It's five nights after Hallowe'en, and the gremlins are out again. If you watch carefully, you can see them scurrying around the Village, with their own special treats for you. The little mischief-makers want to toy with you, to confuse you. Their goodies are packets which they hang on your door. Inside are funny pieces of paper.
The issue is the election tomorrow, and the special vote for Biscayne Park. The question is whether to combine the BP election, so it happens during the general election.
The issues are pretty clear. The reasons to move the election are a doubling of voter turnout, and a savings of Village money. The reasons not to are tradition and a quainter and quieter Village election.
The problem is that yellow piece of paper. (Hmm, yellow.) It's very similar, almost identical, to a letter Steve Bernard wrote to the Biscayne Times. It's very smoke-and-mirrors, song-and-dance. It's rambling and incoherent, and it includes lots of questions. It's unclear whether the questions are meant to be rhetorical, but they might be, because they are sometimes followed by the answers.
If it appears that the author of this funny piece of paper is toying with readers, getting them to twirl around and chase nothing, as a child might do with a new kitten, he (the paper appears to be attributed to Steve Bernard, Barbara Watts, or both, but it's really very suspiciously like Steve's BT letter) seems to admit to just that. He clearly imagines his audience to be of limited intelligence. In a companion e-mail he sent out earlier today, he suggested that BP residents perhaps didn't even know who their Commissioners are. If he thinks BP residents are that out of touch, or that stupid, perhaps he doesn't even think they should vote. Ah, I get ahead of myself. He comes to that later.
Our author starts us off in best Nancy Reagan style. "Just Say No," he reassures. Life is simple. Especially for the weak-minded.
Then, he gets spooky. If BP elections are no longer quarantined from the big, scary general election, they will become "tainted by divisive, partisan State and National elections." (BOO!) This is where we see what a dim view he takes of his neighbors.
And if frightened readers are not under the covers yet, we are told that this subversive move is only a harbinger of horrors to come. "Biscayne Park will take its first step upon the 'slippery slope' that leads to partisanship and divisiveness-- everything abhorrent in State and National governance and politics. Why open the door to such contention in our Village?" Now truth be told, this sounds much more like Cooper than Bernard, and do I understand that either of these saboteurs is complaining about divisiveness and contention? I thought they invented divisiveness and contention. Anyway, don't forget: "slippery slope," gateway to perdition. Somebody's been watching "The Music Man." "You got trouble, my friends." First it's a pool table or a combined election, then it's rolling up your knickerbockers and smoking after school.
Another sure sign that our author is writing for the, um, less adept thinkers in the neighborhood is the liberal use of bold print, underlining, and bold print with underlining. These screamers are necessary when our author is about to reveal complicated details, even including numbers. But first he tells us that this arrogant action of letting BP voters make a decision about something was not predigested by a Charter Review Committee. How can voters decide on something, if a Committee has not first told them what the right decision is?
And there's been "no broad public discussion!" Well, there was discussion, but our author wasn't there, so he acts as if the discussion didn't happen. If a tree falls in the forest, and Steve Bernard wasn't there to hear it, did it make any noise?
There was, however, another opportunity for "broad public discussion via a group of residents." As it happens, I wanted very much to have such a discussion. I even imagined something like a debate. Funny enough, Barbara Watts told me that Steve Bernard consented to such a debate or discussion with me. But he didn't follow through. It turns out that was a pretty clever dive he took. It allowed him to say there hadn't been such a discussion. I re-read his funny little yellow piece of paper, and I see he forgot to mention that the offer had been made but that it was he who couldn't step up to the plate.
We are then treated to numbers, which Steve says were concealed. These numbers claim to show what proportion of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe municipalities hold their elections during the general election. We're not told why this is relevant, but we're given numbers. One caution Steve does alert us to is that a minority of municipalities in these three Counties combine elections with the general election, and that we would make a mistake to join a minority. But then... Steve says BP voter turnout has "consistently...been among the highest" of Miami-Dade municipalities. So we're already in a minority. Maybe that's Steve's point. We just have too darn many people voting. Try as we might, by keeping stand-alone elections, we're just drawing too many of those pesky voters. Here's what I'm thinking. What if we have elections during the summer, when our snow birds are away, and hold them on the Fourth of July. Could we knock turnout down to a more respectable level?
And here's where Steve tells us what he really wants to say. We just don't want people voting. And the reason, Steve is no doubt sorry to say, is that the residents of Biscayne Park are idiots and losers. We need to find a way to make them stay away from the polls, where they frankly don't belong. Here's how Steve puts it: "Quality Over Quantity." If we can have just a few select voters, and they see things the way Steve tells them to see things, or they just do what Steve tells them to do, that's what we're looking for. And Steve's not the only one. Bryan Cooper feels just the same way. He doesn't want those people voting. He told us that at a Commission meeting a few months ago. His exact words were, "I don't want them voting."
Look, voting for things is a tricky business. It's complicated. You need composure and peace of mind. You can't function as a voter when you have to contend with "the din of the partisan Election Season." (I have no idea why Steve capitalized election and season. It's one of those emphases that's probably supposed to suggest portent.) "Local candidates and concerns can't hope to compete [?] with the vast number of State and National issues that confront voters." (If I had underlined "can't hope to compete," and capitalized state and national, I would definitely have accentuated "vast." But I'm not the one telling the story.)
And finally. "Incumbents are even more favored when municipal elections coincide with National ones, so it will be all the more difficult to dislodge an incumbent and elect a new candidate." This is a new theme for team Bernard/Cooper. It's got to be about Anderson. What else could it be? But Steve didn't make this up. I think. Maybe. Hmm, maybe he did make it up.
Well, OK, here's the final, final convincer. Keeping the election stand-alone only costs us $1.48 per resident per year. The kids were using $4 per household per year, but they figured the point was even more forcefully made if they reduced it to the cost per resident. I think they missed a good opportunity here. If it's $1.48 per household per year, then it's only 12 cents per household per month. And you can get almost three days of stand-alone elections for only a penny a person. Kind of like it's free, no?
So if you get any sleep tonight, and aren't too scared to vote tomorrow, please do go vote. Unless Steve Bernard and Bryan Cooper think you're a moron, which is what they think of most of us, in which case you should stay home and watch cartoons.
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