Saturday, September 13, 2008

Hotel Utica Countdown: H+31

It's now been a month since Utica Mayor David Roefaro missed his self-imposed deadline to resolve the Hotel Utica crisis.

Last month, the city's Urban and Economic Development Commissioner, Robert Sullivan, said that he and his crack staff had developed "several plans" to deal with the problem and were in the process of selecting their final solution. Supposedly, as he stated when interviewed by WKTV, we could expect a press conference "in the coming weeks".

Obviously, we're still waiting.

Mr. Roefaro's administration has continued to demonstrate, time and time again, a level of inability to handle this matter that truly boggles the mind. They've now spent months allegedly working on the problem and, despite constant talk of "getting tough" and "cracking down", have absolutely nothing to show for it. In the meantime the city has been on the hook for close to $10,000 a week covering the Hotel's debts.

That leaves us with only two possibilities for why the Roefaro administration continues to hem and haw while the city treasury hemorrhages cash: they're either incompetent or corrupt.

Given Mr. Roefaro's close ties to the owners of Hotel, and his support for the infamous "Friends and Family" plan, we should probably be praying that he's just incompetent.