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"They refuse to tell the City Council how they spent it. By Warwick City charter, they sadly, don't HAVE to."

This is a lie, and it remains a lie, no matter how many times the make-believe mayor repeats it.

Here is a repeat of the true facts:

The school committee is required to explain its budget to the city council -- which it did during the council's budget deliberations this spring.

The school committee is also required to have an independent audit and publish those findings every year -- which it does, with the audits and budget documents posted online.

Anything the make-believe mayor says about the recent teacher contract is another attempt to pander to the WTU [which contributed to Mayor Solomon's campaign] by a selective reading of events that ignores the work-to-rule, illegal sick-outs, and pickets that resulted in no better of a contract than they would have gotten in the first place.

Warwick already has a legislative charter, which is identical to a home rule charter in everything but name. The city council clearly understands that better than the make-believe mayor, because they are suggesting that the current charter should be changed to give them line-item control over the school budget. A new charter is not needed to make this change.

[It is also debatable whether they would actually get this change made, since such a revision would most likely require a referendum vote; given this council's recent budget decisions, voters may not want to give them even more control.]

"How many votes do you predict I will receive in the Democratic Primary?"

The make-believe mayor never posed this question to me, but the answer is that more honest, taxpaying voters will reject his candidacy on Sept. 12 than support it. The inevitability of his loss will not be affected by its degree; he will finish this primary with the distinction of being the first candidate in a generation to lose to two different mayors.