And you might imagine that the most local politics, the most personal politics, the most personal and primitive politics, are based in selfishness. You might expect that at the core, each person is a Libertarian, who wants only to be left alone, to do whatever he or she wants, and has nothing for anyone else. Not necessarily so. A door between the individual and the outside world remains open.
We had the workshop to review new proposed codes in three areas of property maintenance. The areas were centered around management of one's personal property: the condition of one's house and grounds, and one's possessions, mainly boats and RVs.
Up to a point, O'Neill accurately predicted the feedback of workshop attendees. Many of them were boat and RV people, and they didn't want anyone limiting their ownership of what Steve Bernard called these "toys." Basically, these homeowners didn't want anyone limiting, controlling, or regulating them at all. The entire set of code proposals, and the act of proposing them, were "stupid," declared one attendee. He said he hadn't looked at the codes yet, but he was sure he would be able to declare them "stupid." Let people do whatever they want, he ordered. They behaved like Libertarians: they mind their business, and the rest of us should mind our own.
But here's where we saw a tangent. The now iconic matter of maintenance of trees, dead trees, in one's swale was taken up. It's what Steve Bernard referred to several times as the "Bergeron Ordinance," so named by Steve for one of the homeowners in whose swale the problem tree lived. And died. Steve says he passed that Ordinance. It must be his memory that he gave the rest of the then Commission the night off, and passed it himself. The Bergeron matter was about removing a large tree, in an unusually large swale, outside the home Dr Bergeron shares with her husband. Although the Bergerons (not his name) cared for the tree, and paid for maintenance of it, while it was alive, they did not want to pay for its removal when it died. They wanted the Village to pay. Which it ultimately did. Bergeron's language was telling here. She pointed to the Commission, and said "you" should pay for removal of the tree. Bryan Cooper took a similar tack, when he suggested "government," not individual homeowners, should pay for things like removal of the Bergeron tree. And whenever the matter came up, Dr Bergeron nodded her head vigorously, that yes, "you," the Village, the government, should pay for these things. The guy sitting next to her got on a similar roll, talking about the problematic tree in his swale, and how the Village should pay for removal of it, too. But Dr Bergeron's head was no longer nodding. It seemed to have dawned on her what she was saying. "You," the Village, the government, is all of us. The money for the Village to remove her tree came from the taxes we all pay. She had no problem at all allowing us all to "share" (her word) in the expense of removing a dead tree from her swale, but it was less clear to her that she wanted to contribute to paying for the removal of a tree in someone else's swale. She was completely still when the Andersons, and Chuck Ross, talked about dead trees in their swales, and how they simply paid for removal of those trees themselves. It never occurred to them, they said, to ask the Village or anyone else to come solve their problem. They saw the trees in their swales as theirs, enhancing their properties, and their responsibility when there was a problem.
So this is where Tip O'Neill's theory diverges from the Libertarian posture. As Steve Bernard put it, when he was trying to clean up the mess Jeanne Bergeron made for herself: the cost of removing a large tree is a smaller proportion of the Village's budget than it is of the budget of a private homeowner.
Those who took the narrowest, most personal, most "local," view of Village politics wanted what they wanted, with no interference from the Village. But when there was an expense, they wanted the Village to take it over. One man even said that if those on the Code Review Committee thought boats should be concealed behind fences, to which he apparently did not fully object, the Village was welcome to remove part of his fence, create a place for his boat, and build him a gate. If "the Village" is willing to pay, it's OK with him. He allowed himself to overlook where the Village gets the money he is happy to have it spend. Things got really quiet at the end of the session, when Bob Anderson started talking about the possibility of the Village caring for the trees in everyone's swales, and what kind of tax rate we should think about imposing to pay for that. But that's the issue, isn't it.
When politics get as local as they can, you want what you want, and you want someone else to pay for it. That's O'Neill gone infantile.
The meeting wasn't fully interactive, but I would have wanted to ask Jeanne Bergeron whether she and what's-his-name would have bought that house, and whether they would have paid the same price for it, if that ample, beautiful, and abundantly shade-producing tree had not been there in that swale. That tree that was someone else's problem.
There was another dynamic considerably at play during the workshop today. It was exemplified by a few people, most notably Bryan Cooper and Steve Bernard. It was also representative of the Libertarian agenda. This theme was the "government is evil," "government is an intrusion and an offense," "government is not to be trusted," and "government is 'them,' and 'them versus us'" theme. It was as far to the right as there is to go. And it was discouraging to hear it coming from people who allege even the slightest commitment to the Village, and its residents, and its government. It was frankly disgusting to hear it coming from people who are or were part of that government. And to make matters worse, it was supported by pedagogy and a sabotaging approach.
Bryan Cooper gave us a good example of this dynamic. The matter was "holiday" decorations, and the newly proposed code was to limit how long before and after a "holiday" they could be displayed, because many people do not want to look at them for months, or indefinitely. Bryan tried to reframe this limitation as a violation of the separation of church and state, an intrusion of the "state," in this case the Village, into one's "religious" practices. It was a non-starter, with no identifiable heads bobbling, but he did try. More than once.
This kind of attempt to inflame and discomfit is not what we need around here. It's not what anyone needs anywhere.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor
So who is our sponsor? I am. And you are. We few, we 3000, are the captains of this ship. We are the sole boosters, and the sole beneficiaries, of this neighborhood and everything it has to offer.
But since we all have day jobs, or some other things to do, and don't necessarily want to cut the grass, change the oil, write out the checks to pay the bills, or make minor decisions, (or we don't know how), we hire help. We get a gardener, or a maid, or a mechanic, who does what we want them to do.
The help we hire directly are the Commissioners. We interview them for the job, to the extent any of us wants to, and we turn them loose on the work to be done. But it's more of a job than they can do, either, so they hire people to help them. The main person they hire is the Village Manager. She, in turn, hires others, who actually sweat. That's our Public Works staff, our Police, our Recreation staff, and clerks and office workers.
The Commissioners are of attenuated importance, because they don't do the direct work. The ones who sweat are of attenuated importance, because they don't make decisions. The person in all of this who is very important is the Manager. At this moment in our history, that person is Ana Garcia.
Ana is a bit of a lightning rod. It's partly the position she holds, and partly that it's her style to put herself "out there." She takes a lot of heat for her position, and for her decisions. Her predecessor, our first Manager, Frank Spence, used to say the job of municipal manager required the wearing of asbestos underwear. Ana wears them, too.
One component of feedback Ana gets from the Commission is whether she is trying hard enough to keep expenses down. There is always someone who thinks they could be less than they are. AJ Gallo, a resident in attendance at last night's final budget hearing, announced that having looked at some version of the budget, he could easily find "$15,000" of unnecessary expenses. I don't know what Mr Gallo did for a living before he retired, but he was confident and cavalier about his conclusions about the budget, which he apparently considered inflated. Funny enough, Ana Garcia, a profession municipal manager, and Charlie Smith, a professional accountant with abundant municipal experience, could not quite find $12,500 in things they could cut.
I don't quarrel entirely with Mr Gallo. I'm sure he could find $15,000 in things that seem to him like waste. If I bothered, I might be able to find $15,000, too. And it might be a different $15K. So that's $30K between us. If we get enough "experts," like me and Mr Gallo, maybe we can reduce the budget to next to nothing.
But Mr Gallo might only be thinking of what seems unimportant to him. And I might focus on what's unimportant to me. Or some pandering, populist Commissioner might only want low taxes, no matter what gets cut. The heavy lifting, in terms of real and responsible balance, comes from Ana.
Ana describes herself as conservative, "personally and professionally." That's fine and nice to know, but she has to preserve this Village. We don't need her to be "conservative," or cheap, or competitive, or a daredevil. We need her to be careful and responsible. We need her to be conscientious and creative. We need her to know how to negotiate legal and financial challenges. We need her to have perspective and know how to take a long and broad view. And boy, is she all of that. We need to tell her generally what's important to us as a Village, and let her do what we hire her to do. We tell her what we want, and she tells us what it will cost. If we can't afford it, we tell her that, and she recalculates, and tells us what we can have for what we're willing to pay. If she's doing her job well, she'll also tell us what it will "cost" not to spend money on one thing or another.
So I'm good with Ana. I haven't agreed with everything she's done, but I don't agree with everything anyone does, nor does anyone else I know. I'm just looking at the big picture, and I believe Ana is, too.
But since we all have day jobs, or some other things to do, and don't necessarily want to cut the grass, change the oil, write out the checks to pay the bills, or make minor decisions, (or we don't know how), we hire help. We get a gardener, or a maid, or a mechanic, who does what we want them to do.
The help we hire directly are the Commissioners. We interview them for the job, to the extent any of us wants to, and we turn them loose on the work to be done. But it's more of a job than they can do, either, so they hire people to help them. The main person they hire is the Village Manager. She, in turn, hires others, who actually sweat. That's our Public Works staff, our Police, our Recreation staff, and clerks and office workers.
The Commissioners are of attenuated importance, because they don't do the direct work. The ones who sweat are of attenuated importance, because they don't make decisions. The person in all of this who is very important is the Manager. At this moment in our history, that person is Ana Garcia.
Ana is a bit of a lightning rod. It's partly the position she holds, and partly that it's her style to put herself "out there." She takes a lot of heat for her position, and for her decisions. Her predecessor, our first Manager, Frank Spence, used to say the job of municipal manager required the wearing of asbestos underwear. Ana wears them, too.
One component of feedback Ana gets from the Commission is whether she is trying hard enough to keep expenses down. There is always someone who thinks they could be less than they are. AJ Gallo, a resident in attendance at last night's final budget hearing, announced that having looked at some version of the budget, he could easily find "$15,000" of unnecessary expenses. I don't know what Mr Gallo did for a living before he retired, but he was confident and cavalier about his conclusions about the budget, which he apparently considered inflated. Funny enough, Ana Garcia, a profession municipal manager, and Charlie Smith, a professional accountant with abundant municipal experience, could not quite find $12,500 in things they could cut.
I don't quarrel entirely with Mr Gallo. I'm sure he could find $15,000 in things that seem to him like waste. If I bothered, I might be able to find $15,000, too. And it might be a different $15K. So that's $30K between us. If we get enough "experts," like me and Mr Gallo, maybe we can reduce the budget to next to nothing.
But Mr Gallo might only be thinking of what seems unimportant to him. And I might focus on what's unimportant to me. Or some pandering, populist Commissioner might only want low taxes, no matter what gets cut. The heavy lifting, in terms of real and responsible balance, comes from Ana.
Ana describes herself as conservative, "personally and professionally." That's fine and nice to know, but she has to preserve this Village. We don't need her to be "conservative," or cheap, or competitive, or a daredevil. We need her to be careful and responsible. We need her to be conscientious and creative. We need her to know how to negotiate legal and financial challenges. We need her to have perspective and know how to take a long and broad view. And boy, is she all of that. We need to tell her generally what's important to us as a Village, and let her do what we hire her to do. We tell her what we want, and she tells us what it will cost. If we can't afford it, we tell her that, and she recalculates, and tells us what we can have for what we're willing to pay. If she's doing her job well, she'll also tell us what it will "cost" not to spend money on one thing or another.
So I'm good with Ana. I haven't agreed with everything she's done, but I don't agree with everything anyone does, nor does anyone else I know. I'm just looking at the big picture, and I believe Ana is, too.
And Then Again...
I made a heroic effort to be nice in my review of the final budget hearing ("Penny Wise and Pound Foolish"). I hope that at least I accomplished that goal. In the interest of being nice, there were some parts of the story I didn't tell. I felt they weren't "nice."
The meeting went as I said it did, and the conclusions were as I indicated. What I didn't say is this: during the first public comment opportunity, I addressed reasons why I believed the TRIM should be as high as we could make it this year, which was 9.5 mills. I talked long. Then, I talked some more. I ignored about three series of alarms from the timer. And to make matters worse, I addressed the matter of the Administrative Assistant to the Manager, a new position which has already earned the disapproval of some on the Commission. I pointed out that among reasons the Manager needed an Administrative Assistant were that the Clerk, who normally assists the Manager, has been made excessively busy trying to guess what Commissioners want in the minutes. She has wasted many hours of her time on this foolish and irrelevant exercise. In addition, one of the new responsibilities of our new Administrative Assistant is to find and apply for grants. I didn't name Commissioner Cooper, but I said one Commissioner ran on a platform that included an offer to find and write precisely these grants, but he had withdrawn the offer when the last Commission made one vote he didn't like. So we now have to hire someone to do what Cooper refuses to do in general support of the Village. Frankly, I suggested Cooper should resign, since he has nothing to offer the Village. At least nothing it wants and can use.
This was all more than too much for our Mayor, Emperor Jacobs, and he began to try to cut me off. I would not, sadly, shut up, but I reassured him that the Police Chief was in attendance and carrying both a gun and a Taser, and should be more than capable of dispatching me when His Highness had enough. It was then that President Jacobs instructed the Chief to escort me from the room, which the Chief had no choice but to move to do. Since I would never do that to our Chief, I stopped talking and went back to my seat.
The Fuhrer made a couple of references in passing about me and my terrible behavior, which included talking too much and addressing a matter which the Chairman considered both not on topic and ad hominem. Well, I would have let the matter go, but His Imperial Majesty goaded me too much, so at the next public comment opportunity, I told him I was sorry my first appearance of the evening provoked him, but that I suspected he would feel vastly better about me and my behavior if I could show him video clips of his own grossly uncivilized ravings, including threats to the then Mayor and accosting the Village Manager, last summer, or his attempt a few months ago to talk over and suppress Commissioner Ross, who was trying to address a topic during her turn at a Commission meeting. I then suggested to him that he seemed to be setting up a dictatorship, and that as part of it, he wanted to determine what people were allowed to speak. Who would think that at the end of the meeting, at a time I could no longer respond to his other garbage, Cooper would agree with me? But he did.
So that's "the rest of the story." I still say the conclusion, represented by the votes taken, was pleasing.
The meeting went as I said it did, and the conclusions were as I indicated. What I didn't say is this: during the first public comment opportunity, I addressed reasons why I believed the TRIM should be as high as we could make it this year, which was 9.5 mills. I talked long. Then, I talked some more. I ignored about three series of alarms from the timer. And to make matters worse, I addressed the matter of the Administrative Assistant to the Manager, a new position which has already earned the disapproval of some on the Commission. I pointed out that among reasons the Manager needed an Administrative Assistant were that the Clerk, who normally assists the Manager, has been made excessively busy trying to guess what Commissioners want in the minutes. She has wasted many hours of her time on this foolish and irrelevant exercise. In addition, one of the new responsibilities of our new Administrative Assistant is to find and apply for grants. I didn't name Commissioner Cooper, but I said one Commissioner ran on a platform that included an offer to find and write precisely these grants, but he had withdrawn the offer when the last Commission made one vote he didn't like. So we now have to hire someone to do what Cooper refuses to do in general support of the Village. Frankly, I suggested Cooper should resign, since he has nothing to offer the Village. At least nothing it wants and can use.
This was all more than too much for our Mayor, Emperor Jacobs, and he began to try to cut me off. I would not, sadly, shut up, but I reassured him that the Police Chief was in attendance and carrying both a gun and a Taser, and should be more than capable of dispatching me when His Highness had enough. It was then that President Jacobs instructed the Chief to escort me from the room, which the Chief had no choice but to move to do. Since I would never do that to our Chief, I stopped talking and went back to my seat.
The Fuhrer made a couple of references in passing about me and my terrible behavior, which included talking too much and addressing a matter which the Chairman considered both not on topic and ad hominem. Well, I would have let the matter go, but His Imperial Majesty goaded me too much, so at the next public comment opportunity, I told him I was sorry my first appearance of the evening provoked him, but that I suspected he would feel vastly better about me and my behavior if I could show him video clips of his own grossly uncivilized ravings, including threats to the then Mayor and accosting the Village Manager, last summer, or his attempt a few months ago to talk over and suppress Commissioner Ross, who was trying to address a topic during her turn at a Commission meeting. I then suggested to him that he seemed to be setting up a dictatorship, and that as part of it, he wanted to determine what people were allowed to speak. Who would think that at the end of the meeting, at a time I could no longer respond to his other garbage, Cooper would agree with me? But he did.
So that's "the rest of the story." I still say the conclusion, represented by the votes taken, was pleasing.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
"Penny Wise and Pound Foolish"
That's what Ana Garcia, our Village Manager, told Commissioners at the final budget hearing tonight. Ana must have struggled with this budget. As far as I know, Ana is personally a conservative. Not just conservative, but a conservative. She likes low taxes, and she streamlines things to get there. That's why she presented a 8.9 mill budget last year.
But 8.9 wasn't enough. It left us with unfixed problems, and no reserve at all. This year, Commissioners must have suggested she ask for more tax money, so she put together a 9.5 mill budget. It has more room in it to meet Village needs, but it still leaves some needs unfunded, and it adds only a little to the reserve.
The discussion two weeks ago was whether to accept the 9.5 mill budget, or raise taxes only to 9.4 mills. This distinction had no actual meaning, but the tentative compromise proposal was just that. And to get us to 9.4 from a budget based on 9.5 would have required some further cuts in expenses in the budget. This was the sticking point where things were left off two weeks ago. The Manager and the Finance Director were to scrutinize the budget more closely, to see if they could find $12,500 worth of cuts, which is what a 0.1 mill reduction in ad valorem tax revenue costs the Village. Off the cuff, Commissioners and management could find about $8,000 two weeks ago, so someone had to come up with about $4,500 more.
They came close. The Manager and the Finance Director managed to find a total of $12,448 or $12,444, depending on who was doing the talking. On the one hand, you could say they were there. What's $52 or $56? On the other hand, you could say that with two weeks and lots of motivation, they just couldn't quite get there. That's how little fat there is in this budget.
And with this budget, either 9.4 or 9.5, there is still no fund to repair the log cabin, nothing extra for median improvement, and nothing for erection of a fence along the railroad track. Ana even mentioned "extreme needs." In fact, there really wasn't much more to add to the reserve. It was just a slight filling out of Village services, and the addition of an Administrative Assistant to the Manager, to do code compliance, grant-writing, and other administrative things the Manager and the Village Clerk couldn't do. So still a pretty tight budget.
The Manager was rambling a bit when she said what she did about pennies and pounds, but I suspect this is what she meant. She barely made it to a 9.4 mill budget, but not quite, and it would be penny wise and pound foolish to try to get there. Or even to have gotten where she got. It was a game no responsible steward, either professional manager or elected official, should play.
But she put it all out there, and let the Commission decide what it wanted to do. And they did it! They reinstated the 9.5 mill tax, and they accepted the budget. There were two votes. The 9.5 millage rate was passed by a majority which did not include Jacobs or Cooper, and the acceptance of the budget was passed by a supermajority, lacking only Cooper, who seems devoted to discord and disapproval, and has never agreed to any budget, even the one he now claims to endorse! The consensus we got was very nice to see.
We're a long way from the lap of luxury, but the Commission has modeled a properish approach to the Village budget, and it has paved the way for possibly more generous funding of Village coffers next time.
Good for them.
But 8.9 wasn't enough. It left us with unfixed problems, and no reserve at all. This year, Commissioners must have suggested she ask for more tax money, so she put together a 9.5 mill budget. It has more room in it to meet Village needs, but it still leaves some needs unfunded, and it adds only a little to the reserve.
The discussion two weeks ago was whether to accept the 9.5 mill budget, or raise taxes only to 9.4 mills. This distinction had no actual meaning, but the tentative compromise proposal was just that. And to get us to 9.4 from a budget based on 9.5 would have required some further cuts in expenses in the budget. This was the sticking point where things were left off two weeks ago. The Manager and the Finance Director were to scrutinize the budget more closely, to see if they could find $12,500 worth of cuts, which is what a 0.1 mill reduction in ad valorem tax revenue costs the Village. Off the cuff, Commissioners and management could find about $8,000 two weeks ago, so someone had to come up with about $4,500 more.
They came close. The Manager and the Finance Director managed to find a total of $12,448 or $12,444, depending on who was doing the talking. On the one hand, you could say they were there. What's $52 or $56? On the other hand, you could say that with two weeks and lots of motivation, they just couldn't quite get there. That's how little fat there is in this budget.
And with this budget, either 9.4 or 9.5, there is still no fund to repair the log cabin, nothing extra for median improvement, and nothing for erection of a fence along the railroad track. Ana even mentioned "extreme needs." In fact, there really wasn't much more to add to the reserve. It was just a slight filling out of Village services, and the addition of an Administrative Assistant to the Manager, to do code compliance, grant-writing, and other administrative things the Manager and the Village Clerk couldn't do. So still a pretty tight budget.
The Manager was rambling a bit when she said what she did about pennies and pounds, but I suspect this is what she meant. She barely made it to a 9.4 mill budget, but not quite, and it would be penny wise and pound foolish to try to get there. Or even to have gotten where she got. It was a game no responsible steward, either professional manager or elected official, should play.
But she put it all out there, and let the Commission decide what it wanted to do. And they did it! They reinstated the 9.5 mill tax, and they accepted the budget. There were two votes. The 9.5 millage rate was passed by a majority which did not include Jacobs or Cooper, and the acceptance of the budget was passed by a supermajority, lacking only Cooper, who seems devoted to discord and disapproval, and has never agreed to any budget, even the one he now claims to endorse! The consensus we got was very nice to see.
We're a long way from the lap of luxury, but the Commission has modeled a properish approach to the Village budget, and it has paved the way for possibly more generous funding of Village coffers next time.
Good for them.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Don't Be a Deadbeat. This is Your Blog, Too.
Victor Romano approached me at Food and Tunes to talk about the school. He says we need one. Why I have to make Victor's argument is beyond me. He's more than capable of making it himself. He makes a great argument, which I now have to summarize because Victor is too lazy or shy to insert it as a Comment at the end of the "School Daze" post. Or, he could have asked me for a guest post, and he could have spelled this out in a regular column just like this one. Victor, if I didn't like you so much, I wouldn't waste my time doing your work for you.
So here's Victor's argument: We have lots of families that have children. Those children have to go to school somewhere, and the breadwinners of the households do not necessarily want, and cannot necessarily afford, to send their kids to private school, like Country Day or Cushman. The natural school for most BP kids is Miami Shores Elementary, followed, I guess, by some middle school, then North Miami Senior High. But Victor says Miami Shores Elementary is no longer an "A" school. It's dropped down to a "B." I don't know who decides, or on what the rating depends, but this is what Victor says. Gratigny, the natural destination for some BP kids, is reportedly a "D" school, and Bryan has reportedly risen to a "C." But Victor says he and parents like him and Kelli want an "A" school. And they want it to be a public school.
Victor says he and his similarly situated friends are very unhappy about the lack of a public "A" school, and if they couldn't find one to which to send their cherubs, they might have to move. I asked Victor where he would think of going, and he cited Miami Lakes as an area that fills the bill. In fact, he says, the reason we have so many empty houses may well be that we don't have a good enough school. But Victor, I weakly plead, if you haven't heard, it's been kind of a bad economy for everyone, and there are empty houses in lots and lots of places. Let me tell you something, Fred, says Victor, with a "checkmate" smirk, the areas with great schools don't have this kind of vacancy rate. Houses there are full, and property values remain higher than elsewhere. Curse you, Victor, and the Red Baron, too.
My thought was we keep BP residential, and see what we can do to help Miami Shores regain their "A" rating, but Victor wants us to have our own school. He wants us to class up our neighborhood, now and forever, with one of those nice Charter Schools. So Victor, do you want a high end grocery store, too, so we'll have something better than Publix. No, says Victor, just the Charter School.
This could be a cultural difference, or maybe a generational thing. Victor is a Yuppie, and I'm an old goat, so Victor wants things like Charter Schools, and I just want to be left alone. I'm probably old enough to be Victor's father. I want the kind of cell phone that isn't burdened with a camera, and Victor probably just bought the iPhone V, or 5, or whatever fanfare they use.
So I don't know. Victor makes a really compelling argument. It's very persuasive. I still wish MSV would just take better care of their school, so we can be who we are. I think I'll continue to resist, but it's hard to argue with Victor. Especially so, because I really like him and Kelli, they're great neighbors, and I don't want them to leave. Can't we get a committee to approach MSV to offer to help them figure out how to regain the throne? Our Commission, if it wasn't so busy fussing over dumb stuff, and trying to be what it shouldn't, should be doing that.
By the way, Victor, if you can get off your butt, step up to the plate, and meet your own responsibilities, I'll pull this post, and you can replace it with your own elaboration of your own argument. You'll be my first guest. I once offered a guest spot to Jacobs, but he's not the man you are. Come on, Victor.
So here's Victor's argument: We have lots of families that have children. Those children have to go to school somewhere, and the breadwinners of the households do not necessarily want, and cannot necessarily afford, to send their kids to private school, like Country Day or Cushman. The natural school for most BP kids is Miami Shores Elementary, followed, I guess, by some middle school, then North Miami Senior High. But Victor says Miami Shores Elementary is no longer an "A" school. It's dropped down to a "B." I don't know who decides, or on what the rating depends, but this is what Victor says. Gratigny, the natural destination for some BP kids, is reportedly a "D" school, and Bryan has reportedly risen to a "C." But Victor says he and parents like him and Kelli want an "A" school. And they want it to be a public school.
Victor says he and his similarly situated friends are very unhappy about the lack of a public "A" school, and if they couldn't find one to which to send their cherubs, they might have to move. I asked Victor where he would think of going, and he cited Miami Lakes as an area that fills the bill. In fact, he says, the reason we have so many empty houses may well be that we don't have a good enough school. But Victor, I weakly plead, if you haven't heard, it's been kind of a bad economy for everyone, and there are empty houses in lots and lots of places. Let me tell you something, Fred, says Victor, with a "checkmate" smirk, the areas with great schools don't have this kind of vacancy rate. Houses there are full, and property values remain higher than elsewhere. Curse you, Victor, and the Red Baron, too.
My thought was we keep BP residential, and see what we can do to help Miami Shores regain their "A" rating, but Victor wants us to have our own school. He wants us to class up our neighborhood, now and forever, with one of those nice Charter Schools. So Victor, do you want a high end grocery store, too, so we'll have something better than Publix. No, says Victor, just the Charter School.
This could be a cultural difference, or maybe a generational thing. Victor is a Yuppie, and I'm an old goat, so Victor wants things like Charter Schools, and I just want to be left alone. I'm probably old enough to be Victor's father. I want the kind of cell phone that isn't burdened with a camera, and Victor probably just bought the iPhone V, or 5, or whatever fanfare they use.
So I don't know. Victor makes a really compelling argument. It's very persuasive. I still wish MSV would just take better care of their school, so we can be who we are. I think I'll continue to resist, but it's hard to argue with Victor. Especially so, because I really like him and Kelli, they're great neighbors, and I don't want them to leave. Can't we get a committee to approach MSV to offer to help them figure out how to regain the throne? Our Commission, if it wasn't so busy fussing over dumb stuff, and trying to be what it shouldn't, should be doing that.
By the way, Victor, if you can get off your butt, step up to the plate, and meet your own responsibilities, I'll pull this post, and you can replace it with your own elaboration of your own argument. You'll be my first guest. I once offered a guest spot to Jacobs, but he's not the man you are. Come on, Victor.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
"Food and Tunes," Chapter 9/12
What a nice evening it turned out to be last night. It could have rained us out completely, but like last time, the rain had its way with the Village until past midafternoon, then stopped for our whole event, then spat a little again to let us know it was time to go home.
I think people must have decided that perhaps we wouldn't really have our event, or that it was likely to be too wet to come sit on the ground, because the attendance was not as overwhelming as it might have been. But there was finally a nice crowd, with picnickers, food truck junkies, and lots of kids.
The music was very satisfying. It was Dave Wilder's band, which call themselves "No Dice." A very nice treatment of '60s, '70's, and 80's oldies, mostly concentrating on the earlier stuff. They did a wonderful job.
We also had a demonstration of various "circus"-type gymnastics and acts, with belly-dancing, balance and juggling feats, and a beautiful display of artistry involving a high tripod and a fancy rope hanging down from the apex. The girl who did the rope exercises, and the accompanying music, were reminiscent of Cirque Du Soleil. Some of the performers didn't look 15 yet. It was a very interesting demonstration, and people were rapt.
We had four food trucks. Everyone likes Fat Man, and he was back with his usual terrific barbeque and fried food. Bocaditos has been to Food and Tunes before, and they serve excellent, if slightly pricey, "sliders." Arepabox was new, and people seemed satisfied with them. And they brought their friends, who operated a gelato service. Very, very good food all around.
We had special and sometimes unexpected sponsors. City National Bank came, and made us a nice sponsorship donation. That alone meant the event didn't cost us anything. Our only real expense is the band, and CNB covered it. They're very nice people, they gave away some things, like umbrellas, and they would love to have your business. Their closest branch is at the corner of Biscayne and 135th. You can talk to Eddie Yarbrough or Rebecca (Becky) Castillo. If you want to know if I moved my account from Bank of America to CNB, because of CNB's sponsorships of the Foundation and generally good reputation in the area, yes, I did. If I owe you money for anything, you'll get a CNB check from me.
We did our usual 50/50 raffle. We would have made $75 profit for the Foundation, but the winner turned out to be a former Commissioner, and he donated his winnings back to the Foundation. So we made $150. We also sold two pairs of AMC Theater tickets, donated by Roxy and Chuck Ross, and we made $17.50 on that. Someone won a signed Marlin's bat, and paid us $60 for it. We ask the food trucks to donate 5% of what they make during our event, and they did so well, that we made another $100.
Just to remind you, the project in clearest focus for us right now is resurfacing the tot lot. It needs it. The problem is we have gotten two estimates, both of $30K, and money is not easy to raise. We did get four new $20-per-household-per-year contributors last night, but we need many more of those. Another project presented itself just this past week. We can talk about it at our next meeting, which is October 15. The sound system we use for meetings is apparently terrible. And it's old. A new one, including the console and all the microphones we need, probably costs $10K. So perhaps worth talking about. Come to the meeting and either tell us what you think, or just eavesdrop. It'll be at 6:30 in the Rec Center.
Also, we need something from you, apart from $20. One of our five members has had to resign, due to frequent time conflicts. Another has announced an imminent resignation, for the same reason. A third let me know last night that his work schedule expanded, and he can't keep this up. He's given us two more months. So we need three more Trustees. Please want to do this. It's fun, it's interesting, and it's a labor of love for our Village. If you can see your way clear to considering joining us, come to our next meeting and/or send us an e-mail letting us know of your interest, and contact any of the Commissioners. It is they who have to approve new Foundation Trustees, so they have to know about you.
fredjonasmd@gmail.com
csupremed@gmail.com
rross@biscayneparkfl.gov
banderson@biscayneparkfl.gov
bwatts@biscayneparkfl.gov
njacobs@biscayneparkfl.gov
bcooper@biscayneparkfl.gov
I think people must have decided that perhaps we wouldn't really have our event, or that it was likely to be too wet to come sit on the ground, because the attendance was not as overwhelming as it might have been. But there was finally a nice crowd, with picnickers, food truck junkies, and lots of kids.
The music was very satisfying. It was Dave Wilder's band, which call themselves "No Dice." A very nice treatment of '60s, '70's, and 80's oldies, mostly concentrating on the earlier stuff. They did a wonderful job.
We also had a demonstration of various "circus"-type gymnastics and acts, with belly-dancing, balance and juggling feats, and a beautiful display of artistry involving a high tripod and a fancy rope hanging down from the apex. The girl who did the rope exercises, and the accompanying music, were reminiscent of Cirque Du Soleil. Some of the performers didn't look 15 yet. It was a very interesting demonstration, and people were rapt.
We had four food trucks. Everyone likes Fat Man, and he was back with his usual terrific barbeque and fried food. Bocaditos has been to Food and Tunes before, and they serve excellent, if slightly pricey, "sliders." Arepabox was new, and people seemed satisfied with them. And they brought their friends, who operated a gelato service. Very, very good food all around.
We had special and sometimes unexpected sponsors. City National Bank came, and made us a nice sponsorship donation. That alone meant the event didn't cost us anything. Our only real expense is the band, and CNB covered it. They're very nice people, they gave away some things, like umbrellas, and they would love to have your business. Their closest branch is at the corner of Biscayne and 135th. You can talk to Eddie Yarbrough or Rebecca (Becky) Castillo. If you want to know if I moved my account from Bank of America to CNB, because of CNB's sponsorships of the Foundation and generally good reputation in the area, yes, I did. If I owe you money for anything, you'll get a CNB check from me.
We did our usual 50/50 raffle. We would have made $75 profit for the Foundation, but the winner turned out to be a former Commissioner, and he donated his winnings back to the Foundation. So we made $150. We also sold two pairs of AMC Theater tickets, donated by Roxy and Chuck Ross, and we made $17.50 on that. Someone won a signed Marlin's bat, and paid us $60 for it. We ask the food trucks to donate 5% of what they make during our event, and they did so well, that we made another $100.
Just to remind you, the project in clearest focus for us right now is resurfacing the tot lot. It needs it. The problem is we have gotten two estimates, both of $30K, and money is not easy to raise. We did get four new $20-per-household-per-year contributors last night, but we need many more of those. Another project presented itself just this past week. We can talk about it at our next meeting, which is October 15. The sound system we use for meetings is apparently terrible. And it's old. A new one, including the console and all the microphones we need, probably costs $10K. So perhaps worth talking about. Come to the meeting and either tell us what you think, or just eavesdrop. It'll be at 6:30 in the Rec Center.
Also, we need something from you, apart from $20. One of our five members has had to resign, due to frequent time conflicts. Another has announced an imminent resignation, for the same reason. A third let me know last night that his work schedule expanded, and he can't keep this up. He's given us two more months. So we need three more Trustees. Please want to do this. It's fun, it's interesting, and it's a labor of love for our Village. If you can see your way clear to considering joining us, come to our next meeting and/or send us an e-mail letting us know of your interest, and contact any of the Commissioners. It is they who have to approve new Foundation Trustees, so they have to know about you.
fredjonasmd@gmail.com
csupremed@gmail.com
rross@biscayneparkfl.gov
banderson@biscayneparkfl.gov
bwatts@biscayneparkfl.gov
njacobs@biscayneparkfl.gov
bcooper@biscayneparkfl.gov
"When Talk is Not Cheap"
This was the title of an '80s book about choosing a psychotherapist. As it happens, it applies to us in the Village, too.
Yesterday, I ran into Tony Perez-Pinon at the park. His kid is doing great, so it seems. He recently had another surgery, but his arm functions very well. He seemed a bit shy, but he did open up a little. Anyway, I remember when Tony's sons got injured about five years or so ago, and the discussion that ensued, about changing the speed limit in the Park, which we did. The limit used to be 30 on all streets, and now it's 25 on all streets, except 6th Avenue and Griffing, which are County streets, and we have no say about the speed limits there. There was a lot of interest in lowering the speed limits on our streets, a good deal of discussion about it (largely in favor of doing it), and some genuine commitment, including spending the money, to taking this safety measure for the Village. Part of the issue, and it didn't get much overt discussion, was making our interior streets so burdensome to negotiate, with painfully low speed limits, that "cut-throughs" would rather just avoid the Village altogether, and cut through some place else. But the interesting part of this speed limit adventure was a traffic study we had done. It showed that most drivers didn't drive over 25 on our interior streets anyway. What with small streets and frequent stop signs, people just didn't drive that fast. And the person who hit Tony's kids appears to have been impaired, not speeding. So we went to trouble and expense, and talked a good deal about this issue, but we didn't accomplish anything. In fact, after the speed limit was lowered from 30, which no one drove, to 25, the police blotter showed that almost no speeding tickets were given on these interior streets, as almost none had been given before the change.
We also, a couple of years or so ago, spent a huge amount of time, and the money it takes to arrange that time and pay an attorney to keep us company, talk-, talk-, talking about FPL. We compounded the expense by having extra workshops about FPL, and there was lots of ex camera activity involving our attorney. Part of the issue was the Franchise Agreement we, and most municipalities, have with FPL. Some of us wanted a major change in approach between us and FPL, or didn't want the Agreement at all, and those who wanted change seemed to work hard, at all of our expense, to get it. What we wound up with was some minor and insubstantial change in the language of a few passages of the Agreement, and the things about which some complained and worried most were not a matter of the Agreement anyway. So we spent a lot of money, and even more Village peace and equanimity, to accomplish nothing.
In the past few years, there was abundant discussion about Commission meeting minutes. Some complained bitterly about them, considering them incomplete, flawed, an inadequate and unsatisfactory record of Village business, and sometimes even criminally corrupted. This was a very serious matter. And every hour of talk about this was an hour of the time of any residents who were interested enough in Village business to bother to come to meetings, an hour of Cesar Hernandez's time at the recording console, an hour of the time of the Comcast person, an hour of auditorium cooling, and an hour of attorney time. None of this talk was cheap. And it was made more expensive, in an abstract sense, by the damage it did to the general happiness of Village residents, who were dragged through struggle, misery, and polarization regarding these minutes. Once the plaintiffs were in a position to change the minutes, as they seemed to say they thought necessary and decent, they didn't bother, and instead, they simply compounded the work of the Village Clerk, who now spends such a sizable amount of her time trying to guess what Commissioners might want recorded in the minutes, that she has less time for her real work, resulting in part in our now hiring someone else to do part of the work she can't get done, because she's fooling with the minutes.
Not cheap? Sometimes talk gets really, really expensive. And we, the residents and taxpayers, which is usually the same thing, are the ones who have to pay for this loose and meaningless, and expensive, talk.
Yesterday, I ran into Tony Perez-Pinon at the park. His kid is doing great, so it seems. He recently had another surgery, but his arm functions very well. He seemed a bit shy, but he did open up a little. Anyway, I remember when Tony's sons got injured about five years or so ago, and the discussion that ensued, about changing the speed limit in the Park, which we did. The limit used to be 30 on all streets, and now it's 25 on all streets, except 6th Avenue and Griffing, which are County streets, and we have no say about the speed limits there. There was a lot of interest in lowering the speed limits on our streets, a good deal of discussion about it (largely in favor of doing it), and some genuine commitment, including spending the money, to taking this safety measure for the Village. Part of the issue, and it didn't get much overt discussion, was making our interior streets so burdensome to negotiate, with painfully low speed limits, that "cut-throughs" would rather just avoid the Village altogether, and cut through some place else. But the interesting part of this speed limit adventure was a traffic study we had done. It showed that most drivers didn't drive over 25 on our interior streets anyway. What with small streets and frequent stop signs, people just didn't drive that fast. And the person who hit Tony's kids appears to have been impaired, not speeding. So we went to trouble and expense, and talked a good deal about this issue, but we didn't accomplish anything. In fact, after the speed limit was lowered from 30, which no one drove, to 25, the police blotter showed that almost no speeding tickets were given on these interior streets, as almost none had been given before the change.
We also, a couple of years or so ago, spent a huge amount of time, and the money it takes to arrange that time and pay an attorney to keep us company, talk-, talk-, talking about FPL. We compounded the expense by having extra workshops about FPL, and there was lots of ex camera activity involving our attorney. Part of the issue was the Franchise Agreement we, and most municipalities, have with FPL. Some of us wanted a major change in approach between us and FPL, or didn't want the Agreement at all, and those who wanted change seemed to work hard, at all of our expense, to get it. What we wound up with was some minor and insubstantial change in the language of a few passages of the Agreement, and the things about which some complained and worried most were not a matter of the Agreement anyway. So we spent a lot of money, and even more Village peace and equanimity, to accomplish nothing.
In the past few years, there was abundant discussion about Commission meeting minutes. Some complained bitterly about them, considering them incomplete, flawed, an inadequate and unsatisfactory record of Village business, and sometimes even criminally corrupted. This was a very serious matter. And every hour of talk about this was an hour of the time of any residents who were interested enough in Village business to bother to come to meetings, an hour of Cesar Hernandez's time at the recording console, an hour of the time of the Comcast person, an hour of auditorium cooling, and an hour of attorney time. None of this talk was cheap. And it was made more expensive, in an abstract sense, by the damage it did to the general happiness of Village residents, who were dragged through struggle, misery, and polarization regarding these minutes. Once the plaintiffs were in a position to change the minutes, as they seemed to say they thought necessary and decent, they didn't bother, and instead, they simply compounded the work of the Village Clerk, who now spends such a sizable amount of her time trying to guess what Commissioners might want recorded in the minutes, that she has less time for her real work, resulting in part in our now hiring someone else to do part of the work she can't get done, because she's fooling with the minutes.
Not cheap? Sometimes talk gets really, really expensive. And we, the residents and taxpayers, which is usually the same thing, are the ones who have to pay for this loose and meaningless, and expensive, talk.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
School Daze
Planning and Zoning was presented an application. And a proposed Ordinance to enable it. The Church (you remember the Church) wants to host a school (no, not that school...yet) which is for the moment calling itself a pre-school. It needs (sort of) the Village's accommodation of its existence.
Here's the story. We begin with an unnerving reverse "Catch-22." The State requires us to make provision for a school in our Comprehensive Plan, known as our EAR. I forgot what EAR stands for, but it's the same as a comprehensive plan. So we included this provision in our EAR, which we were required to do, even though we didn't want or need a school, and no one was proposing one. This turns out to be what you might call a time bomb, or, in computer parlance, a virus. Because now, a pre-school wants to set itself up in the Church, and our attorney tells us we cannot object, because why? Because it's in our EAR. How can we block a school, if we said we want one? But we only had it in our EAR, because the State made us put it there. Nasty, right?
Ms Busta, the head school ma'rm, brought some troops with her tonight, and she included her attorney. They were representing themselves in their application for the school, an application that was presented at the P&Z meeting, which doubles as the Local Planning Board meeting.
The school people, let's call them the vendors, prepared an application. So now, they're the applicant. But they didn't prepare a proposed Ordinance. Our Village Attorney did. On our dime. Her explanation for why she did this, and why we have to pay for it, was unacceptably thin, in my opinion.
And to make matters worse, although she said it wasn't her intention, she impressed several of us as advocating for the school, and running interference for them. (She says she's been fighting a school application for five years in Palmetto Bay, and she's losing at every turn. Maybe she decided to represent the winning side this time. Whatever it was, it was deeply unsatisfying.)
But there's a problem for the school. It can't slide into the slot for a school at the Church, because that slot has sealed over, by virtue of the Church's having failed to keep active their non-conforming use status. This turns out only to be a minor problem. It would have been a slam-dunk Plan A, but Plan B may be just as good. Plan B is to get the Commission to approve an Ordinance that legitimizes a school on the Church's property. And because of the reverse "Catch-22," the Commission can't refuse. What the Commission can do, and P&Z could have begun this process, is to control the structure of the school, in terms of number of children and other details like that.
Here was some of the argument tonight. Ms Busta used to work at some Presbyterian school, but something happened, and she left. Her attorney, when asked to state her case, only said he had his kid in her school, and he, the attorney, thinks the world of her. That was his statement of the school's case, which he bolstered by getting choked up. Barbara Kuhl noted correctly that his whole case was a personal testimonial to Ms Busta. Ms Busta needs a place for her business, her attorney needs a place to send his kid, and the Church needs a tenant, to stay afloat. What all this has to do with Biscayne Park is not clear. Nor did it get clear. Jeanne Bergeron said the Park probably needs a school, and she noted that four houses on her street are empty, a fact she took the liberty to attribute to the absence of a school in Biscayne Park. That was her admitted speculation. Barbara Kuhl pointed out that one of those houses got vacated, because the owner panicked at the last threat of a school in Biscayne Park, and jumped ship. "Our" attorney, Eve Boutsis, pointed out that schools are important to people, and that people move to communities precisely because of the schools. (This is an example of her appearing to advocate for the school, at the expense of the Park, which she denies.) I agreed with her, but I suggested that perhaps some people move to a community specifically because it does not have a school. Aren't we allowed not to want a school? Evidently not.
So we're getting something. We just don't know exactly what it will be. Enter Gage Hartung and Doug Tannehill. Very smart guys. They advocated to permit the pre-school, and to regulate it, as much as we can. Their thinking, which did not persuade a majority of their colleagues, is that if we try to keep the pre-school out, the Charter School can dance right in. And as much as none of us, except Jeanne Bergeron, wants any school, we don't want a Charter school, which has a much bigger scope, more than we don't want a pre-school.
Ms Busta was questioned about her vision for her school. She was a little vague, but she did reveal that she really wants a full elementary school, and she's aiming for about 120-130 children. P&Z might have had a way of limiting her to many less children, and very few "grades," but it missed that boat. Perhaps the Commission will do what P&Z didn't do, since the Commission is under no obligation to take P&Z's advice, which by consensus was to say no to the enire application. Ultimately, thanks to the reverse "Catch-22" perpetrated by the State, we can't do that anyway.
Here's the story. We begin with an unnerving reverse "Catch-22." The State requires us to make provision for a school in our Comprehensive Plan, known as our EAR. I forgot what EAR stands for, but it's the same as a comprehensive plan. So we included this provision in our EAR, which we were required to do, even though we didn't want or need a school, and no one was proposing one. This turns out to be what you might call a time bomb, or, in computer parlance, a virus. Because now, a pre-school wants to set itself up in the Church, and our attorney tells us we cannot object, because why? Because it's in our EAR. How can we block a school, if we said we want one? But we only had it in our EAR, because the State made us put it there. Nasty, right?
Ms Busta, the head school ma'rm, brought some troops with her tonight, and she included her attorney. They were representing themselves in their application for the school, an application that was presented at the P&Z meeting, which doubles as the Local Planning Board meeting.
The school people, let's call them the vendors, prepared an application. So now, they're the applicant. But they didn't prepare a proposed Ordinance. Our Village Attorney did. On our dime. Her explanation for why she did this, and why we have to pay for it, was unacceptably thin, in my opinion.
And to make matters worse, although she said it wasn't her intention, she impressed several of us as advocating for the school, and running interference for them. (She says she's been fighting a school application for five years in Palmetto Bay, and she's losing at every turn. Maybe she decided to represent the winning side this time. Whatever it was, it was deeply unsatisfying.)
But there's a problem for the school. It can't slide into the slot for a school at the Church, because that slot has sealed over, by virtue of the Church's having failed to keep active their non-conforming use status. This turns out only to be a minor problem. It would have been a slam-dunk Plan A, but Plan B may be just as good. Plan B is to get the Commission to approve an Ordinance that legitimizes a school on the Church's property. And because of the reverse "Catch-22," the Commission can't refuse. What the Commission can do, and P&Z could have begun this process, is to control the structure of the school, in terms of number of children and other details like that.
Here was some of the argument tonight. Ms Busta used to work at some Presbyterian school, but something happened, and she left. Her attorney, when asked to state her case, only said he had his kid in her school, and he, the attorney, thinks the world of her. That was his statement of the school's case, which he bolstered by getting choked up. Barbara Kuhl noted correctly that his whole case was a personal testimonial to Ms Busta. Ms Busta needs a place for her business, her attorney needs a place to send his kid, and the Church needs a tenant, to stay afloat. What all this has to do with Biscayne Park is not clear. Nor did it get clear. Jeanne Bergeron said the Park probably needs a school, and she noted that four houses on her street are empty, a fact she took the liberty to attribute to the absence of a school in Biscayne Park. That was her admitted speculation. Barbara Kuhl pointed out that one of those houses got vacated, because the owner panicked at the last threat of a school in Biscayne Park, and jumped ship. "Our" attorney, Eve Boutsis, pointed out that schools are important to people, and that people move to communities precisely because of the schools. (This is an example of her appearing to advocate for the school, at the expense of the Park, which she denies.) I agreed with her, but I suggested that perhaps some people move to a community specifically because it does not have a school. Aren't we allowed not to want a school? Evidently not.
So we're getting something. We just don't know exactly what it will be. Enter Gage Hartung and Doug Tannehill. Very smart guys. They advocated to permit the pre-school, and to regulate it, as much as we can. Their thinking, which did not persuade a majority of their colleagues, is that if we try to keep the pre-school out, the Charter School can dance right in. And as much as none of us, except Jeanne Bergeron, wants any school, we don't want a Charter school, which has a much bigger scope, more than we don't want a pre-school.
Ms Busta was questioned about her vision for her school. She was a little vague, but she did reveal that she really wants a full elementary school, and she's aiming for about 120-130 children. P&Z might have had a way of limiting her to many less children, and very few "grades," but it missed that boat. Perhaps the Commission will do what P&Z didn't do, since the Commission is under no obligation to take P&Z's advice, which by consensus was to say no to the enire application. Ultimately, thanks to the reverse "Catch-22" perpetrated by the State, we can't do that anyway.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain Would Kill for Lines Like These.
Ernest Hemingway famously accepted a challenge to write a short story in six words. He wrote "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
One of the iconic lines of cinema history was Faye Dunaway's admission to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown: "She's my sister and my daughter."
We don't have this kind of conciseness, this surgical incisiveness, this distillation and condensation of form and content, in our current little BP issues. We have to rely on juxtapositions.
Here's what we have: Our Mayor, Noah Jacobs, has oft repeated a phrase he likes. He likes to say "it's more important that it be done right than that it be done quickly." Sometimes when he says this, there seems to be an effort to delay something he seems not to favor, but the sentiment isn't all bad. If you take it out of context, it has a kind of reasonableness and wisdom to it. It's centering. It's more important to do something right than to do it quickly. Yes, I think he's right about that, if the choice is between doing it right and just doing it quickly, and sloppily, and imprecisely, and wrong.
At last week's Commission meeting, there was a misunderstanding about something. The matter was the possibility of a Charter Review Committee. There was some disagreement as to whether we needed one, and further discussion about how such a Committee, if it were formed, would be constituted. The central question at that moment was how many people would be on the Committee, and how would they be chosen.
There was confusion in the discussion. I read the transcript of the conversation among Commissioners, and the Village Attorney, and there was alternating mention of entertaining a vote only on the amendment specifying the number of people on such a Committee, and entertaining a vote on the entire amended Ordinance. It is fair to say that a given person could have thought the vote was for one thing, or for the other.
This ambiguity was not fully realized until after the vote was taken, and the Mayor and Commissioners learned that the amended Ordinance had passed. One of those Commissioners, Roxy Ross, protested, and she asked for a separation of the issues and a revote on the Ordinance by itself. She was one who admitted understanding that only the amendment had been voted on.
The Mayor, in what is his now very characteristic fashion, refused to clarify and revote the issue, and one of his suggestions to Commissioner Ross was that a revote could have no consequence. He suggested that she had voted against the motion taken, and all she could do is vote no on the Ordinance overall, thus adding nothing to the dynamic.
What he failed to consider is that if the Ordinance was voted separately, there would be separate discussion about it. There had been no discussion at all of the content of the Ordinance when the matter was composition of a hypothetical Committee. Separate discussion could have done one of three things. It could have done nothing, and left each Commissioner feeling as he or she did at the outset. It could have changed the minds of Commissioners opposed to the Committee, and perhaps turned a 4-1 vote in favor into a 5-0 vote in favor. (More consensus isn't a bad thing, is it?) Or it could have caused Commissioners who had originally favored the Committee to conclude it was not a good idea after all, resulting in defeat of the proposed Committee instead of acceptance of it. ("Twelve Angry Men?")
But none of that happened, because the Mayor was so delighted to have gotten the conclusion he wanted, that he jettisoned democracy, fairness, and even civility. No one could tell this story better than the Mayor himself told it:
Jacobs: "As it stands we now have to vote on the Ordinance itself, is that correct?"
Attorney Hearn: "No. There was a motion made as I understood to pass the Ordinance, and there was an offer to amend it and accepted by the second."
Jacobs: "So what you are telling me is that the Ordinance passed? Beautiful."
The Mayor himself thought the vote had only been for the composition, but he was so happy that the Attorney "understood" differently, that he quickly seized the chance to declare his Ordinance passed. Fairness, respect, decency, the value in doing things right instead of doing them quickly? Not this time, buddy. As they say in sports, where the only thing that matters is winning, you never take points off the board.
One of the iconic lines of cinema history was Faye Dunaway's admission to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown: "She's my sister and my daughter."
We don't have this kind of conciseness, this surgical incisiveness, this distillation and condensation of form and content, in our current little BP issues. We have to rely on juxtapositions.
Here's what we have: Our Mayor, Noah Jacobs, has oft repeated a phrase he likes. He likes to say "it's more important that it be done right than that it be done quickly." Sometimes when he says this, there seems to be an effort to delay something he seems not to favor, but the sentiment isn't all bad. If you take it out of context, it has a kind of reasonableness and wisdom to it. It's centering. It's more important to do something right than to do it quickly. Yes, I think he's right about that, if the choice is between doing it right and just doing it quickly, and sloppily, and imprecisely, and wrong.
At last week's Commission meeting, there was a misunderstanding about something. The matter was the possibility of a Charter Review Committee. There was some disagreement as to whether we needed one, and further discussion about how such a Committee, if it were formed, would be constituted. The central question at that moment was how many people would be on the Committee, and how would they be chosen.
There was confusion in the discussion. I read the transcript of the conversation among Commissioners, and the Village Attorney, and there was alternating mention of entertaining a vote only on the amendment specifying the number of people on such a Committee, and entertaining a vote on the entire amended Ordinance. It is fair to say that a given person could have thought the vote was for one thing, or for the other.
This ambiguity was not fully realized until after the vote was taken, and the Mayor and Commissioners learned that the amended Ordinance had passed. One of those Commissioners, Roxy Ross, protested, and she asked for a separation of the issues and a revote on the Ordinance by itself. She was one who admitted understanding that only the amendment had been voted on.
The Mayor, in what is his now very characteristic fashion, refused to clarify and revote the issue, and one of his suggestions to Commissioner Ross was that a revote could have no consequence. He suggested that she had voted against the motion taken, and all she could do is vote no on the Ordinance overall, thus adding nothing to the dynamic.
What he failed to consider is that if the Ordinance was voted separately, there would be separate discussion about it. There had been no discussion at all of the content of the Ordinance when the matter was composition of a hypothetical Committee. Separate discussion could have done one of three things. It could have done nothing, and left each Commissioner feeling as he or she did at the outset. It could have changed the minds of Commissioners opposed to the Committee, and perhaps turned a 4-1 vote in favor into a 5-0 vote in favor. (More consensus isn't a bad thing, is it?) Or it could have caused Commissioners who had originally favored the Committee to conclude it was not a good idea after all, resulting in defeat of the proposed Committee instead of acceptance of it. ("Twelve Angry Men?")
But none of that happened, because the Mayor was so delighted to have gotten the conclusion he wanted, that he jettisoned democracy, fairness, and even civility. No one could tell this story better than the Mayor himself told it:
Jacobs: "As it stands we now have to vote on the Ordinance itself, is that correct?"
Attorney Hearn: "No. There was a motion made as I understood to pass the Ordinance, and there was an offer to amend it and accepted by the second."
Jacobs: "So what you are telling me is that the Ordinance passed? Beautiful."
The Mayor himself thought the vote had only been for the composition, but he was so happy that the Attorney "understood" differently, that he quickly seized the chance to declare his Ordinance passed. Fairness, respect, decency, the value in doing things right instead of doing them quickly? Not this time, buddy. As they say in sports, where the only thing that matters is winning, you never take points off the board.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Sociology
An interesting budget hearing tonight, really. It was the first of two, and the other one will be next Thursday (September 20). 6:30. Be there.
There was a distinctly collaborative tone tonight, as much as there could be among people who don't agree with each other, and sometimes very much disagree.
Here's the short version: the Manager's proposal was for a millage of 9.5. Anderson and Ross agreed with it. Jacobs liked the sound of 9.3, which he said was what the Manager proposed. The Finance Director tried to tell him he overlooked an add-on for the Log Cabin, but Jacobs was good with his preconception. Watts thought 9.3 sounded too low, but 9.5 sounded too high, so she liked the even number in between. Cooper just likes it the way it is: 8.9. Ross' motion was for 9.5, and it failed 3-2. Anderson then proposed 9.4, which passed 3-2. On the surface of it, it appeared that Anderson and Ross were capable of compromise, and Jacobs, Watts, and Cooper were not. But we had agreement, and agreement is good. So good, that Ross started out phase two trying to figure out where in a 9.5 mill budget to take out $12,500, which is what that 0.1 mill from 9.5 to 9.4 would cost the Village. They made some headway there, too, except for Cooper, who appears completely incapable of compromising about anything. Suggestions were made, the Manager and Finance Director will sharpen their pencils, and we'll continue the conversation next week.
The longer version is also the less tidy version. First of all, these numbers, except 9.5, and the concepts behind them, were about nothing. There was a proposed budget that included thousands of details, adding up to a required income, and resulting in a necessary millage, which was 9.5. So that part was rational. For Jacobs to say something like "I couldn't go above 9.3" was not rational. It was not about anything. It was simply a number, chosen from his imagination. It had no premise, and it had no implications. It was just a number. And for Watts to say she thought 9.5 sounded like too much, but she could see why the number should be higher than 9.3 was also not about anything. 9.4 has no rational meaning. It's an empty and impressionistic number. I joked above that it was distinct from 9.5 and 9.3 by being even, instead of odd. There really isn't any more to it than that. The only other rational proposal, in a weird way, was Cooper's. He liked 8.9, because it was no more taxes than last year. Except for the 3% increase in the taxes of homesteaded properties, so the same 8.9 for the coming year is not the same number of dollars paid in taxes as this past year.
At one point, Anderson tried to inject a note of reason and reality into the discussion by telling his colleagues what we were really talking about here. For the average home, an increase of 0.1 mills costs the homeowner $9.75 a year. To increase the millage from 8.9 to 9.5 costs the average homeowner $58 per year. One mill costs you a one-time splurge at Burger King. The whole 0.6 mills costs you a nice dinner for two, without wine, at a moderately priced restaurant. Once. That was the reality. I sort of wish he hadn't said it. It's better for Jacobs, Watts, and Cooper to vote against 9.5 mills when they don't know what they're talking about. But for them to see how trivial this actually is, and vote against it anyway, is frankly very disheartening.
The other suspension of reason occurred in Cooper's explanation of why we shouldn't raise the tax rate at all. He said he was concerned about the homeowners who might be out of work, or undercompensated, and couldn't sustain an increase in their property tax. Setting aside that anyone who owns a home and can't afford to pay up to $58 more in property tax is already sunk, what happens to that person when his tax bill goes up 3% anyway? 3% of my tax bill is over $100. So it's really not clear how Cooper imagines he's protecting these marginal or worse homeowners by saving them the 0.6 mill increase. And anyone who is that marginal must also have a very low-assessed property, so the cost to them is less, maybe much less, than $58 a year. It seemed to me like a very twisted expression of populism. And the result, as Anderson tried to point out, is a run down Village. And that's in whose interest?
So the next effort was to take $12,500 out of the budget. For the moment, just in case sanity intervenes, this is just an exercise. At the concluding hearing, next week (Be there), the group can decide that 9.5 is OK. Our group looked at places from which to shave $12,500. There was a lighting study that could be dispensible and was worth about $2500, we could shorten Commission meetings, to save an hour of attorney time, and resulting in savings of $1900 or more, and some other ideas the group agreed upon. Ross had an idea: how about cutting Commission salaries in half? That will save $6000 a year. A maneuver like that is called putting your money where your mouth is, for those who voted against 9.5, and the rest of the group said no. And there was a discussion about maybe spending less for tree maintenance. Ross and Anderson thought this was a bad idea. Something about the value and importance of our Village flora. Nobody mentioned "Tree City USA," but that could have been part of the thinking. Cooper, who complained a couple of months ago about the trees we lost due to poor maintenance, now doesn't like spending money on tree maintenance. He wants new trees instead. I guess if you have more children than you can responsibly support, the answer is to have more children. Probably that Darwinian thing about the weaker ones dying off. Jacobs didn't make his position clear, but I don't think he voted to cut the tree maintenance allowance. Watts said nothing.
So we'll all be back next week to see what our adventurers decide to do to us. Well, I don't know if we'll "all" be back. The room was a bit packed tonight. Not only were Janey and Chuck there, and Barbara Kuhl and Linda Dillon, but Dan Keys showed up, Michelle Chao was there, and Russ Katzman sat in. Eight of us, including me. Come on, be a sport. Come to the meeting next Thursday. There was coffee. You could bring popcorn. If I bring a flask, I'll share.
There was a distinctly collaborative tone tonight, as much as there could be among people who don't agree with each other, and sometimes very much disagree.
Here's the short version: the Manager's proposal was for a millage of 9.5. Anderson and Ross agreed with it. Jacobs liked the sound of 9.3, which he said was what the Manager proposed. The Finance Director tried to tell him he overlooked an add-on for the Log Cabin, but Jacobs was good with his preconception. Watts thought 9.3 sounded too low, but 9.5 sounded too high, so she liked the even number in between. Cooper just likes it the way it is: 8.9. Ross' motion was for 9.5, and it failed 3-2. Anderson then proposed 9.4, which passed 3-2. On the surface of it, it appeared that Anderson and Ross were capable of compromise, and Jacobs, Watts, and Cooper were not. But we had agreement, and agreement is good. So good, that Ross started out phase two trying to figure out where in a 9.5 mill budget to take out $12,500, which is what that 0.1 mill from 9.5 to 9.4 would cost the Village. They made some headway there, too, except for Cooper, who appears completely incapable of compromising about anything. Suggestions were made, the Manager and Finance Director will sharpen their pencils, and we'll continue the conversation next week.
The longer version is also the less tidy version. First of all, these numbers, except 9.5, and the concepts behind them, were about nothing. There was a proposed budget that included thousands of details, adding up to a required income, and resulting in a necessary millage, which was 9.5. So that part was rational. For Jacobs to say something like "I couldn't go above 9.3" was not rational. It was not about anything. It was simply a number, chosen from his imagination. It had no premise, and it had no implications. It was just a number. And for Watts to say she thought 9.5 sounded like too much, but she could see why the number should be higher than 9.3 was also not about anything. 9.4 has no rational meaning. It's an empty and impressionistic number. I joked above that it was distinct from 9.5 and 9.3 by being even, instead of odd. There really isn't any more to it than that. The only other rational proposal, in a weird way, was Cooper's. He liked 8.9, because it was no more taxes than last year. Except for the 3% increase in the taxes of homesteaded properties, so the same 8.9 for the coming year is not the same number of dollars paid in taxes as this past year.
At one point, Anderson tried to inject a note of reason and reality into the discussion by telling his colleagues what we were really talking about here. For the average home, an increase of 0.1 mills costs the homeowner $9.75 a year. To increase the millage from 8.9 to 9.5 costs the average homeowner $58 per year. One mill costs you a one-time splurge at Burger King. The whole 0.6 mills costs you a nice dinner for two, without wine, at a moderately priced restaurant. Once. That was the reality. I sort of wish he hadn't said it. It's better for Jacobs, Watts, and Cooper to vote against 9.5 mills when they don't know what they're talking about. But for them to see how trivial this actually is, and vote against it anyway, is frankly very disheartening.
The other suspension of reason occurred in Cooper's explanation of why we shouldn't raise the tax rate at all. He said he was concerned about the homeowners who might be out of work, or undercompensated, and couldn't sustain an increase in their property tax. Setting aside that anyone who owns a home and can't afford to pay up to $58 more in property tax is already sunk, what happens to that person when his tax bill goes up 3% anyway? 3% of my tax bill is over $100. So it's really not clear how Cooper imagines he's protecting these marginal or worse homeowners by saving them the 0.6 mill increase. And anyone who is that marginal must also have a very low-assessed property, so the cost to them is less, maybe much less, than $58 a year. It seemed to me like a very twisted expression of populism. And the result, as Anderson tried to point out, is a run down Village. And that's in whose interest?
So the next effort was to take $12,500 out of the budget. For the moment, just in case sanity intervenes, this is just an exercise. At the concluding hearing, next week (Be there), the group can decide that 9.5 is OK. Our group looked at places from which to shave $12,500. There was a lighting study that could be dispensible and was worth about $2500, we could shorten Commission meetings, to save an hour of attorney time, and resulting in savings of $1900 or more, and some other ideas the group agreed upon. Ross had an idea: how about cutting Commission salaries in half? That will save $6000 a year. A maneuver like that is called putting your money where your mouth is, for those who voted against 9.5, and the rest of the group said no. And there was a discussion about maybe spending less for tree maintenance. Ross and Anderson thought this was a bad idea. Something about the value and importance of our Village flora. Nobody mentioned "Tree City USA," but that could have been part of the thinking. Cooper, who complained a couple of months ago about the trees we lost due to poor maintenance, now doesn't like spending money on tree maintenance. He wants new trees instead. I guess if you have more children than you can responsibly support, the answer is to have more children. Probably that Darwinian thing about the weaker ones dying off. Jacobs didn't make his position clear, but I don't think he voted to cut the tree maintenance allowance. Watts said nothing.
So we'll all be back next week to see what our adventurers decide to do to us. Well, I don't know if we'll "all" be back. The room was a bit packed tonight. Not only were Janey and Chuck there, and Barbara Kuhl and Linda Dillon, but Dan Keys showed up, Michelle Chao was there, and Russ Katzman sat in. Eight of us, including me. Come on, be a sport. Come to the meeting next Thursday. There was coffee. You could bring popcorn. If I bring a flask, I'll share.
Out of the Loop
I received today an e-mail sent by Steve Bernard to his flock. He seemed to want to draw people's attention to some things that concern him. He opened with a comment that it had been a while since he had "been able to share some Village things" with his audience.
Twice Steve referred to "the ongoing proposed annexation of surrounding areas," and he seems to imagine this proposal is in some way imminent. "All indications point towards (sic) the Village moving ahead with annexation," he tells us. There was no indication or explanation from him as to what makes him think this is or was ever more than a talking point, or some imagined answer to fiscal problems for the Village. I'm probably more against the idea than he is, and I don't have any reason to think there's a move afoot in this direction. He seems almost to be making this up, in the sense of suggesting any real and substantial energy or urgency in this direction. If it makes him feel better, I'll join him in resisting the move, if anyone ever actually makes one. But it's all reminiscent of the circling of wagons and catastrophizing about FPL and some of the other crises and tragedies of which he tried, in best Paul Revere style, to warn the poor villagers.
He then mentions the proposed increase in the tax rate, from a millage of 8.9 to 9.5. He tells villagers that this kind of increase would raise property taxes, which are on average anywhere from a couple thousand to several thousand dollars, an average of $55. He doesn't give much sense as to how he feels about this proposed increase, but it's less than the increase to 10 mills, which is what he proposed last year. So presumably, he's either satisfied that it's higher than 8.9, or disappointed that it's not 10. And again, I agree with him. I say the Village needs money, and a higher millage is better than a lower one. Especially when the difference is so small: maybe $55 per year on average.
Nothing unnerves people like uncertainty, and Steve capitalizes on a chance or two to inject a nice dose of it in his letter to his world. There's something about "a new position, Assistant to the Manager," (he loves to bold the things he recommends you worry about) and he adds "It's hard to tell what the total cost of this will be, because for some reason, it is split across many different departments." What's interesting here is that it's always hard to isolate and quantify the commitment of one employee to several departments, and Steve always loves to make lots of hay over that ambiguity and imprecision. He likes to portray it as some sort of attempt to fool people. "Difficult to track," Steve? You bet it is. It's almost impossible to track. But his underlying nightmare is completely invented. The salary isn't hard to track at all. It's a fixed number of dollars, about $45K, if I recall. What's hard to track is how many minutes of a given day the assistant worked on Public Works, or the Police, or Code Compliance, or grant-writing, or any of the other things he will do.
So it seems Steve is not much involved any more-- he doesn't attend meetings, and according to him, he doesn't even share his thoughts and terrors with his people-- but this doesn't prevent him from looking for a log with some sort of not quite moribund ember in it, and applying the bellows. I guess it's just what he likes to do. He's certainly good at it, as long as his people don't venture out of their houses to find out what's really going on. I really do wish they would come to Commission meetings. Oops, I'm starting to harp.
Twice Steve referred to "the ongoing proposed annexation of surrounding areas," and he seems to imagine this proposal is in some way imminent. "All indications point towards (sic) the Village moving ahead with annexation," he tells us. There was no indication or explanation from him as to what makes him think this is or was ever more than a talking point, or some imagined answer to fiscal problems for the Village. I'm probably more against the idea than he is, and I don't have any reason to think there's a move afoot in this direction. He seems almost to be making this up, in the sense of suggesting any real and substantial energy or urgency in this direction. If it makes him feel better, I'll join him in resisting the move, if anyone ever actually makes one. But it's all reminiscent of the circling of wagons and catastrophizing about FPL and some of the other crises and tragedies of which he tried, in best Paul Revere style, to warn the poor villagers.
He then mentions the proposed increase in the tax rate, from a millage of 8.9 to 9.5. He tells villagers that this kind of increase would raise property taxes, which are on average anywhere from a couple thousand to several thousand dollars, an average of $55. He doesn't give much sense as to how he feels about this proposed increase, but it's less than the increase to 10 mills, which is what he proposed last year. So presumably, he's either satisfied that it's higher than 8.9, or disappointed that it's not 10. And again, I agree with him. I say the Village needs money, and a higher millage is better than a lower one. Especially when the difference is so small: maybe $55 per year on average.
Nothing unnerves people like uncertainty, and Steve capitalizes on a chance or two to inject a nice dose of it in his letter to his world. There's something about "a new position, Assistant to the Manager," (he loves to bold the things he recommends you worry about) and he adds "It's hard to tell what the total cost of this will be, because for some reason, it is split across many different departments." What's interesting here is that it's always hard to isolate and quantify the commitment of one employee to several departments, and Steve always loves to make lots of hay over that ambiguity and imprecision. He likes to portray it as some sort of attempt to fool people. "Difficult to track," Steve? You bet it is. It's almost impossible to track. But his underlying nightmare is completely invented. The salary isn't hard to track at all. It's a fixed number of dollars, about $45K, if I recall. What's hard to track is how many minutes of a given day the assistant worked on Public Works, or the Police, or Code Compliance, or grant-writing, or any of the other things he will do.
So it seems Steve is not much involved any more-- he doesn't attend meetings, and according to him, he doesn't even share his thoughts and terrors with his people-- but this doesn't prevent him from looking for a log with some sort of not quite moribund ember in it, and applying the bellows. I guess it's just what he likes to do. He's certainly good at it, as long as his people don't venture out of their houses to find out what's really going on. I really do wish they would come to Commission meetings. Oops, I'm starting to harp.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
"Let's Make a Deal"
There aren't many of us living in Biscayne Park. Our population is about 3000 now. Some of us, because we are children or non-citizens, cannot vote. The sad fact is that not many of us vote anyway. The very high vote-getters of the winners of BP Commission elections get about 350 votes. The least supported winners get about 250 votes.
But it matters who wins. Commissioners have to pass judgment on many kinds of things. They have to make decisions about finances, municipal structure, land usage, design and architectural matters, and other matters. One thing we saw in last night's meeting is that Commissioners have to know about and be respectful of community Boards, populated by our neighbors who volunteer their time and interest to provide vital functions.
If a Commissioner doesn't know the first thing about finances, or has not been in any way active with this municipality, or has never served on or even attended a meeting of any Village Board, it makes a difference.
Now it's fair to say that no Commissioner or Commission candidate knows a lot about all of these areas. We can't expect that they would. All we can expect is that they know what they don't know, and make it their business to learn about it, at least enough to make decisions regarding one area or another. And since we have a Manager form of municipal management, we should also expect Commissioners to be highly deferential to the expertise of the professionals we hire to do for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves. That's why we hire them.
So how do we know what our elected officials know, and what they are willing and able to learn? We watch them. This opportunity is available every month. We place ourselves at a huge disadvantage if we elect them, but then we don't watch them. And let me tell you, very few of us watch them.
Of the 250-350 people who elected Anderson, Cooper, Jacobs, Ross, and Watts, perhaps 15 came to watch them last night. And that number was padded by people who were there for special reasons during the beginning of the meeting, and who left some time sooner or later. At the end of the meeting, there were perhaps five of us still there. That's about typical. And it would have been fewer than that if Rosemary Weiss had not provided baked goods. (They were spectacular.)
So here's the deal. If you don't come to Commission meetings, don't vote. If you vote, and you don't monitor what you did, you simply dump a problem in someone else's lap, and you go on your merry way. Those of us who do come to meetings have to deal with the mess you made. So do many other residents of our Village. And the Boards. And the employees. If Commissioners get stupid, or lazy, or devote themselves to sabotage and undermining, they do this on all of us. And if they are stupid or lazy or sabotaging, it's only those of us who attend Commission meetings who know about it.
So make a resolution. Come to Commission meetings. Come to all of them. Come to every other one. Attend twice a year. Just keep an eye on how your guess turned out. Or don't vote. Deal?
(PS: I hope you come to meetings, and I hope you vote. Responsibly, and with real knowledge.)
But it matters who wins. Commissioners have to pass judgment on many kinds of things. They have to make decisions about finances, municipal structure, land usage, design and architectural matters, and other matters. One thing we saw in last night's meeting is that Commissioners have to know about and be respectful of community Boards, populated by our neighbors who volunteer their time and interest to provide vital functions.
If a Commissioner doesn't know the first thing about finances, or has not been in any way active with this municipality, or has never served on or even attended a meeting of any Village Board, it makes a difference.
Now it's fair to say that no Commissioner or Commission candidate knows a lot about all of these areas. We can't expect that they would. All we can expect is that they know what they don't know, and make it their business to learn about it, at least enough to make decisions regarding one area or another. And since we have a Manager form of municipal management, we should also expect Commissioners to be highly deferential to the expertise of the professionals we hire to do for us what we are incapable of doing for ourselves. That's why we hire them.
So how do we know what our elected officials know, and what they are willing and able to learn? We watch them. This opportunity is available every month. We place ourselves at a huge disadvantage if we elect them, but then we don't watch them. And let me tell you, very few of us watch them.
Of the 250-350 people who elected Anderson, Cooper, Jacobs, Ross, and Watts, perhaps 15 came to watch them last night. And that number was padded by people who were there for special reasons during the beginning of the meeting, and who left some time sooner or later. At the end of the meeting, there were perhaps five of us still there. That's about typical. And it would have been fewer than that if Rosemary Weiss had not provided baked goods. (They were spectacular.)
So here's the deal. If you don't come to Commission meetings, don't vote. If you vote, and you don't monitor what you did, you simply dump a problem in someone else's lap, and you go on your merry way. Those of us who do come to meetings have to deal with the mess you made. So do many other residents of our Village. And the Boards. And the employees. If Commissioners get stupid, or lazy, or devote themselves to sabotage and undermining, they do this on all of us. And if they are stupid or lazy or sabotaging, it's only those of us who attend Commission meetings who know about it.
So make a resolution. Come to Commission meetings. Come to all of them. Come to every other one. Attend twice a year. Just keep an eye on how your guess turned out. Or don't vote. Deal?
(PS: I hope you come to meetings, and I hope you vote. Responsibly, and with real knowledge.)
"I Would Trust Her"
In The Pajama Game, Hinesie is given increasingly challenging situations to try to accept, so that he won't be so jealous regarding Gladys and other men. "I'll never be jealous again," he concludes.
So I am challenged, and have challenged myself, to be nicer in these posts. "That's my plan," as Hinesie says. Hinesie succeeded, with Mabel's guidance. I'm afraid I didn't.
The Commission meeting was tonight. I had it in mind to be nice and relatively non-judgmental. The agenda seemed short, so I thought maybe I could handle it. And we started with a lot of presentations and proclamations. Feel good stuff. A very nice goodbye to Mitch Glansberg, our beloved Police Chief, a nice tribute to Officer Guillermo Ravelo, who did a wonderful thing for two mischief-making boys, perhaps saving at least one of their lives, a nice little tribute to Jacobs' kid and her class at the elementary school, and stuff like that. You know, nice stuff.
The Consent Agenda passed unanimously. We're coasting. Nice.
Then, we hit some unexpected turbulence. There was an Ordinance about the Code Enforcement Board. Substantively, I don't think anyone had any real issues. But two members of the Code Enforcement Board were there, and boy, did they complain. Not about the substance of the Ordinance and the changes it would have mandated, but about the fact that the Code Enforcement Board was never approached about any of this. They were quite properly offended. So the Commission, in what remained of its wisdom, agreed to table the matter for a month or two, so the Code Enforcement Board could be presented with the Ordinance and could agree to it. Which I'm quite sure they will. It was what John Hearn, in a slightly different context, called "all due respect." Yup, that's all it was. Just a matter of respect.
Crash helmet on? Here we go. The next matter was a second reading of another Ordinance. Commissioner Dr Cooper, who got himself attached to the prior Ordinance for some reason, and was apparently not in favor of this one, suggested that if it was protocol and courtesy to refer the last Ordinance to the appropriate Board, and delay action on it, then it must be equal protocol and courtesy to defer this one, too. He cited "consistency" of approach. And His Highness the Mayor enthusisatically agreed. OK, children, you made your point. This one deferred as well.
The next Ordinance was about a Charter Review Committee. This one was a bit hot, with most non-Commissioner resident speakers speaking against the Committee. But the juggernaut wanted it. Roxy Ross, who never fails to impress, suggested that if the other two Ordinances were deferred for committee scrutiny, then this one should be, too. To what committee, the now increasingly challenging, dismissive, and ugly Mayor/President/Czar asked? To the Code Review Committee, replied Commissioner Ross. Oh, you want to form a new committee to consider a committee, the now increasingly irrational Mayor/Fuhrer retorted? Huh? The Code Review Committee isn't a new committee. It's already there. But no, the Mayor was gone. You couldn't talk to him any more. He just spat and railed. And he was not, he told us, a slave to "consistency." All of a sudden, it seems.
But before there could even be any discussion on the matter, there was a decision to make regarding composition of the Charter Review Committee. Should it have five members, nine members, seven members? And by what method should these members be chosen? This went on longer than you might suppose. But finally, there was a vote. It was agreed 4-1 that there should be seven members. Except the Mayor decided the vote really was to approve the whole Ordinance. Commissioner Ross said she didn't think so, and that it was only to approve the amendment about composition. Wrong, said the Mayor, and he was done with the Ross girl. In fact, he had already had a discussion about the Ross wench with Commissioner Watts, with his back to the Ross filly the whole time. At one point, she called the question, which His Majesty calls "calling for the question," and he backed her off, telling her that only he calls the question.
You think I'm overdramatizing, right? Consider that not only did the Ross thing get so disgusted that she had to get up and walk out of the meeting for a while, but Watts spent part of one of the two breaks (yes, two breaks) throwing up in the ladies' room. OK, you got it?
The guy was in high dudgeon. He was nasty, suppressing, and all his good stuff. But there was an important difference tonight. He gave us the understanding we have been lacking. He threw the Ross skirt a snide little swipe, telling her he knows she's suffering from not being the Mayor any more. So that's what this has all been about. He has been trying for months to rub her nose in his unseating her. Is it just plain childishness, or does he feel self-conscious and possibly a little embarrassed about his assumption of the center seat? I hope it's the former, because if he has any fantasy that he could ever, under any circumstances at all, come close to being the quality Mayor Roxy Ross was, he's kidding himself badly. He's a sad, sad figure, who has shown this Village shocking disrespect, and compounds the insult every month.
So I'm sorry I wasn't nice. It wasn't possible this time. I promise to try again next time.
So I am challenged, and have challenged myself, to be nicer in these posts. "That's my plan," as Hinesie says. Hinesie succeeded, with Mabel's guidance. I'm afraid I didn't.
The Commission meeting was tonight. I had it in mind to be nice and relatively non-judgmental. The agenda seemed short, so I thought maybe I could handle it. And we started with a lot of presentations and proclamations. Feel good stuff. A very nice goodbye to Mitch Glansberg, our beloved Police Chief, a nice tribute to Officer Guillermo Ravelo, who did a wonderful thing for two mischief-making boys, perhaps saving at least one of their lives, a nice little tribute to Jacobs' kid and her class at the elementary school, and stuff like that. You know, nice stuff.
The Consent Agenda passed unanimously. We're coasting. Nice.
Then, we hit some unexpected turbulence. There was an Ordinance about the Code Enforcement Board. Substantively, I don't think anyone had any real issues. But two members of the Code Enforcement Board were there, and boy, did they complain. Not about the substance of the Ordinance and the changes it would have mandated, but about the fact that the Code Enforcement Board was never approached about any of this. They were quite properly offended. So the Commission, in what remained of its wisdom, agreed to table the matter for a month or two, so the Code Enforcement Board could be presented with the Ordinance and could agree to it. Which I'm quite sure they will. It was what John Hearn, in a slightly different context, called "all due respect." Yup, that's all it was. Just a matter of respect.
Crash helmet on? Here we go. The next matter was a second reading of another Ordinance. Commissioner Dr Cooper, who got himself attached to the prior Ordinance for some reason, and was apparently not in favor of this one, suggested that if it was protocol and courtesy to refer the last Ordinance to the appropriate Board, and delay action on it, then it must be equal protocol and courtesy to defer this one, too. He cited "consistency" of approach. And His Highness the Mayor enthusisatically agreed. OK, children, you made your point. This one deferred as well.
The next Ordinance was about a Charter Review Committee. This one was a bit hot, with most non-Commissioner resident speakers speaking against the Committee. But the juggernaut wanted it. Roxy Ross, who never fails to impress, suggested that if the other two Ordinances were deferred for committee scrutiny, then this one should be, too. To what committee, the now increasingly challenging, dismissive, and ugly Mayor/President/Czar asked? To the Code Review Committee, replied Commissioner Ross. Oh, you want to form a new committee to consider a committee, the now increasingly irrational Mayor/Fuhrer retorted? Huh? The Code Review Committee isn't a new committee. It's already there. But no, the Mayor was gone. You couldn't talk to him any more. He just spat and railed. And he was not, he told us, a slave to "consistency." All of a sudden, it seems.
But before there could even be any discussion on the matter, there was a decision to make regarding composition of the Charter Review Committee. Should it have five members, nine members, seven members? And by what method should these members be chosen? This went on longer than you might suppose. But finally, there was a vote. It was agreed 4-1 that there should be seven members. Except the Mayor decided the vote really was to approve the whole Ordinance. Commissioner Ross said she didn't think so, and that it was only to approve the amendment about composition. Wrong, said the Mayor, and he was done with the Ross girl. In fact, he had already had a discussion about the Ross wench with Commissioner Watts, with his back to the Ross filly the whole time. At one point, she called the question, which His Majesty calls "calling for the question," and he backed her off, telling her that only he calls the question.
You think I'm overdramatizing, right? Consider that not only did the Ross thing get so disgusted that she had to get up and walk out of the meeting for a while, but Watts spent part of one of the two breaks (yes, two breaks) throwing up in the ladies' room. OK, you got it?
The guy was in high dudgeon. He was nasty, suppressing, and all his good stuff. But there was an important difference tonight. He gave us the understanding we have been lacking. He threw the Ross skirt a snide little swipe, telling her he knows she's suffering from not being the Mayor any more. So that's what this has all been about. He has been trying for months to rub her nose in his unseating her. Is it just plain childishness, or does he feel self-conscious and possibly a little embarrassed about his assumption of the center seat? I hope it's the former, because if he has any fantasy that he could ever, under any circumstances at all, come close to being the quality Mayor Roxy Ross was, he's kidding himself badly. He's a sad, sad figure, who has shown this Village shocking disrespect, and compounds the insult every month.
So I'm sorry I wasn't nice. It wasn't possible this time. I promise to try again next time.
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