Yes, I Changed My Understanding. And Your Point Is?

When the topic of annexation initially arose, I was against it.  Part of my resistance was probably fear of change, or maybe the persistence of sentimentality.  It seemed to me that annexing territory across the train tracks was not a good idea.  I had two objections.

One was that annexing territory that had lots of commerce in it meant that Biscayne Park would no longer be "100% residential."  Of course I realize we are already not 100% residential, but the non-residential component, the church, is homey-looking and has long been a fixture of the Village.  On the other hand, I didn't like that component, either, and I thought we should buy the property.  After all, we had demonstrated a lack of interest in the church, in that we don't much patronize it, and it represents a weekly traffic problem, soon to become a daily traffic problem.  I thought we could use the building for our municipal needs, or sell it and the rest of the lots for people to build homes.  I was looking for purity about our nickname ("100% residential"), so I certainly didn't want to annex some other territory that was largely commercial and industrial.

My other objection was that most of the people who live in the proposed territory are renters, and renters do not necessarily want the same things property owners want.  I was afraid that if those renters became BP residents and voters, they would undermine or legislate away the style of the "real" BP by voting things like less Code stringency.  They're only renting.  What do they care about style and property value?

But I have changed my understanding of the issue, and I have changed my mind about whether we should try to annex.  The main factor that caused me to have to look, and think, again was the realization that we are not going to be able to survive if we don't do something to increase revenues somewhat substantially.  Maybe drastically.  Having talked to a number of people about this, and many of these people are in the business to know a lot about it, I have agreed that we cannot sustain ourselves the way we are.  I don't just mean pay our bills at the end of each month.  I mean thrive and be a successful, respectable, and self-respecting municipality.  For now, and if we have no "rainy day" problems, we can pay our bills.  And paying our daily bills is all we can do under present conditions.  We cannot amass a reserve, and we cannot do other necessary projects.  All other things being equal, though, as costs rise faster than revenues, we will eventually not even be able to pay our ordinary bills.  The "game" will be "over."

So again, talking to other people who are in a position to know, I have considered how we can get the money to sustain ourselves.  We can raise our taxes, and we can even raise them a lot.  We can vote to sustain ourselves by voting in taxes of more than 10 mills, but such a decision only lasts for two years at a time.  We would then have to agree to extend the increase, and we would always be vulnerable to residents deciding they no longer care enough to pay unusually high taxes.  Sustaining our Village and our lifestyle in it simply by having a very high millage is a risky and tenuous exercise.

Listening to people who know the dynamics of municipal management, I had to reconsider what I objected to about annexation.  First, there was the sentimental idea of the tiny, "100% residential" burg. Once you come to accept that if we don't do something somewhat drastic, there won't be any more tiny, "100% residential" burg, you begin to look differently at the options.  It seemed roundly agreed by people in the know that annexation is a very good and healthy idea.  It "diversifies" the revenue stream.  So what if there is a commercial component to the Village, and it's in a place where it is invisible to the triangle and has no functional effect on it?  Don't almost all municipalities have areas that are zoned for residential use and other areas that are zoned for commercial use?  Does the fact that the commercial zone exists in the municipality detract from the residential zone?  Wouldn't the commercial zone have even less impact on the feel of the residential zone if there was a dramatic physical barrier between the two?  With that kind of understanding, I lost some of the sentiment about the "100% residential" identity.  Having a residential component where you can't see it mitigates the sense of contamination of the neighborhood.

As for the renter/voters, it turns out there aren't many of them over there.  Nowhere near as many as there are here.  Not only is the population a lot smaller than the population of what we know as BP, but sadly, many of the renters are not voters.  They can't change the Village by Ordinance.  There aren't enough of them.

With what has come to look like vigorous resistance to raising taxes heroically, and the fact that such an increase is tenuous anyway, with reassurance that annexation will not change the triangle, I really have no further objection.  It's a good idea.  I changed my mind.  Am I to be accused of being open-minded and flexible?  So be it.  Guilty as charged.

Now there is one other argument against annexation.  It's an argument made on behalf of those to be annexed.  The argument was articulated by Barbara Watts and by my across-the-street neighbor, who owns warehouse property near the airport.  Barbara is concerned that taxes in the annexed territory will increase, and that it will make things difficult for the taxpayers there.  My across-the-street neighbor says that with the near annexation of his property by Doral, his property tax would have increased from almost $11K per year to over $26K per year.  And further, he adds, he would have gotten nothing of value for the extra money.  His feeling was that Doral's promise of better police service did him little good, since his property is only warehouses.  He felt the same way about the offer of better ambulance service.  Better police service is one of the main things we have to offer the territory we could consider annexing, too.  If it seems like an insubstantial offer, as it did to my neighbor, look at it the other way around.  Suppose someone told us we could pay less taxes, and in exchange, we would get County police instead of our crack BP police.  No deal, right?  We'd rather pay more, and have amazing police service.  So why wouldn't we imagine that BP police instead of County police is a very big advantage to the annexable territory?  It is to us.

I've "done a 180" about annexation.  I don't feel it would harm us, I don't think it would be a mistake, and I think it's a good way to reinvent ourselves for long term existence.  And I would very much sooner include commerce where we can't see it than to impose commerce in our little "100% residential" triangle.  We need gas stations (well, you do), and grocery stores, and Starbucks, and doctors' and lawyers' offices, and all kinds of places to get what we need.  We just don't need them here, in the triangle.