01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, March 14, 2006

BY MARK REYNOLDS
Journal Staff Writer

JOHNSTON -- Mayor William R. Macera said yesterday that he needs three weeks of rest to overcome a dangerous blood condition.

Near the height of the budget season, and at the outset of a reelection campaign, Macera installed Police Chief Richard S. Tamburini as interim town manager and promised to return to work on April 3.

By his calculations, that will leave just enough time to present a budget for the next fiscal year and plenty of time to run for reelection.

"I've gone through this before," said Macera, who has been battling cancer for years. "I've never had an easy election in Johnston. What's one more not-easy election in Johnston?"

This time, the mayor's medical problem has to do with his blood platelets -- those tiny disk-like forms that make blood clot.

The typical person has 150,000 to 350,000 platelets in each microliter of blood.

Macera said his platelet count recently dropped to 2,000, prompting doctors to analyze his medications, make some adjustments and order a respite.

The mayor's blood difficulty is a byproduct of his struggle with cancer -- a fight that he's been waging since he was diagnosed with a brain tumor in 1996.

He said his doctors at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute believe that his low platelet count has to do with a cancer medication he has been taking April of 2005.

The doctors have ordered a treatment of steroid medications and rest, Macera said.

The good news for the mayor is that he can do some of his resting in sunny Florida.

The doctors are letting him travel to Boca Raton, he said, adding that he will leave on March 22 and return a week later.

"I will be back to deliver the state of the town address," he vowed.

In the meantime, Tamburini will manage the "day-to-day business affairs of the Johnston town government."

"I'm ready to do what I have to do," Tamburini said yesterday.

Macera said the town's finance director, Richard F. Connors, will handle budget preparations and continue to sort out budget issues with each of the town's department heads.

The budget, Macera said, will be mostly level-funded with the only spending increases stemming from employee pay raises -- the bulk of them required by contract.

The mayor said his budget address will examine the town's financial situation in relation to a school spending deficit.

That's something that's becoming a custom.

Residents can count on it this year, too, said Macera.

The 68-year-old endured 33 radiation treatments in the 1990s. About 80 percent of the people who were diagnosed with the same type of cancer problem in 1996 had perished by the year 2000, Macera said.

"They've had me dead and buried already," he said. "I don't plan to do that. I plan to take the advice of my physicians."

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