Existential Crisis?

Last night, the Foundation had its meeting.  It was sort of a special meeting.  We had not been making a great success of our one task, raising money, and we had thought of ideas to help ourselves be more effective.  Our new idea was to tap "Ambassadors."  These would be residents with special devotion to the Village, who might have been around longer than some, who "knew" people, and who might have special effectiveness in whipping up donations.  It's not clear how many such people we identified and invited, but it might have been around 10-15.  We asked for RSVPs.  We mostly didn't get any, most of those who did respond said they didn't want to be Ambassadors, and two people showed up.

So the big question is, what's wrong?  The idea for a Foundation came before we were seated as Trustees.  The inaugural, and statutory, Trustees were the Commission.  They had about two, maybe three, Foundation meetings, which occurred immediately before Commission meetings, and the content of those Foundation meetings was to schedule the next meeting.  There was no agenda, no effort, and no result.  It was soon enough acknowledged that the Commissioners were either too busy or not interested enough to concern themselves with the Foundation, which was intended to receive tax-deductible contributions.  So the Foundation Charter was changed so that the Trustees would no longer be the Commissioners.  Interested Village residents were named.  There were five of us, four men and one woman.  The woman dropped out-- family responsibilities-- and was replaced by another woman.  She has recently dropped out, too.  Interestingly, one of her most salient pieces of parting advice was that we need more women on the Foundation.

So back to our task: raising money.  We have three identified ways to do it.  One is to raise money from Village residents, another is to find other donors/contributors/sponsors, and the the third is to operate fund-raising events.  I have to be candid here.  The idea of raising money from Village residents was my idea.  I concocted a scheme of trying to get each household to donate $20 per year. My thinking was that who more than Village residents would take an interest in the Village, and whose responsibility was it more than our own to support and enhance ourselves?  Anything that benefits the Village benefits us, its residents, homeowners, stakeholders.  If we could have gotten that $20 bill from most households, it would have brought a very nice piece of change into the Foundation, and allowed us to do some nice, if comparatively modest, projects.  I want to admit the failure of this plan.  Way too many people could think of reasons not to donate $20 to the Foundation, or had better uses for the money, or needed to discuss it with their spouses, or said they couldn't afford it.  We couldn't even get those who should be our most devoted residents to donate.  Of five Commissioners, two donated $20, one donated $2, and two refused to donate.  Clearly, I was barking up the wrong tree with this scheme.

We have approached some other potential contributors, too.  We run "Food and Tunes," and we have tried to solicit sponsors.  The sponsor of our first F&T was a bank.  (If you want to open a bank account, consider City National Bank.  Its closest branch is at the corner of Biscayne and 135th, in the strip mall at the southwest corner.  They are a "local bank," they are nice people, and you should say you're a BP resident.  They don't give out toasters any more, but they'll treat you well.  And they tell me they have money to loan and an intent to get it out into the world, if you need something.)  The sponsor of a later F&T was one of our residents, one of your neighbors.  We've tried other likely sponsors, but we haven't succeeded, yet.  This was actually one of the intentions of the Ambassador program.  We hoped that some of our Ambassadors would have ins with possible donors outside the Park.   But we would have had to have Ambassadors to actualize that potential.  We're still hoping that this path will not ultimately be a dead end.

Food and Tunes is a minor series of events for us.  It's not a real fund-raiser, in that it doesn't raise real funds, but it's fun, and it gets our name out there.  What we hoped for was something with a bit more punch and splash.  We're trying to plan a "gala," probably for October.  If we can charge enough, but not so much as to inhibit attendees, and get sponsors, we may be able to have a nice and productive event.  Let's hope so.  Well, at least I hope so.  We've also consider "events" like a road race or golf tournament or something.  These things may well come to pass.

One thing we realized we needed was help, in the form of ideas, time, and legwork.  We need people with creativity and organizational skills.  So we're also open to forming committees to take up projects.  Steve Taylor is a busy attorney.  I'm a psychiatrist.  Supreme Dorvil is a medical/podiatric student who just told me last night he has sworn off fun until he finishes studying so he can pass his Boards.  Victor Romano is a professor at Barry.  So we're all interested, but this isn't exactly far up any of our streets, and we realized we needed a kind of knowledge and experience base, and maybe energy for this, that we might not have on our own.

We hit upon one other idea at our desperation meeting last night.  We've tried to get Village residents interested, at least interested enough to donate $20 a year, but it may be that they just didn't take it personally enough.  Until recently, we didn't even have a flagship project to try to promote.  (Now we do.  It's resurfacing the tot lot.)  But we thought maybe the projects don't have to be ours.  Maybe they can be yours.  Or anyone's.  So we're planning to promote and "sponsor" your project.  You tell us what you'd like to see happen, we'll approve it and get behind it, we'll give it Foundation imprimatur, and we'll help you promote it and hold the money.  Maybe there will be two or three such projects.  Maybe there will be 10.  We'll circulate a list, and your neighbors can check off the ones they like, and tell us how much money they want to donate to which projects.  I'll give you some examples.  Chuck Ross wants to raise money for bonuses for our employees.  I want to raise money for public art.  Gage Hartung would like to install a vita course.  See what I mean?

Remember, we now have on open spot on the Foundation Board.  We were thinking to tap H Weitz, who is your neighbor who lives on Griffing at about 119th or 120th.  He's a very good guy, and he would be great on the Foundation.  Of course, he is a...um...he, and we were thinking of a...um...she, but let us know what you think.  Any appointment has to be approved by the Commission, so we're only talking here.  No deal is done.

PS:  Come on, be a sport.  Cough up $20.  Give it to Taylor, me, Supreme, Victor, or bring it to Village Hall and tell Maria Camara or Ana Garcia it's for the Foundation.  And bring another $20 from your neighbor.  It's your neighborhood, and your Foundation.

Letter Sent to Commissioner Dr Cooper

Bryan,

I'm at a bit of a loss. You seemed devoted to talking about censorship, which I guess is like suppression, but I'm not sure what you meant by it. One example I think you gave was of the withdrawal of Commissioner columns from the newsletter. I guess you mean you felt censored. I assume you are aware that no other Commissioner had any opportunity you didn't have. So do you think you were all censored, or do you think it was just you? You will note, of course, that in the last two editions of the newsletter, you had more words than any other Commissioner. You had twice as many as the second wordiest in the last edition where Commissioner comments were included. I can't imagine that seems like censorship to you. I think you should see your raging around, saying things that aren't true (as Roxy detailed for you), and gobbling up inches of column-length as your problem, not a reflection of someone else's bad attitude.

During the meeting tonight, Noah took a couple of opportunities to suppress me, but he did not suppress you, even when you were talking about me. Do you think I was censored? You didn't argue with Noah. I asked you if you wanted a conversation with me, you said no, and as soon as I was no longer entitled to speak, you started in on me. What you did, in effect, was to collude with Noah to censor me.

The Biscayne Times, which you referenced, has published columns from Gaspar, in which he has done nothing but criticize me, usually making things up, and it once published a long letter of Bernard's, and that letter was about nothing in the world other than trashing me personally. I wrote in rebuttal, of course, and the publisher insisted I severely shorten my response before he would publish it. The Bernard letter he published was over 700 words. Mullin limited me to about half of that. Do you think I was censored or suppressed? Will Mullin be hearing from you to criticize him for the way he treated me by censoring me? I am rarely given an opportunity to challenge Gaspar when he writes to criticize me, even though his criticisms are factually distorted at best, and often simply wrong. But apart from this month, my letters are rarely printed. Would you count this as censorship or suppression? Will Mullin be hearing from you about that, too?

So I'm just confused about your perseveration regarding "censorship." It's just not clear to me who you think is being censored.

I welcome your reply.

Fred

PS: So you've gone after Ana, Michael Arciola, Maria, Roxy, Bob, Al, some of us non-Commissioner residents of the Park, and now you're planning to go after the Foundation? What's with you? It seems like a mindless reflex you have, just to accuse people of things. Chuck says you're an anarchist. I think he's right, but I think of you more as a terrorist. Why do you want to go after the Foundation? It's a civic pride and community enrichment organization. You don't even contribute to it. Instead of running the Foundation down, you should be ashamed of yourself. You're a Commissioner. You should be the first one to support the Village and its Foundation.

"Life Boat"

It's driving me crazy.  I can't find this story.  I was in junior high school when I read the short story, which I thought I remembered was O'Henry's, about a group of people in a life boat.  The captain is keeping everyone from mutinying in this life boat, by holding them at gunpoint.  He gets increasingly sleepy, and the passengers are waiting to pounce as soon as he falls asleep and drops the gun.  He finally does, there is a melee, and one of the other passengers gets the gun and holds it on the rest, making them continue rowing toward safety.  Somebody needed to take charge and do the right thing.  Somebody needed to provide the sobriety and goal-directedness of the captain.

His Honor our Mayor, apparently having freed himself from some of the mind-numbing influence of his mentor, has been able to begin to act sensibly.  He's not all the way there, but he's approaching usable common sense and perspective.  He showed brief flashes of decency and grace.  It was nice to see.

We had an odd Commission tonight.  Barbara Watts had said she wouldn't be there, and Bob Anderson had a family emergency.  So it was just the three: His Honor, Commissioner (now Vice Mayor) Ross, and the terrorist/anarchist Commissioner Dr Bryan Cooper.  In case anyone ever thought he wasn't a lost cause, he really won't let you forget it.  Sometimes, you just have to shake your head in disbelief, or wonder, or amusement.  There's always, always someone for him to accuse or criticize or suspect.

There were fewer 2-1's than I expected, and they didn't always go the way I imagined they might.  Here's where His Honor's awakening began to show.  He doesn't fully get why Roxy Ross is the most remarkable of  representatives, and of people, but he's starting at least to feel some sort of connection.  He's starting to sense something.  He seemed to listen, and he could detect some of her brilliance, level-headedness, gracefulness, and true dedication to this Village.  Barbara Watts figured it out some time ago.  His Honor is getting a scent.

In a perfect world, Mayor Jacobs steps down from his office, hands the gavel to Roxy Ross, and she is confirmed, 4-1, as our Mayor once again.  For as long as she cares to stay.  In a perfect world.  Which this one isn't.