Robert Bowser
James
Gerrish
I remember that day in the spring
of 1997, when Robert Bowser came to my front door and asked for
my vote prior to being elected Mayor for his first term (1998). I
gave my vote to him then, and even though he never again came to
my door asking for my vote, I continued to support him through
three terms, simply because I could not see a better choice.
However, by the end of his third term, I noticed a change in him
and I did not vote for him the fourth term, although he easily
won without my vote in 2009. The change I noticed in him appears
in most incumbents when they have been in office too long. They
begin to think they "own" the position. Some feel it is
a "right." By this time, most have become corrupt in
some way as a result of that thinking. They feel they are above
the law, above society's rules, above morality and good common
sense. I don't know if Robert Bowser feels this way or not;
others will have to judge him on those things. But my instincts
tell me something is wrong and that he should not be elected for
a fifth term.
I give him credit for all of the
changes he has brought to East Orange, but when I catch him
saying things like "we
should go back to neighborhood schools" when it was under his administration that many
neighborhood schools were emptied and
abandoned in favor of sending
neighborhood children to big central school complexes like Cicely Tyson Community School
(the most recent example), then I have to wonder if any
government anywhere should ever have any say in running public
education. At the very least, it is a sign of a "selective
memory" in which he seems to have forgotten that he was
responsible, or at least one of the ones responsible for emptying
the neighborhood schools.
Robert Bowser also talks about
his criteria for appointing members of the school board, but he
seems to have no ability for unappointing them when they become
obstructionists and allow croney hiring and dubious money
handling to sow seeds of corruption within the school district
year after year. Better to move to an elected board where WE the
PEOPLE and Taxpayers can make the tough decisions for him.
Everett Jennings, on the board since 1999, is a case in point, but there are others, too. I got to see Mr. Jennings' obstructionism in
action when we were both members of the Historical Society of
East Orange, but those are personal observations and do not
concern Mayor Bowser.
When Robert Bowser first started
out, he made many city improvements on his own initiative. Over
time, he lost his initiative and now the only way we can get
potholes filled or abandoned properties taken care of is by
complaining loudly enough to be heard and
noticed.
Robert Bowser has a Facebook page set up for his election campaign, but although I've
gone there several times and posted questions, I have yet to
receive an answer from him. I'm not alone. He has not responded
to anyone else who have posted on his page. Simply ignoring us is
another way of blocking us, and if he does it on Facebook, I am
sure his attitude is the same in City Hall.
Robert Bowser's biggest problem
seems to be communication. The city's own Web
page is notorious for providing
information on city events too late for many people to
participate. The calendar for the current month is usually posted
some time in the middle of that month, rather than a month ahead
of time. Even his biography remains unchanged from the time he was in his third term of office,
probably 2007. On May 21, 2013, when I wrote this comment, the
page stated on its very first paragraph: "Mayor Robert L.
Bowser is the twelfth Mayor of the City of East Orange. He holds
the distinction of being the first African American in the
history of the City to have been elected to serve a third term."
Related to all this is Robert
Bowser's trust in computer technology to do everything from
teaching our students to guarding our community, yet he has not
caught on to the way the computer, and the Internet in
particular, are partially responsible for catching him in his
personal problems, and instantly calling attention to his
missteps. COMPSTAT is
a good idea, but only as a tool of the Police department, not as
a replacement for it. Computers in the classroom are only a good
thing when teachers can actually use them in the way they were intended to be used, and not treat them as "babysitters" the way
Television has become in many households.
Unlike Lester Taylor, one of his
four challengers in this election, I do not see Mayor Bowser's
many trips around the nation and to Africa as a waste of taxpayer
money. As a traveling Mayor, he has represented the City of East
Orange well on each of these trips, as evidenced by the news
reports that follow from each one. ( WASHINGTON-
02/08/11 - AFRICAN SUN TIMES 5/06/13 - ) but
as noted in the African Sun Times article, his personal life
problems are not only a detriment at home, but internationally as
well. Only a few years ago no one would notice, but today it can
pop up on the Internet any place in the world, and now it is not
only noticed, but remembered because anyone can use his computer
to search back through years of records and data.
I think it is time for us to say,
Thank you Mayor Bowser, but now it is time for you to step aside
and let someone else take on the responsibility of leading us
into the future which you don't really seem to understand.
5/31/13 Local
Talk News editor Dirhen Shah has endorsed Robert Bowser for Mayor
in an editorial of his newspaper, Local Talk Weekly dated May 30
- June 5. It is the weakest endorsement and weakest argument for
a candidate to become mayor than any I have ever seen. It is
based on the old adage "Better the devil you know than the
devil you don't" which is actually quoted in the editorial.
That adage assumes that all of the candidates are equally
"devils", equally evil and equally corrupt.
It is true that
Mayor Bowser has done many good things as mayor, but that does
not relieve him of the responsibility of controlling his own
behavior and morality while in office. His wife may forgive him,
but she is forgiving her husband, not the mayor. We, the voters
must decide whether we should believe he can separate his
personal life from his elected office, and his past history tells
us otherwise. Here's another old adage for you, Dirhen Shah:
"Deceive me once, then shame on you; deceive me twice, then
shame on me." We don't need to know anything other than that
the mayor did something that required his wife to forgive
him...publicly... more than once. His wife has chosen to live
with him as her husband, but we do not need to choose to have him
deceive us, the voters, a fifth time, much less a second time.
There actually is
one mayoral candidate who is not a devil, not under the influence
of the Democratic machine, and who has good and practical
business plans for reviving the city of East Orange and making it
pay for itself rather than depending on gouging the taxpayers and
property owners. Any good businessman could have done this long
ago, but we chose only to vote for politicians who only know how
to play with other people's money rather than use the city's
resources and assets to raise revenue to run itself. If you feel
you have to vote for a "devil you know" then by all
means, vote for Bowser. If you'd rather vote, not for a devil nor
an angel, but an ordinary businessman with a plan, direct your
research to Kevin Taylor.