I have to admit, I was pretty concerned about tonight's meeting once I saw the agenda. There was lots of stuff, and some of it was legitimately worth some conversation. I was trying to imagine how much of it would be continued to a subsequent meeting once we reached 11:00.
And we started about 10-15 minutes late. Watts and Cooper were late. The only ones there on time were Anderson, Ross, and Jacobs. Only that majority. You see where I'm going? No? Here's the relevant frame of reference. Last month, we started exactly on time, causing Anderson and Ross, who were two minutes late, to scurry to the dais. You get it now? Jacobs can start on time if only Watts and Cooper are there, but he has to wait if only Anderson and Ross are there. I think you get it. Of course it's silly and childish, but it's how it is.
And then, stuff starts getting pulled. Big stuff. Enough stuff to give the impression of a meeting we could breeze through. There wasn't much initial public comment, either. So this is beginning to look smooth.
Until we got to Board/Committee reports. It wasn't the reports themselves. Only two Boards/Committees reported, and both reports were brief. The issue was that we ended the six-month trial of moving Board/Committee reports from the end of Commission meetings to the beginning. I promise you there was not 5-10 minutes worth of discussion anyone could reasonably have about whether to move these reports back where they were. But 5-10 minutes of this, pretending it made any difference, were spent. Are we headed back to a four hour meeting?
The next issue was very big: Annexation. Apparently, it wasn't big enough to attract any more than the usual eight of us, but it should have been. We were to hear the results of a study of annexing whatever we're supposed to consider annexing, but our planners revealed they did not complete the study, so there was no report, and an imminent workshop was therefore not scheduled. Next.
The Consent Agenda was passed, except for the minutes. Frankly, I'm tired of writing about the minutes. The whole topic is breathtakingly foolish. It's nothing but empty posturing. Here was tonight's version: Roxy Ross had very, very many amendments to the minutes in question. But Jacobs, who is still on a crusade against Roxy, for some ancient and imagined reasons, and Watts, who seems to have gone back to doing what her handlers tell her, didn't want to accommodate Roxy. I'll tell you now, to spare you the suspense, that Cooper never showed up. He never picked up his packet in advance anyway, as he never does, so it's unlikely he would have had anything intelligent or substantial to add. Jacobs' initial snide crack was that the minutes didn't need amending, since they were wonderful. But since Jacobs isn't about anything, and simply reacts contrarily to whatever Ross says, he found himself a minute later saying he found "numerous errors" in the minutes he just said were wonderful. It seems he doesn't listen to himself, or he gets himself confused. Watts also argued against correcting the minutes, saying she didn't want to make the Clerk spend inordinate time fixing them. It seemed to her like such a nice and thoughtful argument that she forgot it was on the strength of her vote more than anyone else's that the Clerk was charged with this silly "expanded minutes" exercise to begin with. So the minutes did not get amended. Jacobs and Watts won. Or they lost. Depending on what they want to portray as their interest du jour, or du moment.
A discussion about property taxes, and providing relief for disadvantaged "seniors," was similarly silly. It was all about populist pandering, and it failed to take into account a major error in the State regulations. Chuck Ross tried to explain this to the Commission and the Village Attorney, but he was probably explaining it in Chinese. They didn't get it.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was it. There were just a couple of public comments/swipes at the end, and we were out of there in two hours. Just like in the old days of competent and goal-directed Commissions.
PS: It's possible I made a mistake and should stand corrected. One reader, who was looking at her watch, instead of estimating in retrospect, as I did, says the meeting started at 7:05. The underlying contrast to last month, and the underlying point, remain, however. In fact, Jacobs would not start last night's meeting, even though he, Anderson, and Ross were there. Watts came along at some point, went to the dais, then walked back out of the room. Jacobs still wouldn't start the meeting. When she came back, he started. So was the actual start 7:05, and not 7:10 or so, as my reader says? Could be. It seemed later, but it could have been the annoyance, resentment, and impatience talking. After all, at that point, I was still anticipating a very long meeting.
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