Now that the beginning of the Perez corruption trial is imminent, can he really function as Mayor?
According to the Hartford Courant:
Perez has maintained that he can participate fully in his defense and also govern effectively, and repeated that belief in a brief interview last week. He said that no mayor runs a city alone and that he'll count on staff and the city council to do their jobs and help him do his.
"I'm very confident everyone is on point and I'm going to continue to do the job to the best of my ability," he said. "There's a great team here and the team gets the work done."
I am quite frankly tired of hearing about the "Perez Management Team". Most of this "management team" wouldn't be qualified to run a McDonald's restaurant if they were judged by their performance at City Hall. Most people in the private sector would be terminated immediately if they ran up a $60 million "budget gap" or overestimated their revenues as the Perez "management team" has for this fiscal year.
Most "management teams" in the private sector would be shown the door if they "forbid" a member of the Board of Directors from speaking with a Department head as Susan McMullen just did to Dr. Deutsch.
But putting all that aside, we as voters in Hartford elected a Mayor. We did not elect a "management team". We deserve, and we should demand, a Mayor that can focus on the business of Hartford. Hartford is headed into most likely the toughest budget period it has ever seen.
Hartford can not afford being led by an absent Mayor because he is in residence in a criminal courtroom. I have felt from day one of the Perez arrests that he should have resigned. Eddie Perez is a dark cloud over the City of Hartford and continues to bring embarrassment, shame and skepticism over Hartford's future every day he remains in office.
Is Eddie just prolonging the inevitable for his own personal gain or does he really care about the City? Many feel that Perez's exit from City Hall is only weeks away, being brought on by a conviction as a result of his criminal trial. That is several weeks that could be used by "Mayor" Segarra for righting the sinking ship that Perez has captained like Captain Queeg for the last nine years.
-

