I got the e-mail blast, but I didn't check the Village website. So I knew Joe Centorino, the head of the County's Ethics Commission, was coming to talk to us about ethical standards and practices, but I didn't know Ana Garcia was formally presenting the update on the Log Cabin. It seems I wasn't the only one whose anticipation was incomplete. The audience included, let's see, well, there was Linda Dillon, then, um, oh yeah, Chuck Ross and Janey Anderson, and, wait a minute now, oh, right, me. So a pretty good crowd.
Mr Centorino has given this talk many times to many groups. He's given it at least twice to us. I was there for both, and this was a quickie refresher, streamlined to only one hour. OK, it took about an hour and three quarters. At the beginning of the Log Cabin presentation, at 8:00, I asked John Hearn if he thought it would take about 15 minutes. He said normally it would, but this was BP, so I should check back with him at 10. So it was something like that.
The ethics presentation was very standard for Centorino and his partner Thompson. I think we've actually all heard it before. So no news, and presumably not much on anyone's mind. Except Bryan Cooper. He seems to have had some concerns about "Sunshine" and "liaisons," as Centorino calls them. Sometimes we use the word conduits. Bryan was very interested in social media. I guess he's a very social guy. And his weren't necessarily simple and elementary questions. In fact, sometimes, they weren't questions at all. He seemed to have wanted to set something up, or put Centorino on notice. Now just as a frame of reference, Joe Centorino is an attorney hired by Dade County to head its Ethics Commission. He's been doing this for many years. Not only will he cite you chapter and verse, but he has quite a catalogue of stories of investigations and prosecutions, and a real finger on the pulse of where the boundaries are, how blurry are some of the lines, and what is required to keep oneself clean. He has a very broad perspecitive in this area. Bryan Cooper, Dr Bryan Cooper, has a PhD in American Studies, and his job is as a librarian at one of the local colleges. Try to form an image of Bryan asking what turns out to be a rhetorical question of Centorino, then explaining to Centorino what the real rights and prerogatives are.
And of course, Bryan does not leave this topic without also checking about just one more little matter. What if the Village Manager...? Have you ever seen a dog sniffing a tree, or a pile of some other dog's excrement? Do you wonder what it is they're trying to detect? Doesn't all dog excrement smell pretty much like all other dog excrement? Is it really important to check that pile, too? If I say "Heads Up" again, will I be harping? Or is this really only about one Bryan Cooper, and whatever special scent he detects in what looks to everyone else like a pile of routine manure?
Then, there was meeting #2. It was the update about our Log Cabin renovation. Ana Garcia and Roxy Ross appealed to the State Legislature, and Daphne Campbell, and got us a public grant of $150K to renovate this historic structure. And it desperately needs it. The plan may be to make the Village Hall into a building we can use for public meetings, as it was once used. It's too small to contain our administrative services as well, at least all of them, so some consideration was given to an alternative site. This is all preliminary and is up for ongoing consideration and reconsideration.
$150K will not cover it. Not even close. So we need more money. Of course there was the usual talk about getting more "grants" from someone other than ourselves, but there was also the idea, floated by Ana, of selling bricks which will be used to pave the front walk. Hospitals, the Arsht Center, and everyone else in the world does it, and why shouldn't we. It's a terrific way to raise money, and most or all of the money will come from us. Which is as it should be. It's our Village, our Village Hall, and we should have personal pride and sense of ownership about it.
I took a slight liberty. I didn't exactly contrive this opportunity. It was placed in my lap by Ana, who mentioned that she was planning to meet with the Foundation, to ask it to join the fund-raising effort for the Log Cabin renovation. So I decided to create a little commercial for our Foundation. "Our," as in belonging to the residents of Biscayne Park. I felt since this was a noticed and recorded meeting, I might as well place the Foundation on record. So I repeated the request for $20 per household per year, the Foundation's efforts to raise money, and what has become a somewhat more difficult-than-expected matter of getting those $20 from everyone I ask. My thought was to have the Commission join the fund-raising, not only by pitching the Foundation the $20 themselves, but by my asking them to send a reminder and some encouragement to their own circulation lists. As it happens, Bob Anderson has already given me $20 for this year. So has Chuck Ross, Roxy's husband. I mentioned both. I took the chance to ask the other three Commissioners for their $20. How those scamps slipped away without donating is beyond me. I wonder if I did something wrong. I mentioned the Foundation. I said Ana had already mentioned it and would be asking the Foundation for help with raising funds. I said it was in the Village's interest. And I addressed the request to the people who might be assumed to have a particularly high level of devotion to the Village.
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