Think West Side Story, with the dance first, and the rumble later. Now take this scene to Appalachia.
The happy ho-down was a long string of presentations. Mostly, they were opportunities for our police to congratulate each other, and for us to congratulate them, too. Several got awards. One accomplishment, of the force and particularly attributable to one officer, is our "clearance rate" of burglaries so far in 2013. How many burglary cases have been solved? 100%. No, this does not exist in the real world, but our police are unreal. There was one departure, through a modified "retirement," and we swore in three new officers. Welcome to the family, guys. After that, a representative from "All Aboard Florida," the new and private railroad line from Miami to Orlando, gave us a canned presentation. It was interesting, but not entirely relevant. I'm sure the presentation was necessitated by the fact that part of the involved track runs along our eastern border, or what has been our eastern border. Oops, I anticipate other material. Finally, Noah Jacobs' daughter either is or wants to be a Girl Scout, so Noah took the liberty to invite a representative of the Girl Scouts to give us a presentation. These were not two of the best spent hours we've ever abided, but at least the police part was uplifting.
Then, we had Public Comment. All of the comment was about two things: the second reading of the boats/RVs Ordinance, and the discussion of annexation. Steve Bernard had sent out his war cry e-mail the day before, so his cousins, and he, were there in force. This was the "get your hands off our rights to have boats and RVs," and "we don't want to annex anything" crowd. Steve had fired them up with inflammatory rhetoric and half baked, and less than half correct, information. I can't call it facts, because there wasn't much if any of that. But it was more than enough to get 'em plenty riled up.
The other side was the "we want a classier neighborhood" crew. They (OK, we) were straightforward. You could disagree, but there weren't any logical or factual distortions. There were just a couple in the middle, most notably Linda Dillon, who wanted the option of boats/RVs in her front yard, but weren't rabid and extreme and misinformed about the proposed Ordinance. Things deteriorated pretty quickly, with factions clapping after those who agreed with them spoke.
Noah addressed the matter of "misinformation," after Roxy Ross introduced it as an obvious problem dynamic. Roxy said there had been a good deal of it, and she demonstrated her point fairly clearly. Noah cleverly suggested that "misinformation" is what someone who doesn't agree with you has. This would have been a great point if Noah hadn't been one of the prime perpetrators of spreading actual misinformation. Well, it's Steve Bernard's stock in trade, as he demonstrated tonight, and Noah has shown himself to be a very apt pupil of the tactic. For example, he said a number of speakers advocated for no boats or RVs at all in Biscayne Park. In fact, no one advocated for that. He also kept interrupting Roxy when she was trying to make a point, by trying to get her to admit either that she wanted to be more restrictive than the County rules, or that she was anti-family.
Noah and Bryan Cooper, and the godfather, Steve Bernard, all resisted the boat/RV Ordinance, saying they preferred proper enforcement of the Codes we already have. This would have played fairly well, if it had been true. The fact is none of them has ever moved to have our current Codes adequately enforced, and each of them has alleged to provide advocacy for people who claim they don't have the resources, or the taste, to meet the Codes. Or, they've moved to undermine or impeach the Code Compliance Officer. Their pandering is for adequately enforced Codes, but their actual motions are for relaxation of the Codes, and spotty enforcement of them. So the proposal was nice, but phony.
Then, after several hours (the meeting was extended twice, so it ended at 11:45), we heard from our Manager, who has now given notice, and our planner, regarding the annexation the Manager is recommending. She gave us a slide show, but there was so little time left by the time we got to it, that we really just rushed through. We agreed to have a workshop, for more comprehensive and relaxed deliberation. I have a paper copy of the slide show, so if you want to see it, let me know.
We will also have a special Commission meeting next Wednesday, July 17, to talk about how to find a new manager, and another special meeting the following Tuesday, July 23, to talk about the budget, and get that ball rolling. The annexation workshop is TBD.
Folk left the meeting snarling at each other a bit, and trying to wipe each other's finger prints out of their eyes, but maybe if you didn't get poked too badly, you could see what was going on.
Addendum: Linda Dillon has written to me to take issue with something I said. She told me one person said he or she didn't want boats/RVs at all, then she said "several people" said they didn't want them. These announcements were made, according to Linda, in some prior, outside, and unrelated meeting. A meeting I didn't attend, and a meeting Noah Jacobs didn't attend. So I will stand by my comment, that at the Commission meeting this week, where Noah said some people said they didn't want boats/RVs at all, in fact no one said that. No one did. Not at that meeting. If anyone said it anywhere else, I wasn't there and don't know about it, and Noah wasn't there and doesn't know about it. Noah's language at the Commission meeting was that at that meeting, some people, or a number of people, or several people, or some such vague quantifier, said they didn't want boats or RVs at all. Nope. Not one speaker at that meeting said that.
Linda also thought I criticized her for saying what she said about her own wishes. I thought I complimented her on her civility and modulation in expressing those wishes, in a setting where other speakers didn't show these traits at all. So perhaps a misunderstanding. My apologies, Linda. And again, my compliments.
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