Is Jim Ireton REALLY a Part-Time Mayor?

Yesterday we highlighted Salisbury mayor Jim Ireton’s interview on Delmarva Public Radio.  In addition to being scarily anti-business in his rhetoric, Ireton also made the following comment:

I get up every day and barrel at 110%.

Really Jim?  What do you “barrel” at?

For the moment, let’s ignore the debate as to whether a “part-time” mayor can successfully operate a $51 million enterprise (I believe the record indicates a big NO on that one).  Let’s ask two other questions:

1. Is Jim Ireton really a part-time mayor?
2. Is Jim Ireton really devoting the time he supposedly spends as mayor to making Salisbury a better place to live and to work?

If your definition of being “part-time” is spending one second or more per week, month, etc. to the job of being mayor I’d have to give Ireton a free pass.  However, IF (like me) you define the term as spending 20 – 30 hours per week at a task then the answer is clearly no.  This ties directly in to question two.

For four years, and particularly during the last two, Jim Ireton has spent a fair piece of his “mayor time” engaged in political grandstanding, partisan politics, and pushing an agenda that is not even tangentially connected to making Salisbury a better place to live and to work.

In August, 2011 Ireton took time out of his supposedly busy day to picket the Salisbury office of Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD).  He has time to picket, but not to sit down with city council and engage in civil, honest discussion of issues facing our city?  Did this make Salisbury a better place to live and to work?

In June, 2011 Ireton called a press conference to attack the city council majority for not backing his planned luxury apartment project at “The Bricks”.  In his press conference Ireton implies that council members Debbie Campbell, Terry Cohen, and Tim Spies are racists (sound familiar?) and intimates that racial discord could follow (with councilwomen Laura Mitchell and Shanie Shields cheering him on).  Ireton’s rantings before the press are numerous, and (sadly) legendary.  Do any of these things make Salisbury a better place to live and to work?

Ireton has travelled to Annapolis to lobby for issues such as gay marriage.  Unless Ireton has some undisclosed plan to make Salisbury a mecca for gay marriage (with the tourism dollars that would follow) we have to ask - Do any of these things make Salisbury a better place to live and to work?

Ireton has lent his name and the prestige of his office to a campaign to strip gun rights from our citizens.  Do any of these things make Salisbury a better place to live and to work? (Criminals will still get guns.  C’mon … They’re CRIMINALS)

So … what’s your definition of “part-time”.

G. A. Harrison is a former editor of SBYNews and a regular contributor.  He also writes at the DelMarVa Observer.  This article was originally posted at the DelMarVa Observer.