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

 

                                                                                                                                                

Watch Your Back.

This past Saturday, Joe Chao offered an orientation to self-defense.  He called it a Situational Awareness Workshop, and he introduced his audience to a few of the themes and even techniques in being careful in an environment that is not always friendly.

Joe described alertness and attitude as four levels.  The white level is the person whose guard is completely down, who is paying no attention, and who is the perfect victim.  The orange level is the person who knows basic approaches and techniques and can be properly vigilant and at least minimally capable of self-defense.  The best offense is a good defense, and Joe's advice is always geared to how to avoid confrontation or how to escape it.  Joe does not advocate that people look for fights, and certainly not that they find them.

But (sh)it happens, and the red level is actual battle.

Black is the color of mourning.  'Nuf said.

Joe's audience on Saturday was very spare.  There were more BP police officers there than there were civilians.  But a few of us were there.  This was a free, introductory session.

Joe does real trainings, intended to teach reliable approaches and attitudes, and to instill practiced techniques.  He'll help you develop "muscle memory" for the techniques, and you'll wind up getting in better shape, too.  He runs his sessions twice a week.  If students attend once a week, it's generally on Saturday mornings.  If they attend twice a week, the other session is Thursday evenings.

Although Joe has a day job, he is in fact a professional, with decades of experience, at Situational Awareness and martial arts.  Apart from the occasional free session, like the introductory one on Saturday, he charges for the education he provides.  He charges about $50 per month for once a month attendance, and about $85 a month for twice a month.  There is a discount for BP residents.  Classes are organized by level of experience and expertise of the students.  There is very definitely a basic or entry-level class.

If you're interested, which you should be, contact Joe through www.MMA-F.com, or call him at 305-542-5549.  He's an expert, he's a good guy, and he's your neighbor.

Background on the Movement for Annexation in Biscayne Park, and Don’t Lie on the Track:

In September, 2013 Rox Ross submitted a detailed Agenda Memo as support to move forward with a formal application to the County to annex certain properties to our east.  That Agenda Memo contains a detailed history of the Village Comprehensive Plan amendments adopted in 2008 and formally approved in 2010.  The plan amendments were shaped after more than 10 public hearings, held between 2007 and 2010.

What is our Comprehensive Plan?

The Comprehensive Plan is essentially the Master Plan for the Village.  It is a document required by Florida Statute, submitted to the State, which defines the goals for the Village to accomplish in the future. 

For the future of Biscayne Park the train is in motion, attempts to derail annexation could permanently jeopardize the best opportunity the Village has to diversify its tax base.

​  

Steve Bernard, the person pressing for the “people to vote” on a referendum against annexation, voted to adopt and approve amendments to the Village Comprehensive Plan in 2008 (Ord. 2008-2) in Aug, 2008 and again in 2010 (Ord. 2010-3) in October, 2010.  These amendments included ADDING a policy to annex unincorporated areas.  Let me repeat that the amendments proposed in 2008 included adding a plan for annexation!  The motion to adopt the 2008 amendments to the Comprehensive Plan was made by Chester “Doc” Morris; the motion to approve the 2010 amendments to the Comprehensive Plan was made by Steve Bernard.  The votes were unanimous for approval of the amendments to the Comprehensive Plan —votes made by two separate Commissions. 

So, Steve voted for annexation twice, once in 2008 and again in 2010; and Doc Morris voted for annexation in 2008 (Doc’s term expired in 2009).

One policy amendment to the plan was to provide ​as a first priority ​for annexation, specifically certain properties to the east of BP and as a secondary priority certain properties to the west towards 2^nd Ave.  I refer to policy 1.9 of the Intergovernmental Coordination Element, page 32 of the Comprehensive Plan.

Both Steve Bernard and Doc Morris sat as commissioners and actually adopted amendments providing for annexation WITHOUT A VOTE OF THE PEOPLE!

​These Commission actions did two things, as we look back on it.  

First, Commission votes twice established annexation as a firm goal and committed plan.  The tracts to the east identified by the previous Commissions included an area substantially larger than the area that is subject to the Village’s current application.  The difference is that the current Commission has narrowed the request and the current application is only for commercial properties.  The current application is less in scope than the policy adopted by prior Commissions, and does not include the area known as “Peach Tree”.

What’s more, the second thing these Commission votes did was to create and affirm a precedent regarding Village protocol for changes to the Comprehensive Plan, including annexation.  The established protocol is that Comprehensive Plan amendments including annexation are initiatives implemented by Commission vote.  --- No requirement for a referendum was asserted by the Charter Review Committee on which Steve Bernard sat, nor by the two Commissions which included Steve, and one  which included "Doc."  No referendum was suggested by the last Commission (ended in 2013), which included Barbara Watts, Noah Jacobs and Bryan Cooper.     

The current commission is now acting on a policy that was put in place and reaffirmed by two prior ​Commissions, unanimously!  A plan that has been a work in progress for close to ten years.

    

It has been determined by our finance director among other experts going back to 2004 that we need to diversify our tax base.  The last 10 years evidence the fact that we need to bolster our revenues.  So in my mind there is no alternative to annexation and no alternative has been proposed by those for the referendum or against annexation. 

So Really What’s the Point of a Referendum at this time? 

The current Commission has reduced the scope contemplated in the Amended Comprehensive Plan, and has taken the path of least impact to the Village, strictly commercial properties (the two residential apartment houses are commercial properties).

Ross Memo on Annexation:

http://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/Agenda_Item_12.a_Regular_Commission_Meeting_10_01_2013.pdf

Link to Ord. 2010-3:

http://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/%7B3461ADB3-BE7C-4F07-90CE-F28144255185%7D.PDF

Link to Ord. 2008-2:

http://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/%7B83588EAB-4B4E-493D-8052-7706DD11619E%7D.PDF

Link to comprehensive Plan:

http://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/Biscayne_Park_Comprehensive_Plan_Final.pdf

Francis Bacon. (The Jacobean Philosopher, not the 20th C Painter)

In The Advancement of Learning, Bacon wrote:

"'The first distemper of learning' is denounced as that by which 'men study words and not matter.'"  He further argued that "men have withdrawn themselves too much from the contemplation of nature, and the observations of experience, and have tumbled up and down in their own reasons and conceits."  He added "this kind of degenerate learning did chiefly reign amongst the schoolmen, who having sharp and strong wits, and abundance of leisure, and small variety of reading, but their wits being shut up in the cells of a few authors (chiefly Aristotle their dictator*) as their persons were shut up in the cells of monasteries and colleges, and knowing little history, either of nature or of time, did out of no great quantity of matter, and infinite agitation of wit, spin out unto us those laborious webs of learning which are extant in their books ... cobwebs of learning admirable for the fineness of thread and work, but of no substance or profit." (1)

*Aristotle had taught, and many generations of his adherents had accepted, that an object of low weight would fall more slowly than an object of greater weight.  Galileo actually tested this theory and found it to be wrong, and Isaac Newton agreed with him, but by then, Aristotle was long gone and could not personally be corrected.

I know what you're thinking.  WTF, Fred?  Where are you going with this arcane and seemingly self-stimulatory nonsense?

Well, here's the thing.  I've been there myself.  I might even have perpetrated this fault on a bad day or two.  It's not hard to get so lost in your own thought process that you forget how insular and distorted it can become.  You can substitute theorizing and imagining for real reasoning, and even observation, and it leads to very wrong conclusions.  Now it's true that I may never have had a real gift of gab, as some people do, and maybe I didn't succeed much in persuading people to buy into some of the ideas of which I had convinced myself, but I won't lie here.  I did, on occasion, work myself around to distinctly faulty conclusions, paint myself into an untenable intellectual corner (which turned out not to be true), and communicate my brilliant, but wrong, bottom lines and underlying "reasonings" to other people.  Yup, I've done that.  And I'm not the only one who's done it.  Francis Bacon thought there was a whole system of learning and teaching, over centuries and millennia, that did that.  I suppose that if anything, I should be glad that I wasn't more successful in "baffling with bullshit" when I would have told myself I thought I was "dazzling with brilliance."

But, I try to do the right thing, and I know not to get too carried away with myself if truth and reality are the aims, which they are.  Although it's tempting to latch onto statements, postures and systems of reasoning that seem to be engaging to other people.  Everyone wants to be liked, right?

Take, for example, the matter of annexation of "over there" by BP.  I wrote a whole clever and wise-assed blog post explaining what a bad idea it was.  The date of that post was 10/3/12, and I called it "Prostitution."  (See how clever and wise-assed I was?)  Francis Bacon would have used that post as a perfect demonstration of the power of imagination and rote over reality.  By the time I wrote another mostly anti-annexation post on 11/13/12, I was still poised against, but I was starting to entertain questions, maybe even some early doubts about my resistance.  As I learned more, I came to see I had made a mistake, and the posts of 6/12/13, 7/12/13, and 10/30/13 were pro-annexation.  I even included the fact that I had changed my mind as part of one of the titles.

Likewise with outsourcing sanitation.  I'm proud, and a bit embarrassed, to say that in last year's election campaign for Commission, in the Candidates' Forum, I was the only candidate to receive applause for something I said.  The question was about outsourcing Village services, and I sweepingly said "I wouldn't outsource anything."  Boy, did that resonate with people in the audience.  But the subsequent process of learning more, and having to deal with facts instead of just my own fantasy life, led me to realize the error of my approach, and to change my mind and my position.  Bad, bad, bad.  But correct, correct, correct.  You might be thinking my change of position was like the line about the operation that was a success, but the patient died.  I'm thinking the opposite.  I could have performed a "successful" operation by upholding the stated wishes of a group of my neighbors/constituents, but I know this would have hastened the real death of the Village.  (Although, as it was alluded to by Bob Anderson, it's extremely likely that if we had not outsourced sanitation this year, we would probably have done it next year or so, just at a greater loss to the Village.)

Bacon was right.  When you confine yourself to what you tell yourself, or to what you and a close group of like-minded people agree to, you don't learn, and you don't function in reality.  If all you want to do is theorize, it's OK to be wrong.  But if there are practical and functional consequences, you can't afford to be wrong.  Not unless you're OK with the adverse consequences.  I wasn't.

(1) Rebellion: the History of England from James I to the Glorious Revolution, Peter Ackroyd.  Thomas Dunne Books.  2014

PETA

PETA sent out an e-flyer, which they called "What PETA Really Stands For."  I replied:

You've said something terribly important about PETA, and any legitimate effort to confront mistreatment of animals: "We are fooled into...cuddling with furry baby beings."  I'm not an expert on PETA, but I know some people who are very strong advocates for the "equal" rights of non-human animals.  They won't eat meat or anything that comes from an animal, and they won't wear leather.  But they do keep pets.  They seem to think that because it pleases them to domesticate non-human animals, and because they treat their "pets" well, that it's somehow OK to do this to animals.  I myself can't see why it is.  Those same people would protest stridently if someone talked about raising cows in cow luxury, in wide open pastures, with other cows as company, and slaughtering them in the most humane and painless way imaginable.  But they will "train" a dog and condition it to live as the people would live, very often not in the primary company of other dogs.  Or they similarly "keep" cats.

 

Keep up the great work of challenging people who mistreat animals in any way.  And make sure you add, conspicuously, that there is something very wrong, sadistic, with respect to these animals, with domesticating them.

 

Fred Jonas


And they replied:

Thank you for your inquiry. In a perfect world, all animals would be free from human interference and free to live their lives the way nature intended. They would be part of the ecological scheme, as they were before humans domesticated them. But the world we live in is far from perfect, and domestic cats and dogs are not capable of surviving on their own, so we have a responsibility to take the best possible care of these animals. 
 
PETA is absolutely opposed to breeding. In U.S. shelters alone, up to 4 million dogs, cats, puppies, and kittens are euthanized each year, simply because there aren’t enough homes for them. Given the astounding number of healthy and loving but unwanted animals, we believe that breeding more animals merely to satisfy the desire for a particular behavioral or physical trait is absurd. We do, however, encourage those who have the desire, time, and patience to take good care of an animal to rescue homeless strays or adopt animals from a shelter. In fact, most PETA staff members live with animals who have been rescued from abuse or abandonment.
 
Thank you again for your inquiry and for your concern for animals.
 
Sincerely,
 
The PETA Staff


So I replied:

Dear PETA Staff,

PETA is sometimes accused of uncivilized militancy in its advocacy of the rights of non-human animals.  I myself have occasionally felt on the fence as to whether I agree that PETA is overboard.  The alternative is that PETA is just single-mindedly zealous, in a way that deserves respect.  The one thing that would allow you to deserve that respect would be consistency.  Once you make statements like the one you just made-- that the animals many people like to domesticate would not be capable of living on their own anyway-- you surrender consistency.  I don't know where you live, but in the places I have lived, various places, there have been problems connected with "wild" cats and dogs.  They breed to their hearts' content, they prey on what they want, and sometimes, they attack people's "pets."  They are more than capable of living feral lives, and it is the people, not the dogs and cats, who are complaining.  Nobody thinks they're "cute," except the ladies (it's usually ladies) who like to leave food for them.  But looking cute or being cute is not of importance to the non-human animals.  They're more than satisfied living their feral lives.  They don't need people to pet them or cuddle them.  It's the people who seem to want that.  The non-human animals have each other, and that's all they want.  Isn't that sad for the people who wish the animals loved them?  These are often people who, by the way, will sometimes say (admit) that they get along with animals better than they do with people.  That's the people's problem, not the animals' problem.

I happen to be a psychiatrist.  One of my old friends quotes a professor of his on the matter of mental health treaters having sex with their patients: "get your lovin' some place else."  So it goes with people who want pets to love them.  Get yourself a person, and figure out how to love and be loved by them.  Don't domesticate animals and convince yourself that the animal loves you or needs you, by depriving them of what they really want and offering yourself instead.

I'll tell you a great story I hear from time to time, most recently a week ago.  This was in response to why one of my neighbors did not want to bring her dog to our "Walk a Hound, Lose a Pound" neighborhood event, and why she doesn't bring her dog to dog parks, either: "My dog doesn't like other dogs."  Yup, and it's not the first time I've heard some completely twisted up person make a statement like that.  She should ask Cesar Millan, "the dog whisperer," if her dog doesn't like other dogs.  He'd tell her that dogs are "pack animals," and there's nothing they like better than other dogs.  People should stop kidding themselves, and PETA should stop kidding itself, that dogs and cats need or want people, or to be domesticated by them, for their survival or happiness.  It's a fantasy of people.

To be perfectly honest with you, I'm disappointed.  I read, and quoted to you, your statement, and I thought you actually understood and believed what you clearly said.  You were right to have said it.  You're wrong to qualify it now.

 

Fred Jonas

 

 

I haven't heard back.

 

 

 

  

To Be Clear about Annexation

The gathering at the Commission meeting was unexpectedly small, considering the rumblings regarding discussion of annexation and referendum.  Only a few people addressed these issues in public comments.  About half suggested that the Commission should proceed on its own.  The other half either advocated or threatened referendum.

There are two issues regarding annexation.  One is whether the Village needs money it doesn't have, and the other is whether annexation is the way to get it.  In truth, those who didn't want annexation failed to address either issue.  Their one posture was that they didn't want annexation.  No reason was given, no statement was made about Village finances (even that they think, in theory, that Village finances are plenty robust already, and there is no need to try to improve them), and no alternative to annexation was proposed.

This posture was untenable.  It was empty.  Those who adopted it made no attempt to connect their argument to reality, or even, really, to the Village.  There was nothing but a slogan: "if the Commission tries to pursue annexation, the voters will rise up to take the decision away from you."  (I'm paraphrasing.)  And replace it with......nothing.  In the interest of......nothing.  The imagined victory is not the life and health of the Village.  It is the refusal to annex, or apparently to improve Village finances in any way at all. 

The implication, and the result, are a refusal to improve the Village.  Money is nothing, except what it can buy.  The reason the Village needs more money is that it needs better medians, and streets, and other fixtures, and equipment, and ability to do post-hurricane clean-up, and improved lighting, and any of a hundred other things.  The argument against annexation, and the failure to propose anything else, is an argument against keeping the Village healthy, vibrant, well-conditioned, and able to survive.

That was the argument we heard from those who wanted to farm out the annexation decision to the residents at large.  Because the truth is, those people were counting on the public at large to do what the current Commission majority will not do: repudiate annexation.  It was never true that the sponsors and supporters of the referendum idea fundamentally care what Village residents think and want, about annexation or about anything else.  They have shown that to us repeatedly.  They have failed to solicit, or accede to, the voice of the people about a range of issues, including annexation.  Their proposal last night was disingenuous at best, and dishonest at worst.

Was it Lee Iacocca who said it?:  "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."  The path to the health and life of the Village is a path toward annexation.  It is the recognition that conventional municipalities cannot maintain finances without a diverse revenue source.  Village residents are welcome to follow the lead of those who are pursuing annexation as the best way to provide that diversity, and stability.  Or, they can present something just as good and reliable.  Or something better.  They can lead, and the rest of us will happily follow them.  They haven't done this before, and they didn't do it last night.  No, they refused to follow, and they had no direction in which to lead us.  Their graceful remaining alternative was to step back, out of the way.  They didn't do that, either.

Being an elected official is a difficult job.  It's a huge responsibility, and it involves sitting at the desk where the buck finally stops.  Most people, most good, able, and talented people, will not choose this job.  I don't blame them.  But the people who don't want this responsibility have to leave the difficult decisions to the people who are willing to accept it.  You don't get to have "authority without responsibility."

We were reminded last night of the infamous "petitions" to which Commissioners were suppose to have acceded some months ago, when the matter was sanitation.  We were suppose to have heard the voices of our neighbors, our constituents.  If they--some alleged number of them-- didn't want to outsource sanitation, we were not to do it.  But the "petitions" were frauds.  They were scams.  The one I studied had forgeries, the weight of people who didn't exist or who didn't live in BP, and the petition statement was only partially and loosely connected to reality.  The issues had not been explained to proposed signatories, and almost none of them understood them.  The document was meaningless and irrelevant.  Now, we are asked to rely again on the voice of the people, regarding annexation.  This suggestion comes from exactly the same people who were behind the anti-outsourcing sanitation effort, and the "petition."  Are they confident that Village residents are easy to manipulate and bamboozle (they've already proven that to themselves once), and they should rely on their own ability to demagogue their neighbors into rejecting annexation, too?

Not on my watch.  I have a job to do.  I asked for it, and I accepted it.  One of my friends reminded me yesterday of my campaign slogan: "For the Best We Can Be."  I had a sign made of this slogan, and I placed it in front of me, next to my name plaque, at the meeting last night.  That mantra is every bit as important as who I am.  Maybe it's more important.  The Village should be the best it can be with or without me.

In medical ethics, an important area of concern is "informed consent."  At bottom, there is an understood right to refuse treatment.  Sometimes, this decision includes a "right to die."  People can exercise a right to refuse treatment, and they can act on their right to die.  But they have to do it with their eyes wide open.  They have to understand very clearly what decision they're making, and what its consequences are.  They have to understand the alternatives, and the treatments they are choosing to forego.  They can make that choice, if they are "competent."   They can decide that what is proposed to help them is so unbearable, and offering so little chance for meaningful survival, that they would rather die of their disease than undergo attempts to treat it.  But if a patient is simply resistant, and can demonstrate no ability to think through the life-and-death matter of treatment for a probably fatal disease, the decision is not left with the patient.  Treatment will be imposed, to save the life the patient does not have the wherewithal to preserve in himself.

So it is with the Village.  Anyone who clearly recognizes and understands the problem, and who equally understands the proposed solutions, and the alternatives to accepting them, can participate in decision-making.  But anyone who does not understand the problem, who makes no attempt to understand it, whose grasp of the proposed solution is no more than rudimentary and symbolic, who offers no alternative, and who has chosen others to make the difficult decisions must allow those chosen decision-makers to decide.  Last night, two non-Commissioner Village residents argued for referendum.  Last month, when the same matter was on the Commission Agenda, it was one non-Commissioner resident.  How many people would vote against annexation, or that the matter should always be left to the residents-at-large?  Hundreds, like the "petition?"  Where are they?  What do they know?  What questions have they asked?  What have they learned?  What alternatives are they proposing?  No, this is what an elected Commission is for.  The sponsor of the referendum effort knew last year that it was a Commission decision, when she made her own Commission vote on it.  She needs to remember that now.

"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.

On the Prowl for "All [I] Can Eat."

The pickin's are getting somewhat slim.  If I weren't so relentless, I would be, too.

I love to eat, and little pleases me more than being allowed to eat as much as I want of good food.  If the price is low, I'm in heaven.

There are places that cater to people like me.  In some cases, this approach is their standard offer, and in others, they reserve the opportunity for special sittings.

Examples of the former include places like Jumbo Buffet or Pei Wei.  There's lots of food, and you can eat yourself sick, but the food is not top notch.  They tend to try to be "all things to all people," too, and often, particular dishes are just not expertly done enough.  If all you want is lots of calories for not too much money, they're fine, but if the goal is an excellent meal, they're not at the top of my list.  Frankly, they're not even on my list.  I was at Pei Wei once, and a Massachusetts place called Pacific Buffet once.  Got it.  Thanks anyway.

Many years ago, when I was a kid, the Jockey Club had a Sunday morning brunch buffet.  It was probably $15 or more a person, which was significant money at the time, but I still remember those amazing breakfasts.  There was another place in Miami Lakes that had one of those classy Sunday morning breakfast buffets a few years ago, but it stopped serving this breakfast before I had a chance to get there.

These days, all-you-can-eat offerings are confined mostly to dinner or lunch.  For me, lunch is only one place, and I'm there once a week, unless I get too busy.  The window I have to hit is Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 to 3:00.  It's Kebab Indian Restaurant on 167th just west of NE 6th.  The food is great, and the price is low.  After years, they finally raised it from $9.95 to $10.95.  I told them I was happy to see that they raised the price, even though it's still a terrific deal, and the waitress told me patrons were complaining.  Sheesh.  Such good food, so much of it, and people begrudge the establishment one lousy extra buck?

My other lunch place, but only on the rare Saturday, is Boteco on 79th Street, not far from the bridge to Pelican Island.  Actually, Boteco has a few a-y-c-e deals, but the Saturday one is my favorite.  The featured food is feijoada, which I love.  Theirs is exceptional.  And it's $17.

For dinner, the two regular good a-y-c-e dinners I know about are at an Indian place in Broward, and Texas De Brazil.  The place in Broward is Bombay Bistro, and it's just south of Oakland Park on Andrews.  I hate to say it, but the food is better than Kebab.  In fact, it's amazingly good Indian food.  The a-y-c-e dinner is Sunday night only, and it costs $15.  Spectacular.  Couldn't be better.

Texas De Brazil has a daily menu of Brazilian/South American food, but many people get the churrasco/rodizio/parrillada spread.  Texas De Brazil, by the way, is at the Gulfstream mall at the track.  The great thing about Texas De Brazil is that the food is unbeatable.  Every dish is perfectly made, and there's even more veggies and salad than there is meat.  But it's all there, and it doesn't stop until you do.  The problem with Texas De Brazil is that they charge about $45 for this.  It's sort of not worth it.  I am going on November 12, though, because they have a 50% off special for Veterans' Day.  Veterans' Day is the 11th, but there was such demand for this special that they extended to the next day, too.

Liza Meli used to have a-y-c-e events, at Ouzo's.  You paid a fee (about $35), and you got all the great food and wine you wanted.  She has a scaled down version of that at her new place, BarMeli.  The deal has gotten stingier, though.  Her deal now is once a week, and I think it's Thursday.  The cost is down to $25, but again, the service is not unlimited on food or wine.

At Gaucho Ranch (NE 2nd Ave at about 73rd St), about once a month (they're thinking about expanding to twice a month), they have a "tasting."  For $30, you get all you want of grass fed beef (usually about four different cuts, including tenderloin/filet), pork sausage, blood sausage (morcilla), and anything else they're serving.  Extras have included salad, and sometimes specialty artisanal foods made by local producers.  This past week, they had amazing fresh mozzarella, plain balls and stuffed, and they had local artisan gazpacho (three different flavors and recipes).  There was also locally made sorbet in unusual and interesting flavors.  Gaucho Ranch used to include unlimited wine (wonderful bottlings) within the same $30 charge.  They've now stopped the free wine part of the offer, but they didn't lower the price.  So it's $30 for the food, and you can either bring your own wine, or they will sell you a bottle of something you'll love.  There were about six wines for sale this week, and at least one of them was $25.  I didn't buy any wine, since I have loads at home, I didn't need to spend $25 for another bottle, and I wasn't going to drink a whole bottle of wine myself.  If someone had offered to go in on a bottle with me, maybe I would have done it.  The question is whether it's still worth it to get the food (more than you can eat, and great food) for $30.  I'll think about it next month.

Proper Sausages is a meat market (literally), and they make their own incomparable sausage.  They sell beef, too, as well as a number of other things.  They make their own potato salad, their own cole slaw, their own mustard, and a few other prepared foods.  They sell food made by other local artisans, too.  And they have a very nice selection of wines and beers.  Every couple of weeks or so, they have an event in the evening.  It's a similar tasting to the one Gaucho Ranch does, but it's sausage only.  They serve maybe five or six recipes.  They do sometimes add artisan bread or pretzels and their mustard.  And they serve either wine or beer to go with it.  It's very tight, and you have to stand up in the store.  But the food is unbelievably good.  It is very definitely a-y-c-e (and drink), and the price is $20.  It's a very good deal for such great food and alcohol, and you meet nice people there.  The only drawback is standing for about 1 1/2 hours while you have your dinner.

I'll be on the lookout for more places, and you can tell us all about the ones you like. 

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