It has become evident to everyone, including Michael Wildes, that a decade of incessant celebrity photo ops, ribbon cuttings, ceremonial grandstanding, vanity magazine articles, mayoral costumes (including his blue windbreaker with the word "Mayor" emblazoned on its chest) and campaign fundraisers has failed to move him out of Englewood and up the New Jersey political foodchain to Trenton or Washington.  Now, it appears that Mr. Wildes is resorting to some political arson to spice up his aging act.

The most recent faux fire that Wildes has set can be spotted in the pages of the December 22 Record ("Mayor vetoes increase in severance pay"), running as a double feature with the Englewood police chief spectacle he also inflames. In this latest performance art piece, Wildes continues his public attacks on the Council majority for not hiring a full-time City Manager while he actively works to prevent them from having the ability to do so. 

As City Councilman Ken Rosenzweig explains in The Record article:

This (severance package) is to get someone here and not be worried that a couple months later, or a year later, if political winds change, they wouldn't find themselves without a job.

What "political winds?"  Take a look at the following:
 
If Mr. Wildes can draw enough voters into his reality distortion field and fool them into blaming the independent-minded Council for the fires he himself stokes and sets, the stirred up "political winds" might just blow in a Council more friendly to a certain someone that Mr. Wildes desperately wants to impress.  A certain someone who would appreciate getting his pay-to-play crony hired as Englewood City Manager.  Someone who, not coincidentally, owns the particular ballot position on the Democratic Party line Mr. Wildes so desperately covets.  And, if past experience is any guide, our Mayor doesn't want another repeat as the designated fall guy who gets sacrificed to popular and powerful Senator Loretta Weinberg.

Can't you just feel Bergen County Democratic Organization Boss Joe Ferriero's growing appreciation for Mr. Wildes' mischief and showmanship in a State Assembly kind of way?

Here we go again...Lights, camera, smile!