Leadership Quote by John Lynch

The condo complex in Conway isn’t a punchline so much as a prop: a concrete, oddly specific image meant to make “government waste” feel tactile. John Lynch reaches for real estate because it’s the kind of asset voters can picture, resent, and mentally appraise. A “condo complex” suggests leisure, private benefit, and mismanagement all at once. It’s a way of saying: the state has drifted into side quests.

The intent is twofold. First, he justifies adding bureaucracy by branding it as anti-bureaucracy. A “real estate manager position” is rhetorically framed as a scalpel, not another layer of fat. He’s inoculating the budget against the classic critique: you can’t fix government by hiring more government. The subtext is managerial competence as moral virtue; the state doesn’t just spend too much, it owns things it “shouldn’t,” implying a loss of discipline and purpose.

Contextually, this sits in the post-recession New England playbook, when balanced budgets, asset inventories, and “right-sizing” became a centrist language for austerity without saying the word. Notice the careful pairing: “assess what we own” (technocratic, neutral) then “sell those properties” (decisive, corrective). The line draws a boundary around what government is supposed to do: provide services, not accumulate holdings. At the same time, it sidesteps how the state acquired the property in the first place - foreclosure, failed projects, legal settlements - because causality complicates the clean narrative. The condo becomes a symbol of mission creep, and the manager becomes Lynch’s promise that oversight can pay for itself.