The mayor has been using the city’s water billing system for the past several months to mail out citywide a slick, newly conceived campaign media piece paid for by taxpayers.
Its cost – about $4,000 a month.
The piece is mainly and overtly about him and all the good he is doing.
It is also distributed around the city at corner stores, et cetera The mayor’s media folks – his chief of staff, et al – are showing him how to use taxpayer money to send out a Carlo DeMaria for Mayor newsletter and how to pass it around.
In a city served rather well served by three newspapers, it is a wonder he feels the need to have his own publication.
In two of the newspapers, the mayor has been running full-page paid advertisements about his accomplishments – paid for by guess who – the taxpayers.
Another recent addition to his campaign re-election taxpayer-paid media onslaught are the neat three-minute videos being shown on ECTV and on the mayor’s Facebook page.
ECTV is not the mayor’s to do with as he pleases – and yet he uses it as his own medium to project his Papa Doc Duvalier image as the doting and concerned mayor doing everything he can for the people of the city…and all at their expense for their own good.
ECTV is for the people, according to how it was conceived and according to its by laws.
Anyone in this city can use ECTV to produce their own video moments just like the mayors.
Perhaps Councilors Fred Capone and Adrien Gerly, perceived as potential mayoral candidates, should have their own shows on ECTV to compete with the mayors!
The mayor’s egregious behavior, his unethical, imprudent, and wasteful taxpayer-funded media ventures should be questioned at least and stopped at most.
To do nothing about it, is a crime against the city government sworn to watch over taxpayer dollars being spent – or does that no longer apply to the city government?