Hey Portsmouth! Thanks for re-electing me and a special shout-out to 603 Forward and the other outside PACs – couldn’t have done it without you guys!
Say, did you hear my Inaugural Speech? No? Here’s what you missed.
“The dream of affordable housing is at the heart of our vision” …because home is so much more than a house…add a park down the street for kids to run around in…and a unit below so grandma can live close…
Make it a place you can put down roots, knowing they’ll blossom… Open the doors wide to give your community the world!
Home is all the little points of light that give tomorrow its glow. It’s the place—and the people—you refuse to give up on. Thank you, to all of you, for making Portsmouth our home!
Brings tears to your eyes, doesn’t it?
What? I know, I know, I didn’t actually say all of that – I was going to, but she beat me to it, the Mayor of Boston, the one who got a ton of attention for this year’s special Christmas party. I sure hope to see her next week when she’s campaigning for Biden in New Hampshire’s “meaningless” primary (their words not mine).
Back to my speech. I am really good at soaring rhetoric, been practicing up for my next political move, you don’t think I’m satisfied being the unpaid mayor of this dinky little city, do you?
But for now, this is a great gig.
Our January 16, 2024, City Council meeting shows what I mean.
In just one night, I could:
- Yuck it up with a bunch of high school football players (and pass on fatherly advice about the benefits of sports),
- Hand out prizes for the Holiday Lights Contest (including lunch with ME),
- Ruin the 400-year-old Historic District with shiny solar panels on every roof in the name of climate change, and
- Defame a private citizen volunteer (I never liked the guy anyway).
How cool is that? And the people of Portsmouth love me because I’m TALL.
You have to admit, we were pretty clever last year. We distracted the residents of Portsmouth with a lot of shiny objects (mostly Nit Zero ‘s antics) and, as usual, the local press fell in line.
How many articles did the Portsmouth newspapers write about the belt-busting budgets? Maybe two?
Sure, they covered the sorry end of the McIntyre saga barely mentioning whose fault it was that the most valuable piece of property in Portsmouth slipped away and is now in the hands of a developer.
You didn’t actually expect me to fly to Washington and grovel in front of the GSA political hacks, did you?
And it looks like my good buddies, Shaheen, Hassan, and Pappas, didn’t lift a finger to help. But I didn’t want to rock the boat. Pretty soon one of them is going to exit and I will be packing my bags for Washington.
Back to the budgets under my watch.
Despite record increases, the shell game continued. The City Manager and the City Attorney conveniently forgot to include $450,000 in outside counsel legal fees. Didn’t they read the paper about the lawsuits?
Anyhow, it’s a “supplemental” from unassigned funds so the cushion they bragged about isn’t so cushy, but it really makes you wonder who’s keeping an eye on the books.
And they didn’t have a presentation, not even a 4-color Power Point.
But – no big deal. Not one City Councilor raised a hand (or even an eyebrow).
What’s another half mil on top of the additional almost $20 million that have been included in the past two budgets – they all voted for that, too.
What a bunch. I am delighted beyond belief that we get to do this again!
And whenever I mess up the meeting order: passing the second reading and suspending the rules and move to pass the third and final reading, can we do this in one vote? No? We need 2? But first a public hearing?
Do we need to have a third reading, or suspend the rules? “you already suspended the rules,” tee hee hee.
Good thing Yoda Moreau was re-elected, too. But next December, ditch the Santa hat.
Da da da DA – IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
Our new auditors blessed our books – we’re clean as a whistle!
We really had to scramble on that audit. Just because we used the same auditor for almost 30 years, the annoying Becksted Five passed an ordinance creating an audit committee that included resident volunteers who were well-versed in financial reporting (unlike the City Council).
These savvy residents were intent on bringing in a new accounting firm because they were worried there could be financial shenanigans going on. They were breathing down our necks!
Kondo Kate Cook wanted to replace the volunteer residents with paid consultants. That suggestion was DOA.
Kondo Kate Cook – Adios to the Independent Audit Committee
So, we cooked up a ruse, that the process was deficient, and blamed it on one of the volunteers.
Stoolie John-Audit Committee Leaker
We put him through the wringer, forced him to get a lawyer paid for with his own money – our lawyer was paid for with tax dollars, so it was a double whammy (ha, ha, ha). But it was worth it.
The Management Letter (which for some strange reason wasn’t in the packet, ha, ha, ha) raised a few red flags. I was sort of ho-humming the whole thing and wondering when this boring presentation would be over. But the volunteer residents on the committee seemed to think it was important.
One tiny little problem was in the accounts payable process, a fertile ground for fraud.
Apparently, scammers abound and, according to City management, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraudulent payments have been detected and stopped. Really?
The auditors suggested more stringent verification. Come to find out that that operation is run by a part-time employee!
Bart, wake up! They’re talking about accounts payable, a very important topic! That’s when the city pays vendors who submit invoices for their work. See the fraud potential?
Okay, moving on, other priority items: affordable housing
We have to change the zoning requirements, do a little “upzoning” as it’s called, so we can cram more units on a single-family lot. I like what they did in one county in Virginia. They voted to allow up to six units per lot previously reserved for one detached single-family home. No more back yards. Sure will be cozy.
I know it’s controversial and no one really knows if it will work, in fact some say it will just drive up the cost of any remaining single-family homes, but I will be long gone by then.
By the way, what happened to Yoda Moreau’s Land Use Committee?
One other top priority: It’s really important for Portsmouth to make more art!
Good night, Portsmouth!
Speech excerpts: Mayor Michelle Wu State of the City Address • January 9, 2024 – As Prepared for Delivery
