I Stand Corrected. Now I Understand Why We Have to Annex.

My friend Chuck Ross has said consistently that we have to annex some territory east of the tracks.  There's only one reason to do it, and that reason was his argument.  The Village needs the money.  Sally Heyman made us the same argument: you need the money, and you can "tax the hell" out of those people.  Erik Bojnansky and Jim Mullin of the Biscayne Times made the same argument: you have the highest tax rate in the County, and it's not enough; you need to save yourselves with a "land grab."  Our Manager tells us precisely the same thing.  I got it.  We all get it.

I know we need the money.  I know we're not meeting our responsibilities, and we're not building reserves for general purposes or specific ones, like rehabbing the log cabin.  I know.  But it's our Village!  It has a certain character, that is abetted by its funky little geography.  It's so easy for us to connect with each other, and many of us do.  You don't even have to drive to reach most of your neighbors and friends.  You certainly don't have to go to 125th, or Griffing, go several blocks east, cross the tracks, then go south or north to reach the rest of your BP neighbors.  It's not even contiguous, because of the tracks.  And the sizable majority of "us" are homeowners.  Almost all of "them" are renters.  We're not the same people, with the same interests.  And we're "residential."  It's just not right.  It's not the right way to do it.  There has to be another way to get the money.

It's not going to grow on trees, or fall from the sky, or come in an envelope postmarked from Tallahassee.  Property values, and the consequent ad valorem taxes, are not going to rebound as quickly as they fell.  And even if values did rise robustly, the homesteaders, which is the vast majority of us, will only pay 3% more each year, which will never get us where we're going, because costs rise faster than that.  We can soak new homeowners, but that's not going to result in an overall flood of cash.  We've cut expenses to the bone, and we're still falling behind every year.  No, there's only one place we can get the money, I argued to Chuck, and Sally Heyman, and Bojnansky/Mullin.  We'll get it from ourselves.  We love this neighborhood enough to want to live here, and we'll love it enough to want to save and support it.  We'll just open our bank accounts and get generous to ourselves.

And that's when the cold water dousing occurred.  I didn't listen to Chuck, or Sally Heyman, or the BT boys.  No, it was Noah Jacobs and Bryan Cooper who finally convinced me we are going to annex what's east of the tracks.  They have made abundantly clear, and have not flinched, and have gotten exquisitely little public resistance, that we are not going to raise our taxes, by statute or voluntarily.  They keep telling us we're marginal, miserable people, and we don't have the wherewithal to lift ourselves up.  Or maybe they're saying we're mean and selfish.  To the extent that these two have any say about it, and they do, we're moving in the direction of lowering our taxes.  More generous?  No, stingier.  They don't care that we're thin.  They aren't moved by our becoming emaciated.  They seem to want us dead.  First, they want us dangerously deconditioned.  Then, they'll turn off the oxygen.  "If the right one don't get you, then the left one will."  We have been left no choice but to annex.  It's not what I wanted, but I can see it's what's going to happen; what must happen.  Unless Ron Coyle gets his way, and we become the chattel of Miami Shores.  But that's not going to happen, either.  And neither Ron nor Noah nor Bryan would like it if it did.

So now I get it.  I understand.  I have no further argument.  Noah and Bryan have convinced me that the only thing they will permit is annexation.  Or death.  Where do we sign, Sally?