Roger Sherrie

Mayoral candidate Roger Sherrie is criticizing the mayor and Common Council for their decision to change the job duties — and eventually the pay — of the City Treasurer.

Sherrie suggests that the move is "just another in a long line of actions by the 'Tucker-McCaffrey' administrations designed to keep voters in the dark while they operate in secret behind closed doors.

The Democrat has previously referred to the "Tucker/McCaffrey" administration in his announcement of candidacy, linking current Mayor Anne McCaffrey with the man she replaced last March when Mike Tucker resigned.

His release follows below in its entirety:

Democrat candidate for Mayor Roger Sherrie has issued a statement criticizing the Mayor and Common Council majority for approving a resolution to gut the job duties (and eventually the pay) of the independently elected City Treasurer.

Sherrie said that the ad-hoc committee of two republicans and one democrat, impaneled by Mayor McCaffrey to make a recommendation to the full council, “twice denied myself and one other the opportunity to observe committee sessions when aldermen Genewick and Kibler voted to close their meetings to the public. This is just another in a long line of actions by the Tucker-McCaffrey administrations designed to keep voters in the dark while they operate in secret behind closed doors.”

Sherrie said the republican majority wants to substantially change duties of an elective office that has been in existence for 100 plus years; “without hearing from the current or former treasurers or without any real public input. This charter amendment will do absolutely nothing to fix the problems which led to this mess; and we don’t even know whether the new Finance Director can do the job or will stay in the job,” said Sherrie.

“There are two important reasons why the republican machine is dictating this charter change,” said Sherrie. “First, to distract voter’s attention from the hiring of a $125,000 a year Finance Director whose duties mostly duplicate the accounting and reporting functions of the city treasurer and second, fixing political blame for the current state of city finances before November’s elections,” Sherrie said, “It’s about finding a scapegoat and ducking personal responsibility for the deplorable condition of the city. Everyone on this Council, with the exception of 2nd Ward Alderwoman Mullane, had a direct hand in the mismanagement of city finances, either for what they did or for what they failed to do,” explained Sherrie.

Sherrie said a better approach would have been to “impanel a special non-partisan committee last year and charge them with the task of examining whether the position of Finance Director was needed and whether combining the titles of Treasurer and City Clerk was the more prudent way to go."

“Voters should be outraged by the lack of transparency and utter disregard for citizen oversight as witnessed by the council’s rejection of a resolution calling for a state audit of the Assessor’s office after a temporary summer assessor was hired for $10,000. The public needs to understand the motivations of the Tucker-McCaffrey administration are purely political rather than establishing sound public policy or practices. Residents and voters deserve better,” concluded Sherrie.

RELATED LINKS: 
Sherrie announced mayoral candidacy
White questions changes in treasurer's post

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