There was nothing in this meeting that was worth three hours, and whatever those three hours cost in attorney time, new Finance Director time, and videographer time. The Agenda was remarkably short, and almost nothing was worthy of much discussion. Where, oh where, does the time go?
The good event was the formal promotion of Ray Atesiano to Chief of Police. That was worth the time it took, it was great to hear from him, and many of the officers came out to attend. The discussion of charging a $500 fee to felons to get their impounded cars back was not worth the time it took. Commissioners had too many questions, betraying too much doubt, about "checkpoint" police activity. They should happily have let the Chief and the Manager do their jobs.
Ah, the ongoing struggle about compensation of Commissioners, and for what. It's clearly an endless battle, and it was postponed for about six months, so the new Finance Director could form an opinion about how cumbersome it would be to change the method and formula for compensation. But it doesn't matter. Three Commissioners stated very clearly that nothing anyone says is going to change their minds, and they were right to say we should just kill the idea right now. Not that it's not a good idea. It is. But these three want their money, and they don't want to have to earn it. Case closed. So instead of voting the idea down tonight, they'll vote it down in June. One of them was being diplomatic, and she agreed to the postponement. But she was clear in saying she'll vote in June as she would vote tonight. Roxy Ross should by now be able to recognize this as a non-starter, and she should permit it a dignified death.
It should also not have taken time to welcome the new Finance Director. He was hired by the Manager, as is protocol, and that's the end of it. If we don't trust her to hire appropriately, we should replace her. A 10-second introduction-- "this is our new Finance Director, Mr Williams"-- would have been more than sufficient. It was not important to hear his entire life story, including a recap of every good idea he ever had, like when he was treasurer of his elementary school class. You think I'm making this up, right?
The matter of replacing Noah Jacobs as voting designee to the County League of Cities should also have been simple and almost instantaneous. Noah doesn't attend meetings. We have been unrepresented for the past year. The biggest issue is Noah's confession that he "[doesn't] have time" to attend these meetings he committed to attend. He agreed to be the designee, doesn't bother to do the one thing the designee has to do (attend meetings), didn't resign from the post a long time ago, but wants his Mayor's salary, which is twice what other Commissioners get, even though he "doesn't have time" to do the extra work. That's a problem. Replacing him with Bob Anderson, and Roxy Ross as an alternate, was a no-brainer and should not have taken time. And Bryan Cooper, of all people, should not have bogged down the process and the discussion saying he wants notice and say about League issues and votes. He's grossly disengaged from the job he's supposed to do, so why does he want to have input about a job that's not his?
Right, we're all upset about the shooting in Connecticut. But we had to have a long discussion about Noah's idea to paste a South Miami Resolution into the Biscayne Park archive, declaring Biscayne Park to be against the sale and possession of automatic and semi-automatic weapons. This was a non-issue, that should never have been introduced, because there are no sales of anything in Biscayne Park, and the State has controlling statutes about sales and possession of weapons. But for who knows what reasons, Noah decided this would be a great crusade for him. He wanted amendments now, so he could adjust his Resolution for passage tonight, and when delay was imposed upon him, he insisted he'd come back with something, and go to the mat over it. So on it went, too.
I watched this 30 minute agenda take three hours, and I still don't get it.
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