Dear Editor:
While I could not attend the council meeting on March 18, what I witnessed on the video was disturbing. Mayor Barberio is so blind not to see that the residents in attendance were not part of a staged event but simply people outraged by the contrived effort to prevent a political rival from winning the upcoming primary.
Mr. Mayor, if you hadn’t alienated such a large number of residents with your heavy-handed ways, you would not be in the situation you are now in. Citizens have been clamoring for you to listen to their worries about how you have conducted yourself during your present and, hopefully, last term in office. To the dismay of so many, you have not listened to their voices; I guess you were too busy listening to what your lifelong friend Mr. Inglesino was whispering in your ear.
Look around town, and you see many issues that have led to our frustration. The fact that the Lake Hiawatha Library issue had not moved off of dead stop for over three years because it took you that long to visit the building. You authorized a review of the BOE books in September because it was, in your words, critically important that the tax dollars were being allocated correctly. Now, six months later, the report has still not been shared with the public; why is that Mr. Mayor? The fact that a neighborhood has been plagued with streets that are, in some cases, unpassable, and the city still is not taking emergency action to remedy the situation while the case drags on in court. The fact that a molehill is being made into a mountain over a minor traffic stop exemplifies your pettiness. The fact that you park a government-owned vehicle on a public street every night when the state mandates that such vehicles be kept in an off-street parking area. And the list goes on and on.
Lastly, what did Councilmen Mc Grath and Neglia think when they voted to continue with the council meeting? Did they not hear the Fire Chief say the space was not code-compliant because of overcrowding? Exactly how was the meeting supposed to continue? Were attendees going to be forcefully removed from the area? If the space was too small last week, what would make anyone believe it would not be overcrowded again? Come this Tuesday, March 25. Does the administration intend to lock the public out once the room is full? Do they even have the right to attempt such an action?
Richard Suarez
