The Trenton Times published the following article on April 16, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack holds town hall meetings, sees poor turnout

By Alex Zdan/The Times 
on April 17, 2013 at 8:20 AM, updated April 17, 2013 at 11:25 AM

TRENTON — Mayor Tony Mack may be under federal indictment for corruption, his administrative decisions may be checked and evaluated by state monitors, and his former close confidant may have pleaded guilty to extortion, but he has not given up.

Mack held two town hall meetings yesterday evening — barely 24 hours after his first in the spring series, held Monday evening.

All three suffered from very poor turnout. But the mayor denied that it was a reflection on his popularity, and instead blamed the local newspapers’ failure to publicize the events in advance.

Mack addressed an audience of just one citizen in the basement of Covenant Presbyterian Church at a 7 p.m. gathering last night.

Just an hour earlier, the mayor had been inside the Millhouse nursing home on Jersey Street, speaking to three members of the public. “We’re going to speak as if there are 500 people here,” he said.

He said last night he’s far from irrelevant and feels he could be a strong candidate for re-election come 2014.

“Here’s my thing about people and their perceptions of me: if you do your job, they’re going to elect you,” he said. “Period.”

“If you look at what we’ve done, we’ll be re-elected overwhelmingly,” he added.

He was asked if that statement was an official declaration for a second term.

“You heard my comment,” Mack said, smiling, as he walked out of the Covenant building.

The brief, 20-minute meeting at Millhouse was followed by the session in the church basement, where planning board president Peter Yull held forth with Mack on topics from house tours to the cannon in front of Cadwalader Park.

Mack held the first of his spring town hall meetings on Monday. The mayor said his decision to embark on a slew of public appearances has nothing to do with his upcoming corruption trial, likely scheduled for this summer. He said it’s because he likes to connect with the city’s residents.

“We wanted to do them all in one week, but the place we wanted wasn’t available,” Mack said.

Mack announced last night that the libraries his administration has reopened as learning centers will be receiving help from Mercer County in the form of workers through a jobs program.

Admitting the learning centers, which have been plagued by erratic hours and thefts of equipment, “have not been what we want them to be,” Mack said the county’s One Stop Career Center would be providing fully vetted employees to work part-time in learning centers, parks, and the Summer Feeding program.

“They’re allowing us to hire staff,” Mack said at Covenant Presbyterian Church. “They’re paying for them.”

Reached for comment last night, a county spokeswoman said that although the county was assisting the city with its upcoming job fair, no funding had been arranged for summer youth jobs in Trenton.

“We are not coordinating any summer youth jobs with Trenton or its learning centers,” said the spokeswoman, Julie Willmot. “The mayor must be mistaken.”

Mack’s final scheduled spring town meeting will take place at the Mill Hill Playhouse, 205 East Front Street on Monday, April 22 from 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

Contact Alex Zdan at azdan@njtimes.com or (609) 989-5705.