “Your fired if you don’t go into city hall!” is what he would likely answer.
What might he say to a city employee or a department head arguing with him that they need 70 days of vacation and were expecting to be paid for it?
“You’re fired!” is what he would answer.
Kickback Carlo has made a public fuss about having no vacation days officially as part of his salary package with the city.
He seemed to reason with those who asked about how many vacation days he is allotted that if “you want to go there” he’d need a 100 days to be paid back properly for all the work he does for the city.
It is as if to say that everyday is a vacation day for Kickback Carlo. This line of reasoning by the mayor is rubbish, of course.
Kickback Carlo feels there are no boundaries to how many vacation days he can take because his vacation days aren’t vacation days because of that and because no one keeps him accountable for paid work days.
His work ethic is rubbish.
His vacation days are a fraud.
Kickback Carlo is stealing from the people taking money for days when he is clearly absolutely incontestably not working.
At most, the mayor should have 3 weeks vacation and accumulated sick days – not 10 weeks or 20 weeks vacation and rarely showing up for work at city hall.
As my old mentor in this business once said to me when I told him I was going on vacation: “Josh,” he asked me. “How do you go on vacation when you’re on vacation?”
Kickback Carlo commits some kind of crime every time he cashes one of his city checks when he is in Italy, Aruba, Hawaii, the Bahamas, or swimming in the pool on a workday at his home in his backyard.
Even Kickback Carlo can’t have his cake and eat it.
He can’t be paid for days he does not work.
Municipal law does not allow for such an injustice to be perpetrated on the taxpayers of Everett.
A perusal of the mayor’s paid vacation time by the Attorney General’s office or by Bill Galvin’s office would reveal a gross injustice being committed each time he cashes his payroll check.
Bottom line, none of us can be paid by the city to remain endlessly on vacation.
Kickback Carlo’s vacation charade needs to end.
Perhaps the city solicitor could remind him that being paid for a workday when not working is bilking the city.
But that isn’t going to happen.
No one at city hall will challenge or question the mayor’s vacation schedule and how it conflicts with his work schedule.
The city council would do well to bring up the matter and to let it play out in the public forum.
After all, who has anything to hide, except for Kickback Carlo.