Franklin offers mea culpa of sorts
Monday, April 21st, 2008
MAYOR IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Mayor Shirley Franklin through a camera viewfinder during her Monday morning press conference. (Photo by Joeff Davis)
Mayor Shirley Franklin kicked off a very strange Monday-morning press conference with a provocative pronouncement: “What I see and read in the newspaper is only part of the story.”
OK, maybe that’s really only provocative to members of the news media. The stated subject of the conference – which was hastily announced by Franklin on Sunday afternoon – was the city budget crisis. So, after her opening line, it seemed fair to expect the mayor to explain how the media had somehow misreported the projected $65 million shortfall in the current city budget, or the expected $140 million shortfall in next year’s budget.
But Shirley didn’t so much set the record straight as remind everyone of her administration’s past achievements by reading off a long list: repairing the fractured city finances left behind by Bill Campbell; saving money by consolidating city courts; building the fifth runway; creating a city transportation plan…
The implication seemed to be that Franklin wants the news media to balance its coverage of the budget crisis by pointing out how many successes she’d had.
As for details about her upcoming budget proposal – presumably the reason every reporter had come – Franklin offered none, except to say she would make “an aggressive proposal to Council.” But she wouldn’t say whether she would propose a tax increase.
Finally, though, when asked what mistakes she might have made that contributed to the budget crisis, Franklin said she may have waited too long – until 2005 – to begin a complete overhaul of the city’s admittedly archaic and flawed budgeting process.
“I may have been wrong about that,” she said.
