What I Supported Was Not Smoke and Mirrors. What You Support Might Be. Sanitation, Again.

The proposal was this.  WastePro will do what the BP sanitation crew did: they will collect and remove all the refuse from the Village.  In addition, they will do what the Miami Shores recycling function did: they will collect and remove all the recyclable material from the Village.

They will remove the garbage for less money than we paid to run our own service, and they will not involve any Village employees.  Any difficulties they have doing this job will not result in Village employees' having to suspend their own work to bail out the garbage collection function.

As for the recycling, they will remove it for the same fee we paid MSV, but from now on, they will return to us any excess money they make from the company that receives and uses the recycled material.  MSV didn't do that, so recycling will now cost us less than it did.

WastePro will do all of this efficiently and courteously.  They will also cheerfully hire any of our sanitation workers who are content to be garbage men, and they will pay them more than we did.

But wait, as they say in infomercials, there's more.  While it took our BP sanitation crew two days to complete garbage pick-up from the whole Village, WastePro will do it in one day.  And where our crew made do with one truck, or occasionally two, both in poor repair, WastePro is prepared to send three trucks, and they will be in excellent condition.  They will not leave puddles of home and kitchen waste in the street, as our trucks did.

In case any of us were wide-eyed and gape-mouthed, wondering if the next thing that would happen would be the appearance of Santa Claus, this change was not magic.  It was just hard work and dedication to getting the job done.  But it wasn't to be the same job.  It was the fundamental task, done better than before and in half the time.  More and better equipment and more people, if necessary, and hard work and dedication to getting the job done.

What we're talking about is a transition.  Is it impossible to imagine, or to accept, that transitions are sometimes imperfect, especially at the start?  "We're all adults here," as they say.  We can be a bit patient and understanding, can't we?  Evidently, being supportive and even helpful is too much to ask.  But what about patient?  WastePro has done this before.  It's always the same procedure.  They take over a garbage collection function someone else was doing, and their mission is to do it better and cheaper.  It takes them and their crews a little while to refine the route, after which time they accomplish their goal.  And the community accomplishes its goal.  But it takes that initial little while for WastePro to adopt the most efficient rhythm.  It's getting better already, although they still haven't yet consolidated this task into a one day route.  They've had to come back to finish the next day each time.  But their goal is in fact to do this in one efficient day.  Our goal never was to do that.  We couldn't have.  We didn't have the equipment, the personnel, or the dedication to getting the job done efficiently.

But let's say you think you just don't have the patience.  For whatever reasons, you liked it exactly the way it was, and that's the way you want it to be.  You don't want any kind of "transition."  You even want the exact same broken down trucks and the exact same Village employees.  We'll set aside that you could have had them, if they had wanted to continue to do this job for WastePro (which apparently they did not), and that eventually, they would retire, and you'd have to get used to someone new anyway.  But just for now, you didn't want anything at all to change.  The result of your wish would have been a significantly higher sanitation bill.  (The Village was going to force you to accept having serviceable equipment, and it was going to insist that we/you pay these employees at above the County poverty level.  It was also going to require you to support a crew of enough people to get the job done, instead of not enough people.) 

I have an exercise for you, and I'm going to give you a frame of reference for this exercise.  As it happens, I personally don't think we tax ourselves high enough to meet our fiscal needs.  The last time I tried to do something about this, I asked the Commission to tax Village residents at 10 mills, instead of 9.7 mills.  The difference would have been an average of about $40 a year per house.  The Commission vote against me was 4-1.  No freakin' way we're going to charge ourselves $40 a year per house more than we're paying now, whether we need the money or not.  There wasn't a great deal of support from non-Commissioner residents, either.  Even neighbors who typically agree with me about such things weren't showing support for something as unrestrained as a $40 per year per home tax increase.  Subsequently, in a workshop with County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, I said the same thing.  I didn't quite get laughed out of the room, but it was close.  Raise your taxes as high as you easily can?  Are you insane?  And no one even cared what we needed the money for.  There was just a reflex not to want to pay taxes. 

So here's what you do.  This is your exercise.  Go around to all your neighbors (not just your friends who will say they agree with you), and tell them you think we should be paying about $280 per home per year more than we are, to take away the garbage.  If they ask you why, assuming you get that far, tell them it's because you personally like the garbage men who used to work for the Village, and although the system was inefficient, and we underpaid these guys you like so much, you just think we should pay more to keep them here and buy them new garbage trucks.  Let me know how it goes.  If you're successful with this appeal, I want to know how you did it, so I can try again next year to get the Commission to raise the tax rate.

In the meantime, please try to be a little more patient.  It's not perfect yet, but it's getting better.  And remember the mission: better and cheaper than it was, in half the time.  If your garbage isn't collected to your very complete satisfaction, don't bother to tell Heidi Shafran or Krishan Manners or me or Chuck Ross.  We don't pick up the garbage.  Contact WastePro through the Village website (look for the boldly presented "TracEZ" link in the middle of the opening page).  We'll get there.  And as they also say in infomercials, here's even better news: if this never happens to all of our satisfaction, the Village will cancel the contract with WastePro, we'll buy new garbage trucks, we'll hire back the people you like so much, and we'll send you that sanitation bill you said you wanted to pay.

You Can't Have it Both Ways.

On October 7, there was a provocative topic for the Commission meeting agenda.  The item was not heard, however, because its sponsor, Barbara Watts, did not come to the meeting.  I will assume the item will be reintroduced in November.

The item was a proposed Ordinance directing that the annexation matter be submitted to the general residents of the Park in a referendum.  This approach would replace the normal procedure of Commissioners making all BP votes on this matter.  This normal procedure is what has happened thus far, beginning a few years ago, continuing through last year, and proceeding through this year.

Barbara's argument was included in the backup for her Agenda item.  Steve Bernard, a strong adherent to Barbara's item, submitted a comment which he wanted read at the meeting.  It was not read, because the item was pulled, but I've seen it, too.  Barbara and Steve both argue that annexation is too unique and too important to be left in the hands of the Commission.  They further point out that some BP residents who are Commissioners right now (Steve cites in particular Roxy Ross, Bob Anderson, and me) have already, under other circumstances, argued for submitting to the residents-at-large certain uniquely important Village issues.  Their suggestion is that we show ourselves to be consistent in this philosophy, and that we once again advocate for turning to all BP residents to make these uniquely important decisions about the Village. 

Barbara and Steve are not wrong in references to Roxy, Bob, and me.  The citation of me was regarding the matter of moving the election.  Roxy and Bob are cited as advocating to go the referendum route, too, and it was regarding the same issue.  As is correctly noted, we all agreed that residents at large should vote on this matter, instead of having the Commission kill it for us.  Oddly, Steve was not with us at the forefront of this initiative of advocating for referendum.  Perhaps he felt that preserving the Village's stand-alone elections was too important to be left in the hands of the residents at large.  Barbara did distribute a flyer arguing against moving the election. 

So Barbara's and Steve's argument is about precedent and consistency.  They take what seems to be a solid and, by appearance, unassailable position.  Residents and stakeholders in a community should be consulted about important issues facing the community, and when their voices are clear and strong, they should prevail.  Some issues are so uniquely important to the community that they should simply be left to those residents and stakeholders to decide.  Who could argue with Barbara and Steve when they're so straightforward?  Well, it seems they themselves could.

Each of them has complained that three of the current Commissioners have made decisions that conflicted with what sounded like the expressed wishes of what could have been a significant proportion of our neighbors.  (If you think this sounds ambiguous, it very definitely is.)  Completely ignoring what one's neighbors/constituents clearly say they want?  (That's not ambiguous.)  Who would do such a thing?  And besides, the very nature of the annexation matter makes clear on its face that the decision should come not from the Commission, but from all BP residents themselves.  No?

Last year, a long line of BP residents pleaded with the Commission not to take Village money to pay for a mural.  No one, in fact, argued in favor of raiding Village coffers.  The "voice of the people" was unanimous.  Except for three of our neighbors.  Barbara Watts, Bryan Cooper, and Noah Jacobs voted, representing what appears to have been no one but themselves, to do what all their neighbors/constituents begged them not to do.  They snatched the money.  Just over a year and a half before that, there was again a long line of BP residents/homeowners who had waited interminably for a fence Ordinance.  Every single one of them pleaded with the new Commission to vote (up or down!) on the Ordinance that had been offered, after extensive prior review and two workshops.  It seemed that everyone in BP wanted a ruling.  Except three people.  Bryan Cooper, Barbara Watts, and Noah Jacobs ignored what every speaker wanted, and they decided to delay again, and to order yet more workshops, since none of the three had bothered to attend the two workshops we had already had.  Steve Bernard not only didn't complain about the Commission majority's completely ignoring, twice, the clear, loud, and unanimous voice of the people, he actually "congratulated" them for their "courage" in resisting public pressure regarding the fence Ordinance.  Just over two years before that, Steve sent an e-mail to a Village resident, and in that e-mail, he bemoaned what was to be a public referendum in Washington DC.  The referendum was about same sex marriage, and Steve pointed out the problem with asking the public to decide on this issue.  He imagined they would vote their strong personal feelings or even their consciences, instead of what he felt was clearly right.  He said that a referendum was a bad idea, because it could easily or likely result in a conclusion he knew was the wrong one.  It would reflect what the people wanted, not what was right.  Steve felt that same sex marriage was too important to be left in the hands of the general public. 

It appears Steve's doubt about allowing Village residents to determine when the election occurs was well-founded.  The general residents of the Park did in fact vote to do what he and Barbara felt should not be done.  They/we moved the election.  Barbara immediately lobbied the Commission for a new Charter Review Committee, presumably to undo the damage she decided we misguided residents had done.

In last year's mural project, Village residents "voted," not only by stating their preference among submissions, but by donating to the ones they liked best.  Barbara Watts lobbied heavily to choose one of the few submissions no Village resident liked, instead of the one most "voters" liked.  The popular choice was accepted, over Barbara's objection.  Part of Barbara's method of choosing the one she would promote involved installing a panel of non Village people she selected.  She relied on these "experts" over the preference of Village residents, thus trying to disqualify her own neighbors and constituents.  These were the same neighbors who were, as above, used against their will to pay for the mural.

So it's not at all clear that either Barbara or Steve think matters should be decided based on what residents in general want, or that important matters should be submitted to residents by referendum.  But perhaps they will say that this issue-- annexation-- is so unique and so important that it should be handled in a very special way.  It, above all things, must be left to residents to decide by referendum.  The Commission simply cannot arrogate this matter to itself.  But here's the problem.  It was only last year that Barbara and two of her Commission colleagues made their own vote on this very issue, without consulting the general public by referendum!  The question was whether to move ahead with an application to annex.  Instead of advocating for a referendum then (and neither did Steve Bernard), they took it upon themselves to do precisely what Barbara and Steve now say should not be done: they made a highly consequential decision, about annexation, without asking all of us what we thought.  They voted not to proceed with the application, thereby possibly ending, or at least materially handicapping, the whole project.  This decision was taken in exactly the way we are now told, by one of the very same people, is illegitimate.

The fact is, all of the three Commissioners who unflinchingly and without qualification favor annexation were elected last December, when the issue was very prominent during the campaign.  Two of us were clear and open about favoring annexation, and the third did not at all rule it out.  (A fourth Commissioner has signed on to the annexation effort as well, although with minor qualification.  He is one of the most persistently popular Commissioners in the history of the Village.)  Can we say that the people have already spoken regarding annexation?  Can we say that the proper, prescribed, and precedented process is already and correctly under way?

Ending in 2005, a Charter Review Committee made some very important changes to our Charter.  Annexation had been discussed for several years before this review.  No one could have said this was a brand new concept that could not have been anticipated.  If the Committee, which was chaired, by the way, by Steve Bernard, had felt that annexation should be brought to the residents at large, by referendum, this was the time to have inserted that requirement.  They didn't do that, and I can't think of any reason to change the rules now. 

Barbara Watts and Steve Bernard, more than most Village residents, have been precisely positioned to act on the unambiguously stated will of the people, to advocate for referendum for unusually consequential issues, and to insist particularly on referendum regarding annexation.  They have each declined persistently to do any of it.

Some Municipalities Have All the.......Luck.

This past Sunday, I saw a Miami Herald Neighbors article about Miami Beach.  On Normandy Isle, at the confluence of North Shore Drive and 71st Street, there is an obelisk, and it's in the middle of what looks like an elevated pool.  Clearly, the intention was that this installation be a fountain.  The Herald article said this installation was in fact intended to be a fountain, but that it had never functioned as one.  There was something about plumbing or electric power that had never, apparently, been connected.

The great news for Miami Beach, though, is that the City Council has designated $350K to rehabilitate this fountain.  It sounds weird to me.  I don't think building my house would cost $350K today.  Are they being ripped off, because they're a municipality?  Probably.  It's an awful lot of money, just to fix a fountain that never functioned as a fountain anyway.

The State is in the process of improving 6th Avenue in the Park, from 121st Street to the bridge to Miami Shores.  They're resurfacing.  This is less than half a mile, right?  About $900K.  I know.  Crazy.  But that's what it costs, and that's what the State is spending.

Were you in favor of the new Florida Marlins stadium where the Orange Bowl used to be?  Me, neither.  And there was lots of wrangling over it.  The cost to build that useless thing was about $525M.  Yes, two of those, and you've spent over a billion dollars.  The only question was whence the money would come: maybe some from the State, maybe the County, certainly the Marlins.

I could give you plenty more examples, but I doubt it's necessary.  The fact is, we in BP are currently trying to raise about $5500 to buy ourselves a beautiful piece of public art, and it's not easy.  How can other places scare up hundreds of thousands, or hundreds of millions, of dollars, often for something no one wants or needs, and we can't easily collect $5500?  The cost of rehabbing the fountain on the Beach is clearly inflated.  So is the cost of resurfacing a few tenths of a mile of 6th Avenue.  I don't even want to think what a rip-off Marlins stadium was.  The sculpture we want to buy was cheap.  We got a wonderful piece at a deeply discounted price.  And it's not easy to raise $5500?

Let me be candid.  The sculpture didn't cost $5500.  It cost $6000.  But Chuck Ross, who laid out the money, and took a risk, is "leaving $500 on the table."  He only wants $5500 back.  And I'll match him.  There, now we only need $5000.  We have donations already, from some of our neighbors, and they total about $841.  I'll tell you one of the people who donated: Heidi Shafran.  We pay her, and she gives back.  This should not be hard.

Think it over.  Take a look at The Ballplayer.  It's in Griffing/Founders' Park.  Do you like it?  Do you want the Village to keep it?  Donate something.  And the more of your neighbors you find to join you, the less you have to donate on your own.  Let's wrap this up.

Courteous, Sure. But Don't Be Shy. It Comes Out Looking Like Passive-Aggressiveness.

We've had what seems like a rash of a certain kind of problem lately.  People have expressed concerns about their garbage pick-up, or they've experienced that one or another kind of refuse wasn't picked up at all.  Maybe it seems to them that the garbage men didn't come get the bins from the side yard, or the bin wasn't replaced there.

It can't be anyone's goal that our garbage service not function properly and successfully.  Could it?  Isn't the whole idea that we want the refuse to be taken away and dealt with.  Wherever the garbage is, it shouldn't be at our homes.  It's in our immediate and central interest that it be collected and removed.  That is the point, isn't it?

I said we've been experiencing a problem lately, but it's really two problems.  The first is the complaint.  But the second is the failure to make a complaint, or at least not to make it when it will do much good.  If you think your garbage didn't get collected and disposed of timely and properly, reach out.  Make contact.  And do it as soon as you think there's a problem. 

What's been happening the past week or so is that people don't say that something seems amiss until days after the complained-of apparent lapse happened.  The big problem is that the garbage remains uncollected until someone does something about it.  And no one can do anything about it until someone is told there's a problem.  The other problem is that if no one knows there's a problem, then there is little way to analyze how the problem happened, so it can be avoided next time.

If you're going to say "Duh," let me tell you this has happened way more than you would think.  And don't ask me why someone would sit on a problem for days.  I have no idea.

If your uncollected garbage, sitting out at the curb, is not a problem to you, let me tell you, it's problem to your neighbors.  You'll get yourself an unwanted reputation if you manage your property that way.

If you have a problem, or you think you do, let someone know.  And do it the day you think you have the problem.  The Village website, www.biscayneparkfl.gov, has an easy-to-see link in the middle of the opening page.  It says Trac-EZ.  Click on it.  Register your complaint.  People who have done that, even people who don't like WastePro or don't like outsourcing, have been very gratified at the prompt and courteous result.  If you don't want to do that, or if you don't have a computer (then how are you reading this?), call 305-651-7011.

Dear Audrey,

I'm sorry.  It's been a very hectic day, and I wasn't able to have a proper e-conversation with you earlier.  I hope that by now, someone from WastePro has been to your house and your street to determine why the bins were still out there from three days ago.  You wrote to me to complain, and as you know, I replied, and I copied Heidi and Krishan.  They contacted Guerlin, who contacted Darryl, and I can't imagine the matter has not been resolved.  Let me know if it hasn't.

In answer to your question, no, I'm not sorry for my vote.  Under the circumstances, you're more than entitled to know why I'm not.

It's been one week into our contract with WastePro, and we've had glitches.  Boy, have we had glitches.  The first couple pick-ups went into the evening before they were complete.  People who were accustomed to their garbage being gone by noon found out it took much longer.  On one occasion, recycling was mixed with regular garbage to be dumped.  There's your issue about bins left out (and presumably not emptied by WastePro?).  My neighbor on the next block confronted me yesterday to say that he no longer has use of his alley to leave debris, and it will cost him more to have his gardener bag it and bring it to the front for pick-up.  He says the loss of use of the alley for refuse diminishes the "value" of his property.  It sure sounds like a mess.  As my neighbor reminded me, "it was all working well before."  He didn't ask me the question you did, but I could clearly hear it.

Most of the problems WastePro has had, and that we have had with them, will get better.  The route will get tighter, and WastePro is now thinking they may need to send three trucks instead of two.  The WastePro worker who rashly decided it was better to combine recycling with garbage than not get the route done has been informed of the mistake in calculation.  If WastePro was in any way responsible for the situation in your block, they will correct it.  (I hope it wasn't so simple as a homeowner forgetting to put the bin back.  I wonder if it was someone who had been accustomed to side yard service, but didn't request it from WastePro, and didn't expect to have to replace the bin him- or herself.  Darryl, Guerlin, Krishan, and Heidi will figure it out.)

Some problems can't be fixed, though.  For better or for worse, they would be problems whether we outsourced or not.  I think of my neighbor's complaint about the alley.  The reason we could use them is that our trucks were smaller than full size.  But one reason we had such inefficiency in our own system was that smaller trucks required more frequent trips to the dump, meaning the route took longer to finish.  It took two days per route instead of what will now be one day.  But even if we hadn't outsourced, we had to replace our trucks, and we determined to replace them with the larger ones, for greater efficiency.  Our larger trucks would not get down the alley any more than WastePro's, so that "loss" was going to happen no matter whether we outsourced or not.  Whether the loss of alley service adversely impacts property value is not in any way clear to me.  It would be clearer to you, in that you are a realtor, but even if it were the case, the vast majority of us don't live on alleys anyway.

The bigger issue, though, and the main reason I'm not sorry for my vote, is that the problems connected with not outsourcing are not fixable.  Yes, there are problems with not outsourcing, and no, they can't be fixed.  In fact, they only get worse.  We had a nice, low sanitation bill every year.  It was much lower than Miami Shores' bill.  We billed ourselves too low, because we were careless and short-sighted.  Whether we billed ourselves too low, because we were bad employers, is another matter.  We did not maintain and properly replace equipment, because we didn't plan the expenses in advance.  We should have, but we just didn't.  If you want to know why we very persistently failed to do this, I have no idea.  I'm told by some who have lived here a long time that every time we had to buy new trucks, we had to scramble to find money that was never saved for this completely predictable purpose.  Apparently, we never learned a lesson.  Ever.

We also maintained a crew of employees who were frankly, I'm sorry to say, not completely reliable about coming to work.  Every time one of them, or three of them, didn't come to work, other PW employees had to abandon their jobs to pitch in for sanitation.  That left the other jobs undone.  The alternative, which occasionally happened, is that the garbage route simply didn't get finished on the appointed day.  It might intrigue you to know that when that happened, no Village resident called in to complain about uncollected garbage.  That might leave all of us wondering why they seem to call in now, since we transitioned to WastePro, when it apparently wasn't a problem to them before.

As you might know, we also very persistently underpaid our prior sanitation employees.  Whether this was a factor in their seeming relaxation of dedication is unknown to me.

Had we not outsourced, we would have paid our employees more respectably.  This offer would have allowed us to hire two more sanitation workers, which we needed.  (We weren't able to replace the two empty positions, because the crummy wage we paid didn't attract applicants.)  We would have bought new trucks, which we needed anyway, and they would have been the larger ones.  So the route would no longer have included alley service.  As an independent manager of sanitation services ourselves, we would have been tasked with proper maintenance of vehicles and equipment, which we did not do before.  That, too, would have resulted in a higher sanitation bill.  If you want to blame either decades of lay Commissioners or two prior professional managers for these lapses, help yourself.  I don't see what good it does to assign blame.  The bottom line is failed foresight and failed maintenance.  With WastePro, we have a firm contract, including price.  On our own, we pay whatever it costs, whether there are unexpected problems, rising fuel and dump costs, or anything else.

The result of this is that without outsourcing, we have several "challenges," they are not predictable, and they are guaranteed to get worse.  Costs for any of these things do not go down over time.  And they do not rise at a predictable and manageable rate, as they do with an outsource contract.

So that's why I'm not sorry for my vote.  I clearly recognize the sense of loss and disappointment, and the inconveniences to some of us, including me (I live on an alley, like my neighbor does).  But of the choices, outsourcing was the better one.  If WastePro persistently fails us, which I doubt, we will cancel the contract with them.  We will then either find a different contractor, or we will once again try to do this ourselves.  If I have anything to say about it, we will not stick our heads in the sand, undercharge ourselves, and imagine it will all work out just fine.  It doesn't.  We will pay a proper sanitation fee, which for the coming year would have been in about the mid $700s.  It will go up every year after that, and we have no way to predict how high it will go.

I see, by the way, how exercised are the complaints about WastePro.  What we didn't learn, and maybe some day we will, is what kind of "feedback" we will get when we send out sanitation bills that are a couple hundred or more dollars higher than the ones to which we were accustomed.  As bad as that might be, it will be made a lot worse when it is compared to the lower bill that results from outsourcing.

Are the bins gone by now?

Fred

Sculptures at an Exhibition (With Apologies to Mussorgsky)

On Thursday, October 9, at 5:30 PM, we're "unveiling" two sculptures.  One is "The Ballplayer" in Griffing Park, and the other is "Red Headlong" in front of Village Hall.

We're meeting at the Griffing Park piece first, then walking over to the log cabin.  I don't know if someone is placing, then removing, actual veils, but we'll make a bit of ceremony over it.  Refreshments, I'm told, will be served at Village Hall.

Come see these two pieces, one or both of which you've already seen.  Come join your neighbors and enjoy this enhancement of the Village.  And feel free to donate, if you haven't already. 

"Red Headlong" is already paid for.  The Village now owns it.  "The Ballplayer" was purchased by one of our neighbors, and if we can contribute enough to reimburse him much of the way, we'll own that one, too.  The purchase price was $6000, and he says he'd like his own contribution to wind up being about $500.  So we're looking to collect $5500.  We now have $941, as some of us have already contributed.

Contribute what you like, and get your friends to chip in, too.  I have every confidence we'll get there.  Sooner is better than later.  In any event, come on by Griffing Park.  Thursday, 10/9, at 5:30.

Here We Go Again

Greetings Neighbors, 

I am writing you today to provide several videos and other thoughts to illustrate a disturbing trend that is happening within our Community. That being the failure to accept certain realities and the process of coming to terms with them.

In reviewing the agenda for tomorrow's Commission meeting, I noticed that Commissioner Watts has, once again, brought up the subject of annexation. I mention "again" in that she is simply re-hashing her same argument that failed to gain majority support from February 4th, 2014. The main difference now being that in February, it was the proper time to discuss it before any decisions were made. Her attempt to bring this topic up again now, some 8 months later & after the fact is not, and serves no constructive purpose.  

Barbara Watts apparently suffers from one of the most basic human failings shared by us all - she allows personal emotions to impact her business decisions. And this is problematic when serving as one of our elected public officials. Below is a link to the video from the annexation discussion on 2/04/14 to include the section from good and welfare. You will hear from those neighbors in attendance and the reasons behind their thinking.   

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgLi21OC7Wc 

During the annexation discussion on the video, Barbara Watts emotionally voices her distress and called for more delays and to defer the topic further. This, after personally admitting to the many delays and deferments already made by the previous Commission… one of which she was a part of. Her language and I quote; “because we want our sweet nice little Village, we want to live the way we want to live and we will be taxing the hell (half out of your mouth) out of these faceless people so that we can maintain our lifestyles” is disturbing to me on many fronts. 

Who is it that she serves? Our community, or the “faceless people” on the other side of the tracks?

I am at a loss to see how she, after studying our fiscal shortfalls finds that the proposition of annexation is to simply “maintain our lifestyle.” What is missing is the audited fact that our community has run a deficit in 8 out of the last 10 years losing $840,526 from our General Fund.  Why was this, the entire reason for this discussion in the first place not mentioned?  Curious isn't it?

Does she perceive only “greed” in seeking alternatives to simply survive as an independent entity? In this Barbara Watts has shown, in my opinion, very poor judgment towards the financial management of our community. All other Commissioners were in agreement, albeit Commissioner Anderson favored starting out with a smaller area first if possible. 

You will find another video that includes the final vote and, what should have been the conclusion of this discussion. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUUOuB4tzDM

After careful consideration the vote carried and was met with a hearty round of applause from the audience.  

Harvey Bilt said something during the Meet the Candidate’s night (December 2013) that struck a chord with me and was a pearl of wisdom. He stated and I quote “you’ve got to give in. If you don’t agree, then come up with a solution.”    

I feel there is a point that we all need to consider moving forward. And that point is… who do we want to be as a Community?

Do we want to continue to view ourselves as a fractured, disenfranchised lot or do we want to rise above the pettiness? If any of us choose to not be involved in the discussion and the process … and during the correct time, NOT these patented 11^th hour, [after the fact] panic knee jerk reactions, then we have no right… no right at all to complain or make idle threats due to our own negligence. There is no one to blame but ourselves. 

Below are comments from resident Andrew Olis:

At the last round of elections- (December 2013) annexation was one of the "hot topics" that was a part of every candidates platform, as was metal roofs opinion, code enforcement opinion etc...All were vocalized at the Meet the Candidates meeting. Elections occurred and the candidates were elected to be commissioners by the most votes (majority) of the residents based on their platforms and integrity. We need to allow our ELECTED OFFICIALS do what they promised. The clock has been ticking on this opportunity for a while now and of course becoming more and more difficult. We need to move things along faster in Biscayne Park and not to squander opportunities when we have a chance to do the right thing for the future of the Village. I am afraid to have the tightening window for the Annexation close, for the Log Cabin restoration and Village Hall annex getting bogged down in yet another war of opinions, and anything we have with a deadline. The Learning Center we lost (a $350,000 grant) was an embarrassing lesson learned already in bogging things down- why are we gearing up for a repeat? The future of our village is at stake. -Andrew Olis  

If we chose to be part of the solution… and not part of the problem… then we HAVE to be educated on the facts and get those facts from the proper source.  And that source is NOT some email circulation to only a select few under the cloak of secrecy. That action is part of the problem and not part of the solution! Neighbors, nothing is being hidden from you, there is no great conspiracy at work here, as suggested by some… but you need to be accountable for your own education. Until we are ALL willing to do this, I fear we will remain entrenched where we are… as we continue to bounce from topic to topic in unnecessary conflict.

 

Respectfully yours, 

Milton Hunter

Biscayne Park Resident

miltonhunter@gmail.com

 

"Jane, You Ignorant Slut"*

* The title was taken from an old Saturday Night Live routine involving Jane Curtin and Dan Aykroyd.  It was structured like the "Point, Counterpoint" interchange between Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick of 60 Minutes.  Curtin would do her routine, following which Aykroyd would give his response.  He always began "Jane, you ignorant slut."


Letter to the Editor from Jerome Hurtak, Biscayne Times, October, 2014:

The Grave Matter of My Conscience

In Elliot Pilshaw’s letter, under the headline “Genteel Homophobia in Miami Shores” (September 2014), he asked who called Mayor Herta Holly to convince her to vote against the resolution in favor of gay marriage.

Mr. Pilshaw, I for one called. I called Mayor Holly, Councilman Hunt Davis, and Councilman Jim McCoy because I am opposed to changing marriage to include homosexual relationships.

I believe that human sexuality is life-affirming and sacred because its natural object is the creation of human life. That is why human sexuality must be treated with respect and dignity by officially sanctioning it within a life commitment called marriage.

It is also the reason why my faith teaches that marriage is not just a contract, it is a sacrament. A homosexual relationship denies the natural object of human sexuality and therefore is neither life-affirming nor natural.

The sanctity of marriage has been accepted for thousands of years across cultures and religions. Marriage was not created by a government, wise man, or religion. It is an institution that existed before governments, and would exist if there were no governments. It has existed despite governmental persecution and humanity’s worst inclinations. It is not a scheme to obtain a government benefit.

The same cannot be said for homosexual marriage. Historically, homosexual marriage never existed as an institution -- even in cultures that accepted and supported homosexuality. Even today, when every media outlet bangs a relentless drumbeat in favor of homosexual marriage, it has lost whenever the issue was on the ballot -- even in liberal states. Homosexual marriage is a political artifice that has been and will be used to attack and silence anyone who believes homosexuality to be intrinsically sinful.

Because the proponents of homosexual marriage can’t win at the ballot box, they have to try and force it on the public with the help of poorly informed and in some cases prejudiced judges. And as part of their strategy, they use municipalities like Miami Shores to puff up their stature and indirectly influence judges by passing resolutions supporting homosexual marriage.

For about the past 15 years, proponents of gay rights have run candidates in Miami Shores. Financed, supported, and selected by outside organizations like SAVE Dade, they run campaigns, never mentioning their intent to push for resolutions supporting gay-rights causes except to their own gay-rights organizations.

Then, once they are in office, they wait for an opportune time, like the middle of summer, when many of our residents are out of town, and with minimal publicity they try to sneak through their resolution. Their primary interest is pushing their gay-rights agenda.

Vice Mayor Jesse Walters and Councilwoman Ivonne Ledesma have demonstrated that they place their gay-rights agenda ahead of the interests of our community. They use their office to further their gay-rights agenda, and God help anyone who gets in their way.

They will happily destroy the Mayor’s Ball, a fundraiser that supports dozens of community organizations, because they didn’t get their way on a nonbinding gay-marriage resolution that has nothing to do with the business of Miami Shores.

They disrespect the right of Shores residents to speak their conscience by labeling anyone who disagrees with them an “extremist” and guilty of “hate speech.”

To Mr. Pilshaw, Mr. Walters, and Ms. Ledesma I say: You are dividing and damaging this community with your political games and accusatory rhetoric. I ask you, when did it become hate speech to say that marriage and the creation of life are sacred?

To my Shores neighbors, I say it is time to stop the divisiveness. Tell the village council to stop playing politics. Tell them to attend to Miami Shores business and nothing more.

Tell council members that it is not appropriate to use their office to pass resolutions representing community support for causes that are not within their jurisdiction and which they don’t know are supported by the community, especially on issues that are a grave matter of conscience for many of our citizens.

Jerome Hurtak
Miami Shores

My letter in reply, sent to the BT:

Mr Hurtak,

I don't believe in "god."  I do, however, believe in marriage.  And whether I believed in "god" or not, I would believe that people should be allowed to marry each other, because that's the commitment they want to make to each other.  Even if they didn't want to have children, and even if they couldn't. Because I don't believe in "god," or the idea that the purpose of marriage is procreation, I also don't expect people who are married to crank out as many children as they can, to satisfy some imagined species-promoting aim.

Further, I believe that what I believe is none of your business, and it should not control or even influence your behavior.  You don't even need to know what I believe.  The fact that I don't believe in "god" should not mean that you can't go to church, and it certainly doesn't mean that I insist that you have a secular wedding, because the pronouncements of religious clerics don't count.  (How could they count?  They're made in the name of something that doesn't exist.) 

As you can probably well imagine, I also believe that what you believe is none of my business, either, and it should not control or even influence my behavior.  Not only do I not need to know what you believe, I'm happier not knowing.

And you're quite right to mention what "[your] faith teaches."  That's exactly what it is: your faith.  It isn't my faith, and it isn't the faith of a lot of other people.  Have you ever heard anyone say "It's a free country?"  It is for you, and it is for the rest of us.

So discuss your feelings about homosexuality with your religious friends.  Don't spew them in the Biscayne Times.  Your religious friends are interested to hear them.  The rest of us are not.

I am not, by the way, a homosexual person myself.  Not that that's any of your business, either.

I do agree with you, however, about one other thing: the non-binding Resolution had "nothing to do with the business of Miami Shores."  It had only to do with the mutual respect and decency of the people who live there.

                                                                                                                                               Fred Jonas

                                                                                                                                          Biscayne Park

Medians and Their Role in Controlling the Flow of Traffic

What a stupid title.  This post has nothing to do with medians, or traffic control.  That being said, it's true that medians have a dramatic effect on traffic control.  You can only go one way when the street is divided by a median.  And if the streets are sufficiently narrow, as ours are, for example, you can't even turn around.  There's no room for a U turn or a Y turn, and you're only allowed to proceed in one direction anyway.  Boy, do medians "control" traffic.

This post is about an ongoing conversation-- debate, really-- I've been having with one of our neighbors.  The debate is about the difference between expressing oneself and communicating here, in this blog, and communicating by using e-mail and a carefully selected recipient list.  My argument is that the blog is a better place to communicate, since it is completely open, anyone can communicate anything, and anyone who does communicate anything will get feedback, expressing either agreement or disagreement.  Our neighbor argues two things.  One is that the blog seems to her in some sense stacked, in that much of the correspondence is in agreement with what the commonest contributors say, and further, that people who respond with disagreement seem to get essentially pummeled, by me.  Her other argument is that there should be nothing wrong with communicating preferentially with like-minded people, and there should be nothing pejorative attributed to people who don't want argument or disagreeing feedback.   These are people who either preach to the converted, or, as I often see it, convert the congregation.

But here's my problem.  If extremists only communicate with like-minded extremists, but all factions have to coexist, then there is an impossible and maladaptive tension that can only result in endless and hopeless conflict.  No one ever learns anything from anyone else, so no one has an opportunity to change his or her mind, and there is not even an opportunity to "agree to disagree," with mutual full understanding of the competing arguments.

I myself have changed my thinking and understanding, and concluding, about things lots of times.  I couldn't do that if I shielded myself from having to know what the other argument was.  And further, the thing that would lead me to shield myself would be my sense of having either a strong mind or a weak mind.  If I thought I had a remarkably strong mind (or does this work out to be a weak mind?), so that I decided I already knew everything there was to know, then I would have neither need nor desire to know what anyone else thinks.  If I was afraid I had a hopelessly weak mind, I would not want to leave myself vulnerable to confounding input, like a dinghy at sea without a paddle, susceptible to what anyone said.  I would want quickly to find a position and cling tightly to it, avoiding having to know any other side, or even information.

When communication is sheltered and controlled, there is no opportunity to make a U turn, a Y turn, or any turn at all, and those following the thread/lead of the communication are not allowed to go in the other direction anyway, even if they could.  What happens at times, though, is that someone may find a way to alter his or her direction, and what I have typically seen happen is that he or she then is dismissed from the travel club or circulation list.

I do think this blog is a uniquely adaptive place for Village residents to communicate about Village-related issues.  It's true that if someone communicates here, he or she, myself included, takes the risk of getting feedback, maybe disagreement.  Is that a problem?  Personally, I only learn from people who disagree with me, or who can tell me something I didn't already know.  What should be concluded about someone who presents himself or herself as knowledgeable about Village matters, and who may want to influence the thinking of others, but who can't tolerate learning something he or she doesn't already know, or being disagreed with?