There are no more substantive arguments to make. You have it all now. There are pros and cons of annexation, we either annex or we don't, and it is left simply for us to decide. It appears there are not enough voters in the territory in question that they are afforded a say in the matter. If that seems harsh, watch nature shows. You can moralize all you want, but the lion eats the gazelle every time. In this case, however, no one gets killed. We take more of their money than they're paying the County, but we give them better services, and we elevate their condition.
The County has something to say about whether we annex, or who annexes this territory (if we don't, CNM will, so the territory in question will suffer whatever are the disadvantages of annexation either way). But we're assured we will get very strong advocacy from Sally Heyman, our County Commissioner, and Sally feels very confident that her influence will prevail.
So there are two things I want to add to what has already been developed in this blog, by a few different people. One is that one Commissioner told me that of four manager candidates interviewed, every one of them recommended we annex. We can make that five actual or potential managers, if we count our own recent manager, Ana Garcia. Not one person of relevant understanding and responsibility disagrees: we should annex. We need to annex. It is life-saving for the Village.
Which brings me to point number two. There are cons to annexation for us. We do change the Village from what it has been since 1933. We do make ourselves susceptible to, and invite, the input of people we would not otherwise consider: the people who live in the area we could annex. "All other things being equal," which they're not, we would likely not consider annexation. We would not be having this conversation. But Ted Walker saw it years ago, and everyone sees it now: without annexation, we cannot survive. Even the anti-annexation advocates see it. They just want us to be annexed, by Miami Shores. They realize that without annexation, in one direction or the other, we don't survive. So suppose you were ill. Gravely ill. There was one recommendation: you need surgery. Without surgery, you will not live. With surgery, you will live a long life, and you'll be made stronger against other potential conditions. Under other circumstances, you wouldn't possibly simply prefer to have an operation. Who would? It's not fun, and you will be left with a scar, and maybe some skin pulling at the site of the operation. But to save your life (you're going to die for sure without surgery) and make yourself stronger, wouldn't you do it?
Last night, at the Halloween event, I was talking to the policeman I was assigned to accompany. He's 71 and one of our reserve officers, and he's been involved with the Village for 10 years. He's been a cop in the County for 34 years, working for one agency or another. He had heard about our consideration of annexing, and he thought it was a good idea for us. "Times are tough," he said, and "times change." "I know some people want the Village to be like it was in 1940, but it's not like that any more." As a reserve cop with us, he works for nothing. He just likes working here. He knew Gotlin, and it was Mitch Glansberg who hired him first. He thinks the world of Ray Atesiano. Just another county heard from, as they say.
PS: If we don't annex, and we don't have to, we have an extremely serious and life-threatening problem. Anyone who argues against annexation, and there are arguments against it, has to have an extremely serious and life-saving solution. No one has offered us that. "Somehow, we'll make it work," and "we should re-explore our expenses and sharpen our pencils" are not serious and life-saving arguments. They are dodges. They are resistances. They are not substantive. In the worst cases, such as the cases of elected officials like Cooper and Jacobs, and to a lesser extent Watts, who argue against annexation and simultaneously want to lower taxes, these arguments are acts of sabotage that can have only one result: death of the Village as an independent municipality. As I have said before, this is not OK with me.
ReplyDeleteIt's OK with Cooper and Ron Coyle, and they have a fantasy that Miami Shores will take us orphans in. Maybe so, maybe not. If they do, we wind up with the taxes these BP residents want to avoid, we wind up with code enforcement of which these residents complain, and we wind up with part our new municipality having a very active commercial component, which these anti-annexation activists resist. So we accomplish none of the stated goals, and we lose our independence. And we get much poorer police protection as a further punishment.
These elected officials are neither skilled, trained, nor disposed to take a broad and long view. And they don't listen. They either don't know or don't understand why Ted Walker was talking about annexation years ago. They either don't know or don't understand why five out of five active or prospective municipal managers and a County Commissioner think we need to annex.