It is hard to imagine how Everett can be broke after a four month shutdown but it is.
It is impossible to imagine how the mayor spent $30 million – Encore’s first payment to the city – in an orgy of public spending last year.
This year, with Encore behind in payments to the city of about $13 million and growing, with receipts down, with tax payments down, with costs rising, it is easy to see how badly the mayor miscalculated the coming of the casino and econom- ic freedom.
His economic mismanagement of the city’s revenue base has led to a first and second round of layoffs and salary cuts.
In the short term future, we can expect more of the same.
In the meantime, the mayor has already embarked on the game he plays best – that is – blaming others for his own in- competency.
Chief Operating Officer of the city Eric Demas has already met with the mayor’s displeasure described to anyone who will listen behind closed doors.
Demas, for a while, was like one of those working in Trump’s cabinet only to find themselves being marginalized when things got tough.
The marginalization of Demas has begun in earnest by the mayor.
The same can be said for the proud and hardworking Kevin O’Donnell, his chief of staff, whose salary the mayor has cut in half.
Times get tough when the city can’t afford to pay its employees.
The mayor never planned for such a moment.
His lack of work ethic, his limited understanding of finances, and his own bungling of the local economy, is leading the city down a primrose path.
How can the mayor be entrusted with the city’s finances when he has trouble with his own?
His donut and coffee shops are struggling. One in Revere has already gone out of business.
What makes these financial disasters worse for the mayor – he was handed the donut shops. He didn’t have to work for them.
The city’s financial condition today is a cause for embarrassment.
The mayor has said he will be the mayor forever. He’s got that wrong.
His time is coming.
No one and nothing last forever.