Anybody Know What's Up with Cooper?

Bryan has been marginal from the outset.  He came in with no agenda, except to express his frustration at having had a pet idea turned down.  He combined that with some other chronic gripes, but there was never a real foundation there.  So he was never really engaged.  He demonstrated that by being absent from more Commission meetings than any other Commissioner, often or usually not attending special Commission functions, and never attending any Village function that was not a Commission meeting.

But the gripes continued, and they were accompanied by chronic bad attitude.  A favorite tactic was accusing people of things.  This tactic was somewhat broadly applied.

One issue that was a combination gripe and accusation was about the minutes of Commission meetings.  Bryan, and his sponsor, regularly insisted on amendments to the minutes, then complained bitterly when the amendments were not adopted.  But once Bryan was in a position to have any amendment he wanted adopted, he stopped offering them.

Another combination gripe and accusation was about the newsletter, and the fact that Commissioner posts were suspended, mainly because of him and his raging, accusatory post.  Commissioner posts were reinstated for the last newsletter, Cooper once again submitted a collection of whining and baseless accusation, and now he hasn't submitted a post for the current newsletter.

So the newsletter complaint is like the minutes complaint.  Bryan doesn't seem to want anything.  He just wants to complain and accuse.

Bryan continues to miss Commission meetings, too.  It's nothing at all new for him, but he recently missed two meetings in a row.  And of course he's absent from all other Village functions.

So I don't know what's going on with him.  Dan Samaria says he knows, but he's not telling.  But perhaps it doesn't matter.  Either Bryan is simply disinterested, and has been from the start, or something is going on in his life outside the Village, or both.  If it's the former, he should have had the courtesy and the decency to have resigned long ago.  If it's the latter, things do happen.  They happen to all of us.  And as is true of elected officials, Sandra Day O'Connor, new mothers, or any of a range of people, when outside pressures and priorities overwhelm, you just resign.

If you say you have family or health issues, or some other such matter, and you resign a post, you get a certain amount of understanding and sympathy.  If you victimize the people you're failing to serve, you lose the understanding and sympathy.  I would say Bryan miscalculated here, but it's not my call.  And of course, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt at the moment, and not concluding he's out for nothing other than to destroy, which is what I usually think.  Right now, I'm thinking about Dan Samaria's comment and the two missed meetings in a row.  But even at best, Bryan has to rise to the occasion of propriety.  It seems he's not doing it.

Please comment, if you know anything.