Contortionists Creep Me Out

Somebody passed me Noah Jacobs' most recent "Village News" synthesis.  I'd call it a synopsis, but it isn't quite sufficiently reality-based to be considered a summary.  It's quite the document, though.  I will protest, however, that Noah still doesn't send it directly to me.  He has my address, I asked him always to send them, and as far as I know, he's still taking my money.

The layout is priceless.  The header is a banner with a slice of the American flag, a view of the Statue of Liberty, and the note, "From the desk of the Mayor..."  As best I can tell, it doesn't come with sound.  (If you want to see Noah's production, let me know.  I'll e-mail it to you.)

Noah then gets into his expression of deep concern for BP residents, and how we should be careful about hurricanes.  He puts it right out there, prominently: he hopes we're doing well.  And if we have any anxiety, we should "stay informed, using not only Village updates, and [his] e-mails [if he can be so immodest as to offer them], but also TV and radio outlets, or whatever media [we] choose."  See, that's not sickeningly patronizing at all.  He offers us an independent choice of source of information.  If you're not feelin' the love, then you're not payin' attention.

Then, he's down to business.  If you have some image of the Village resident who's interested enough to read what Noah writes, but somehow doesn't yet know that Ana Garcia is leaving us, then you know the target audience.  And Noah lets these intensely interested and involved people know that there's an opening for them on the manager search committee, too.  On the other hand, Noah flirts with the idea, which he must surely have come up with all by himself, that perhaps we don't need a manager at all.  Maria Camara and our staff do very well without one, by which Noah presumably means when the manager is away.  This is just the warm-up, though.  This is how Noah gets himself limber.

What Noah wants to discuss, or at least the propaganda he wants to spew, is about that conniving police chief of ours, and the mischief made by three of Noah's colleagues.  Since we're about to get a new manager, the chief naturally worried that the new manager might have his or her own ideas about who would make a good police chief.  Our chief worries that he could get bounced.  But the problem is that he likes it here, and he doesn't want to hit the pavement looking for work.  So he asked us to promise that if he got bounced without cause, we would keep him on, even as a sergeant, and even at sergeant's pay.  Just so he doesn't have to go looking, and wind up someplace he doesn't love being, as much as he loves being here.  Anderson, Ross, and Watts fell into the trap.  They foolishly thought that if that's all the chief wants, and if it's easy for us to give it to him, then we should shake hands on the deal with him.  And here's where Bryan Cooper, and his buddy Noah, go to town.  Not only do they decide the chief is making a mistake, and that he and we would be better off giving him an extended contract instead of letting him stay on as a sergeant, which is what he imagined he wanted, but Noah somehow concluded in his update that Anderson, Ross, and Watts showed lack of appreciation for the chief by giving him what he asked for.  Go ahead, I want to see you try gymnastics like that.  I can't do it, and I'm betting you can't, either.

Noah was now ready to give an impression of the discussion about the proposed property tax rate for the coming year.  Here, as with the deal with the chief, Noah did not win, and he was not happy.  And if Noah's not happy, then someone must be up to no good.  Noah tells us the final decision was 9.9 mills, which it was, and he tells us that 10 mills is as high as we can go, which it isn't.  Noah, who thinks the universe revolves around him, thinks that if 10 mills is the highest he, as a Commissioner, can go, then it's the highest anyone can go.

And if you want to know why 9.9 mills was wrong, I mean why he disagrees with it, the most obvious proof is that our staff, whom we pay, only proposed to tax at 9.5 mills.  Who are we, Noah asks, to second guess our professional staff?  Well last year, Noah was one to declare our manager wrong about her proposal of 9.5 mills.  He wanted 9.3 mills.  But that was last year.  Now, Noah wouldn't think of disagreeing with her.  Then Noah points out that our FRS contribution was half of what we feared, suggesting to him that we must be awash in money.  Never mind that we aren't: on paper we could be.  And local and national real estate prices have begun to rise, creating yet another imagined windfall.  Noah is mindless, I mean not mindful, that homesteaded assessments drop quickly but rise only slowly, and that the result of the housing crisis is many foreclosure sales that will value homes much less than they were in the past.  And obviously (to most of us), expenses can increase faster than revenues can.  Finally, Noah recalls that Anderson and Ross agreed to the 8.9 mills experiment two years ago.  Never mind that the experiment failed, and it cost us reserves and breathing room.  If they agreed then, then they should agree now.  If Noah knows nothing and doesn't learn, then no one should know anything, or learn from mistakes.

Finally, Noah prevaricates, I mean predicts, what position his colleagues will take regarding annexation.  They'll advocate for it, Noah indicts, and they'll claim, he sneers, that they're concerned for the Village's "financial solvency."  This is what separates mediocre politicians, like Anderson and Ross, from the great and inspired ones, like Noah and Bryan.  Noah and Bryan don't get distracted from essential truths.  They couldn't care less about "financial solvency."  They're seeing the truly big picture.

Noah talks to us about his "dismay" over the final vote regarding boats and RVs.  Sadly, "limits" were placed on the opportunity to own and store these vehicles.  Some idiots, or cruel people, apparently placed "aesthetics of the neighborhood" over "individual rights."  The nerve.  Who can bear to live in a society where limits are placed, or individual rights are sacrificed for the greater interests, or the greater good?  Heartless.  I imagined the soundtrack for the header as "God Bless America" or something.  Now I'm thinking "I Gotta Be Me."

Noah concluded by "taking a moment to thank everyone who came out to the...July meeting."  Well, it turns out Noah wasn't exactly thanking "everyone."  If a vocal minority of Village residents came out and shrieked and threatened and tore their clothes over the deep injury done by the idea that they could have only one boat or RV, and that if possible it should be obscured by a fence or foliage, Noah was thanking those people.  He was not at all thanking residents who had opposing opinions.  Noah fantasizes that those residents represent some sort of nefarious and powerful cabal (he said cadre, but he meant cabal), that directs Village functioning.  Our little version of the Trilateral Commission, positioned to frustrate poor Noah, and his pal Cooper, who were only trying to "leave decisions to [the people]," as any self-respecting anarchist libertarians would.

We deviants were at work, undermining government by speaking our minds, but Noah-devotees should have no fear.  "Unfortunately these tactics do sometimes seem to work on influencing some [weak-minded] Commissioners; it (sic) does not work on me[!]  In fact, it encourages me to redouble my efforts..." There you have it.  Noah may be muddled, but if you disagree with him, he'll get obstinate, too.

And that was Noah's message, Noah's recapitulation of the July Commission meetings.  If you can twist yourself, and other people, the way Noah can twist his world, you're good.

PS: I can't get on Noah's list, but you can.  Request to receive his e-mails by contacting him at njacobs@biscayneparkfl.gov.  It seems I have a hopelessly bad attitude, and I only deserve to pay him, but not to receive his e-mails.