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.
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