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.