Dear Mayor Hanlon

We've been reading through some old newspapers lately, Mayor Hanlon, and we came across the 12 point plan that you used during your campaign in 2005 to outline what the Hanlon administration would look like. We'd like to ask you . . . what happened?

Your 12 point plan to stop tax increases was to start the day after inauguration, beginning with an immediate authorization of a “fraud” audit of all city transactions over the past 4 years. Didn't it take you almost nine months to come before city government to get the funding for this audit, even though you said you had begun the audit before the funding was approved?

Continuing on with what you said in your plan -- until the audit is completed, you were going to institute the following emergency measures:

1. A freeze on the number of city employees – no increase in staff. This was the first point in your plan, and the first promise you broke. What happened?

2. A freeze on the hiring of outside law firms. How has this one been working out, with a part time City Solicitor who has neither the respect nor the trust of city government, let alone the capacity to adequately represent the city?

3. Settle all pending legal cases to avoid additional fees. How is this going? We hope you've settled all pending legal cases, because you've added a few to the docket since you took office.

4. Eliminate unnecessary city positions and department heads who are unqualified for their positions. So tell us, Mr. Mayor -- what positions have you eliminated? We know you brought back quite a few that had been eliminated by the previous administration. The archivist position, for instance. How's that working out? All important city documents now properly catalogued and archived? And don't get us started on "unqualified department heads."

5. An immediate freeze on all new building and zoning changes in residential areas. Hmmmm . . . wonder how the people down in the Miller Street area feel about this one?

6. Put more police officers back in uniform and back on the streets, visible to potential wrong doers. This is an interesting one. Now that you've decided to “civilianize” the overnight parking program, what has happened to the police officers who were doing the job up until now -- one could argue that having the police do that job keeps them out on the street where they can be visible to "potential wrong doers."

7. Audit city water department to identify and eliminate excessive abatements for political reasons. Tell us, how many "excessive abatements" have you found that can be tied back to political connections.

8. Create “citizen audit” to establish fair prices for all city property sold. Honestly -- we have no idea what this particular piece of rhetoric is all about. The high school is ready for the block, and there's no citizen audit committee in place.

9.Institute tighter controls over handling taxpayers’ cash at City Hall. Great -- maybe you should've instituted the same controls at the Recreation Department.

10. Tighter controls over “rainy day” and “stabilization” fund. Tell us . . . what exactly do we have in our "rainy day" and "stablization" funds? What about those "controlled" transfers from the free cash account to fund all those new hires?

11. Freeze on the use of outside contractors when City employees can do the job. There must have been an early thaw on this one. Contracts are still going out to bid, contractors are getting contracts and we have at least 40 new hires.

12. >“Clerk of the Works” to supervise contractors on jobs over $10,000 on a daily basis to avoid lawsuits later on. This one sounded like a good idea, but the phantom clerk hasn't been announced as yet.