I want you to share an assumption with me. The assumption is that the Village needs money, and if it doesn't get it, it will not survive. The extinction will take one of two forms. Either we will cease being a municipality, if we declare ourselves bankrupt or defunct, and either get annexed by someone else or revert to unincorporated County, or we will undergo a functional regression that will leave us poorly situated and poorly provided for. For example, we will have poorer and poorer public spaces, we will let the log cabin become a tear down, and we will either constrict our police force or abandon it altogether, in favor of lesser coverage by Miami-Dade police.
To give you an opportunity to join me in these assumptions, let me put you in mind that our reserves are gone, in the sense of providing a carry-over from one year to the next, that this has been progressive, that revenue increases from homesteaded properties, which is the sizable majority of them, are outpaced by increases in expenses, and that every reasonable opportunity to economize has been realized. We have cut expenses as much as a savvy, conservative, and hard-working manager can figure out how to do. We have fired many people, whom we declared superfluous. The Manager noted in passing during a recent Commission meeting that she can't even buy ball point pens for our office employees. Noah mentioned during another meeting that it is his understanding that we can't afford toner for the copiers. We barely get our bills paid, and to do it, we have to hope that nothing unexpected happens, like a repair that needs to be made.
We also do not do median development, log cabin renovation, and we cannot begin to consider erecting some sort of barrier between our eastern border and the train track. We need that to reduce noise and crime.
Some will argue that we have not economized enough. We could, for example, thin our police force. This is tricky, because we greatly value our police, upon whom we are deeply dependent for our safety, and we consider this protection perhaps our most central asset. Someone once proposed that we could add to the force, and that additions would be free, because officers bring in more in fines collected than they cost us. If this isn't patently preposterous, keep in mind that our police are our biggest expense. So apparently, they're not free at all. They don't simply magically, happily earn their own keep. We could also change our Charter to the way it was, and lose the expense of professional management. If this isn't obviously nonsensical and short-sighted, keep in mind why we moved to professional management in the first place. The idea was proposed by a Charter Review Committee, and accepted by the then Commission and the residents at large through referendum.
No, unless we're ready to surrender, we need money, and we have to decide how to produce it. We've tried to portray ourselves as cute, charming, and needy children whom someone else in the world should support. It didn't work. Our choice now is either to support ourselves, or annex revenue-producing territory that will provide an infusion of property taxes, while we hope not costing us as much as they remit. And there's every reason to suspect that would work. Fiscally, it's a net gain.
The problem is, it changes us. We are no longer compact; we are no longer "100%" residential. But perhaps we don't mind that change. That's the decision we have to make.
As a slight indicator of the Commission's leanings, it has just this week set the maximum ad valorem tax rate for the Village for the coming year. The highest rate the Commission could have chosen was 10 mills. It chose 9.9 mills, shying away from the strongest statement it could have made about our supporting ourselves. The Commission declined aggressive self-support and is driving the Village toward annexation. Or extinction.
But it really has to be one or the other. Either we take special responsibility to preserve this special neighborhood, or we give up the desire for it to be special in the way it has always been. (Maybe Arthur Griffing and the 1932 residents were wrong, or just not looking ahead.) Either position, raising our own taxes or annexing, has pros and cons, but we have to choose. The way our finances are trending, and in view of the likelihood that some other municipality would love the cash cow over the tracks, it's most likely that the time for choosing is now.
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