Oy.

I embarked on a project today.  I've felt increasingly fed up with the performances, and they're certainly that, of our apparent replacement Village attorney, Eve Boutsis.  She talks too much, she insinuates herself (well, intrudes) into discussions where she's not called upon, she seems to be at meetings for the primary purpose of drawing attention to herself, and she often has no useful advice, except to tell us war stories from her jobs with other municipalities, and to use those failures (they're usually failures) to tell us we might as well accede to whatever it is now.

So I wrote to John Hearn, our one-time usual attorney, to ask him if he's still, as they say, on the case.  Or on our case.  I told him the pattern of representation suggested he might no longer be working with us, and if he isn't, he should resign.  That way, we could replace him, instead of his informally replacing himself.

John wrote back to say he is most definitely still representing us, and he plans to be back in his chair as of April.  Coincidentally.

Now I have to say, in the fullest of candor, that John's reappearance, if he does in fact reappear, is not without some complications.  There are some people who, no matter what they think of Eve, have felt it may have been time for a change anyway.  That is to say, not everyone was entirely pleased with John in the first place, and may at some level have welcomed his unavailability.

One of the people with whom I shared today's project told me that whatever are Eve's stylistic drawbacks, she serves the purpose of advancing meetings, so we can find our way to the end of them.

So that's it?  We have to hire a babysitter, or a regent, to do the job our Mayor can't manage to do, and it costs us $165 an hour?  Who knew babysitters, or tutors, got that kind of money?  Maybe a competent Mayor would have been able to figure out we needed an attorney other than Eve Boutsis or John Hearn.  But we didn't choose a competent Mayor.  Oh, wait a minute, we didn't choose a Mayor at all.  He himself and his two little buddies chose him.

Where's Michael Piper, and a real Mayor, when you need them?