Team Mayer's Empty Promises and Broken Dreams

Two years ago, independent candidate Darren Gladden ran with the theme of "Empty Promises and Broken Dreams" to describe how he saw David Mayer and Council.  I am not a fan of his personal style, but this phrase has stuck with me.  Over the past few weeks I have been paying attention to the local races for Mayor, Council, and the GT BOE and have been getting more and more disappointed.  This phrase kept coming back to me and tonight it is time to start writing about it.

I saw the Patch comments today about some of the failed initiatives over the past four years that seemed to be election year stunts for publicity: The Hit Doctor which promised a World Series here in 2011 and the Field of Dreams which promised to provide a place for handicapped children to play safely in 2012 (delayed until 2013).  Both of these projects got a lot of headlines then once the cameras went away so did David Mayer's initiative to move them forward.

Today there was discussion on the Patch about the Gloucester Premium Outlets, David Mayer's 2013 election year promise to the people that after 4 years he finally had a plan to revitalize our town.  The discussion revolved around the lack of work being done at the former farm and how there were problems with the project because our planning board failed to consider public restrooms and the improvements required of the sewer systems.  One commenter even included talk of a waste water retention pond.

I turned on the live stream to watch the Council meeting tonight to see if this was questioned.  I was disappointed but not surprised at the answer given. 

In May and June this project was a "sure thing" with the Mayor offering a tax abatement for this project to happen even though the developer said this was a done deal that would open in 2014.  Now the answer from Council was "nothing is a done deal".  They were back tracking on the greatest economic development of our lifetime they made the centerpiece of their campaign.  Their stories changed from it being a definite to a "maybe".

Immediately I got that sinking feeling when you know you are being given a soft landing so that shortly after the election, the developer could gracefully back out of the deal and Team Mayer could blame someone else for yet another failed project.  Does David Mayer and his Council think we are stupid?  How many of these phantom projects is he going to conjure up in an election year that never happens?

It appears the Premium Outlets, like every other major project before it was never a reality.  It was an election year gimmick that Team Mayer thought the public would buy to get them re-elected.  Maybe it was cancelled because of the negative attention it got from the people.  Maybe the developer realized it was not financially viable.  We will never know what really killed this project -- if it was ever real to begin with.

But like the heart strings of those wanting a world series played in our town or a safe place for special kids to play ball, this project too appears to be the latest in a string of empty promises made by Team Mayer that turned into yet another broken dream. 

Is this really "professional, progressive" leadership that Team Mayer professes?  In my opinion this is nothing more than a slick charlatan playing Three Card Monty with the heartstrings of Gloucester Township residents.  Don't be fooled by it.  How many failed initiatives is Team Mayer going to get headlines over that never happen?