Kicking and Screaming.

This wasn't complicated.  Well, let me rephrase that: this didn't have to be complicated.  I'm referring to the 7/23/13 special Commission meeting.

The first order of business was the police.  Larry Churchman was promoted to Captain.  That happened without complication, and with only the good kind of fanfare.  The second order of business was to respond to Ray Atesiano's request.  Ray is our Chief.  Everyone, without exception, agrees he's a great Chief.  The best we've ever had.  The best we could imagine wanting.  We don't want to lose him.  And the issue was that he doesn't want to leave us, either.  Ever.  He wants to retire from BP.  So because we're getting a new Manager, and because no one can predict what a new Manager might want in terms of staff and employees, and because Ray loves it here as much as we love having him here, Ray had a proposal.  He wants us to guarantee that if a new Manager has his or her own Chief in mind, which Ray can apparently imagine, understand, and even accept, we agree not to fire him.  Specifically, he asked that we bust him down to Sergeant, and let him stay as a BP employee.  He would take the cut in pay.  He just likes it here, and he doesn't want to leave.  It's really hard to complicate this, isn't it?  Now, to be entirely fair, there was slight ambiguity as to whether Ray's proposal was that he would keep his Chief's salary, even as a Sergeant, and whether he insisted on being compensated for "100%" of his sick days, if he doesn't use them.  The latter applied only if he was fired, though.  These ambiguities were cleared up instantly, simply by asking Ray.  Nope, Sergeant's pay is good enough, and whatever is the standard proportion of sick days, depending on tenure at the time, will be fine with him.  If he's fired without cause.  That's the thing that no one thinks is going to happen.  But boy, was this a struggle.  You do not need me to tell you which Commissioners provided all the resistance.

Then, we were on to the budget, and the estimated opening tax rate.  This rate is chosen in advance of detailed scrutiny, and it can be lowered as the process goes on, but it cannot be increased.  The very few of us non-Commissioner residents who attended, and two of the Commissioners as well, reminded the Commission that we are in a money-losing mode at the current tax rate and that we can always decrease the estimated rate, if we find we can manage it.  Given what kind of neighborhood this is, with its limited resources, there is never any reason to start deliberations at less than 10 mills.  But Cooper wanted us in the 8s, Jacobs wanted us at 9.5, where it is now, and Watts understood the problem, but just couldn't bring herself to start at 10.  She wanted 9.9.  So you understand, considering an average home valuation in BP, the difference between 9.9 mills and 10 mills is approximately $12 per YEAR.  That's the stretch Watts was unwilling to ask BP residents to make.  The torment this woman puts herself through, over nothing, is amazing.  And she doesn't like to be tormented.  So she says.  Ultimately, Cooper and Jacobs were unable to agree to this abuse of taxpayers.  Jacobs doesn't appear to be about anything, and his actions seem mostly to appeal to his sense of power and aimless relevance.  Cooper, who has massive distrust of government (of everything, come to think of it, except his newfound safe haven, "non-profits"), recalled that even with the increase from mid 8s to almost 10, he did not see us solving our fiscal problems.  Presumably, he meant this to suggest that whatever revenue the Village gets through ad valorem taxes somehow gets diverted somewhere.  But what he wasn't considering, and apparently didn't realize, is that the Village is so far from being able to thrive that even increases like that, as much as an average $180 per home per YEAR, don't put us on good fiscal ground.  As we all, audience, Manager, Finance Director, even Police Chief, have tried to tell him, it's not enough.

The further problem is that Cooper, and his bargain basement pal, Jacobs, as well as the skittish Watts, don't want to annex.  Well if we need the money, and we don't get it, through either increased tax revenues or annexation, what do they imagine is going to happen to the Village?  Or don't they care?  Not exactly what you want representing you, and making decisions for your Village.

But they won't get out of the way.  Well Cooper is partly out of the way.  He did come a couple of minutes late and leave 15-20 minutes early, but he shows up for votes way too often.  He really needs to bow completely out, and let us have Commissioners who have actual concern for and interest in the Village.  Not looking like it, though.  Mostly, he tries to resist whatever anyone else wants.  I know it doesn't sound like much of a fulfilling lot in life, or claim to fame, but it appears to be all he's got.

There is good news, though.  We gave the Chief what he wanted, so he's relieved (and so are we), and we got as close to 10 mills as we could without simply deciding to get there.  And Barbara Watts can feel good that she saved her friends an average of $12 a year, and it only cost the Village $13K.  Which the Village desperately needs.