Couldn't See the Forest for the Trees. The Budget Workshops.

Monday night, the Commission scrutinized the proposed budget for the coming year.  Commissioners took a great interest in every detail of the budget.  They examined it, and questioned Village staff about it, line by line.  The problem was, there was no unifying concept for the Village.  No general direction.  No sense of the place, or hierarchy of broad priorities.

For example, at one point, Bryan Cooper mentioned the possibility that the Village could become "insolvent" if it had to contract for hurricane clean-up, and couldn't pay the bill, because there's no real reserve.  But Bryan never said if he thought insolvency was a problem.  He certainly didn't propose to do anything to prevent it.  Resident AJ Gallo, who brought his fine-toothed comb to the budget meeting last year, and gave it a vigorous workout last night, too, suggested the Village should simply get itself absorbed by Miami Shores.  Bryan never indicated whether he agreed, or he didn't.  He couldn't even communicate whether he cared if there was a Village of Biscayne Park.

Commissioners clearly provided for themselves a pleasing and stimulating self-flattery in their searching questions of Village staff.  Bryan in particular wanted to see real data that would allow him to determine if it was more taxing on police cruisers to let officers take them home than to leave them for the next shift to use.  Bryan seemed to forget, or ignore, that we have a professional manager and a police chief who might (who knows?) have a pretty good idea about such things themselves.

And Bryan wasn't the only Commissioner who excited himself and got off on such inquiries.  You could see there was the thrill of a sense of authority, among people who should have done much more learning than attempted teaching.  But some of them very clearly loved dearly to hear themselves talk.

But back to our problem.  Commissioners were handicapped by a lack of vision.  They had no sustaining sense of direction.  Last week, in the general Commission meeting, Noah told us he believes government is "reactive."  He got that right.  This one is, anyway.  With the exception of Roxy Ross and Bob Anderson, each of whom seemed really to be trying to shepherd something grand, the others simply reacted, to an expense or a number, here or there.

Barbara Watts seemed to take great issue with the fact that Roxy got reimbursed for half the registration fee for a League of Cities conference, a benefit all of the Commissioners could have, if they bothered to attend these conferences.  But Barbara was much more glib about wanting to spend taxpayer money for a mural she is single-handedly arranging.  She had to be bullied into agreeing to use donations instead to fund the mural, and even at that, she wanted it to be the Foundation's problem to go find the donors.

The Commission couldn't begin to articulate, much less consider, any system of priorities for the Village.  Fiddling while Rome burned, Commissioners nickled and dimed the administration over the silliest of details, while failing utterly to provide the kind of overarching direction the administration really needed from us.  They got concerned about how the manager's assistant's time is allocated, and how to track it in the budget, instead of deciding if the Village should survive as an independent municipality.  The Commission had one leadership task to do, and it didn't do it.

Bob Anderson tried to put the matter in perspective, by suggesting that one way to save money is to reduce the Mayor's stipend.  He thought it should be just a bit more than that of other Commissioners', instead of double, since the Mayor's task is now modest, compared to the old days before we used a manager. Bob's suggestion didn't get much traction.  The big message was ignored.

One matter of intense interest, though no one wanted to say much about it, was the manager's announcement that she no longer thought it was a good idea to pursue annexation, and she recommended cancelling the planned workshop.  Apparently, it was decided that the majority of the current Commission did not have the resolve or the vision even to think through the matter, and the opportunity was quickly slipping away.

The second budget workshop took place on Tuesday.  This episode was not much better than Monday's, though there were some flashes of vision.  Mostly, Commissioners pleased and amused themselves by asking what they imagined were clever and searching questions, only to learn the Village staff had already anticipated and dealt with the issues.  This recurring fact did not, for some reason, lead Commissioners to stop asking irrelevant and redundant questions.

Bryan Cooper focused somewhat heavily on our use of legal time, and the considerable money it takes to engage it.  He observed that the Village Attorney "ran over budget."  In fact, of course, it was not the attorney, but the Commission, that ran over the budget, by running excessively long meetings and creating legal complications.  Funny enough, Bryan happens to be the chief offender.  He felt there should be "thoughtfulness regarding the use of attorney time," but he doesn't seem to realize who has been most thoughtless.

Two Commissioners during the Tuesday meeting did begin to introduce forward-thinking and visionary concepts, for which room should be made in the budget.  Anderson and Ross agreed there should be a fund for the repair and maintenance of the log cabin (Jacobs disagreed), and Ross particularly appreciated the asset represented by the recreation center.  She thought that should be accommodated.  She also felt strongly about continuing improvements in Village landscaping.  Both Commissioners talked about the poor condition of Village streets, and the need for better lighting.

Cooper pointed to the 2006 visioning study, and he complained that the only weakness was that it had never been linked to the budget.  In other words, the ideas were there, but money had not been set aside to address them.  Ross pointed out that although that was largely correct, in fact inroads had been made in eight of the areas noted.  What Cooper failed to recall is that it was he, more than anyone, who resisted adequate funding for Village needs in general.  So again, it is he who promotes the problem about which he then complains.

The workshops ended with a sense of what the Village can do, and what it can't do, if the millage is 9.5.  Among the things it cannot do is attend to any of the long range projects that would represent real improvement and enhancement: the kinds of efforts that raise value.  Commissioners are still able to decide to charge a millage of 9.9, if they have the vision and courage.  Or, as the Manager said as her final statement to her Village, Commissioners should not be in the position of coming back to the Ordinance when it is presented in September, and arguing for a lower millage, because residents say they want low taxes.  They should now have the commitment to "educate" residents as to why the highest allowable millage is best for the Village.  Fat chance.