During the last Commission meeting, the prickly issue of whether or not to pursue annexation was presented. Ross and Anderson thought we should pursue it, meaning pay the planner the next installment (approximately $2500) to prepare an application, so we can gather more information and keep the door open. Jacobs and Cooper do not want to annex, so they voted not to spend another dime or another second on the matter. (More in a moment.)
Watts was the possible swing vote. This was one of those situations, as I described, where Ross and Anderson had voted yes, then Jacobs and Cooper voted no, at which point Jacobs looked at Watts and instructed her to vote with him and Cooper. Often enough, like then, she's a good girl and does what she's told, at least depending on who's instructing her.
So Watts registered her required vote against continuing the annexation exploration. But she didn't simply vote no, as Jacobs no doubt intended. She messed up the process by saying it would require something really "compelling" for her to vote to continue looking at annexation, and she indicated there were questions, the answers to which she didn't yet know. Oh, Barbara, Jacobs was no doubt thinking, can't you just speak when you're spoken to? I asked for your vote, not your thinking.
So the question is raised: what could possibly compel Barbara Watts to consider annexation? What questions does she wish answered? And to anticipate part of this discussion, Ross picked up on Watts' wish for information, and she offered answers to questions. But since Watts' little comment was part of a whole sentence that included her no vote, Jacobs pounced on the consensus he wanted. It was 3-2 against, and that's all he needed to know. No, no, no, he bludgeoned Ross, we have a vote, and we're done with this issue. If you want to see what ugly, infantile behavior, masquerading as a political discussion among chronological adults looks like, please come to Commission meetings. But hurry before the December election. The real show depends on having Jacobs in the Mayor's seat, and it's not clear that will continue to happen.
At any rate, back to the Watts question: what would compel her to consider annexation?
Annexation is mostly about revenue. It's about revenue we don't have. It's about revenue we can get by taking new territory. The questions are what do we want the money for, and can we get it any other way? And as a frame of reference, four of our Commissioners feel we need money. Ross and Anderson do, Jacobs says he knows we do, and Cooper frankly gives us a prognosis of 10 years to live. That's a bit more dire than the other three.
What would "compel" Watts to think we should look further into annexation? She's offered that we can place a little strip mall next to Village Hall, but she seems to have done that as a concession, not because she necessarily agrees we need the money. The fact that we live hand-to-mouth and have no reserve does not compel Watts to think we need a better source of revenue than we have. Watts does not appear to take a long view of anything, and she has no identifiable sense of perspective or proportion, so it is not clear the absence of a reserve means anything to her.
Watts takes a very limited and specific interest in our medians. She advocates for the Australian Pine. Other than that, she does not appear to know or care that the medians are poorly developed and minimally maintained. And to the extent that she can get her two Commission pals to join her in snatching small amounts of money out of the reserve we don't have to pay for maintenance of the menace Australian Pines, she does not appear to see this minor maintenance task as requiring more revenue than we have. The general condition of BP medians does not compel Watts to think we have a problem we should solve.
Our administrative buildings are in trouble. The log cabin and the police headquarters need significant renovation, and the police headquarters need to exist in a real building connected to the log cabin, not in a trailer. There is no possibility on earth that we can address any of that with our "budget." "Compelling" enough for Watts? Evidently not. Presumably, if asked, she would either say she doesn't agree this is a problem, or she would decide to let it be some future Commission's problem. As I said, no long view, no sense of perspective or proportion.
We need a new public address and recording system for our meetings. Funny enough, Watts speaks so softly and so fast that she is the best advertisement for why we need the upgrade. The fact that recordings are hard to hear is another reason. Watts was one of those who ran on the "sanctity of the public record" platform. The cost of an upgrade is about $10K, by some estimates. Forget it, we don't have it. Problem to Watts? Seems not. And increased lighting in the Village? Uh, I don't think so.
Watts is constantly looking out for others. She hates tax increases, because they squeeze taxpayers. So she thinks; so she's been told. She agreed to a millage of 9.7, but she refused to tax us at 9.75. The difference for the average homeowner is about $6.50 per year. Her own house is a bit more on the modest side, so maybe $3-$4 for her. But since she is so concerned about the finances of other people, she found it impossible to tax at that higher rate, the one that would have cost us about $6.50 a year more. She also resisted annexation of the territory in question, because it would increase the ad valorem property tax of those people over there. She's just looking out for their financial interests. But we pay all of our employees, except the manager and the police chief, at an embarrassingly low rate. These people, our police, our public works people, our administrative staff, are important to the Village, they work hard here, and they have expenses and families of their own. How is it Watts isn't concerned about them? And what about the people who don't receive any further income from us, because we fired them to save the money? Does Watts give them much thought?
Watts has a limited and strategic interest in public art. If our buying a piece of public art would help one of her friends, she wants it. If not, she's not interested. But we can't afford public art. She and her two Commission co-conspirators agreed to steal $2500 out of Village coffers to help pay for a mural, $2500 that was not specifically budgeted for public art and which therefore didn't exactly exist for that purpose. But we may not get the mural anyway, since we don't have the rest of the money, unless Watts, Jacobs, and Cooper decide to steal that, too. But does this problem compel Watts to think that perhaps we do after all need more revenue? No such evidence.
Nobody likes crime, and nobody likes noise. A barrier along the tracks would help solve both problems. This is a hugely expensive project that would take years and maybe decades to complete. It is not on our radar screen and barely in our fantasy life. Reason for Watts to think we should save, and increase revenues? Nope.
But suppose Watts agreed we could use a bit more money, or that she was willing to concede to all four of her colleagues who agree we are a sinking ship. Our easy, direct way of raising money, the only method our unique existence as a Village permits us, is to raise our taxes. A peculiarity of this Village is that we have essentially no meaningful source of revenue except what we pay ourselves through ad valorem taxes and utility taxes. Well, as she already showed us, Watts doesn't want to raise taxes. She, and even moreso her pals Jacobs and Cooper, have cut the heart out of our system. If you want to know what happens to an organism once the heart is removed, ask Cooper. He says that for this kind of organism, it takes 10 years for it to happen.
So we're left with one other possibility: change the Village into something other than what it is and has always been. There appears to be pretty good agreement about that. All five Commissioners agree that we should introduce into the Village of Biscayne Park a commercial component, and commercial tax money. Ross and Anderson, and many others of us, find it convenient if that commercial component should happen to be someplace where we can't see it, literally across tracks. Assuming we can't raise taxes, for which very many of us, including the typical cheapskates, have argued. It seems all of us, except the pandering pedagogues, have made this argument.
But Watts, Jacobs, and possibly Cooper, have another idea. Let's invent a commercial component in the Village, our little, compact, residential-only Village, and we'll place it right next to Village Hall. Here's the analogy: you decide your house needs an additional bathroom. But you don't want to change the footprint of the structure, and installing a bathroom costs a lot of money. So you decide to eliminate in the kitchen sink. It all goes to the same place, for goodness' sake.
This is Watts', etc, idea. And if you want to know what our fiscal needs are, and what income stream this strip mall will produce, the proponents haven't the faintest idea. These are the advocates of special prudence, and lots of questions. Not this time, though.
So what, in fact, would "compel" Watts to rethink annexation? What would it take for her to reconsider her approach to this topic? One thing it would take is a broad view and perspective, and a devotion to that part of the Village that is beyond Watts' own house and bank account. It appears nobody's home on that approach. Other than that, who knows? Watts left a peculiar door open. Jacobs, in his arrogant, abusive way, tried to shut it back. Frankly, with the Bernard/Cooper/Jacobs/Watts wagons circled as tightly as they are, I doubt we're in any danger of encountering open-mindedness and thinking that is in the interest of the Village.
There are, by the way, perfectly good reasons not to want to annex. But those reasons have to entrain viable and rational alternatives. We're not given that here. We're given nothing but Cooper's death sentence (and some idiotic and half-baked idea about a strip mall). If that's the real goal for these neighbors, they owe us the honesty to say so.
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