Our View: Jasiel Correia should resign

Mayor Jasiel Correia should resign.

Yes, Correia is innocent until proven guilty. But there is the law, and then there is the ability to lead the city of Fall River.

Correia’s indictment and arrest bring his fitness for office into serious question. As powerful leaders at the state and federal levels line up to call on him to leave office, it has become clear that Correia cannot effectively lead Fall River.

As Gov. Charlie Baker and his Democratic opponent Jay Gonzalez have both called for Correia to step aside, Fall River cannot expect full support from the state level.

Sen. Edward Markey and Congressman Joseph Kennedy have also called for Correia to resign, leaving federal assistance in doubt.

This is not good for Fall River.

Correia needs to think beyond himself and the charges he is facing. He needs to acknowledge whether he can capably lead as a three-ringed circus of his own making plays out around him.

Who in good conscience is going to do business with our mayor? A mayor who is out of jail on $10,000 bond as he awaits trial on federal charges?

The city is searching, again, for a capable economic director. It couldn't find anyone worthy of the new post the first time around. How is that job any easier with an indicted mayor? Would anyone with the qualifications and the ability to do a Google search even be willing to apply? To work for someone whose lone pre-mayoral business accomplishment is now labeled by the federal government as “worthless” and -- allegedly -- was more often used to fund a “lavish lifestyle” than it was for actual business expenses?

If someone approaches the mayor to do business in Fall River, can we be sure the mayor won’t spend a meeting wondering if that person is willing to donate to his legal defense fund as part of the cost of doing business in Fall River? Will Correia even be focused on such a meeting, or will his mind wander to his next federal court appearance?

These are questions that Correia has failed to answer, because he won’t address them. It’s not even clear how much Correia is working on city business at this time.

As it is, Correia has already spent most of one day sitting in a holding cell at the expense of taxpayers. If he remains in office he’ll continue to spend time in a courthouse some 50 miles away from his Government Center office on the taxpayer’s dime.

Then there is the question of Correia even being able to perform his duties to his fullest extent based on the judge’s requirement that he doesn’t have contact, “directly or indirectly, with a person who may be a victim or potential witness in this case, that specifically in the government’s view concerns anyone affiliated with SnoOwl either as an investor, associate or contractor … .”

While we don’t know who is on that list, we do know that at least one SnoOwl investor, Hildegard Camara, serves as a director of the Bristol County Training Consortium. And one of Correia’s SnoOwl employees, Christopher Parayno, is currently employed by the city as the overseer of cemeteries.

So what might happen if Correia talks with anyone on that list? Says Judge M. Page Kelley: “If you don’t follow the conditions, I can sign an arrest warrant. You can be arrested and held until the case is finished. Also, these conditions have the force of a court order. So it’s actually a crime, contempt of court, to violate any of the conditions.”

That’s a rather restricting order. And it illustrates very well the bind Correia is in as he fights the charges: He’s handcuffed. On Thursday, literally. Now, figuratively.

The leadership of Fall River has been unstable in recent years following the recall of one mayor, the short-term transitional year of another and now the charges levied against Correia.

Correia’s resignation would further erode that stability. But it also would remove the uncertainty of Correia’s questionable leadership, as well as the stigma that comes not only from the charges but the black eye he has placed on Fall River, where headlines have focused on our “greedy” mayor who spent investors’ money on adult entertainment and a “lavish lifestyle.”

The people of Fall River deserve better. To get there, Jasiel Correia must resign.