Hoo-boy.

In a funny kind of way, it's usually not hard to write these posts.  The material is relatively clear, and it's just a matter of how to set it out.  And I usually have a kind of confidence that there's an identifiable difference between the sane and the insane, the real and the fictional.  And that anyone could tell which was which.

Well, the inmates are now running the asylum.  There is no reason, no rationality.  Consistency is gone.  This is frankly Kafkaesque.  You can pretty much take your pick.  Barbara and Bryan want to tell the County to reverse its vote on a matter having to do with Matheson Hammock.  That's Coral Gables.  And their sentiments were in support of the people of Coral Gables, at least as Barbara and Bryan portrayed them.  But they don't represent Coral Gables.  They don't live there.  And most of the time, they say they don't want to get mixed up with other, remote jurisdictions.  What's it to do with us, they usually deflect.  Noah is along for the majority ride.  So they made their Resolution.  3-2.  Three to two used to feel like a droning oppression to Bryan, and his sponsor, or so they said, but now it's a satisfying accomplishment.

Bryan had some idea that we had finally paid a price for the FPL Franchise Agreement.  He had to invent part of it to get where he wanted to go, but he was clearly pleased.  He decided that if people had solar panels, and made enough electricity to sell back to the grid, then we would be violating the Agreement he just knew was a bad thing.  Never mind that no one makes that much electricity (that many panels would be prohibitively expensive) and that the Agreement doesn't say that at all, and neither did the FPL representatives.  He just felt he was somehow right about something.  And no one could tell him different.

Oh, those minutes.  Once again, approved unanimously and without correction, but somehow complained about anyway.  (So if there's a complaint, why don't you correct the minutes?  No response.)  But Bryan and his uncle spent so much time and effort alleging terrible things about the minutes, he and his pals decided they must do something.  So they proposed the Clerk should do some different kind of minutes.  Not "summary," and not verbatim.  But something else.  OK, she asked, what kind of minutes do you want?  "Substantive" minutes.  "What are 'substantive' minutes?"  "Well, they're minutes with more stuff in them than the minutes you do."  "Stuff like what?"  They couldn't really say.  They finally decided that they would submit what gems from their comments they wanted in the minutes, and that would make them substantive.  But really, they never wanted anything, except to complain.  That's all this was ever about.  There was loads of complaint, and whining, and blaming, when there was a safe minority.  But now that the minority is a majority, they don't really want anything.  Those several amendments and additions that used to be portrayed as so critical?  Nope, not necessary.  The kids'll just make extra work for the Clerk, and that will seem like a victory of some sort.

Now here was an illustrative event that happened during the battle of the minutes.  Bryan referred to an important example of minutes: those of 4/7/09.  Hmm, why that date in particular?  Well, Bob couldn't comment on those minutes, because he didn't have them, from three years ago.  Noah did, right with him.  Really?  Noah just happened to have a spare copy of those three year old minutes, the ones Bryan just happened to mention?  Isn't that interesting!  Roxy thought so, and she said as much.  Noah immediately raised his voice and raised his hand to "swear" there had been no communication between himself and Bryan before the meeting.  "Protest too much?"  Whoa!  He didn't say why he happened to have those minutes.  Bryan offered a possible explanation: maybe a "resident" happened to write to Commissioners to comment about those minutes.  "The 'resident' didn't send those minutes to me," Roxy pointed out.  Well, explained Bryan, maybe the "resident" only wrote to certain Commissioners, maybe only those who could be counted on to be sympathetic.  Man, was this getting flakier and flakier.  They really do think we're idiots.

The will of the people, and petitions:  I presented one tonight.  It asked the Commission to direct the Biscayne Times no longer to deposit the paper in everyone's yard.  It was signed by 118 people, which represented about 80-90% of those I asked.  I went door-to-door.  I submitted the petition to the Clerk.  The Commission didn't respond.  Yet.  So later, Noah complained that the last Commission ignored the will of the people, as represented by some petitions.  This is a bit tricky, since no other petition has been made a part of the public record.  We asked, but the champion of those petitions, Steve Bernard, took them away with him and wouldn't show them to anyone.  So at some point, there was a discussion of moving Village elections from "stand alone" elections, that get remarkably miserable turnout and cost a good deal of money, to the same ballot as the general elections.  Now this was tricky for the new majority.  They usually claim to favor the will of the people and inclusive government, but they thwart it as much as possible.   Asking them to remedy poor voter participation is like asking legislators to make laws against special interest money.  How can they: it's what got them elected.  They're supposed to place the will of the people above their own offices?  I wouldn't think so.  (Noah let slip, in that adorable, sheepish way of his, that he's already thinking about his run for re-election.)  Oh, the song and dance.  The celebration of the single focus; no distraction by thinking about the President or Senators or Governor or State legislators.  Noah wanted to know if voters get "fatigue" from looking at too many elections.  Charlie Smith, the Finance Director, told him they don't, when it comes to candidates, but Noah had already decided they do.  No, he decided, we should keep our little single-focus elections.  And Noah completely rejected the idea that anyone could overlook the fact that we were having an election: the signs, the talk...  This is Noah Jacobs we're talking about.  This is the guy who found out the electric poles were being changed, when he discovered the new one in his front yard one day.  He hadn't heard the endless talk, or the discussions at Commission meetings, or read about it in his mail (twice), or noticed those three little stakes in his front yard for two months.  Frankly, I would have expected him to be a bit more sympathetic to residents who overlooked that we were having an election.  So no, the new majority decided we shouldn't move the election.  Well, what about asking the people?  How about a petition drive (Bryan suggested!)?  Nope, not that either, concluded Noah.  Referendum, Noah?  No, no, no!  Noah was crashing tonight.  He was dramatically losing interest in that voice and will of the people he once thought, or claimed, he cared about.  I pointed out to him that he apparently really didn't want more public participation, and he told me I was "right."  Think not?  Check the recording.

And Bryan concluded that saving money was an unimportant reason to move the election.  The several thousand dollars we would save each time are a small amount.  This is Bryan Cooper we're talking about.  He's one of the guys who can have a fit over a nickel he can't trace.  The one who's constantly talking about saving, and not wasting, money.

And this is how it went.  It was a long, sad, uselss night.  But the good news is that the voters are finally getting what they want.  Their representatives are spreading their wings, and showing who and what they are.  Mindless puppets, pretty clearly, with the puppet master at home.  Maybe ventriloquism.  They don't listen, and they don't care.  They have their few little agenda items, which they are now fulfilling.  These turn out to be remarkably small and narrow people.  Of course, they're at the disadvantage of trying to fulfill someone else's goals.  They themselves don't appear to have any.  You can see them delivering the speeches someone wrote for them.  It was really kind of sickening.