From the Mouths of Babes

My nephew and niece are visiting from California.  I had breakfast with them Sunday, until I had to leave to meet up with Chuck Ross.  Chuck and I set aside time to go door-to-door seeking donations for "The Ballplayer" sculpture.  I saw my nephew and niece again last night for dinner. 


Nephew: So how did it go Sunday, collecting money?

Me: We collected about $350.

Nephew:  That's not bad.

Me:  No, but we need a total of $6000.

Nephew:  How many people live there?

Me:  About 3000.

Nephew:  So why don't you have everyone pay $2 each?


Why, indeed?  Only 20-something, and already a genius.

Politics As Unusual

Some of the big news in the past week has been about W Administration and CIA-backed torture of terror suspects.  This in itself is old news, in that nothing revealed now is new, but what's new is the detailed revelation.  I saw one criticism of the revelation that said it was recently ousted Dems who were unloading all of this, since they're leaving office and have nothing to lose by embarrassing the W administration and even the rest of the country.  The reciprocal concept is that if they still thought they had discretion and reputations to protect, they would not have blown the whistle on W.  That's really a shame.  They would have kept dirty secrets, because it would have been to their personal disadvantages to spill them?

I'm reminded of Noah Jacobs' comment about governments' being "reactive," and I think in many respects, Noah was right.  At some level, governors are afraid of the governed, and of incurring their displeasure.  Governors are afraid to act, because they know that no matter what they do, someone will complain.  And either for the sake of future votes, or for the sake of their narcissism, governors shrink from voters' complaints.  The result is that they often won't act until a matter becomes so desperate that no one, or very few people, can accuse them of anything, since at that point, there is only one thing to do.  It is only then that governors have anything remotely like "courage."

I recently read JFK's Profiles in Courage.  This book was about a series of US Senators, from the early days of the new nation until about the 1940s.  Each of these Senators took bold and unpopular positions, ending the Senator's career in most cases, but positions taken because the Senator thought the position was right and in the best interest of the greater good.

I'm very proud to be a member of a Commission that has on more than one occasion pursued aims and initiatives that although not necessarily popular, were considered necessary and prudent in the greater interest of the future of the Village.  That's the big picture.  The fleeting preferences of individual Village residents are not in center focus.  That approach is essentially pandering, and it is politics as usual.  This Commission has opted to take the broader view, and adopt deeper and more sustaining meanings.

My commonest complaint about the last Commission was that a majority of its members didn't want anything.  Presumably, they wanted their stipends, but they didn't seem to want anything else.  They had no articulated ambitions about their neighbors or about the neighborhood.  The one seeming and partial exception was that they wanted lower taxes, but in that the Village is failing fiscally, this ambition is not considered wanting something.  Unless what they really wanted was for the Village to die.  They never admitted that (except that Bryan Cooper sort of admitted it), so I won't assert it as their overarching goal.

The present Commission does want something.  It wants a Village that is capable of surviving and thriving, and it wants a Village that is better than it was, and will be better than it is.  Because that requires change, and because some people don't like change, some of us appear to be at odds with others of us, or with some residents at large.  It is very possible that this discrepancy will cost some of us our Village jobs, if we want to keep them.  So be it.  If I "leave the Village better than I found it," I will be more than satisfied.  And I'll be more proud than I am already.


"For The Best We Can Be"

It May Have Hit the Fan.

We've done a rough calculation, and we now think we don't have enough in the grant to do all the work of erecting an annex building and renovating the log cabin.  The question is, where will we get the rest of the money?

At the special Commission meeting last night, this question was raised, and preliminary attention was paid to it.  We considered three sources of money.  Well, four.  Unless someone seriously thinks it's five.

Let's take #5 first.  Barbara Watts wonders if we can find even more grants.  The State hasn't suckled us enough.  Someone else should suckle us more.  As far as I'm concerned, 'nuf said.

Bob Anderson's idea (#1) was that we (our Manager) should sharpen our/her pencil more, and find even more dispensible luxury in the budget.  Seven years ago, this was a great idea.  Now, after five years of excellent professional management, it doesn't make sense.  Ana Garcia did sweeping major surgery to Village finances.  The budget was about as tight as it could get.  Heidi Shafran went further.  We are now at the bone, and we cannot meet any but our most life-sustaining needs.  That said, we do have a visible (not generous) reserve which will be about $425K when the new ad valorem revenue starts to filter to us, which is about now.  We'll come to that reserve later.  In the meantime, Bob's proposal was general, or abstract.  He imagines asking the Manager to perform some sort of sleight of hand that will somehow result in a couple hundred thousand more dollars.

Bob's not the only person who looks at Village finances that way.  AJ Gallo, one of our neighbors, typically says the same thing.  But Gallo is specific.  At budget time, he proposes one expense or another he personally considers superfluous.  I get it.  I could look at the budget and do the same thing.  In fact, having spoken to various of our neighbors, I'm convinced that if each of us scoured the budget, we could each find a little here and a little there.  And they wouldn't all be the same superfluities.  If we add them together, we can probably eliminate almost everything in the budget.  We can have really low taxes, too.

But here's the problem.  What AJ Gallo considers superfluous, I, or you, might think essential.  And vice versa.  The fact is, we just created a nice budgetary savings, by outsourcing sanitation, and a number of people were very unhappy about it.  They think we went too far.  And now, we're trying to increase revenue by annexing another area, and again, there are complaints that we are ruining something about the Village.

So I think Bob is very wrong.  I think we've reduced everything that can reasonably be reduced, and any other effort gets too much blowback.  And besides, even attempting further reductions would not raise nearly enough money to cover the imagined shortfall for the construction projects.

Roxy Ross, David Coviello, and, to some extent, Bob Anderson thought we should borrow the shortfall (#2).  Here's my concern about that.  The Village doesn't make money.  It has no way to make money, other than to tax its residents.  So if we don't have the money now, we can't get it and the added debt service in the future, except by taxing ourselves higher.  If that's what we're to do, then let's just do it now, once.

My thinking is to use that $425K we have in reserve, and pay for the rest of the project ourselves (#3).  We actually have the money, and this is a good use for it, since we all agree to do the work.  Bob Anderson, and possibly unspoken others, are afraid to tap the reserves, but we have no use for them.  I would be delighted to use them for something else, like median improvement or any of a number of other projects, but it appears this is not going to happen.  So let's apply it to the annex/rehab.

David Coviello's other suggestion was that we perhaps hold off on part of the project, which will allow us to spend $126K less up front.  But we all agree we should ultimately spend it to complete the task, and Dave must have been thinking we would somehow eventually find the money in the future.  And I agree with Dave.  In fact, my other suggestion (#4) is that if we delay, we step up our efforts to succeed with our annexation attempt, and use the revenue from the annexed tracts to finish the construction job.

But the fact is, it's not necessary to delay, it's not necessary to beat an emaciated budget to death, it's not necessary to borrow money we can't exactly repay, and it's not necessary to wonder who else in the world, besides the citizens of Florida, love us and want to provide for us.  We can do it ourselves.  And in my opinion, we should.

What, More Bashing? If They're Not Beating on Gays and Lesbians, They're Beating on Me. Letters in Biscayne Times.

I Liked Biscayne Park -- Until I Saw that Letter from Fred Jonas
In reference to the letter to the editor by Commissioner Fred Jonas of Biscayne Park (“Jerome, I’m Happier Not Knowing What You Believe” (November 2014): At first I thought, why should I take the time to share my thoughts relating to a heated topic in Biscayne Times this Veterans Day, as I and my family have proudly served and are still serving this country? Then I thought, should a commissioner have actually responded the way Mr. Jonas did?
I grew up in Miami have seen individuals choose politics as their calling, but a politician is supposed to serve his community and should not be biased. Comments should be made in a professional and positive manner. Mr. Jonas, just as you asked the writer, Jerome Hurtak of Miami Shores, to keep his comments to himself, I ask you to keep your negative comments to yourself.
Because you are a commissioner of Biscayne Park, I ask you to represent your community in a positive light. I recently thought of buying a property in your city, but after reading your letter, I will stay in the City of North Miami.

Yessenia GonzalezProud Resident of North Miami

Jerome Hurtak to Fred Jonas and Peter Konen: Thanks for Making My Point!
I welcome Mr. Konen’s and Commissioner Jonas’s responses to my letter to the editor (“The Grave Matter of My Conscience”) in the October Biscayne Times. They prove my point.
Mr. Konen implies that I’m a bigot for opposing gay marriage. As proof he offers a hypothetical man and woman who married with no intention of having children. According to Mr. Konen, there is a “clear parallel” between his hypothetical man and wife and a homosexual couple.
But the situations are not parallel. The hypothetical man and wife can change their minds (and hearts) and have children; the homosexual couple can’t.
The reason the homosexual couple can’t have children has nothing to do with whether people who oppose gay marriage are bigots. It is a simple fact of life. But to proponents of gay marriage, facts, logic, and reason don’t matter because they have a strategy to call anyone who opposes gay marriage a bigot as a means of intimidating and silencing opposition.
Commissioner Jonas’s letter presents the most tortured of non sequiturs. He repeatedly and emphatically says that what he believes is none of my business -- and then he proceeds to publicly state what he believes. Well, if what you believe is none of my business, why are you telling me and the rest of the world what you believe?
Commissioner Jonas, you are a public officeholder, and it does matter what you believe because you are making decisions that directly affect the lives of others, and what you believe affects the decisions you make.
Unfortunately, Commissioner Jonas doesn’t stop there. He continues from that rather confused point to suggest that my views should not be allowed in Biscayne Times. Commissioner Jonas will graciously allow me to discuss my views on homosexuality with my “religious friends” because he says this is a “free country,” but he warns, “Don’t spew them in Biscayne Times.”
A public officeholder suggesting that a citizen shouldn’t comment in a public forum because he doesn’t like those views should cause the entire community concern. But that is the norm for proponents of gay marriage because, as I stated in my original letter, 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.
Thank you, Mr. Konen and Commissioner Jonas, for proving my point.
Proponents of gay rights don’t want anyone to be able to speak against their agenda. They fanatically pursue their own cause and are intolerant of those who differ -- which, by the way, is Webster’s definition of the word “bigot.”
One final thing. Since Mr. Konen likes hypotheticals, I offer him the following: Should bisexuals be allowed to marry two or more people?

Jerome HurtakMiami Shores

 

 

My Reply:                                                                                                                                               

 

Dear Ms Gonzalez and Mr Hurtak,

Thank you very much for your comments and your reactions.

Biscayne Park is a unique community, and we like to think of ourselves as uniquely tolerant, too.  I have neighbors and friends here of different races, different religions, and different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds.

I have friends and neighbors who are single, who are married with children, who are married and chose not to have children, who are married and could not have children, and who are gay or lesbian.  I even have friends and neighbors who are gay or lesbian and who do have children.  (Mr Hurtak, contact me privately, and I'll explain how something like that can come to be.)

My friends and neighbors, and constituents, in Biscayne Park know they can count on me completely to uphold this diversity among us, and to confront people with attitudes like yours.  I am a faithful protector of the rights, the liberty, and the personal styles of my friends, my neighbors, and my constituents.

No, Ms Gonzalez, it seems likely you would not like it here.  For whatever are your reasons, you are offended at the idea that an elected official would go to bat for you.  And aggressively so.  And it would not suit you to live in a community where one of your neighbors, or an elected official, didn't agree with you about something, or expressed him- or herself in a way of which you didn't approve.  Luckily for you, all of your neighbors and elected officials in North Miami get it just right.  Your level of intolerance and dismissal would leave you unhappy here.

And Mr Hurtak, you wouldn't like living as we do here, either.  We are far too tolerant.  We accept everyone.  We don't insist people fulfill someone else's concept of a "purpose" of marriage.  The purpose of marriage is commitment between people who love each other.  We don't try to construct some other fantasy.  We do not frown on people whose affections are same sex, and we do not frown on people whose affections are other gender.  Our affection, mine and that of the community, is for all of them.  

 

Fred Jonas

Commissioner, Biscayne Park