We have heard, ad nauseum, some complaints from a few of our neighbors. Until recently, those neighbors couldn't do more than complain. But three of them, a majority, are now on the Commission. They can do whatever they want. So what I'm confused about is why they don't simply change what they complained they didn't like.
Let's take a few examples. For two years, we heard nonstop crying about the minutes. And not only crying. This was portrayed as a very serious issue that undermined every concept of good government, deprived "posterity" of a true record, and frankly reflected critical and anti-democratic mischief on the part of those who didn't expand the minutes. Charges of nearly criminal mischief were made. But over the course of the past four months, these champions of openness, transparency, and justice have done nothing to improve the record. Nothing. They didn't even add a few corrections, as the recent minority always claimed it wanted to do.
Also over the past two years, we heard great criticism about the Village newsletter. Charges again, of course, this time of suppression, not only of the Commissioners who no longer had their own individual platforms in the newsletter, but of the public, who could no longer know what their elected officials thought. First Amendment suppression, thought control, take your pick. And again, four months later and not a single mention of the newsletter.
For two years, we were asked to appreciate how the general residents of the Village were ignored. There was an indictment of a brutish and suppressing Commission (at least a dictatorial majority of the Commission; at least a vile and tyrannical Mayor) that suppressed public input. Examples of public input that was ignored included petitions alluded-to by one Commissioner or another, though no such petitions were ever submitted for anyone's examination or the public record, and electronic outreach from residents of the neighborhood, though curiously, this outreach was apparently made only to one Commissioner. When I have thoughts or suggestions for the Commission, I send e-mails to all of the Commissioners. And the Manager, too. I don't really understand the mindset of someone who is alleged to have important input, but who tells it to only one of five Commissioners. Or the mindset of that one Commissioner who evidently doesn't ask the correspondent to send the suggestion to the other Commissioners. But now that the good guys are in the drivers' seats, we find that they, or at least the Mayor, is no more interested in increased public input than he complains his predecessor was. He even admits so! He also doesn't respond to e-mail. The two remaining suppressing brutes do, but the Mayor and one of his pals completely ignore anything I send. The other good guy (gal) will rarely but occasionally write back to say "Thanks," but there's no comment or discussion. And petitions? I hope I had fun putting it together and spending my time walking parts of the neighborhood to get it signed, because there was essentially no acknowledgement, and no action taken.
Two of our past Commissioners (one still there) and the two newcomers expressly take a very dim view of FPL and its intrusions into the neighborhood. What they had to do to confront this was to plan how to replace the Franchise Fee, and how the Village could go into the electric power production business, since these were the foci of complaint. There has been not one shred of action, or even a word of further discussion, about either task.
So I'm at a loss as to how to understand the complaints. Were they just idle complaints about which the plaintiffs didn't really even care? Do they just like to hear themselves whine? Or was it just something to rally around, for the sake of the rally?
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