The word of the day is arrogant. It was taken to a new level in tonight's Commission meeting. Noah Jacobs was quite full of himself, pointing at those who were allowed to speak, shutting off those he'd had enough of. He'd lost sight of his usual allies. Tonight, he had one ally: himself. Even Bryan Cooper was shut down when Noah tired of his babbling. But Cooper asked for it. When he was joining Jacobs in trying to stifle Roxy Ross, he told her Noah runs the show. But when Cooper thought his master gave him carte blanche, and he started in with some of his nonsense, he resisted Noah's telling him he could not, in fact, continue his rant. Cooper then decided he had to reject the master's directive. The master wouldn't let him. I have no idea whether that was the reason Cooper left at 9:30.
Cooper, before he left, gave us a dazzling display of the combination of his lack of knowledge about boat maintenance, and his willingness, perhaps eagerness, to speak authoritatively about it.
And on the subject of boats, we were asked to consider that permitting boats on residential property, something apparently few or no municipalities do, makes us a haven for boat owners, who might, we're further told, pay top dollar for their properties. We'd quickly fill vacant properties with them. We're also asked to imagine that people who own boats are well off. Why these rich folk leave rotting, unused hulks of one-time watercraft in their yards for years and decades was not explained. But I do appreciate the logic here. We can be creative. We're considering being more restrictive than the rest of the County or the State regarding gun ownership. Perhaps we can get less restrictive regarding things like, let's say, prostitution and drug manufacture. If we can move to legalize those two pursuits, I'm guessing we can have a neighborhood full of brothels and meth labs, with not a vacant house in the Village, and there's great money in it for us. These can be treated as businesses, like ALFs, and we can tax them.
Noah produced some remarkable statements and postures tonight. Directing and instructing speakers, Noah declared "I'll hear..." as if there was no one else there. No one else who mattered, anyway. It wasn't "there's a motion and a second," or "we have a motion and a second." It was "I have a motion and a second." When Cooper suggested items be taken out of order, for reasons that were never clear, Noah picked right up on the idea, declaring imperiously "I'll take 8b before 8a," having already essentially shut Roxy Ross down by simply talking over her. At one point, Noah wanted to make a motion of his own, and he passed the gavel, with obvious pain, to Roxy, his Vice Mayor Cooper having already gone off to fry bigger fish. He made his motion, and when it was seconded, he declared "I've got a second." He couldn't give up the throne for even a minute. Not to Roxy, anyway.
Noah had his way with the residents in attendance, too. He had seemingly generously, and in a conciliatory way, offered to sit down with Linda Dillon after last month's meeting, to craft better language related to the gun issue. But as Linda pointed out, he never contacted her. It appears he had no use for her after all. He did allege having sent Gary Kuhl an e-mail about a Code, but Gary didn't remember having received one from him. It seemed as if Noah relinquished any sense of needing to be honest at all. He would simply say whatever he wanted.
Noah got himself in surprisingly high gear tonight, especially after Bryan Cooper jettisoned himself. The loss of that dead weight seemed to have accelerated Noah, who was increasingly irrepressible. He had the Commission fly through issues, all the while impressing himself with his repartee. He seemed to have considered himself immensely clever. And he clearly felt most imperial. "I can talk fast if I have to," he twittered.
There was one point during which Noah became somewhat subdued for this meeting. The discussion was over what to do with Dale Blanton and the Code Compliance Board. It seems Roxy and Bob Anderson both had ideas about how to get Dale back involved. There was way more discussion than was needed, in part due to Roxy's tortured effort to create for Dale a status that was as an Alternate, but somehow not phrased that way. Roxy was working way too hard to accomplish something that was frankly simple. But the underlying problem, as we discussed in a previous post, was that Noah had irrationally pulled Dale in favor of Carmen DeBernardi, who had a prior stint on the Board and never showed up, and has now begun her newest stint by failing to show up to the only meeting scheduled since her reappointment. Noah wasn't really much a part of this discussion. Although I will say frankly that it seemed painfully clear and simple to me how to solve this problem of finding a way to include Dale, it was apparently not one bit clear to Noah. So he listened while others talked. But in case I'm failing to understand important nuances here, let me ask: suppose you have to choose one team member. One possible choice has shown long and consistent dedication to the team, and has great wisdom and equanimity. The other possible choice has shown consistent disinterest in the team, fails to come to meetings of the team, and has written publicly about how much she dislikes the other team members and the prospect of working with them. Am I missing something to say my instinct would be to choose prospect number 1?
Truth be told, the wind really did catch the sails, especially after Bryan's departure. Bryan seemed to feel as witty (and pretty? and bright?) as Noah did, but he really was ponderous. And both of them were a bit more blatantly hypocritical than usual. They're not supposed to confer outside Commission meetings, but they may have been drinking the same Koolaid. For a little while, they acted like two attack dogs.
So it was a disturbing evening, though occasionally comical when either of the lads went a little further off the deep end than usual.
On the other hand (you bet there was another hand), Rosemary Wais dazzled us, too. She made her usual and wonderful apple crumb cake, but this time, she also made a cherry crumb cake. She wanted a verdict. I'll tell you what I told her: they were both terrific, but I gave a very slight edge to the apple.
No comments:
Post a Comment