Oh, Dan. Now What? You're as Bad as I am.

Dear Mayor and Commissioners:

As you enter the budget deliberation season I would like you to consider giving yourself room for more upward movement in the Millage Rate than what is recommended by the Manager. Please have respect for that portion of the electorate that may want the opportunity to make a case for increased expenditures in the budget during the budget hearings. As you all are well aware, setting the maximum millage rate at a lower point than might ultimately be desired by residents before the public hearings in September, disenfranchises those that may wish for a better community at the cost of increased taxes. A mockery of the public hearing process is made by not giving yourselves and Village residents the flexibility to lobby for increased spending as well as additional reductions.

I am aware that some of you have made public commitments not to raise taxes, however a vote to allow a higher millage rate to go to the County will not violate that promise as you can honor your commitment in the votes that you make during the public hearing process. During the next and in future election cycles, I for one will remember those who show me and others respect by giving us the opportunity to have a meaningful voice in the budgetary process.

Sincerely,

Daniel Keys

So advises Dan Keys.  Makes an interesting debate. 

On the one hand: the Village needs money; residents have recently been given a considerable reduction in assessed value of their homes, and a doubling of the homestead exemption, so that some of us are paying less property tax than we did, for reasons that have nothing to do with the real value of our homes or our earning potential; others of us locked in such a low property tax, through homestead exemptions begun many years ago, that even with the lowered values and the double homestead exemption, we were so far behind current economics that our property taxes actually increased; under present economics, the Village operates on a shoestring, leaving us with miserable medians and no upgrades anywhere, unless someone decides to donate something.   We have no other reliable way to raise revenue than by increasing the property tax.  (See my "What's it Worth?," but I don't think it got any traction.)  Property taxes result in half of what the Village lives on.  Utility franchise fees provide an additional 1/3.  The rest is small stuff and not reliable.  So our choices are raise property taxes and/or franchise fees, or suffer reductions in services.  We've done some of the latter.  One area where there is more room to save is the police.  This department is our single biggest expense, accounting for half of what we spend.  We already underpay them, compared to other municipalities, and we have about two officers per shift.  We can decide we don't want that much protection, and we can reduce salaries further and reduce the size of the force.  It's most likely no one would work here for less than we're paying now.  And no resident, even the most ardent complainers about taxes, has ever suggested having less police presence.  So we may have backed ourselves into a corner.  There is one other choice, which our Manager has begun.  We can economize, streamline, and make more efficient.  There's a certain amount of that that can happen, but it's limited.  Once we cut what can be cut, fire who can be fired, and freeze wages, we're done.  At that point, we're not doing what needs to be done to retain valued employees, and we make ourselves vulnerable to losing talent to someone else who will pay more.  And we threaten the concept of reserve.

On the other hand, there are reasons not to increase taxes and the millage rate.  The main reason is the obvious reason: the tax is higher.  Most people don't want to pay a higher tax, and some can't afford to.  There may be marginal homeowners who could pay property tax if it was 8.99 mills, but not if was 10 mills.  Other reasons are less specific, and have to do with the image of a municipality where the tax rate suggests it is expensive to live.  The idea is that prospective home buyers might shy away from a municipality that had a high tax rate.  Then, there is the long term complication of stressing out homeowners.  The central complication, which is active here and many other places now, is a high rate of foreclosures, which not only have a depressing effect on the neighborhood, but they don't provide any tax at all.

We are a unique, and functionally limited, neighborhood.  We need money, as everyone does, and we have very few ways to get it.  As a general theme, the people who choose to live here do so because they particularly like the character of the neighborhood.  We used to function on more of a shoestring than we do now, and at that, we were temporarily mismanaged into the red.  We're in the black now (I assume everyone would agree that's a good thing), and we have extra expenses.  The Charter Review Committee, followed by the Commission at the time (5 or so years ago), gave us a new form of management, which required a professional Manager.  This was a new and considerable expense.  Our current Manager has worked very hard and well to keep us afloat, and she has gone out on a limb or two to do it.  For example, she has frozen wages for all Village employees.  This works well for us, in terms of preventing one area of increase of expenses, but it can't work too well for the employees.  They can't go to Publix or anyplace else, say they work for VBP, and ask that prices remain fixed, because their income is.  So at some point, we become a problem employer to them.

As for those who choose to live here, do we want to accommodate the most marginal among us, with the resulting implications for the neighborhood?  We say, in Planning and Zoning and the Code Review Committee, that we want a respectable, if not high, level of style and maintenance, but we may be unlikely to get it if we hogtie ourselves in terms both of revenues and a level of property owner capacity.  And if someone says he can't pay his tax at 10 mills, but only at 8.99, what will he do when his tax goes up every year anyway, by 3%?  

So I think Dan Keys makes an interesting and potentially compelling argument.  Nobody likes to pay taxes.  Almost all of us can.  We live in a specialized neighborhood, and most of us chose it because of its specialness.  I've mentioned this example before, but I used to live in the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts.  The Town prided itself on it's schools.  In Massachusetts, the schools are run by the municipality, not the County or the Commonwealth.  And there were statutes, like there are here, limiting the municipality's ability to increase property taxes, unless the municipality overrode the limitation.  Brookline always voted, by referendum, to override, because it wanted good schools.  The residents of the Town understood that it was on them, and for their benefit, to support the schools to the level they wanted them, and they voted to pay higher taxes to do it.  It was important to them.

So if our lifestyle is important to us, we have to consider Dan's proposal.  And we're not talking about overriding a ceiling.  We're not even at the ceiling.  That's Dan's point.  If we keep doing what we're doing, we will at some point lose our police or shrink the force, we will lose our employees, and we will probably lose our Manager soon enough anyway.  Almost anybody will pay her more than we do.  And this is all for the sake of money that we'll all pay some day anyway.  For a frame of reference, if a property is assessed at $350K, and $50K are exempted (homestead), the difference between a millage of 8.99 and 10 is about $300 per year.

Not to be heartless to our most limited neighbors, perhaps we could agree that if we do tax properties beyond what some neighbors can actually afford, they can apply to us for relief.  Maybe our Manager and Finance Director could review applications and tax returns to see if a certain neighbor really can't afford an increase, and we can make an exception for that occasional neighbor.

Food for thought. 

In love? Schoolboy style.

I think we should say it's official.  One of our Commissioners has a distinct thing for the Village Manager.  It appears he's had it from the beginning.  Could it have been love at first sight?  Could have.

The Commissioner had an initial reaction much different from that of anyone else who saw and heard the prospective Manager.  Everyone else was openly enthralled.  Of the several candidates for new Manager, the one we chose was at the top of everyone's list.  Everyone talked about it.  Well, almost everyone.  Not our hero.  He didn't like her.  There was some question as to whether he had someone else in mind, but he definitely did not get bitten by the bug that bit everyone else.  Or so it seemed.  Have you seen a toddler or pretoddler who doesn't want to eat his Gerber's pureed broccoli?  He purses his lips, turns away, and shakes his head "NO!"  That's what we're talking about.  One of our boy's colleagues had to ask him to vote for her anyway, after his initial, and lone, no vote, so we could welcome the new Manager unanimously.  As a courtesy to her.  Yeah, OK, he grudgingly complied.  And from those auspicious beginnings, it's been steeply downhill.

Our new Manager is a regular adult.  She's not into playing games, she doesn't set booby traps for people she doesn't like, and she doesn't wear pigtails a mischievous lad could pull. So our boy seems out of place in dealing with her as if she were a coveted schoolgirl.  Is our new Manager smart, accomplished, business-like, and "popular" among the residents, her coworkers, and the rest of the Commission?  Well, in fact, yes, she is.  And those may be reasons for some to feel a bit of envy for her talents.  But adults appreciate that in her.  They don't try to punish her for it.  If a resident or a Commissioner comes to feel, or realize, that other residents like the Manager more than they like the resident or Commissioner, the resident/Commissioner learns to smile about it.  Gross jealousy, and a campaign to undermine, are way out of line.  No adult would carry on that way.

So our lad has devoted himself to precisely that negative approach.  He has argued with and attempted to obstruct every move the Manager makes.  He criticizes absolutely everything.  Last year, there was a flap about our Finance Director at the time.  For reasons that have never been revealed, a reporter from a local tabloid contacted only our boy, among five Commissioners, to ask what he knew about the Finance Director, and how he reacted to the flap.  And did our boy register a complaint?  Of course.  But the complaint was not about the then Finance Director.  It was about the Manager, on whom he has this unflinching fixation.

Also last year, the Manager was due to be evaluated, by the Commission and by the whole neighborhood.  Resident after resident came to the podium to compliment the Manager and express appreciation for her, and in frankly glowing terms.  Anyone was welcome to respond in any way at all, and no one had anything but good to say.  Three Commissioners provided their own feedback, some informally, and some in a more formal "report" style.  All were much more than satisfied.  They, too, were glowing.  One Commissioner, who appears to have abandoned his post in a relatively pervasive way, never provided the evaluation it was his responsibility to do.  Our lad?  Not so fast.  He had plenty to point out.  And it was nothing but criticism.  He had insights no one else could see.  He gave very, very poor marks.  Either he's an insightful and perspicacious genius, seeing and knowing far beyond what the rest of us do, or he's grossly and pathetically out of step. 

Last week, at the Commission meeting, he managed to find some way to accuse the Manager of failure of leadership.  If there's one area in which the Manager excels above all others, it's leadership.  She is pro-active, she rallies and unifies all other Village employees, for some of whom she provides considerable supervision, she makes bold decisions, and she gets things done.  But no, our lad saw what no one else could see: she is a failed "leader."

And our Commissioner friend does not keep these valuable insights to himself.  I have spoken directly to two residents, and heard about another, who know how inept and tyrannical the Manager is, because our boy tells them.  None of these residents come to meetings.  They just rely on our lad to tell them what's really going on.

Now as personal as our lad's antipathy seems to be, I do consider the possibility that his sabotage and muck-raking might be more general.  For example, in his several years on the Commission, spanning the tenures of two Managers and two significantly different Commissions, he has never voted in favor of approving a budget.  He has voted against every one of them.  His opposition used to be 1-4, but now that he's found a little playmate, it's 2-3.   He never says he's refusing budgets categorically, as if he denied the process of presenting budgets.  He always claims it's about something faulty in the budgets.  They're never perfect enough.  They're apparently good enough for everyone else, and they provide the Village with a framework for its fiscal functioning, but our boy sees things that don't completely please him.  So he votes against the budgets.  Invariably.  I was giving my son an analogy about exactly this kind of logical error.  The analogy went like this:  suppose you need a car.  You simply must have one.  So you begin shopping for one.  You research many cars, from many companies, and you test drive them all.  At the end of your explorations, you summarize, thanks to the careful and comprehensive notes you made, that each car is imperfect, and you don't buy any of them.  If you wind up feeling that you have "succeeded," in avoiding coming to own an imperfect car, you need to take a step back and realize that in fact, you "failed."  Your need was to get a car, and you didn't get one.

In the present case, we have a Village Manager, whether our lad wanted her or not, she's terrific, whether he likes her or not, and we have provided for ourselves yearly budget after yearly budget, whether our boy approves of them or finds them flawed.  So his failures, which he twists in his mind to be missed successes, do not become our failures.  This is good.  It's just too bad about the drag.  To carry the car analogy one step further, you can drive a car with the emergency brake on, but it's difficult, it's an unpleasant ride, and it uses way too much gas.

More Power to Us?

I'm at a very early phase with this comment, because I'm not sure what to expect.  Various streets and avenues in the Village are going to be outfitted with new power poles.  The old ones are wood, brown, and comparatively low.  The new ones are concrete, light grey, and higher than the old ones.  And because the new ones are stronger, there will be fewer of them than there are of the old poles along the route where they will be placed.

One of those routes is 119th Street, which is where I live.  If I can assume those three short wood stakes with the white flags and the writing indicate where the new poles will go (which is what I've been told), there will be one directly in front of my house.  The marker poles are within the property.  I'm guessing the new pole won't be.  I imagine it will be in the swale, where the old pole is.  This would be good, because it will mean no trees will have to be removed from our yard to make room for the new pole.

As it turns out, we have a disagreement at our house about the presumed new pole.  Jane doesn't want it.  She thinks it will be too imposing, and she doesn't like the color.  I do want it.  It will be more stable than the old pole, so it's less likely we will lose power in a storm.  Also, if it really is higher, the top, with the power lines, will be more invisible, because it will be above the trees.  And speaking of which, FPL will not butcher our poinciana to keep it away from the lines.  The new height will obviate the need for butchery.

I would have preferred buried lines, but the Commission at the time a discount was offered to bury the lines wasn't interested.  But higher lines is a good enough second choice.  There is, however, a slight complication.  The old poles don't come out the day the new poles go in.  To be more precise, they don't come out the day the new poles are wired.  The reason is that the old poles carry more than FPL lines.  They carry ATT lines, and Comcast lines.  So someone decided the old poles could not come out until ATT and Comcast move their lines to the new poles.  The problem is that it isn't clear what would motivate them to move their lines, and we're not forcing them.  I view this as a significant problem.  It costs ATT and Comcast trouble and money to move their lines, and it may not be clear to them that it's worth it.  Or why it is.  We could have forced the issue by telling ATT and Comcast on what day the old poles are coming out, and they're welcome to move their lines before that day if they don't want to lose them, but for some reason, the Commission didn't decide to be that assertive.  They just said they'd like the lines moved by a certain number of days or weeks after the new poles are installed, but they didn't provide an incentive or a consequence if the lines weren't moved.  So I hope I'm not stuck with two poles for who knows how long.  The old pole isn't bad, and the new one will be better, but I definitely don't want both.  We have some double poles already, I think, but I don't know of any old poles that have been removed yet.  Once the new poles are in, the old ones really need to come out.

I have a friend who paints really nice tromps-l'oeil.  I wonder if FPL would let me hire her to paint up the new pole, so it looks like vines or trees or something.  I'll have to ask them.

Schools, schools, schools, schools, schools.

So someone might open a school in Biscayne Park. Or someone will open a school in BP. At best, it kind of remains to be seen. Let's take it at best. For now.

BP was incorporated in 1933. The Church of the Resurrection was built in 1940. So it wasn't here from the outset, but it's been here a long time. Biscayne Park is almost 100% residential. If "commercial" implies signs and parking, then we only have one official non-residential phenomenon. The Church. I really don't know the history of this Episcopal Church. When I moved here in July, 2005, it was gasping for air. Last gasps, maybe. Apparently, no one much attended church there. The Episcopal Diocese doesn't confide in me, so I don't know what they were thinking to do about this. Sometimes, churches or temples close down for lack of a congregation. I have no idea if this idea crossed the Monsignor's mind. But what did happen is that the reportedly adorable Father Cutie became available, the Episcopals picked up his option from the Catholics, and it seemed some life might be breathed into the little 'ol CoR. Right, it seemed like it.

But evidently not life enough. So we got a new proposal from the Church this month. They've apparently been in talks with the Mater Academy (pronounced matter, spells like the Latin for mother, although all those involved claim no religious affiliation or theme. OK.) about a Charter School, which is apparently what Mater does. We heard preK-8, then preK-5, then preK-2. We heard 180 kids and a new two storey building, and we heard 50-60 kids and just upgrading what they have. We heard August, 2011 (yeah, this August, as in about a month from now), and we heard maybe not so soon. So who knows. The only thing we do know is that there is a plan, and the plan is to provide the Church with money, and Mater Academy with another outlet. Somewhere along the way, there was some vague allusion about what this is supposed to do for the Village and residents of Biscayne Park. And we need to discuss this.

But first, let's consider a school at the corner of 6th and Griffing. It's our extreme southern corner. Think what's just over the 6th Avenue bridge from there. There's Miami Country Day School. Another two blocks down the street, there's a public elementary school. Nearby, there's St Rose, and a Montessori school. Several blocks west on 103rd, there's another elementary school. A mile north and east, and it's WJ Bryan. A little closer than that, there's another school. So there needs to be another elementary school? Among seven elementary or earlier schools, all within a few miles of each other, we need another? And it should be in Biscayne Park, which normally distinguishes itself by being (almost 100%) residential? The other schools are not all free, and they're not all A+ quality, but they're quite servicable to our community, and we've relied on them for decades.  It wouldn't be hard to conclude that the anomaly is not that we don't have a school in BP, but that we have anything at all other than homes. The anomaly is the church, not the absence of a Charter school. By definition, the church is not in itself a going concern. It needs to take in boarders to stay afloat. If BP'ers, or anyone, valued the church as a place to worship, it would have an adequate congregation, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. We need one less church, not one more school.

But let's be fair, and consider pros and cons. The cons of a school, compounding a church: it creates more traffic at an already difficult intersection, it expands the very limited non-residential feature of BP, which we say we don't want, and it revives a church that appears to have had inadequate value in this neighborhood for what it was. The pros of a school here: it gives BP kids of a certain age a place to go to school, right in their own neighborhood, and (I've heard this), it clogs up a difficult intersection, so "cut-throughs" won't use it for commuting. In that sense, it cures one traffic problem by superimposing another. As for providing a school for BP kids and employees' kids, is it a big advantage to have such a school a couple of blocks or so closer than the usual alternatives? And do we have enough kids, on a successive basis, to make use of such an advantage?

Now before I say what I'm thinking, I have to throw a major monkey wrench into this. Our Village Attorney, John Hearn, was probably strategic and careful in letting slip that the State, under its strengthened right-wing regime, has declared that charter schools do not have to comply with the usual rules regarding zoning, if they are within certain other properties, like churches. They also are exempt from paying for building permits.  In short, the church can do whatever it wants with respect to hosting a school, even a secular school, on its property. School and church representatives came to the Commission meeting, and made a humble proposal as a show of diplomacy, not because they are in any way constrained by what the Village and its residents want. The Monsignor said, in a Herald Neighbors article yesterday, that "all...issues are resolvable," and that church and school are "more than willing to bend over backwards to accommodate the Village," but the fact is they can do what they want. They are under no requirement, or real pressure, to accommodate anyone. Several Village residents commented about the plan for a school, and every one of them spoke against the idea. Is the church/school willing to bend so far backwards that they would decide against the idea of a school if Village residents didn't want one? The plan is for a "workshop," to further consider the matter, but this could all be a formality. We will have to see. The church was openly accused of not having been a "good neighbor" to the Village, and it has the authority to be as bad a neighbor as it wishes.

What I'm thinking is this: the church wants to remain a church. It can't manage for itself, so it wants to rent its grounds to a school. Sounds like typical business considerations to me. And no problem. But is there really any reason all of this should happen in Biscayne Park? The Park, as a potential congregation, has made clear it isn't interested in the church end of this. We have a surfeit of schools, more than conveniently located for Park residents. So why don't we offer to buy the church and its grounds from the church, they can go a block or two over the bridge, and there, in a perfectly consonant surroundings, they can rebuild a church, and outfit it to accommodate a school. This part of town will have a veritable ample garden of schools: all the choice in the world for kids not yet of high school age. And we can sell off the lots for homes, which is what we prefer ("Biscayne Park: The Village of Homes"). We will convert the lots from occupants who pay no property tax to occupants who pay property tax. Which we also need. This way, everyone is satisfied.

The church and its intended tenant came to us in seeming honor, to ask for our opinion, or perhaps blessing (?). Both of them clearly want this affiliation, it's clear why, and they might want us to accept their plan. Thus far, we have made it clear we don't want what they want. At a "workshop," we might make it even more clear, or perhaps those of us who come to the workshop will wind up feeling more hospitable. But the question is, if the church/school clearly want the school, and the Village clearly doesn't, what happens? Does the trump card up the church's sleeve get played? We shall surely see.