A Two-Way Street

At the special Commission meeting to approve the budget last night, the usual topics came up.  Included were Recreation Department funding, and the dais.

Why do we have to provide recreation services and facilities, some complained, when so many of the users are not even BP residents?  And why should we spend such a lot of money for a dais, some asked?

There are two things to remember about these issues.  One is that the State of Florida just gave us over a million dollars to build our new Administration building and to renovate our log cabin.  The State neither gets nor asked anything for this money.  We asked them for it, and they gave it to us.  Every resident of and visitor to the state contributed to that money.  Not one of them, except those of us who live in BP, will realize any benefit whatsoever from the money they gave us.  I have yet to encounter any BP resident who is unhappy about the grant.

But when it comes time for us to provide for others, by making available a nice field, a basketball court, and a recreation building with restrooms and a drinking fountain, we suddenly don't believe in sharing.  It's all only about us.

The other thing to remember is about those two blocks that contain the fields, the courts, and the recreation building.  Arthur Griffing did not put that there.  Those two blocks were developed with grants, again, from the State of Florida.  And again, they didn't ask for much.  They just gave us the money, so we could build facilities for ourselves.

And yet again, when the memory of the grant gets slightly hazy, we want the facilities only for ourselves, and we resent the idea that neighbors from adjacent municipalities come to us to use these facilities.  It's fine with us if the residents of and visitors to the state share their money with us, but we don't want to share what we used the money for.

We considered restricting those two blocks to BP residents only, and maybe to charge anyone else (to inhibit them from using the facilities), but we found out we couldn't do that.  It seems the State did want one thing for its money.  It wanted us to make the facilities available to anyone.

Some years ago, when our Manager was Ana Garcia, there was an idea to reclaim the recreation facilities.  We contacted the State, to offer to pay back the money they gave us, in exchange for which we would control the facilities.  If we wanted them only for our own use, we could restrict them that way.  No, the State said, they did not want the money back.  They wanted us to continue to share with our neighbors.

As for the dais, if the State of Florida was willing to give us, free, over a million dollars to provide for ourselves a new building and a renovated old one, can't we contribute to the project, too?  The new Administration building and the log cabin mean nothing to any citizen of or visitor to Florida.  They will never see or experience them.  But they gave us over a million dollars to make this nice.  These buildings, and their appointments and furnishings, mean a great deal to us, and we will see and experience them all the time.  We can stop being so cheap and so niggling, and show the State that this means more to us than it does to them.  Because it does.  Or it certainly should.

By the way, in response to the complaint about the cost of this dais, if we were simply to pay for it, and not borrow the money, it would cost each home (not each resident) $20.  Once.  Done.  It's a very small amount of money for a beautiful piece of furniture that will be a wonderful credit to the log cabin and the Village, and that will last many decades.

Too Late for Children; Too Early for Grandchildren.

My daughter is 32.  She got married last year, and she lives in Boston.  She and her husband are planning for a pregnancy in 2016.

My son is 35.  He just got engaged, and he and his fiancee are planning to be married in 2016.  He lives in San Francisco.  Children?  Who knows?

I don't know what to say about my experience of children.  I loved them, of course.  They were my children.  I raised them, I love them, I care about them.  And I could tolerate their earlier childishness, because I knew they would outgrow it.  They're good people now.

But really, I don't frankly love "children," as a general phenomenon.  They're high maintenance, they're noisy, they're unruly, and they make mischief.  "You gotta love 'em" to put up with it.  And you have to know, as I knew, it's temporary.

Yesterday, one of my friends alerted me to a facebook page called "People for a Better Biscayne Park."  A couple of postings were directed at me personally, and they also included complaints about the log cabin renovation and specifically about the dais.

It turns out that the "People" who claim to want a "Better Biscayne Park" are primarily Elizabeth Jacobs, and secondarily her husband, Noah Jacobs.  It takes a bit of probing to get them to identify themselves.

What I discovered is that after the Jacobses go on about what gripes them, and take whatever swipes it pleases them to take, they get really quiet when someone else, like me, responds to them, answers their questions, and confronts their "Bevis and Butthead-"like approach to complaining.  Some of those responses were lengthy, pithy, and informative.  Soon enough, I also learned, they collapse into "You win," but they add a couple more swipes to that.  It seems that once you challenge them, you discover that their entire approach is ad hominem spitball launching, with no actual substance.  Except the spit.

The next thing that happens, which appears to be the last thing that happens, is that they then remove all of my comments (those that demonstrated how breathtakingly wrong these "People" were), but they claim I removed them, as if I would even know how to do that, if it's even possible for a commenter to remove his own comments.  Sadly, I think I must have made very clear to them how tech-unsavvy I am.  So no, kids, I did not remove my own comments.  I don't know how, and why would I?  You removed them, and you lied about it.

In any case, I now see what children I have to deal with, between the old days of my own children and the coming days of my grandchildren.  I wanted my children.  I signed on for that.  It was my pleasure and my honor to have been the part of their lives I was and continue to be.  I'll want and love my grandchildren, too.  I take full responsibility for my children, and I'll play a role in the development of my grandchildren.  But I didn't count on having to deal with the "People for a Better Biscayne Park."  These children are not my responsibility, and frankly, they are not welcome parts of my life.

Written to Biscayne Times 5/3/14. Never Printed, Of Course.

In reading the letters in the May, 2014, issue, I was struck by a curious pattern.  Three people wrote to you about a story about the Cushman school, and they all complained.  Their complaint was the same in each case: the author got it wrong.  They weren't complaining that the author came to different conclusions than they did, or that he interpreted differently than they did.  They said his facts were wrong.  The author of the next letter, about development on Biscayne Boulevard, made the identical complaint, about a different author of a different story.

I have written to you many times over the past few years, and my complaint has always been the same as your other letter-writers'.  BT writers seem not to be good about getting the facts correct.  I also remember a long response you got from Bunny Yeager, about a story done about her.  Same complaint: a long string of wrong facts.  There was an identical complaint that came from Morningside about some issue.

There are two questions about this pattern: what does it mean, and how does it happen?  Not being the publisher myself of a periodical, I don't know the rules, and I don't know the expectations.  Is it considered acceptable for authors/journalists to get a proportion of stories wrong?  The BT is not a daily, or even a weekly, and we would imagine authors have plenty of time to do adequately careful (not careless) research.  How do you want your readers to understand and absorb inaccurate stories?  These stories are presented as if they were intended to be informational.  For myself, it is not my reflex to assume they are merely fanciful and intended only to entertain.  Have I gotten it wrong?  If I have, the letters suggest I'm not the only one.

Then, there is the question as to how it seemingly so frequently happens.  If "facts" are presented, and they're wrong, should readers assume they were only made up by the author?  Why would an author invent facts?  Does he think a story would be more interesting if told a certain way, even if it's not true?  Sometimes, the "facts" result from quotes of people to whom the author spoke.  If "facts" are wrong, should we assume sources are not quoted accurately?  For some of these stories, when I know a lot about the content, I can see the author is highly selective about whom he interviews, or whom he quotes.  Is that the source of the trouble?  Too many eggs in one basket, and the author should have spoken to more people who might have corrected inaccuracies?

I have said before, and I will say again, you employ some very fine writers.  If they could only get their facts straight, or if they had an honest intention to do so, it would make a great difference to your readers.

And by the way, occasionally printing letters of complaint and correction is not nearly as valuable, or as fair, as simply getting it right to begin with.  And who knows how many of these letters you don't print.  I know you don't print most of mine.

Fred Jonas



Apparently, Erik Bojnansky of the BT is sniffing around looking for information for a story.  It seems the story is to be about the dais, but also about outsourcing sanitation and annexation.  Bojnansky has spoken to at least one of the Commissioners, but not to me.  It is of course unknown who alerted the BT/Bojnansky to these situations and controversies.

That's What I Should've Said. Yup, More About the Dais.

At last night's Commission meeting, I told Ed Chisholm I agreed with him, that the dais cost a lot.  I pointed out that it costs more than did my 2014 Volkswagen, which I bought new.  I did tell him that.

I said that he was one of many to complain about the cost of the dais, but that every time someone complained, and said they knew someone who did that kind of work, I responded in the same way: bring 'em.  Barbara Watts said she knew Larry Newberry, a BP resident who could make a dais.  William Pierce said he knew people...  I told them this was great, and they should have their sources make us a proposal, now, before we finalize our commitment to MacKenzie.  It gets really quiet once I ask for that kind of participation.

Ed Chisholm said what Barbara Watts says, and what some others say: why don't we just use what we already have: plastic folding card tables with nylon skirting attached with Velcro?  Who needs a $24.5K dais?  And again, they cited that log cabin we've gone to trouble and great expense to renovate, and even reclaim.

Here's what I should've said.  I should've said no, absolutely not.  The State of Florida paid a lot of money for this restoration, and we committed to pay plenty more.  We've put ourselves in debt over this Village Hall construction, and the log cabin renovation.  Barbara Watts likes to call the renovated log cabin "magical."

So no, we're not going to fall down on the completion of the job.  We're not going to adorn this "magical" room with a dais of plastic folding card tables, hidden by nylon skirting attached with Velcro.  We're not going to show off the BP way of doing things: cheap and lacking in self-respect.  I won't have it.  Roxy Ross won't have it.  It looks like David Coviello won't have it.  If you've ever been to Bob and Janey Anderson's house, or even driven by the outside of it, you'll know that cheap and lacking in self-respect is not how they do things, or how they live, either.

It's enough of people wanting only not to spend money, people who don't care how they live, and how their surroundings look, as long as they don't have to pay anything, or do anything.  This is our home.  It's our Village.  If Barbara Watts thinks the renovated log cabin is "magical," then we'll maximize the magical effect it can have.   And I don't think the State Legislature and the Governor would have given us the money, if we had told them we'll do only what they pay for, because we ourselves really don't care, we can't be bothered, and it's worth only someone else's money, not our own.

No, Mr Chisholm, we're not going to complain and resist our way out of finishing this project, and doing it right.  We're all going to step up.  Even the people who, when there's a problem on their property, and someone has to spend money, want to know whose money is going to be spent, because it most certainly shouldn't be theirs.  We don't need to rehash that ugly tale.

I feel sure you didn't vote for me, Mr Chisholm.  I hope you didn't.  You shouldn't have.  I'm not your type of Commissioner.  I'm the guy who wants the Park to be "The Best We Can Be."  And if I have anything to say about it, it will be.  At least, it will be the best I can help make it.

That's what I should've said.


PS: I'm just using your comments as an example, William.  You're a very good guy, a great neighbor, and you were a good sport about the last post.  My very best regards to you and Kim.

Is It All In the Wrist?

Last week's Commission meeting was preceded by the receipt of a collection of e-mails.  Barbara Kuhl had formulated an opening statement and four questions, she had passed them along to Steve Bernard, Steve sent them to an unknown circulation, and about 10-15 people's responses were sent to the Commission.  Only one of the responses was sent to Commissioners directly by the respondent, and all the rest were sent by respondents to Barbara, who then sent them to Commissioners.  We have no idea how many people received the questions, whether any information other than the questions and the brief introduction to them was made available to those on the circulation, and whether Barbara received any responses she did not forward to Commissioners.

This is what Barbara/Steve sent their circulation:

Hi Everyone,

As you probably know our Log Cabin is being renovated.  Commission meetings will be held there when it's finished and there have been some discussions about the dais.  Right now it seems like a majority of the Commissioners are in favor of having a fixed, permanent dais.  The cost, according to our Village Manager is $24,000.  

The Village has borrowed $350,000, and will still need another $135,000,  to complete the restoration of the Log Cabin.  Some residents are not in favor of spending $24,000, for a dais.  Some residents would like to have it movable so that the Log Cabin can be used for other purposes.  The dais as proposed will take up approximately half of the Log cabin.  The plans for the Log Cabin and the dais location are attached.

At the last budget meeting Mayor Coviello said that he's heard from residents in favor and opposed to these issues.

We would like to hear from more residents.  

Please tell us:

1.  Do you think it's a good idea to have a permanent, fixed dais? 

2.  Do you think the dais should be redesigned so that it's movable?  

3.  Do you think we should spend $24,000, now to build the dais? 

4.  Do you think we should postpone the expenditure? 

The responses the Commissioners received were more or less unanimous.  They weren't quite unanimous, in that some people did not answer every question, but there was a strong trend among responses.  It seems no one whose response was sent to the Commissioners wanted a fixed dais, everyone wanted a movable dais, everyone thought the cost was too high (outrageously so, it seems), and everyone thought the expenditure should be postponed.  Again, that trend represents all the answers given and forwarded to Commissioners.

I have, in effect, conducted a poll of my own.  It is represented by the blog post just before this one.  I have no idea what the circulation is, except that I directly inform about 75 people of new posts.  Viewership statistics suggest that more than 75 people are aware of blog posts.  In addition, a website called Feedspot picks up this blog, and there is no way for me to know how many people they inform of new posts.

What I know is that the average viewership when there is no new post is about 20 views a day.  The post I published just over 60 hours ago has received about 200 views.  So there have been about 150 views attributable to the presence of the last post.

Of those 150 or 200 people, four have chosen to leave comments thus far.  I do not control comments.  I do not delete any, and I do not adjust any.  You can read the comments for yourself.  Of the four, it seems all of them agree with the fixed dais.  Some are concerned about the cost of the dais, but none rules it out completely.  One seems to consider whether a postponement might be appropriate, in order to save up for the expensive permanent dais.

These kinds of results are more or less opposite to those transmitted by Barbara Kuhl.  The obvious question is why the results are so different.  Could Barbara/Steve be tapping a population of respondents different from those who become aware of blog posts?  Some of their respondents are people who are not on my circulation, but others are on my circulation.  Those who receive notices of new posts from me, and who also received the questions from Barbara/Steve, apparently chose to respond to Barbara/Steve, but not to comment on the blog post.  The post, by the way, requests an opinion, just as did the Barbara Kuhl letter.

As I read Barbara's letter/questions, they seem a bit slanted.  In its way, so is the blog post.  (For example, Barbara says the proposed dais will take up about half of the room.  I say it's about a third.  It looks like about a third to me.  But if it's not precisely a third, it's very clearly not half.  So the "truth" might be somewhere in between.)  But either survey was supposedly open for any response of any persuasion.  Again, we have no way of knowing if Barbara got any responses she did not share with the Commission.  What we also don't know is if there was any other information Barbara shared with her recipients, but she did not include it in the letter attached to the questions.  I raise this possibility, because Barbara was involved in a petition drive a year or so ago, and it turned out that those who were asked to sign the petition were apparently given more information about the issue than was contained in the petition.  This is of course very normal for petition drives.  The problem was that some of the information given, in the petition and in the additional explanation, was wrong.  We don't know if a version of that happened here, too.

But coming back to the two sets of responses about the dais, there is an interesting peculiarity between them.  Barbara made the responses she sent to Commissioners public record.  In addition, one of the respondents explicitly asked that his letter (more than simple answers to the four questions) be read at the Commission meeting last week.  His response was not read, because there was abundant discussion during the meeting, it was decided not to take the time to read all 10-15 of the responses, and they were public record anyway.  But because the response is public record, because this was the one response sent directly by the respondent to the Commissioners, and because the respondent specifically asked that his response be read openly at the meeting, it's worth a closer look.  The respondent was our neighbor, William Pierce.  Funny enough, there is a blog commenter who calls himself William.  I am not in a position to know if "William" is William Pierce, but I do know that William Pierce is on my circulation of people to be notified of new posts.  And how many people named William go by William?

Here's what's interesting about the responses from William Pierce and "William."  William Pierce says he got at least some of his information about this issue by watching a transmission of the 8/11/15 budget workshop.  He had some concerns with the design of the dais, in that he did not want it to be usable for only one purpose.  Mostly, however, he was concerned with the cost.  He felt it was exorbitant and not within the Village's budget, and this was a greater crime if the dais was not (re)movable, so that the room could be adapted for other purposes.  He seemed also a bit concerned that a new, fancy, and imposing dais somehow represented self-aggrandizement on the parts of the particular Commissioners in office now.

"William" who commented in the last blog post was also concerned with the cost of the dais, but he was more gentle and more generous, if even a bit more tentative, in his criticism.  He reiterated his willingness to keep temporary card tables as the Commission/Board surface for another year.  Now, though, he makes reference to some "brain-storming" he has been doing with some of his neighbors.  That brain-storming has led him to understand that even a movable dais is not removable, and moving it confers little or no benefit with respect to his idea to clear the room for other functions.  But with which neighbors did he brain-storm?  In the post, I said a movable dais was only slightly movable, and was not removable, but William didn't talk to me, other than to read the post.  Did he talk to someone else?  He read and made reference to the comments before his.  It seems that whatever he, if it was he, responded to in the Barbara Kuhl letter/questionnaire did not include an understanding that a movable dais is only slightly movable, and not removable.  William was also more willing to consider spending $24.5K than William Pierce had been to spending $24K, and William suggested that maybe a fixed dais would be the better choice, since adapting the dais to make it move would also make it cost more.  "William" is not at all accusatory or insulting to Commissioners, as William Pierce seemed almost to be, and he even suggested ways Commissioners could better engage their neighbors to persuade them to agree to the fixed, expensive dais.

So why did William, assuming he and William Pierce are the same person, change his approach?  Why were Commissioners told only of critics in response to Barbara Kuhl's outreach?  Why did some people who were critical of the dais in response to Barbara's outreach, but who are on the blog circulation, not also criticize here?  Their opinion, even criticism, was requested.

Barbara has a theory about this phenomenon.  She has shared it with me.  Her theory is that people are reluctant to comment in the blog if their comments are not in agreement with the post author (usually me), because they're afraid I or some other author will argue with them, or even insult them in some way.  But some people, even Barbara, do in fact share disagreement in blog comments.  And does the same phenomenon apply regarding Barbara's request for feedback?  Would she bury or confront a response she didn't like?  Or would someone be afraid to disagree with her (and Steve), as she thinks they're afraid to disagree with me?  We don't know.  I came to find out indirectly about Barbara's request for feedback.  For whatever reasons, I am not on Steve's circulation, but someone else sent it to me.  I would have responded in disagreement with Barbara's very clear preference, but since I myself am a Commissioner, I felt it would be inappropriate to reply to a petition.

It's a curious difference between Barbara's and my requests for feedback.


PS: In her introduction to her four questions, Barbara says that David Coviello reportedly heard from residents both in favor of and opposed to the dais.  But Barbara didn't report that she heard from anyone who was in favor of the dais.  What accounts for these discrepancies?

You Tell Me. What Kind of Dais Do You Want?

The log cabin renovation will be finished soon.  Nothing makes everyone happy, but there's contentment enough regarding this project.  The main complaint I've heard made is about the cost.  Between the new Village Hall building and the log cabin renovation, the cost was high.  We got most of it from the State, and we borrowed money to meet the rest.

One issue that has gotten a lot of attention, and complaint, is the new dais.  We have preliminarily contracted for a fixed piece of furniture which will set off about a third of the room.  It will cost about $24.5K.

There have been two complaints about this dais.  One is that it is intended to be permanent, meaning it cannot be moved out of the way, if for some reason we wanted more open space.  This is true, by the way, of all daises I know about.  The other complaint is that it costs a lot.  Funny enough, the individuals who complained about either factor complained about both of them: the dais should be movable, and it should cost less.

We are at the disadvantage that no one has produced any other estimate for the cost of a dais, either movable or fixed.  So those people who complain about the cost just don't like the number.  There is nothing to suggest it is a wrong number, or that a nice dais, suitable for the purpose, could cost less.

There is an argument that says that we might not even need a formal dais, per se.  We can use what we have now: a row of card tables with the fronts covered by a drape.  That would be almost free.  The argument against that is that for some people, it seems bizarre and unseemly to go to the trouble and considerable expense of a renovation like the one we're completing, to make an historic room for Village meetings, then have covered card tables as the surface used by the Commission and Boards for whose gatherings this renovation is primarily being done.

The carpenter whom we have engaged to make this dais, who is the same firm that is doing the overall renovation, has told us that it is possible to make a movable dais, but it will cost more than making a fixed dais.  We're not told how much more.

Let's keep in mind three things.  One is that we have no idea yet how much more a movable dais will cost.  The second is that we have no idea how often, if ever, we would want to move a dais, if it were movable.  The third thing is that even a movable dais is a heavy and bulky piece of furniture, and the most we could do is slide it a little toward a wall.  We cannot remove it from the building, and we cannot store it anyplace.

So the question is, if it were up to you, would you rather have a movable dais that costs some amount more, or would you prefer to have a permanent fixture that costs $24.5K?  Let's assume you can have one or the other, but not both.   Which do you prefer?

Authority Without Responsibility

It is a common complaint of some who function within organizations that they are given responsibility without authority.  They are asked to accomplish something, and held responsible for how, and if, they accomplish it, but they are not allowed to determine the rules by which it is to be accomplished, or even the mission under which the task is assigned.  This is experienced as a great disadvantage, leading to pressure, frustration, and helplessness.  Such people are hard pressed to win.  They can almost only lose.

Other people have discovered the possibility of commandeering authority without responsibility.  They would like to position themselves such that they determine what is to be accomplished, but they accept no responsibility for the outcome.

We see some of that dynamic here in Biscayne Park.  There are neighbors here who complain and criticize, and offer themselves and their positions as if they were broadly representative of some significant proportion of the community, but they do little more than complain and criticize.  They typically offer no viable or reliable alternatives.  They seem to view their contributions as resting on disqualifying the proposals of other people.

These people have another trait in common.  When offered even more authority, and the actual responsibility to go with it, they decline.  The way this most commonly plays out is that one or more of them might be encouraged to run for Commission, since they have so many important ideas and are so frustrated when those ideas are not adopted by the elected decision-makers.  No, they immediately deflect, they have no such ambition.

The expressed frustration, anger, and resentment are so openly displayed that it is tempting to assume these feelings are actually experienced by those who want (some) authority without (any) responsibility.

But one wonders.  If the frustration, anger, and resentment at not having the power to act were so great, wouldn't the individual want that power, and that authority?  Or is real responsibility so much to be avoided, and the opportunity simply to blame someone else such a relief, that it is preferable not to have full authority?