Up until now, it appears to me, that Mayor John Moak has been running the City of Newburyport from the approach of running the City Clerk’s office–can’t go there as mayor–big difference, a whole different managerial ballgame.

Mayor John Moak admitted in an article in the Newburyport Daily News, March 15, 2006, that, “Maybe I haven’t been spending enough time politicking.” Yes, I couldn’t agree more.

And I think it could be time for someone to take Mayor John Moak aside (wise men where are you–see earlier post) because I don’t think being a good politician is easy, no, not easy at all.

Being a really good politician is about consensus building. And being a politician is not deciding what you think would be best and then doing whatever you can to get your idea implement. This might work very well in to other areas but it tends to backfire big time as the Mayor of Newburyport, Massachusetts. An example being, yes, the axing of Mary Lou Supple and seriously thinking about Byron Matthews as a replacement. And now a fiscal response to the Community Preservation Act (CPA) bond schedule.

According to yesterday’s Newburyport Daily News, Friday, March 17, 2006, the mayor apparently, does not want to abide by the Community Preservation Committee’s 6-2 vote (and they have a lot of good reasons for voting the way they did) to keep the bond schedule as approved by the Newburyport City Council. According to the article, “despite not having support from the committee, he (Mayor Moak) plans to take his proposal to the City Council.”

Now the mayor wants to ask the Newburyport City Council to alter a vote that they have already voted on. Politically, this baffles me. This is just not a good way to “make friends and influence people.”

It surprises me in a way, but there appears to be a whole lot of difference between observing different mayors as the Newburyport City Clerk (and Mayor John Moak was able to observe a whole lot of different mayors who had a whole variety of approaches to politics) and actually being the Mayor of Newburyport, Massachusetts yourself. “Politicking” is a definite art form and I would very much like John Moak to have some first rate mentors to help him with this new kind of managerial style.

And if I had John Moak’s ear, which I don’t, from a politicking viewpoint I would advise him to apologize to Mary Lou Supple, ask her forgiveness, beg her to come back to the NRA board. And if she couldn’t see going back there, which would be quite understandable after all of this, ask her who she would recommend, appoint her recommendation (if she declined herself) and tell then media all about it.

This would not be a “flip-flop” thing this would be a “learning from your mistakes thing” and “keeping the trust of the people of Newburyport” thing. This would be a very good thing indeed.

Mary Eaton, Newburyport