The Village and its residents are represented by five Commissioners. They are elected at large. This means that everyone in the Village can vote for any Commission candidate, and any elected Commissioner represents everyone in the Village. A Commissioner may imagine, or wish, that he or she had a limited constituency within the Village, but the fact is each Commissioner represents all of us equally. Commissioners are paid by all of us. The Mayor is paid $4000 per year, and the other four Commissioners are paid $2000 per year each. The job description is the same for each Commissioner other than the Mayor.
Bryan Cooper has been a Commissioner for two years. As it happens, he received more votes than any other candidate when he was elected. So to think of Orwell, if all Commissioners are equal, but some are more equal than others, it could be argued that Cooper's representation of his neighbors is more pervasive than that of his colleagues. And as a frame of reference, not only did Cooper receive more votes than his rivals two years ago, he also received more votes than any of the winners this year. He must feel some attachment to his position. He cashed all his checks.
During his tenure thus far on the Commission, Cooper has made himself conspicuous. He has generally been more argumentative, with his colleagues and with his constituents, than any other Commissioner. It's true that Bernard wasted more time, and was more eloquent and verbose in his complaints, but Cooper was more likely to be the lone Commissioner out when votes were 4-1. Cooper was also more combative with the Commission and the neighborhood. He tended to blame and accuse on a more or less regular basis, and he has been prone to wanting investigations of the behavior of others. On one occasion, he demanded an investigation of the Manager, didn't mind spending $5000 on this investigation, and when the investigation concluded that he was the problem, he wanted the report vacated. He has since suggested another investigation of the Manager. So he wastes Village money on empty campaigns. He also takes leading responsibility for extra legal consultation for the Village, so he has handed us inflated legal fees.
Cooper also not infrequently warns the Village that its postures and procedures could result in its being sued. The Village has not been sued in the past two years, and since Cooper is the only person who keeps talking about it, one wonders whether he is trying to tell us that he is planning, or ready, to sue the Village for something or other.
Commissioners are expected generally to represent the Village in various ways. The most obvious of these is attendance at Commission meetings. From the date Cooper became a Commissioner, there have been many regular Commission meetings, and a few special Commission meetings. Ross missed one meeting. Anderson missed one. Childress missed two. Bernard missed three. Cooper missed five meetings outright. He left another less than half way through the meeting, and that meeting ended an hour earlier than most. He attended two other meetings by telephone, at his insistence, and was hard to include because of the connection. He "attended" one of these early Commission meetings from another country, and he then proceeded to disrupt the meeting, because he would not control a loudly barking dog in the room with him.
Within those meetings, a level of decorum and propriety is generally expected. This is not specifically elaborated in the Charter, but most normal adults would presume it. Cooper is quite regularly argumentative and rude in his dealings with his colleagues, overtalking, interrupting, provoking, and sometimes threatening. In his dealings with the public, he is likewise argumentative. He tends to be the only Commissioner who requests opportunities to debate his neighbors. In the last Commission meeting, he refused to answer a direct and simple question from one speaker, simply staring at her instead, and conspicuously ignored another, who pleaded with him to stop texting and pay attention to her while she was addressing the Commission. He eventually alleged that his activities with his cell phone represented doing "research," and he still refused to do the speaker the courtesy of suspending whatever it was he was doing, so he could even appear to care what she was saying.
Elected officials in the Park are generally expected to appear at public functions. Cooper is deliberate and methodical about absenting himself from them. A year or two ago, a visioning meeting was arranged for the Commission, largely to address problems caused or materially contributed to by Cooper. He was the only Commissioner who did not attend. Later, when the meeting was reported by the mediator hired to conduct it, Cooper asked if he could "vote" on a decision made by attendees. He clearly had not the slightest comprehension of group process, and failed completely to recognize that the purpose of the meeting was an exercise in collaboration, not a specific vote. Because of his persistent complaints that the Village, and the Commission, and the managerial staff, do not do as he personally would like them to, he has declared a strike against the Village and its residents, and he refuses to attend any community events. At former Mayor Ross' recent "State of the Village Address," a large series of slides was displayed, showing a number of community get-togethers of various kinds and for various purposes. Cooper was included in two photographs, and those two were taken at Commission meetings. He has been asked many times, most recently by his colleague Anderson, to attend Village functions, and it appears he simply refuses.
Since the inception of our Manager form of management in the Village, Commissioners are liberated from managing departments themselves, but they are now charged with submitting, in writing or verbally, evaluations of the Manager's performance. There has even been some debate and significant disagreement about how these evaluations should be presented, with Cooper insisting the evaluations should be in writing. During his two years in office so far, he has been responsible for two yearly evaluations. He has submitted neither of them. He alleges "legal advice" not to submit the evaluations that are his responsibility (he doesn't reveal who the attorney supposedly is), but this has not kept him from routinely criticizing the Manager on the record and at Commission meetings, including a range of formal accusations.
So we have a problem. We have a Commissioner who accepts our trust and our money, and the responsibility to represent us, and costs us considerably more than his salary, but who returns almost nothing. And what he does return is mostly disruptive and undermining to the Village. He does not appear to "represent" the Village and its residents in any way. It's not even clear he represents himself. For two years, he and Bernard wasted a great deal of meeting time, every month, insisting that meeting minutes, which they portrayed as incomplete, faulty, and frankly illegal, be corrected with various amendments and inclusions. At the meeting this week, Cooper joined the others in passing six sets of minutes, with no corrections whatsoever. And these minutes represented meetings of the same Commission, and were prepared by the same Clerk, as all the minutes that were so invariably considered faulty. It appears Cooper's greatest devotion in the Village is to struggle, find fault, blame, and disrupt. And waste residents' money.
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
You Call It.
In the Residents' Bill of Rights in our Charter, the following statement occurs:
(7) No Unreasonable Postponements. No matter, once having been placed on a formal agenda by the Village, shall be postponed to another date except for good cause shown.
If the fence Ordinance has been worked on by the Code Review Committee for over two years, has come before the Commission several times during the past 1-2 years, has been sent back for reworking after reworking, keeps coming back to the Commission, has been the topic of a workshop, and a lame duck Commissioner with the last Commission considered himself not authorized, by virtue of his self-imposed lame duck status, to rule on it, would a further delay of two months now be considered an "unreasonable postponement?" Does the buck ever stop anywhere? And would it matter if the reason for the postponement was that one Commissioner wanted more information, having failed to come to any meetings of the Code Review Committee, or the workshop? How much more, and what more, does he want? In fact, it seems he didn't know there had been a workshop. Workshops, by the way, are not free. We pay staff and our attorney to attend them.
Or suppose another Commissioner wanted a postponement, because he was newly elected, hadn't bothered to research the matter before the meeting (or during his campaign, or at any other prior time), and felt that the over 2 years of Code Review attention, 1-2 years of Commission attention, and workshop, was too much of a rush job. He wanted us to take it slow. I tried to tell him before he got elected that he wasn't ready for this job, and that in BP, slow usually means never, but he disagreed with me. So why is he now proving me right? Is "don't know the first thing about it, and couldn't be bothered to find out" a pretty "good cause" for postponement? This, by the way, is the same person who was evidently so oblivious to what was going on in the Village, that he just found out about the FPL hardening project the day the concrete pole was erected in his yard. People talking about it for months? Nope, unaware. Three wood stakes in his yard for two months? No, some guy said something about buried lines. Two announcements mailed in advance by FPL? Nope, didn't notice. And this is the Commissioner (our Mayor?) who now says the fence issue has been sprung on him too suddenly.
And suppose a third Commissioner simply went along with the other two, because she didn't have the wherewithal to take an independent stand? And presumably also hadn't done enough homework to have formed an opinion before the meeting. Do these sound like compelling enough reasons for further pussy-footing? There is of course the possibility that a "higher power" directed all three to delay, because he himself didn't want the fence Ordinance, but we won't even go there.
And add to that that many residents came to the Commission meeting to plead with the new Commission to vote for, or at least on, the fence Ordinance already, as a number of residents were being hung up waiting for a ruling.
"Unreasonable postponement?" Or maybe careful and due diligence? You make the call. And after you've made a call, contact all of our Commissioners, and let them know what you think. Either scold them or thank them for the delay. And if you think they did the wrong thing, let them know they committed a Charter violation, and violated your rights as a resident.
(7) No Unreasonable Postponements. No matter, once having been placed on a formal agenda by the Village, shall be postponed to another date except for good cause shown.
If the fence Ordinance has been worked on by the Code Review Committee for over two years, has come before the Commission several times during the past 1-2 years, has been sent back for reworking after reworking, keeps coming back to the Commission, has been the topic of a workshop, and a lame duck Commissioner with the last Commission considered himself not authorized, by virtue of his self-imposed lame duck status, to rule on it, would a further delay of two months now be considered an "unreasonable postponement?" Does the buck ever stop anywhere? And would it matter if the reason for the postponement was that one Commissioner wanted more information, having failed to come to any meetings of the Code Review Committee, or the workshop? How much more, and what more, does he want? In fact, it seems he didn't know there had been a workshop. Workshops, by the way, are not free. We pay staff and our attorney to attend them.
Or suppose another Commissioner wanted a postponement, because he was newly elected, hadn't bothered to research the matter before the meeting (or during his campaign, or at any other prior time), and felt that the over 2 years of Code Review attention, 1-2 years of Commission attention, and workshop, was too much of a rush job. He wanted us to take it slow. I tried to tell him before he got elected that he wasn't ready for this job, and that in BP, slow usually means never, but he disagreed with me. So why is he now proving me right? Is "don't know the first thing about it, and couldn't be bothered to find out" a pretty "good cause" for postponement? This, by the way, is the same person who was evidently so oblivious to what was going on in the Village, that he just found out about the FPL hardening project the day the concrete pole was erected in his yard. People talking about it for months? Nope, unaware. Three wood stakes in his yard for two months? No, some guy said something about buried lines. Two announcements mailed in advance by FPL? Nope, didn't notice. And this is the Commissioner (our Mayor?) who now says the fence issue has been sprung on him too suddenly.
And suppose a third Commissioner simply went along with the other two, because she didn't have the wherewithal to take an independent stand? And presumably also hadn't done enough homework to have formed an opinion before the meeting. Do these sound like compelling enough reasons for further pussy-footing? There is of course the possibility that a "higher power" directed all three to delay, because he himself didn't want the fence Ordinance, but we won't even go there.
And add to that that many residents came to the Commission meeting to plead with the new Commission to vote for, or at least on, the fence Ordinance already, as a number of residents were being hung up waiting for a ruling.
"Unreasonable postponement?" Or maybe careful and due diligence? You make the call. And after you've made a call, contact all of our Commissioners, and let them know what you think. Either scold them or thank them for the delay. And if you think they did the wrong thing, let them know they committed a Charter violation, and violated your rights as a resident.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
How Can I Put This?
So we got to see our new Commission in action tonight. It's a little hard to describe. Perhaps the beginning would be a good place to begin. The new Commission met one of its first and most important goals: it unceremoniously, in mindless bloc, dumped the Mayor. It then replaced her with the new Commissioner who has no experience with the Village and its functioning, had already said he would now, having become a Commissioner, have to find out about the issues, and was the low vote-getter in last week's election.
It then went on to consider the business of the meeting. An important issue was the new fence Ordinance. The mindless bloc, having heard from resident after resident that they wanted the Ordinance passed tonight, deferred the matter for a couple more months. This bloc is the people who complained so much that the Commission doesn't listen to the residents. And they deferred it allegedly to receive more resident input, which was exactly the thing they ignored tonight. They wanted, for example, a workshop. What they really had to want is another workshop, since we've already had one. But they had no way of knowing that, since none of the bloc attended it. Cooper, when he was outed for not having attended the workshop, couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the fact. It's been a while since I've seen anyone look that foolish. Neither he nor his new colleagues has ever attended any meeting where the fence Ordinance has been discussed and reworked. The fact is, it wasn't clear what they wanted, except somehow to run and hide from the fence Ordinance. They never said what their real problem was. Cooper used the word "smokescreen," which is probably right. The interesting question is, what's behind the screen of smoke?
This new Commission also passed a Consent Agenda, which included six sets of minutes from prior meetings. Cooper always joined Bernard in making the old Commission waste lots of time going over the minutes, insisting on change and addition after change and addition. This time, they simply passed all the minutes with no scrutiny at all. They gave no reason for their grossly inconsistent approach to what they usually like to portray as a huge problem that needs abundant correction. And the funny thing is, Bernard and Cooper used to complain that they, and the residents, were being steamrolled in suppression of accuracy of the minutes, because they got outvoted by the brute majority. Now, they had the majority, in Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs, the latter two being new Commissioners who ran on Bernard- and Cooper-inspired campaigns of openness, honesty, transparency, and accountability. This was it. The big opportunity to demand and enforce complete and accurate minutes. It appears none of them really cared one bit about the minutes, or openness, honesty, transparency, or accountability. These theories were merely excuses to whine and accuse.
One thing the new Commission did is demonstrate repeatedly that the new Commissioners don't know or understand the issues, and stumbled around trying to figure out what they were doing. They seemed never to figure it out. Watts made a motion that she then wanted to vote against, which she isn't allowed to do, so she wound up being the only person to vote for it. Jacobs gave a clear and careful explanation, in support of Cooper, as to why it was wrong for elected officials to carry "police-style badges," then voted in favor of keeping the tradition. (It might have occurred to him that he was going to get one, too, and his would be that super nifty one that said "Mayor.") Cooper was taken to task by a resident over texting while the resident was speaking, but he first ignored the resident's repeated complaint of disrespect, then claimed to be doing "research." (He was texting with Bernard, who stayed to monitor, if not perhaps supervise, the proceedings.) In any event, it appears our new Mayor didn't think it was his job to ask Cooper to put his toys away, or maybe he didn't disagree that residents should be treated so disrespectfully. And again, you really had to be there, to watch Cooper completely ignore a resident who was pleading with him to show some courtesy and pay attention. This scene ran a close second to Cooper's being confronted for not having come to the workshop just like the one he now claims he wants, and simply staring dumbly at the resident who was confronting him. These are what Jon Stewart calls "Moments of Zen."
Fortunately, the new Commission had Ross, who was remarkably gracious, and the Village attorney to tell them what to do, since they very clearly had no idea. Not only do they not have any grasp of the issues, but they also have no understanding of the rules for meetings.
No doubt they will improve some. The Manager has offered to help them, and so has the Village attorney. It appears Roxy Ross will fill many gaping holes in the capacity of her new colleagues.
In reality, the meeting was pretty pathetic. At the end, Bernard commented about how courageous it was that the Commission heard such strong and impassioned urgings for action from so many residents in attendance, but it was able to ignore all of them and defer the fence issue to February. Bernard, Cooper, and the new Commissioners are the people who made such a fuss, and so much campaign hay, over the idea that the residents were to be heard, respected, and obeyed. Bernard used to complain so bitterly that the majority of the Commission turned a deaf ear to residents. Tonight, he praised his puppets for doing exactly that. It did look a little less like puppetry tonight. It looked more like someone operating a radio controlled vehicle, Bernard sitting there, texting away, while his proteges lurched first one way, then another. Well, maybe next time. Maybe next time the residents' wishes can be taken remotely into account. Maybe next time, the residents won't have to be insulted by Cooper's incessant texting, or playing Tetris, or whatever he was doing, while they're speaking to him. Yeah, maybe next time.
Correction: One of my correspondents says Cooper was not playing Tetris. She said she could tell by his expression, and how entranced he was by his cell phone game, that he was playing Sim City. My mistake. Sorry.
It then went on to consider the business of the meeting. An important issue was the new fence Ordinance. The mindless bloc, having heard from resident after resident that they wanted the Ordinance passed tonight, deferred the matter for a couple more months. This bloc is the people who complained so much that the Commission doesn't listen to the residents. And they deferred it allegedly to receive more resident input, which was exactly the thing they ignored tonight. They wanted, for example, a workshop. What they really had to want is another workshop, since we've already had one. But they had no way of knowing that, since none of the bloc attended it. Cooper, when he was outed for not having attended the workshop, couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the fact. It's been a while since I've seen anyone look that foolish. Neither he nor his new colleagues has ever attended any meeting where the fence Ordinance has been discussed and reworked. The fact is, it wasn't clear what they wanted, except somehow to run and hide from the fence Ordinance. They never said what their real problem was. Cooper used the word "smokescreen," which is probably right. The interesting question is, what's behind the screen of smoke?
This new Commission also passed a Consent Agenda, which included six sets of minutes from prior meetings. Cooper always joined Bernard in making the old Commission waste lots of time going over the minutes, insisting on change and addition after change and addition. This time, they simply passed all the minutes with no scrutiny at all. They gave no reason for their grossly inconsistent approach to what they usually like to portray as a huge problem that needs abundant correction. And the funny thing is, Bernard and Cooper used to complain that they, and the residents, were being steamrolled in suppression of accuracy of the minutes, because they got outvoted by the brute majority. Now, they had the majority, in Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs, the latter two being new Commissioners who ran on Bernard- and Cooper-inspired campaigns of openness, honesty, transparency, and accountability. This was it. The big opportunity to demand and enforce complete and accurate minutes. It appears none of them really cared one bit about the minutes, or openness, honesty, transparency, or accountability. These theories were merely excuses to whine and accuse.
One thing the new Commission did is demonstrate repeatedly that the new Commissioners don't know or understand the issues, and stumbled around trying to figure out what they were doing. They seemed never to figure it out. Watts made a motion that she then wanted to vote against, which she isn't allowed to do, so she wound up being the only person to vote for it. Jacobs gave a clear and careful explanation, in support of Cooper, as to why it was wrong for elected officials to carry "police-style badges," then voted in favor of keeping the tradition. (It might have occurred to him that he was going to get one, too, and his would be that super nifty one that said "Mayor.") Cooper was taken to task by a resident over texting while the resident was speaking, but he first ignored the resident's repeated complaint of disrespect, then claimed to be doing "research." (He was texting with Bernard, who stayed to monitor, if not perhaps supervise, the proceedings.) In any event, it appears our new Mayor didn't think it was his job to ask Cooper to put his toys away, or maybe he didn't disagree that residents should be treated so disrespectfully. And again, you really had to be there, to watch Cooper completely ignore a resident who was pleading with him to show some courtesy and pay attention. This scene ran a close second to Cooper's being confronted for not having come to the workshop just like the one he now claims he wants, and simply staring dumbly at the resident who was confronting him. These are what Jon Stewart calls "Moments of Zen."
Fortunately, the new Commission had Ross, who was remarkably gracious, and the Village attorney to tell them what to do, since they very clearly had no idea. Not only do they not have any grasp of the issues, but they also have no understanding of the rules for meetings.
No doubt they will improve some. The Manager has offered to help them, and so has the Village attorney. It appears Roxy Ross will fill many gaping holes in the capacity of her new colleagues.
In reality, the meeting was pretty pathetic. At the end, Bernard commented about how courageous it was that the Commission heard such strong and impassioned urgings for action from so many residents in attendance, but it was able to ignore all of them and defer the fence issue to February. Bernard, Cooper, and the new Commissioners are the people who made such a fuss, and so much campaign hay, over the idea that the residents were to be heard, respected, and obeyed. Bernard used to complain so bitterly that the majority of the Commission turned a deaf ear to residents. Tonight, he praised his puppets for doing exactly that. It did look a little less like puppetry tonight. It looked more like someone operating a radio controlled vehicle, Bernard sitting there, texting away, while his proteges lurched first one way, then another. Well, maybe next time. Maybe next time the residents' wishes can be taken remotely into account. Maybe next time, the residents won't have to be insulted by Cooper's incessant texting, or playing Tetris, or whatever he was doing, while they're speaking to him. Yeah, maybe next time.
Correction: One of my correspondents says Cooper was not playing Tetris. She said she could tell by his expression, and how entranced he was by his cell phone game, that he was playing Sim City. My mistake. Sorry.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
What a shame.
The Village had an election last week. Frankly, by all estimations, the race was pretty hotly contested. There were two fairly clearly identifiable factions, and each faction considered the other threatening and destructive.
I sent out daily e-mails for almost a week before the election, urging people to vote. And urging recipients to urge their contacts to vote. Steve Bernard personally provided signs posted in various easy-to-see places also urging people to vote.
Voter turnout was meager. It was less than it had been two years ago. Less than 600 people voted, and there are about 1900 registered voters in the Park. I'm saying turnout was meager, but it wouldn't be wrong to say it was a disgrace. And frankly embarrassing.
We live in a small neighborhood, and many people know each other on a personal level. There was every reason to take an interest. Few people did. Voting is easy. There's a central and easily accessible place where we all vote, and it's open all day, from 7 AM to 7 PM. Anyone who couldn't be available to come out, or couldn't be bothered, could have sent in an absentee ballot. About 50 people did. That's part of the less that 600 total voters.
There are things that can be done. The obvious one is to move our Village voting, which occurs in December of odd numbered years, to the general election, which occurs in November of even numbered years. Because there are more issues on the ballot, people are more interested, or motivated, and we would get more voters. There is a small movement against this, but it doesn't make any democratic sense. And by the way, it costs us several thousand dollars to run our little non-productive elections. Considering the turnout, it's a waste of good money. We would save a lot of money if we hooked on to the general elections, as most municipalities do.
Another thing we could do is reward people for voting, or find a way to punish them if they don't. This is a little tricky, and since the most attention-grabbing reward is money, we would disadvantage ourselves fiscally if we paid people to vote. But we could do it.
The real problem, though, is that we as a Village have failed to inspire people to vote. It's not clear to me how we do that, and we seem to do it repeatedly. Do we offer uninspiring candidates, so no one has passion for any of them? Maybe. The high vote-getter this year got about 320 of the under 600 votes, and those less-than-600 represent less than 1/3 of registered voters. So at best, there's very little energy, even for the biggest of the winners. Interestingly, the big winner this time doesn't yet appear to be complaining about the lack of respect. Neither did the big winner two years ago. Neither did the big winner two years before that. Perhaps winning relatively big creates a kind of conflict of interest. Like it's hard to get Congress to make rules against PACs and lobbyists. Do we expect them to bite the hand that fed them? When you're winning, it's hard to get distracted by things like democracy and caring about the unknown will of the sizable majority.
(As a follow-up to the paragraph immediately above, the Miami Herald Neighbors section today had an article about last week's election and results. The high vote-getter said she was "gratified that many people" voted for her. So unfortunately, my apprehension was confirmed. She was so happy about her big victory that she missed the community failure and the insult to her. Expectations even among candidates are pretty unambitious. All very pitiful and pathetic.)
There are some in our neighborhood who have portrayed that there are momentous issues to consider, that it's vitally important who is elected, and that the balance of the life of the neighborhood depends on voter turnout. Even if the crises and crusades are invented, it certainly sounds like something that would move people to vote. Apparently not.
The other side, in contrast to the crusaders, says things are going fine, and there isn't much really to complain about or stress over. So under the threat of a possible new majority that talks as if it wanted to undo the good that has been done, and threaten our positive adjustment, that side should have been motivated to come out, to preserve their happy home from anarchists and saboteurs. Nope. They weren't there either.
So the bottom line is that hardly anyone votes. Does hardly anyone give a damn what happens to Biscayne Park? They're registered here. This is their home. Really? Couldn't care less? It's a damn shame.
And to add true insult to injury, even the few people who vote don't come to Commission meetings. So the electors of the winners don't know what they wrought, and those who failed to get their candidates elected don't know what they overlooked and missed out on.
I sent out daily e-mails for almost a week before the election, urging people to vote. And urging recipients to urge their contacts to vote. Steve Bernard personally provided signs posted in various easy-to-see places also urging people to vote.
Voter turnout was meager. It was less than it had been two years ago. Less than 600 people voted, and there are about 1900 registered voters in the Park. I'm saying turnout was meager, but it wouldn't be wrong to say it was a disgrace. And frankly embarrassing.
We live in a small neighborhood, and many people know each other on a personal level. There was every reason to take an interest. Few people did. Voting is easy. There's a central and easily accessible place where we all vote, and it's open all day, from 7 AM to 7 PM. Anyone who couldn't be available to come out, or couldn't be bothered, could have sent in an absentee ballot. About 50 people did. That's part of the less that 600 total voters.
There are things that can be done. The obvious one is to move our Village voting, which occurs in December of odd numbered years, to the general election, which occurs in November of even numbered years. Because there are more issues on the ballot, people are more interested, or motivated, and we would get more voters. There is a small movement against this, but it doesn't make any democratic sense. And by the way, it costs us several thousand dollars to run our little non-productive elections. Considering the turnout, it's a waste of good money. We would save a lot of money if we hooked on to the general elections, as most municipalities do.
Another thing we could do is reward people for voting, or find a way to punish them if they don't. This is a little tricky, and since the most attention-grabbing reward is money, we would disadvantage ourselves fiscally if we paid people to vote. But we could do it.
The real problem, though, is that we as a Village have failed to inspire people to vote. It's not clear to me how we do that, and we seem to do it repeatedly. Do we offer uninspiring candidates, so no one has passion for any of them? Maybe. The high vote-getter this year got about 320 of the under 600 votes, and those less-than-600 represent less than 1/3 of registered voters. So at best, there's very little energy, even for the biggest of the winners. Interestingly, the big winner this time doesn't yet appear to be complaining about the lack of respect. Neither did the big winner two years ago. Neither did the big winner two years before that. Perhaps winning relatively big creates a kind of conflict of interest. Like it's hard to get Congress to make rules against PACs and lobbyists. Do we expect them to bite the hand that fed them? When you're winning, it's hard to get distracted by things like democracy and caring about the unknown will of the sizable majority.
(As a follow-up to the paragraph immediately above, the Miami Herald Neighbors section today had an article about last week's election and results. The high vote-getter said she was "gratified that many people" voted for her. So unfortunately, my apprehension was confirmed. She was so happy about her big victory that she missed the community failure and the insult to her. Expectations even among candidates are pretty unambitious. All very pitiful and pathetic.)
There are some in our neighborhood who have portrayed that there are momentous issues to consider, that it's vitally important who is elected, and that the balance of the life of the neighborhood depends on voter turnout. Even if the crises and crusades are invented, it certainly sounds like something that would move people to vote. Apparently not.
The other side, in contrast to the crusaders, says things are going fine, and there isn't much really to complain about or stress over. So under the threat of a possible new majority that talks as if it wanted to undo the good that has been done, and threaten our positive adjustment, that side should have been motivated to come out, to preserve their happy home from anarchists and saboteurs. Nope. They weren't there either.
So the bottom line is that hardly anyone votes. Does hardly anyone give a damn what happens to Biscayne Park? They're registered here. This is their home. Really? Couldn't care less? It's a damn shame.
And to add true insult to injury, even the few people who vote don't come to Commission meetings. So the electors of the winners don't know what they wrought, and those who failed to get their candidates elected don't know what they overlooked and missed out on.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Now What?
The results are in. Our new Commissioners are Barbara Watts and Noah Jacobs. Bob Anderson was re-elected.
Watts and Jacobs ran on a platform that was indistinguishable from the ongoing complaints of Steve Bernard, supported by Bryan Cooper. Watts has adequate familiarity with the Village and its government, though she has said repeatedly she didn't want to be a Commissioner, and she told one person she ran only because she couldn't find anyone else to run. Jacobs has no relevant experience in the Village whatsoever, and he has no identifiable connection to or knowledge of how the Village and its government operate. Both Watts and Jacobs ran on a platform that centered on complaints about FPL (the Franchise Agreement and the grid hardening project), and there is nothing that can be done about any of this. A side issue for Watts and Jacobs was to clean house, to eliminate incumbents. Since both Watts and Jacobs were elected, they have displaced as many incumbents as the two of them could. The only thing they could have done more was to get Dorvil elected, to try to displace Anderson, but apparently this was not their agenda. For one thing, there were 219 undervotes, which are people who voted for less than three candidates. So assuming there was a movement to get Watts and Jacobs elected, and that movement encouraged interested participants to vote only for the two of them, any mastermind of such a movement shot himself in the foot by preventing Dorvil from getting elected. For another thing, though, Jacobs came in third. So if Dorvil had been elected, he would have knocked out Jacobs, and left Anderson in place.
But the issue is, what do the apparent spawn of Steve Bernard plan to do now? The have railed mercilessly and incessantly about the FPL Franchise Agreement, but it is untouchable for the next 28 1/2 years. So apart from punishing one Commissioner who voted for it, Childress, they cannot accomplish anything. It's an empty issue. They have also whined lately about the hardening project, and the concrete poles, but there is nothing they can do about that, either. Nor would they want to if they could. FPL are not going to change the concrete poles for wood ones. And if they agreed to, they would point out that every concrete pole would have to replaced by 3-4 wood poles (they call it "hardening" for a reason; it's not just a simple replacement of one wood pole with another), and no one, not even the complainers, would want that.
So what will this new majority do? Most assuredly, they will want the verbatim minutes they have been pleading for. They will learn that those minutes will cost $1500-$2000 per meeting, a fact they have carefully avoided acknowledging, and since they also want revenues low, it is not clear how they will pay for those minutes. Presumably, next year, they will want to vacate the utility user fees against which they also rail, and this move will knock hell out of the Village revenues, making it even more impossible to pay for the minutes they claim they want. And to get funding for those minutes, they will have to ignore the fact that almost no one except Bernard and Cooper want them. This will be tricky, since Bernard and Cooper, and now Watts and Jacobs, claim the will of the people is important to them. They will somehow have to convince people that they should pay money they don't want to pay to get something they don't want to have. Or perhaps they will just insist on paying the money and getting the minutes no matter what anyone wants.
Also presumably, they will want the lines painted on the streets, a favored refrain for two years now. They will ignore the fact that the streets are too narrow, and no one has advised the Village to paint these lines, and they will paint them anyway. So we drive on streets that are barely wide enough for a car, and now they have a phony bike/pedestrian path suggested on them. Then what?
Bernard and Cooper have been fussing and fuming about the Manager, whom they would very much like to kick out. The new majority might make such a move. They will be met with massive resistance. Let's suppose they power past the resistance, and get rid of the Manager anyway. So we get a new Manager. Our Charter requires us to have one. And let's suppose we underpay the new Manager, and make his or her life miserable as the old minority worked extremely hard to make our current Manager's life miserable. So as often as it can happen in two years, we go through a succession of short-term Managers. And let's imagine that the new majority forget their interest in hearing and obeying the voice of the people, and they lose us Managers and equanimity. Then what?
The old minority, now the new majority, actively complain about failures of "transparency." They have never made clear what they meant, and most or all of the assaults on transparency came from the old minority anyway, so it's not clear how they convert this into policy. And if Bernard was instrumental in getting Cooper to run and getting him elected, and if he was also instrumental in getting Watts and Jacobs to run, and getting them elected, and if he and Cooper were active in campaigning for Watts and Jacobs, what is the chance that Cooper, Watts, Jacobs, and Bernard are not extremely active in colluding outside the "Sunshine?" My best guess is that it's unimaginable. So much for "transparency."
So it will be interesting to see what Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs will do with the opportunity they have just succeeded in arranging for themselves. And I hope more residents will come to Commission meetings. If the new majority are both wrong and blind, and they begin a series of acts that are destructive to the Village, someone will need to be there to confront them. And besides, you would think people would be pleased to come to meetings. After all, they elected these people. Don't they want to come to bask in the experience they have created for themselves and the rest of us? Maybe the rest of us would like them there, so we can thank them for providing the new, open, honest, careful, fiscally responsible Commission they gave us. That was the deal, right? Open, honest, careful, and fiscally responsible. I can hardly wait.
Watts and Jacobs ran on a platform that was indistinguishable from the ongoing complaints of Steve Bernard, supported by Bryan Cooper. Watts has adequate familiarity with the Village and its government, though she has said repeatedly she didn't want to be a Commissioner, and she told one person she ran only because she couldn't find anyone else to run. Jacobs has no relevant experience in the Village whatsoever, and he has no identifiable connection to or knowledge of how the Village and its government operate. Both Watts and Jacobs ran on a platform that centered on complaints about FPL (the Franchise Agreement and the grid hardening project), and there is nothing that can be done about any of this. A side issue for Watts and Jacobs was to clean house, to eliminate incumbents. Since both Watts and Jacobs were elected, they have displaced as many incumbents as the two of them could. The only thing they could have done more was to get Dorvil elected, to try to displace Anderson, but apparently this was not their agenda. For one thing, there were 219 undervotes, which are people who voted for less than three candidates. So assuming there was a movement to get Watts and Jacobs elected, and that movement encouraged interested participants to vote only for the two of them, any mastermind of such a movement shot himself in the foot by preventing Dorvil from getting elected. For another thing, though, Jacobs came in third. So if Dorvil had been elected, he would have knocked out Jacobs, and left Anderson in place.
But the issue is, what do the apparent spawn of Steve Bernard plan to do now? The have railed mercilessly and incessantly about the FPL Franchise Agreement, but it is untouchable for the next 28 1/2 years. So apart from punishing one Commissioner who voted for it, Childress, they cannot accomplish anything. It's an empty issue. They have also whined lately about the hardening project, and the concrete poles, but there is nothing they can do about that, either. Nor would they want to if they could. FPL are not going to change the concrete poles for wood ones. And if they agreed to, they would point out that every concrete pole would have to replaced by 3-4 wood poles (they call it "hardening" for a reason; it's not just a simple replacement of one wood pole with another), and no one, not even the complainers, would want that.
So what will this new majority do? Most assuredly, they will want the verbatim minutes they have been pleading for. They will learn that those minutes will cost $1500-$2000 per meeting, a fact they have carefully avoided acknowledging, and since they also want revenues low, it is not clear how they will pay for those minutes. Presumably, next year, they will want to vacate the utility user fees against which they also rail, and this move will knock hell out of the Village revenues, making it even more impossible to pay for the minutes they claim they want. And to get funding for those minutes, they will have to ignore the fact that almost no one except Bernard and Cooper want them. This will be tricky, since Bernard and Cooper, and now Watts and Jacobs, claim the will of the people is important to them. They will somehow have to convince people that they should pay money they don't want to pay to get something they don't want to have. Or perhaps they will just insist on paying the money and getting the minutes no matter what anyone wants.
Also presumably, they will want the lines painted on the streets, a favored refrain for two years now. They will ignore the fact that the streets are too narrow, and no one has advised the Village to paint these lines, and they will paint them anyway. So we drive on streets that are barely wide enough for a car, and now they have a phony bike/pedestrian path suggested on them. Then what?
Bernard and Cooper have been fussing and fuming about the Manager, whom they would very much like to kick out. The new majority might make such a move. They will be met with massive resistance. Let's suppose they power past the resistance, and get rid of the Manager anyway. So we get a new Manager. Our Charter requires us to have one. And let's suppose we underpay the new Manager, and make his or her life miserable as the old minority worked extremely hard to make our current Manager's life miserable. So as often as it can happen in two years, we go through a succession of short-term Managers. And let's imagine that the new majority forget their interest in hearing and obeying the voice of the people, and they lose us Managers and equanimity. Then what?
The old minority, now the new majority, actively complain about failures of "transparency." They have never made clear what they meant, and most or all of the assaults on transparency came from the old minority anyway, so it's not clear how they convert this into policy. And if Bernard was instrumental in getting Cooper to run and getting him elected, and if he was also instrumental in getting Watts and Jacobs to run, and getting them elected, and if he and Cooper were active in campaigning for Watts and Jacobs, what is the chance that Cooper, Watts, Jacobs, and Bernard are not extremely active in colluding outside the "Sunshine?" My best guess is that it's unimaginable. So much for "transparency."
So it will be interesting to see what Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs will do with the opportunity they have just succeeded in arranging for themselves. And I hope more residents will come to Commission meetings. If the new majority are both wrong and blind, and they begin a series of acts that are destructive to the Village, someone will need to be there to confront them. And besides, you would think people would be pleased to come to meetings. After all, they elected these people. Don't they want to come to bask in the experience they have created for themselves and the rest of us? Maybe the rest of us would like them there, so we can thank them for providing the new, open, honest, careful, fiscally responsible Commission they gave us. That was the deal, right? Open, honest, careful, and fiscally responsible. I can hardly wait.
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