Little continues to stand up to the "Good Ole Boys"

Alyssa Passeggio at Read All About It has a story about last night's council meeting in Highlands, where former Mayor Rick O'Neil crudely criticised the council and Mayor Anna Little. Little came back, forcefully but with dignity, at O'Neil, a so called Republican who has been attempting to undermine his successor's agenda since she took office. I was at the meeting. Passeggio's report is a good one.

It is ironic, and sad that O'Neil would make a public spectacle of himself and criticise his successor's administration. "It's sad, it's really sad to watch you. And I sat through a lot of shit in 12 years, but to see you guys like this, man, it's unbelievable," O'Neil said. "Nothing's getting done in this town."

Ironic because in the six months since Little has been Mayor, she's been cleaning up messes left by O'Neil with the DOT regarding the new bridge, re-zoning and improprieties over land transfers that have lead to criminal investigations and expensive civil litigation.

In addition to cleaning up O'Neil's messes, Little and her team have managed to accomplish much that O'Neil gave lip service to but thwarted during his nine year term as mayor. Since January, Highlands has established an Environmental Commission and a Shade Tree Commission. Last night the council approved the creation of a Trust to raise private funds for a Library in town and announced to the public plans to make Highlands an international sea food distribution location, including the branding of "Highlands Clams."

Little also announced last night that she is working on cutting $400K from the Highlands budget in order to avoid a tax increase. This in the face of over $200K in lost state funds. During O'Neil's tenure taxes more than doubled in Highlands.

O'Neil did a good job early in his tenure as Mayor of Highlands, leading the borough back from the brink of bankruptcy to the sound financial footing it has today. Late in his tenure the foxes started running the hen house as staffers would undermine the progress that O'Neil was advocating. O'Neil retreated to his buddy Democratic Councilman John Urbanski's garage for beer and girly picks where they deluded themselves into thinking they were running the borough.

Little has restored professionalism and discipline to borough hall and is establishing an open and responsive government that serves the residents.

O'Neil should move on. He left Highlands in much better hands than he imagined.