Editorial

MARB offer late, necessary

City Council Chairman Peter Massaro has a point, and it is one the Municipal Accountability Review Board should take under advisement. That said, striking a first-ever relationship with the legislative leaders of the city would be beneficial overall, and should not be constrained by what are perceived as slights by the state panel.

Massaro reacted last week to comments made by MARB Jeffrey Beckham that he would like to meet with the City Council, the upshot being the body would be brought into the discussions pertaining to the city’s financial restructuring. Massaro said such a meeting would not happen at the invitation of the council until a letter of apology is sent by MARB. Massaro – and other members of the council – believe the state review board has been condescending to the city’s elected officials, and demeaning to the city, in general.

In fact, the case can be made the state board looking for a relationship now after six years of MARB oversight is a bit backward. The panel should have made these overtures back in 2017 when it was first empaneled. Instead, only the chairman of the council was allowed at meetings with Mayor Nancy Rossi, and the elected officials were reduced to getting their information second-hand.

Remember, it was a bond issue passed by the City Council under Mayor Edward M. O’Brien that prompted the panel’s formation. The bond issue paid off a longstanding deficit first discovered in 2006 under the Picard administration. Financial difficulties nationally and regionally hampered paying the deficit off through subsequent budgets. In the meantime, the state had enacted a law that put all municipalities that used bonds to pay deficits under the aegis of a review panel. When Rossi took office in December 2017, she was almost immediately contacted by the state, and the city was put under review.

Over that time, Massaro and others bristled at some of the statements made by MARB members during their deliberations, with no attempt to build a relationship, let alone some correspondence, between the taxpayers’ elected representatives and panel. As we state above, instead of trying to forge a relationship now, the MARB should have done that six years ago, bringing the council into the process, and letting its members know the direction the panel wished to go.

There is no doubt trying to change the city’s way of doing business has been a thorn in the panel’s side; however, if the MARB collaborated with the council instead of acting by diktat and threat, things might have worked out differently. The point is not only the executive, but the legislative branches should have been part of the process.

This new initiative might be too late in the eyes of the chairman, and we understand his anger; but we see a wrong that must be righted, albeit late in the game. The City Council should be brought into future talks and negotiations with representatives chosen by the council. Beckham should be commended for his acknowledgment of that fact. Let us not let past slights continue this adversarial relationship.

The City Council as well as the third floor of City Hall should be involved in future MARB plans and decisions. That can only help the taxpayers of the city, and bring an understanding of those plans that, frankly, have been opaque at times. We urge the council to meet with the MARB, bury whatever difficulties they might have heretofore, and move toward establishing a working relationship.