A crazy week

After a hiatus of 459 days --  it only seemed fair to give Linda a chance to prove her mettle -- we have returned to comment on what has been a watershed week for the beleaguered occupant of City Hall's mayoral suite.

The last few days may have been Linda's Worst Week Yet and we can withhold our acerbic fingers from the keyboard no longer. 

A quick recap of Thompson's woes this week:

1. The media reported the Securities and Exchange Commission is poking around and asking for documentation.  Among other things, they are extremely curious why the city's 2009 audit is MIA.
2. An editorial in the Patriot-News excoriated Thompson's dalliance on completing the 2009 audit which has attracted the SEC's attention.
3. On Thursday Chuck Ardo, her third communications director in a year, threw in his turd polishing towel citing irreconcilable differences with Thompson. 
4. Linda, who has been fighting with City Controller, Dan Miller since the dawn of time, was forced to appeal to him for assistance in completing the City's 2009 audit, a tacit admission the task is beyond her limited skill set. The situation was made even more awkward after the revelation Thompson is prone to making homophobic remarks in private.
5. On Friday, the newly escaped Chuck gave us a peek inside the Thompson administration's bunker.

All in all a pretty rotten week for our Little Miss Linda who at the best of times was a little bit loopy.

Chuck gave a carefully worded, eyebrow-raising statement to the Patriot: "The mayor and I clearly have a different understanding of how the media works and their role in reporting on city hall. That difference led to my inability to continue on in my role.''

We suspect Chuck has a much better grasp of how the media works and its role in reporting on government based on his nearly eight years as Communications Director for the Governor of Pennsylvania.  Linda's media savvy?  During her campaign, Linda Holder-of-a-Communications-Degree Thompson tossed a Patriot-News reporter out of her press conference. 

In a followup story, Chuck gave a startlingly frank appraisal. “I believe the mayor is intent on doing the right thing, but the challenges are greater than her ability. This job would be difficult for absolutely anybody with experience, and here’s a woman who has no experience in management or managing crises.”

He also gave us a glimpse into Thompson's inner sanctum and the "real" Linda.  The picture Chuck paints is frightening but not surprising. 

He told the Patriot-News:

“The mayor views what she’s doing as a battle between good and evil. It’s true that good should never compromise with evil, but politics is the art of compromise. If you can’t compromise, you can’t make any political progress,” Ardo said.

He had also said the role of religion in the mayor’s office, along with inappropriate references to race and sexual orientation in private settings, made him uncomfortable.

“She has her views and tendencies that made me uncomfortable. She saw her opponents as representatives of evil as opposed to simply being those with philosophical differences,” he said.

Joyce Davis, a former Thompson press secretary, confirmed Chuck's assessment telling the Patriot, "I fully understand how difficult it was for Chuck to help Mayor Thompson. I'm sure he did his best, as did the many others who found they could not work in the environment that she creates in her inner circle.''

That inner circle is tightening.  People outside City Hall have noticed.  People outside of Harrisburg have noticed.  Wall Street has noticed.  In the February 14, edition of Forbes, there is a story on Harrisburg with an ominous opening paragraph.

Linda Thompson is a woman under siege in a city under siege. The mayor of Harrisburg, Pa. works behind a locked office door ("The mayor is very security-conscious," says her spokesman) on the second floor of a city hall where the lobby is piled high with the black garbage bags of homeless people who use it as a makeshift winter shelter.

This is not a good situation.  Linda is overwhelmed by the job, her personality alienates people, she reaches out for help yet refuses to follow advice, she procrastinates, does not accept responsibility, blames others, perceives people as "good" or "evil," exhibits paranoid behaviour, is increasingly isolated, makes homophobic and racist remarks in private.

At this stage in the game, we as citizens need to be mindful that some degree of mental illness may be underlying these behaviours. 

Seriously.  Just think about it. What if Linda is clinically mentally ill and in need of treatment?  How would she get help?  Is it possible the increased pressure and isolation will drive her to what used to be called "nervous exhaustion?"  More importantly; where in the hell does that leave us?

We were curious how frequently mental illness occurs in the general population and were shocked to find the National Institute of Mental Health estimates 1 in 4 Americans have a diagnosable mental illness in any given year.  For serious mental illness, the ratio drops to 1 in 17 or about 6 percent of the populace. People gamble the mortgage on worse odds than that.  Considerably more is at stake here.