"Win/Win:" Annexation.

I recently attended the AIEMO (Advanced Institute for Elected Municipal Officials).  This offering of the Florida League of Cities is, by the way, a remarkable resource for elected officials.  It is my plan to urge the Commission to require it of all Village Commissioners from now on.  Not only is it excellent training, but it is relatively convenient (the basic course was three full days, and the advanced course was two full days), and it is surprisingly cheap.  Tuition for the basic course was $300, and for the advanced course $245.  This is vastly cheaper than a similar offering by the Good Government Institute.  It's easy to afford out of the yearly Commission stipend of $2000, and $4000 for the Mayor, and it's designed to be taken only once.

The first speaker for the Advanced course talked about the dynamics of working relationships among Council/Commission colleagues.  The speaker categorized working outcomes in a variety of ways, including "win/win."  I mistakenly thought "win/win" outcomes involved what amounts to compromise, but the speaker pointed out an essential difference between win/win and compromise.  In a compromise, each party gets part (presumably the essential or core part) of what he or she wanted, but sacrifices some other part of what was desired.  In win/win outcomes, however, each party gets all of what he or she wanted.  Win/win outcomes are "synergistic," and they rely on novel and not previously imagined mechanisms of problem-solving.  This is their essential feature: they depend on finding a solution which neither party contemplated, and that solution is better than the one either party proposed on its own.  This is the synergy.  It involves "thinking outside the box."

As a frame of reference, here is the example the speaker gave of a win/win outcome.  One side wanted to preserve a bike/walk path in a Florida scrub.  The other side wanted to burn the scrub, to regenerate it, and this would destroy the path that was there.  The battle was about whether to burn, and lose the exercise path, or not to burn, and leave the scrub unhealthy.  The conclusion was to burn, but to rebuild an even better path elsewhere in the scrub.  Those who wanted a nice exercise path through the scrub got one, and those who wanted to burn the scrub to regenerate it, got their wish.

Here are the issues that led me to conclude that annexation was the best idea.  First, I think the Village has fiscal problems that result in very significant functional problems.  We do not have the money to fix the streets, improve the medians, maintain our Village Hall, erect a wall along the track, or do much of anything other than keep ourselves going day to day.  At that, our reserve has gradually, maybe even inexorably, eroded over time.  Second, I think these are functional problems we as a municipality should solve.  Third, I want to preserve the essential quality of the Village.  According to my vision, that essential quality is centered on our being charming, quaint, almost 100% residential, and possessing a modest polish.  One way to summarize this state is what one of my friends calls pride.  I do not consider it part of our essential quality that we are unkempt, deteriorated, and giving the impression of having given up and become depressed.

In order to achieve what I believe are our legitimate and essential goals, I think the answers are vision and money.  Assuming we have the former, we do not have the latter.  Proposals to acquire it have been few and unreliable, if not seemingly unattainable.  We cannot raise taxes any more.  At a millage of 9.7, there is significant resistance to going higher, even though the average increase to tax at 10 mills would be less than $40 per home per year.  So there's little meaningful room and no resolve.  (There is overpowering resistance to making a real problem-solving effort, and taxing ourselves at let's say 15 mills.) 

We cannot rely on the idea that property values will increase, resulting in increased ad valorem revenue.  First of all, values might not increase.  Second, it would take a great deal of time, and depend on residents selling their houses and moving away, to realize this benefit.  Third, even if values increased, and even if we could wait the years and decades until this had a meaningful fiscal result, we would have to hope that values would not again decrease.  I assume that by now, we all know better.

The other suggestion to improve our finances is to reduce expenses.  There is no more real room to do this.  We just reduced our PW expense by outsourcing sanitation, and this was met with vigorous resistance, even from many of the same people who say they want to reduce expenses.  The only other expense some people say they want to reduce is the expense of professional management, but so doing leaves us again with what we all already concluded was inadequate local/lay management.  "There's no there there."

Because I want to maintain the essential character of the Village, I have not favored the installation of a new school, and I have been opposed to erecting a retail installation on Village property.  Neither of these would be guaranteed to result in meaningful and consistent revenue anyway, but even if they did, they materially undermine our "persona" in a way that no one seems to favor.  Even the proponents and supporters of the school and the retail installation say they want to preserve our essential quaint, small town charm by avoiding commerce and industry even nominally associated with the Village.  Their gymnastic ability is apparently much greater than mine.

So I have been led to conclude that annexation of a high revenue area "off site" is the best way to solve the problem.  As I see it, it preserves everything I and the rest of us want to preserve, and it results in the increased revenue we need.  It is as reliable as possible.

But the whole idea of the "win/win" outcome includes the likelihood that there is a great solution that I haven't imagined, and maybe others haven't, either.  So I'm all ears.  I've said what's important to me, and those who oppose annexation have said what's important to them, at least insofar as saying that it's important to them that we not annex anything.  Let's find that solution that gives all of us what we want.  I will abandon annexation like a shot, as soon as someone presents an alternative that is reliable and satisfies what I believe are our needs.  "I don't care what we do, and I don't even care what happens--I don't care whether we solve our problems-- as long we don't annex" won't do it.  I care what happens.  I care whether we solve our problems.  You help me protect what's important to me, and I'll help you protect what's important to you.  We just need to find a reliable, goal-directed way of working together. As I said, I'm all ears.  Talk to me (don't bark at me).

As a point of departure, let me add that if a counterargument is that we really don't have fiscal problems, or that we don't have functional problems, or that we should not address our functional problems, I will consider this approach to be a non-starter.  Likewise, if our fiscal problems are attributed to a different problem we can't control, instead of what I think is the problem we can't control, that, too, will be considered to be an irrelevant misdirection.

I would really be happy to find a different solution.  There just has to be one, it has to work, and it has to be reliable and stable.  My limitation is that I can't think of one.  If you can, PLEASE, by all means!  Don't tease us.


PS: There are some Village residents who really don't want the Village to annex anything.  They will protest it vigorously.  This blog post, right now, is a critically important opportunity for them to offer something else.  I favor annexation, but I already said I'd drop it.  Just give me something better.   "Anything but annexation" is not something better.  If they'd rather try for a referendum than to tell it to all of us here-- to go for weight instead of substance-- there's a real message in there.  People who eat like that-- who go for lots of empty calories-- become fat, actually undernourished, and are unhealthy.  Not on my watch.