Tonight, in a special meeting, the Commission continued the Village's contract with Ana Garcia, our manager. There were two processes at work. The explicit one was about the details of her contract, and what raise to give her and other particulars.
The other process was played out as a constant tugging or nagging. There was a resistance, and it influenced the discussion about salary, yearly raises, compensatory time, and a number of other areas.
About six years ago, the Village decided to use a professional manager. A Charter Review Committee made the recommendation, which was approved by the then Commission, and then ratified by the Village as a whole through a referendum. Lay Commissioners couldn't responsibly manage the various departments, and they wanted someone with knowledge, training, and some experience to do it, so it would get done right.
So we got one manager, a very seasoned guy with decades of experience in south Florida municipalities, and he served us poorly. We didn't pay him high on the scale, but we paid him much more than he was worth. Our second attempt was Ana Garcia, who is our manager today. There's general agreement that she is extremely hard-working, very devoted to us, smart, and she has accomplished great things for us. And now, it was time to reconsider her contract. She's never had more than a one-year contract, and other than one "bonus" (she's been with us for almost 3 1/2 years), she's never had a raise. She wants one, and a contract for more than a year at a time, and some other minor concessions. And here's where things got sticky.
There was a certain amount of resistance to doing much more than we're doing for her. She wanted a 10% raise, Roxy Ross thought 9% sounded better to her, Barbara Watts liked 8% better, Bryan Cooper could maybe consider 3%, and Noah Jacobs didn't really commit. It sounded like his preference was 0. Bob Anderson was agreeable to something in the 8-9% range, and when Roxy offered to "split the difference" with Barbara, the two or them and Bob agreed to 8.5%.
Now none of this was about anything, since the numbers were irrational and not connected to anything, except that they were niggling departures from Ana's 10% request, but the discussion led to a deeper consideration of what the Village is about.
The phrase "stepping stone" came up several times. So did Ana's caution "you get what you pay for." The idea seemed to be that the Village is not necessarily fully self-respecting, and it may not consider itself worthy of quality management. There seemed to be real consideration of letting Ana go some place else, where she could get more money, and we'd replace her with a kid just out of school, or someone knocking around and unable to find a better paying manager gig. At some level, we had to consider what we think of ourselves. Ultimately, we found a way to try to hang onto Ana, though not with real enthusiasm. It was one of those failures to see the big picture, unless what the nigglers did was the big picture, at least for them.
What happened last night was not much about Ana. It was about the Commissioners, who elevated their own senses about what percent felt like the right number to them. "I couldn't vote for..." was heard from some, though the numbers were meaningless. There was essentially no attempt to consult the budget before deciding what we could afford. And Ana's notation that we had enough money, and she had saved us enough money, to provide for everything she requested, was ignored completely. It wasn't the point. The personal posturing, the bluster from Commissioners, was the point.
The fork in the road is this: do we want improvement and high quality? Do we want tight and efficient functioning? Do we want what lay residents don't know how to provide for themselves? Or do we want to settle for being a poorly maintained, unambitious, two-big burg, that accomplishes nothing except meeting whatever are the most minimal standards? We must want something more than any of us would get if we chose to live in Hialeah, or even North Miami. So which way are we taking this thing?
It was frankly a bit painful to see these decisions about the Village entrusted to Bryan Cooper, who doesn't care about anyone or anything, and only wants to withhold and insult, and to Noah Jacobs, who is not a stakeholder in the Village and is much more preoccupied with his own little sense of power than actually doing anything useful. Barbara Watts gets very flummoxed when the talk is of money, and it's hard for her to separate her own personal feelings from the task of overseeing a municipality.
So the process was somewhat tortured, and it may remain to be seen how effective we were at building stability into our Village. The good news is that Ana is in fact so devoted, to us and to joining the battle against those who challenge her, that she might stay here after all, even though we foolishly and meaninglessly nickeled and dimed her. The real fact, overlooked by Cooper, Jacobs, and Watts, is that Ana has saved us a good deal more than she's cost us. We should have been much more grateful.
As an out-of-town observer of this blog, I was struck by the post of last night’s Village meeting. The feeling I walked away with – a pervasive one – is the amount of ill-will and self-centeredness that erupts during these meetings, especially among the Commissioners, who hold the reins to the tenor of a meeting’s success or demise. It seems the larger picture often gets lost or diluted against a backdrop of the Commissioners’ own posturing and preening.
ReplyDeleteSuch seemed the case last night when Ana Garcia's position became the focus of attention. It struck me how terribly uncomfortable she must have felt. The fact that no one bothered to ask her if she was, confirms my assumption.
The title of “Commissioner” carries with it both privilege and responsibility – a role that should not be abused by clumsy attempts at belittlement or self-inflation. Last evening’s “entrée” that was served up was that of Manager, and the argument as to whether Ms. Garcia's contract should be renewed and for how much. The Commissioners jumped in and took over, so much so that Ms. Garcia became almost an afterthought. She got lost in a blurry haze of numbers and percentages. No one seemed to notice that this POI (Person of Interest) might actually have an opinion as to whether lowering standards should supersede substance and savvy, the latter of which is evidenced by Ms. Garcia’s reportedly sterling track record.
I am reminded of Shirley Jackson’s short story: “The Lottery” where outdated traditions and mores by the myopic townspeople kept them sequestered in a cocoon of naivete and prejudices. They were wrapped up in the sound of their own voices and habits, which in turn negated any hope of gaining a larger perspective, which should have been de rigueur of the evening’s agenda.
Fred points out there might be a problem here. What reads as snarky finesse seems to highlight a real and substantive issue. While I agree that politics can be dirty business, they need not infringe on the more relevant matter at hand, which in this case, is the betterment of the BP community. Paying homage to those members who make a difference, such as Ana Garcia, might be not only a polite gesture, but a necessary component to making Biscayne Park a community of which to be proud, and which can only be accomplished by joint efforts and a sense of decency and recognition to those who deserve it most.
The Ana Garcia story exemplifies the need for an attitude-adjustment on the parts of the “Big Shots” who are currently running the show. Wouldn’t it have been nice and neighborly for the BP community to have acknowledged Ms. Garcia’s feelings, being that she was the one on whom the question of contracts was being thrust?
Judith Marks-White
Westport, CT