"Play Ball"

The clock is now ticking.  Chuck Ross laid out money for a new sculpture for the Village.  The sculpture is called "The Ballplayer," and the sculptor is Steven Zaluski.  The Commission has agreed to receive this sculpture, if it is offered to the Village.

Dan Keys and eight others of our neighbors chose a spot for this sculpture, and the spot is in Griffing Park, across the street from the log cabin.  As of today, "The Ballplayer" is there.

Chuck says he'll give us one year to raise the money to buy it for the Village.  It would be a bit embarrassing if it took us more than about one month, but let's see what we can do.  Chuck was able to buy this sculpture for $6000.  If enough of us chip in to reimburse him for most of that price, the sculpture will belong to the Village.  This happens if every resident of the Park chips in less than $2.  Or if every homeowner chips in about $4.  If 600 of us chip in $10 each, it will be more than Chuck wants.  (He wants to make his own substantial contribution, or, as he puts it, he wants to leave a nice piece of the $6000 "on the table.")  We run into the same excess if 200 of us chip in $30 each.  100 of us contributing $60 each gets us to the same not-strictly-necessary place.  We'll use the excess to install nice low landscaping around the bottom of this sculpture, as there is around the other piece in Griffing Park.

Drive by Griffing Park.  Take a look at "The Ballplayer."  It's right on 6th Avenue, just south of the northeast corner of the park.  Do you like what you see?  Would you like the Village to keep this always?

If you do, and you would, make a donation.  Write a check to the Village, and memo it "Ballplayer fund."  Give it to someone at Village Hall.  Get your friends to do the same thing.  I'll try to keep track of how much is donated, and I'll provide updates.

The Temptation is to Think It's Just My Imagination

One of my exercise routines involves walking the circumference of the Village early in the morning.  It's usually about 7:00 to 8:00 for the one hour walk.  Part of my course is the length of Griffing, from 9th Avenue (near the track at the southeast corner of the Village) to 121st St.  I walk in the street, until cars come, at which point I take to the medians.  I'm a little bit conspicuous, not only because I'm walking in the street, but because I wear a weight vest, which looks like a bullet-proof vest.  Some people ask me if that's what it is.

There isn't much going on at that time of day, and not much to look at, other than the houses and the cars.  I have gotten to thinking about those cars, the ones that are moving, the ones I have to avoid, and I wonder what the drivers are about.  I suspect they are mostly visitors, passing through the Village on their ways to work, although some are definitely Village residents leaving the Village for their work days.  Some are delivering children to schools.

I wonder what we look like to them, and if they notice us at all.  It's common to see people looking straight ahead, as perhaps they should be, and not infrequently on their phones.  I'm not sure I think they should be doing that, especially since it appears none of them use hands-free headsets.  I think we're invisible to these people, apart from offering them roadways.

So I have devised a habit.  Whenever a car passes me (I walk against traffic, so oncoming drivers will clearly see me, and vice versa), I wave to the driver, and I smile at them.   My fantasy is that I am making unexpected contact with them.  I'm making us less anonymous and inanimate.  I'm giving them a reason to think about us.  I tell myself I'm creating a kind of relationship with these people, and that because of that relationship, the Village will become more real and alive to them, and that they might even care about us.   This could lead them to do certain things like driving more carefully.

There are a few reactions I elicit from my new friends.  One is a wave and smile in return.  Funny enough, some of them wave at me more animatedly than I wave at them.  I suppose it's not entirely a good thing, but sometimes, it's even the people who are using one hand to hold a cell phone to their ears who then use the other hand to wave.

This brings me to a digression.  I very much object to people being on the phone while they're driving, especially when they're holding the phone.  Not only are they paying attention to the call instead of the driving, but they're using a whole hand that should be operating the vehicle, and they're keeping their necks rigid, so it's not doing other things, like turning their heads so they can see what's going on around them.  I tried to propose a Village Ordinance against using a cell phone without a hands-free device while driving, but the State won't let us restrict like that.  So my next thought is that we have our police stop such drivers, have a friendly chat with them about the importance of paying full attention while driving, and offer to sell them a hands-free device on the spot.  We could have a selection of such devices in each cruiser.  An attention-getter for drivers, a safety improvement, and revenue for the Village.  No?

Anyway, back to my friendly outreach campaign.  I have actually convinced myself that I'm accomplishing something with this maneuver.  Not only do I make contact, and elicit the return gestures, but I think the desired end result is happening.  I can hear the cars slow down.  That was my first thought.  My second thought was that this was just an auditory illusion, created by the change in the direction of sound waves as the car moves from approaching me to distancing itself, as it passes.  But on those occasions when I bother to turn my head, I see enough brake lights that I really do believe these drivers are slowing down.  I have achieved my goal.  I may look like an inane idiot, wearing a bullet-proof vest and waving at strangers, but I think I, and we, are different to these otherwise passers-through.  And that was what I wanted.

Dark Clouds. Silver Lining.

What a week that was.  It seems as if everything crashed.  I was having car trouble, and my car was seemingly irretrievably in the shop.  My dehumidifier crashed.  It started turning itself off, declaring the water tank full, when there was little or no water in the tank.  My computer crashed.  In retrospect, I think it was already giving up the ghost, but it finally quit.  The TV went belly up.  It, too, like the dehumidifier, kept turning itself off.  I would turn it back on, and it would immediately turn itself back off.  One day, Thursday, I couldn't go anywhere (no car), I couldn't work (no computer), and I couldn't even watch a movie (no TV).

So I managed to replace the car, which took about three days, given all the mishaps.  I had never driven, much less owned, a diesel car before, and my neighbor, Jose Subias, swears by them.  Other people speak very highly of them, too.  I read up and thought I'd take a chance, while I wait for a more reliable electric car that has enough range and doesn't cost too much.  The VW Golf Diesel was my favorite, but the Jetta was cheaper.  I like the Jetta, and I've found two nearby gas stations that sell relatively low-priced diesel fuel.

I went to Home Depot, where I got the dehumidifier a couple of years ago.  They couldn't help, even to sell me a new one.  For who knows what reason, the day before I went was dehumidifier purchase day, and their inventory was gone.  I called the customer service number for LG, and they said I was welcome to go to their authorized service center in Broward and pay for a repair.  When I got home, frustrated at least, I tried the dehumidifier one last desperate time, and suddenly it worked.  I'm not asking any questions.

Last night, I went to Best Buy to get a new TV.  I got the cheapest one they had.  What's that about getting what you pay for?  I'll return it one day this week.  The correction will remain unaccomplished for now.

I called my go-to computer guy, Chuck Ross, to see if there was anything I could do about a non-functional 4-5 year old computer.  Not in Chuck's hands, there wasn't.  So he put me onto the best news of the week: Richie Strassberg.  Richie lives in the Park, on about 120th St somewhere between 7th and 8th Avenue, I think.  I'm not sure if Chuck said something like "if it can be fixed, Richie can fix it," but he might have.  I know Richie from around, and he actually did a car job for me some years back.  I doubt he remembers.  Richie fixes cars, and computers.

So Richie came promptly to my house, breezed in with a placid and knowing smile (he's like John Elway in that he always looks like he's smiling), and whisked my computer away.  He sort of said it could be this, or it could be that, but whatever it was, he'd fix it.  He told me the good news, and the slightly less good news, which somehow sounded like this repair was not going to cost me too much.  He didn't say that, but I was either reading between the lines, or just being hopeful.

Two days and a couple of confirming phone calls later, Richie delivered my computer.  It now has a new hard drive, and the new one has three times the capacity of the old one.  It works perfectly.  Richie installed everything I needed, in some cases without needing to ask.  I won't say the repair was embarrassingly inexpensive.  It wasn't.  But it was very reasonable, and the service (calls) was more than I could have asked.

Richie tells me he mostly fixes PCs.  He has a neighbor who fixes Macs.  I have no reason not to recommend Richie with complete enthusiasm.  I asked his permission, and he said he didn't mind.  Sometimes, he advertises in the newsletter.  I hope you don't have computer problems, but if you do, you can call Richie at 305-891-1927.  He calls himself Richie's Computer Garage.  Cute, huh?  If you have Mac problems, you can call Richie and ask him how to reach his neighbor.

Rooting for the Laundry

If you're not familiar with this term, it is a sarcastic view of sports fandom.  It applies most specifically to people who are fans of professional sports.  A complaint about sports, especially professional sports, is that there is little dedication between the team and the players.  Players, as well as coaches and others, come and go.  Sometimes they are traded or fired, and sometimes they move themselves from one team to another.  This year's darling is next year's enemy, or vice versa, depending on which team he (or she) represents in the given year.  Clevelanders, for example, loved LeBron James, until he jumped ship and went to Miami, at which point they hated him, until he rejoined the Cavaliers, so now they love him again.  The idea is that fans aren't really rooting for anything.  They root for whoever plays on their team at a given moment in time.  They're rooting for the concept of their team.  They're rooting not for the player, but for the uniform.  They're rooting for the laundry.

Last night, we had two meetings.  The first was a consideration as to how to proceed with the annexation project, and the second was the first budget "workshop."  What we learned from some "fans" is that there is no need to annex anything.  We're not in fiscal trouble.  If anything looks like fiscal trouble, it's funky bookkeeping, or it's one-time events that will not (in the imagination of some) recur.  And besides, annexation is not good for BP.  It will cost more than it earns, or not much less than it earns, or it will take too much time to earn what will help us.  And some BP residents just don't like the idea.  They like BP as it is.

Speaking of BP as it is, let's not forget what a crime it was that a majority of the Commission agreed to outsource sanitation.  Last night's meetings had nothing to do with sanitation, but the harangue continued.  We can improve finances without outsourcing this function, we were told again, and besides, our sanitation employees don't want this function outsourced.  We will have thrown them and their careers and livelihoods "under the bus."  Or so we were invited to fantasize.  And we are reminded that those criminal Commissioners who reasoned that outsourcing would be best for the Village can expect to be recalled.

The proposed budget, too, is faulty, according to some.  Close scrutiny indicated that it contains unnecessary expenses.  As proof, by the way, that we're not really in fiscal trouble, there is a projected $41K surplus in our $2.2M budget.  That this does not remotely allow us to address any of our serious structural problems is treated as irrelevant.

We pored over the budget, and we have found some ways to save money.  Two of these opportunities exist within the way we manage our police function.  First, we can, at the next union negotiation, try to rescind the cruiser take-home benefit we bestowed on our officers, in lieu of a more competitive salary.  If we own fewer cars, and keep them in the Village all the time for use every shift, we can reduce our yearly vehicle expense.  In exchange, we will wear them out quicker.  They will need replacement sooner.  It is not clear whether one plan is better than the other, or whether it will be a wash.

But the second opportunity may represent real savings.  Instead of having two officers, plus the Chief, on duty for each daytime shift, we could have one officer, with the Chief as backup.  The police department is our largest single expense, and if we could possibly reduce manpower, maybe supplementing with reserves (who are vastly cheaper than regular officers), we might see a noticeable and favorable budget impact.

There is an image of Biscayne Park: not only the image to the outside world, but the image to us, who live here and are the stakeholders and owners of the municipality.  One speaker last night, in suggesting why we should get competitive bidding on service contracts, asked us to imagine the caution we would take if we were managing projects in our own homes.  That's good advice.  In fact, we should view the Village as a whole as our home.  The speaker didn't say that.  I'm saying it.  The Village's physical condition, as well as its fiscal condition, should be our concern.  As more than one Village resident has urged, we need strong Codes and dogged compliance with them.

It's not just abstract ideas of what this Village is about.  If it's about being a little upside down triangle, without an east-reaching handle, and if it's about having our own sanitation function, then why isn't it about a fully manned police force?  And why isn't it about beautiful medians?  Why isn't it about the quiet and security of a barrier along the railroad track?  Why isn't it about the pride of property ownership long-time residents remember?  Wouldn't we take our neighbor's advice, and invest with care and devotion?  Our neighbor wouldn't plan a job based only on one estimate.  Would she decide to leave her home in disrepair, because she'd rather not spend the money?

Slogans and banners about how we don't need annexation, and what a shame outsourcing sanitation is, are empty talking points.  They are disingenuous pandering.  They are disrespectful of reality.  They ignore, at best, that annexation doesn't change us at all, except to provide a broader and more diversified tax base.  They ignore that outsourcing sanitation is structured to leave us with better service performed by the same people (who will be better paid), more reliably, and for less money and strain on the PW Department.  These slogans and banners amount to no more Village dedication and pride than rooting for the laundry.  They are not about Biscayne Park.  They are about a goofy and insubstantial caricature-- a ghostly effigy of the Park.  They portray devotion to the real Village as much as rooting for the laundry portrays interest in the real team, or the sport at all.