Perspective and Focus, Dan Keys. It's the Medians.

Dan Keys and I have had this conversation many times.  Some of those times have been private, and some have been public, either in public meetings, on Nextdoor Biscayne Park, and even in comments to posts in this blog.  Dan remains intransigent on the matter, and he generally manages to find me, and the topic, more or less comfortable to dismiss.  So I thought maybe a more formal and stand-alone airing here might be deserved by the topic, and it might stimulate more thinking and even expression of opinion.

It should also be noted that one of Dan's complaints about management of this issue is that individual Village residents (I think of Harvey Bilt, Chester Morris, and whoever put the pandanus in the median at 10th Avenue and 115th  Street) sometimes get frustrated and simply take it upon themselves to make improvements.  Dan objects to acts like these.  But it seems he leaves Village residents who care about the medians, and their own properties, no other choice.

Dan will say in his defense that he doesn't act alone.  This is partially true.  He sometimes relies on some form of consensus from the Parks and Parkways Board, of which he is the Chair.  But he has managed this Board in a very particular way, trying (generally successfully) over time to extrude members he can't control. At other times, he simply does an end around the whole concept of the Board, and he "makes himself available" to be asked, such as by one or another Manager, to make a plan, which he does on his own.

Oddly enough, although Dan seems averse to having the input of other people in creating landscape designs, he has enjoyed success in getting many of us to help him with the actual installation of plants.  I wonder if this seems as much a one way street to Dan as it does to those of us who are happy to help, but feel shut out of the planning process.


Dan,

For some years now, you and I have been having an endless argument.  It's been endless because you won't do what I ask, and I won't stop asking.  The issue is the Village's medians, which I consider inadequately developed (and therefore not the aesthetic and functional features I think they should be).  You, on the other hand, have responded by identifying a variety of reasons the medians could not or should not be better developed.  Your reasons include things like cost, maintenance, selection of materials, and some more loosely related concerns.  But, as what I believe is an important, and possibly critically important, frame of reference, I don't believe you ever said we should not further develop the medians-- further than they are-- because you think they look very nice already, or as nice as they could or should look.  I have never been given reason to think you believe that, and I have never heard anyone else say they thought it, either.

I want to put you in mind of a few ways of looking at this matter, Dan.  About two years ago, you sent to all of the then Commissioners an e-mail.  You had gotten it from somewhere, and for whatever reason, you thought the Village, through its Commission, should be aware of it.  The e-mail was an educational one-- of sorts-- and it had to do with pruning trees.  If I remember correctly, it described five mistakes that should not be made in how trees are pruned and maintained.  As it turns out, Dan, I happened to be particularly interested in this e-mail from you.  At least, I was at the outset.  The fact is, I'm not an arborist, I've heard it makes a difference how trees are pruned, and it just so happened I actually wanted to know what was the proper approach to this task.  But I never found out.  All I learned, having read carefully what you sent, was how not to prune a tree.  Given a tree, and a chainsaw, I still didn't know what to do.  And I don't today.  Dan, you do versions of this a lot.  And every time you do it, in every setting in which you do it, it is as useless, and frustrating, as it was the day I didn't learn how properly to prune a tree.

Do you know the joke line, "the operation was a success, and the patient died?"  Consider all the reasons you always give as to why and where caution has to be taken, and caveats applied, to the project of median development and maintenance.  Being respectful of all those caveats is the operation.  Now, go look at the medians.  That's the patient.  You've been very, very careful, Dan.  You have cautioned the Village to avoid many traps and pitfalls.  You've urged us to save ourselves from many mistakes of many kinds in attending to our medians.  The result is medians that are awful, and in no way the credit they should be to a neighborhood that is uniquely endowed with medians.  Your operation is a success, Dan.  And the patient is dead.

In that connection, have you ever heard the aphorism "the best (or perfection) is the enemy of the good?"  In the interest of saving the Village from imperfections, you have left us with something that isn't good.  In fact, it's bad.  I'm quite sure you've heard the saying "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."  That is what the Village has done, at your very strong and unwavering encouragement.

I'm going to ask you to reconsider, and think through the approach you have taken to the Village's medians.  Dan, you say you have some relevant training in this area, you had a career in something to do with landscaping or public works or something, and you have always encouraged the Village to rely on you, and to consider you some sort of expert, in matters related to this.  And the Village has accepted your offer.  You have even shown us partial versions of what you have suggested we could expect from your taste and judgment, by doing smaller scale designs for us, like of our southern 6th Avenue entry.  So the Village is even more inclined to assume you have special and applicable expertise and value.  If that's what you wanted us to think, you succeeded in getting us to think it.  So now, Dan, give us the help we really need from you.  And if you won't, then take personal responsibility for what our medians look like.

Fred

Oh, Yeah. That.

Today, Tracy Truppman held what she called a workshop to discuss the Village's police function, and "Codes."  The latter was more broadly a discussion of the general condition, and the visual impression, of the Village and its properties.

Tracy organized the event for today, and it appears enough of her colleagues knew in advance about it that she didn't have to ask them if they liked the idea, and if they were available for today.  Only Roxy Ross and David Coviello had to check their schedules, to see if they were free.  How all that was known by two of Tracy's colleagues, before the meeting at which it was announced, is a mystery.

The meeting was Tracy's solicitation to her neighbors, to find out what they thought, and what they wanted.  And the answer was various, as it always is.  The meeting was divided into sections in which the police were discussed, and Code was discussed.

There were lots of thoughts, ideas, and wishes regarding the various domains of enforcement, but the bottom line of each consideration was the same: we have limited resources.  We can wish for all the police, and all the Code compliance, we want, but if we can't afford more officers, or speed bumps or humps or tables, or more coordinated Codes, or a new Code Officer vehicle (ours is now out of commission, and we temporarily rely on a loaner from Sunny Isles), we really can't move forward with anything.

And that's the way it always is around here.  Even during the Meet the Candidates event, each and every candidate identified as our biggest problem our fiscal limitation.  But instead of a real effort to solve that problem-- our acknowledged biggest problem-- we give ourselves over to fantasizing about how we'd like it to be.  In the ways it can't be.  Because we can't afford it to be that way.

Barbara Kuhl made a point Janey Anderson also makes: the Village as a municipal entity should lead the way, if not at least play by the same rules, regarding an adequate standard of order and visual appeal.  And that point was indirectly reinforced by the police-related concern regarding people who cut/drive across our medians.  They're not supposed to, but they do it anyway, and they don't get caught.  The concept during that part of the discussion was that our meager police force should, in addition to all the other places two officers should simultaneously be, always be there to catch and ticket people driving across the medians.  Or parking on them.

I had nothing to do with this.  I didn't say a word.  It was one of our newer 117th St. neighbors who seemed to put two and two together, and hit upon what seemed to be the kill-two-birds-with-one-stone logic that if we planted in the medians, people wouldn't park or drive on them.  They couldn't, if the medians were occupied with trees and shrubs.  From the mouths of "babes," it would seem.  The poor man had in mind that we should have beautiful medians, as they do in other municipalities nearby.  Like it would be a good thing for us somehow, to have our medians look better.  So he simply thought...  Oh, never mind.

If, in the future, Dan Keys is remembered for anything in BP, I suspect it will be for his unflinching intransigence regarding improving the medians.  As much as he possibly can, he refuses to see it done.  And he spoke against it again.  If he hasn't got a half dozen reasons why not, he's got a full dozen.  He rotates them around, depending on the conversation.  Today's convenient excuse was that specimens should not be planted simply according to the whim of the resident.  Dan carefully stayed away from adding something like "without a real plan," because he knows very well who has worked hard and tirelessly against providing that plan.  But there he was again.  Good old Dan Keys.

So we had a fun time imagining all the improvements we can't afford to make.  Although... A minute or two before one of our neighbors said it, I sent an e-mail to a guy who has access to low-priced electric cars.  He's got some new vehicles, made in China, and he can add enough batteries to get the range to 30-40 miles per day (more than enough for us), with AC.  I'm waiting to hear back.  I asked Heidi Siegel about this, but she wasn't receptive.  Sharon Ragoonan seems to be.

By the way, regarding our discussion about speeding, one of our neighbors, Ernesto Ortiz, said he would donate $1000 for speed bumps/humps/tables.  A bunch more gestures like that, and it's something to think about.  Assuming you agree with the concept of speed bumps/humps/tables.  Absent that, we're still stuck on having the right Commission at the right time to do something meaningful to get us a better revenue stream.  Then, we're not preoccupied with wouldn't-it-be-greats, and this, that, or the other, but not all or both, or maybe not any of them.  Our three new Commissioners did agree it was our biggest problem.  Let's see how motivated and creative they are to try to solve it.  Not easy?  Yeah, I know.

I'm Not Sure What to Call This One.

Tuesday night, the new Commission met for the first time on record.  There didn't need to be much discussion, but there was some.  Here are my choices as to how to title the report of this meeting.

I  considered calling this post "Thank 'God.'"  If I go with this title, I would say that Roxy Ross asked the new Commission to reaffirm, or reconfirm, a gesture the last few Commissions have honored.  Her suggestion was that a Resolution of Decorum be asserted, so that Commissioners would remember to treat each other, and non-Commission residents, with proper respect.  This gesture was sort of mindless.  It was the type of matter that is routinely passed in regular meetings by Consent: it was obvious, and it did not require any discussion.  But since there was no Consent Agenda Tuesday night, and Roxy wanted special and explicit affirmation, she introduced the matter on its own.  It was on the new Commission's Agenda.

But Roxy didn't get the affirmation she requested.  David Coviello affirmed the concept, but our new majority, the "three-pack," joined together to defeat it.  "Cost" was raised, even though there is no cost.  (Presumably, in time, given enough time, our new Commissioners, who have absolutely no relevant experience with Village matters, will learn the difference between an Ordinance, which has a cost, and Resolution, which doesn't.)  There was expressed concern about "First Amendment rights," even though no one proposed to limit anyone's opportunity to speak.  It was just a reminder to be courteous.

But the other important--critically important-- basis for resistance was that the Resolution was already on the books.  So if this intention has already been established, our "three-pack" argued, and it's already on the books, then it does not require reaffirming.  As a purely personal matter, I consider this fabulous news.  I refuse to say the "Pledge of Allegiance."  There are two reasons I won't say it, but the most glaring and superficial one is that I am a militant atheist, and I am deeply offended that our new Pledge, the one adopted in 1954, had a reference to "god" inserted in it.  This is every kind of wrong.  It violates concepts of the separation of Church and State, and it's unnecessarily provocative, and deeply offensive to me.  If anyone thinks I should say the Pledge of Allegiance, they can restore the one that existed when I was born.  I might say that one.

Since the new Commission regime doesn't want to reaffirm what's already on the books, then it should be easy for them to stop the New "Pledge of Allegiance" nonsense.  It's already been said (I said it in elementary school, and I still remember having said it), and it doesn't need to be said any more.  Just like the Decorum Resolution.  Thank you, new Commission majority.  Thank you, "three-pack."

My other choice for a title is "Dream Interpretation: Manifest Content and Latent Content."  Here's how I would put that one together.  I would talk about so-called manifest dream content, which is the obvious story of the dream.  It's the part you remember and relate to someone else.  The latent content is what the dream really means, and what the conscious symbols unconsciously represent.  So your memory of the dream is that you waited for your friend to meet you at the park, but your friend forgot and didn't show up.  That's the manifest content.  The latent content, which you learn in analyzing this dream with your therapist, is that you haven't gotten over the loss of your father in your childhood, when he went to work, but had a heart attack and died, and you never saw him again.  But you were too young to have been able to understand this, and all you unconsciously continued to feel was that you were abandoned.

So I would still have started this story with Roxy Ross' proposal about the Decorum Resolution, and I would have summarized the "three-pack's" multiple and nonsensical resistances.  I would have suggested that these interactions were manifest content: Roxy proposed something, and three of her colleagues gave her a range of reasons why not.

I would then have looked a bit more deeply into these interactions, and I would have interpreted that Roxy, in proposing something that was not strictly necessary, was asserting her own considerable seniority on the Commission, and she was asking her new colleagues to adopt now accepted conventions.  She was being the big dog, trying to civilize them, and she was reminding them who was the heart and soul of the Commission.  That, I would have said, was Roxy's latent content.  The latent content of the response she got was that her new colleagues, much like the other "three-pack" of Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs, were asserting themselves, too, and rubbing Roxy's nose in the mess they were about to make.  The latent message delivered to Roxy this time could be translated to "siddown and shut up, Ross, or we'll smack you down.  Your wisdom, perspective, and good nature are no longer relevant around here.  Do we understand each other?"  I believe that was the latent message from our new "three-pack."  After all, they had to work a bit hard to come up with really lame and irrational excuses not to do something harmless, that a succession of prior Commissions have done.

There wasn't much else that happened in the meeting.  Mayor Tracy Truppman wants "workshops," so we can closely examine Village residents' thoughts about the functioning of various Village areas, such as the police, recreation, and our Code function.  It will be interesting to find out what Tracy has in mind, and if she cares any more what her neighbors think than she does what Roxy Ross thinks.  And both Tracy and Jenny Johnson-Sardella want to be more closely "in the loop" regarding hirings, like of our new Code Officer.  This hiring is the responsibility of the Manager, not of the Commission, and it's unclear what kind of say the new Commission wants over it.  Tracy herself has been equivocal as to whether she thinks the new Manager was a terrible choice, as she told us just after we hired the new Manager, or whether she thinks the new Manager is a wonderful asset regarding Codes, as she told us when she was trying to get us not to approve the new driveway and swale Ordinance.  Perhaps she'll eventually figure out what she thinks of the new Manager.

And now, immediately former Mayor David Coviello told us he will be resigning from the Commission, because a family situation is causing him to have to move out of BP.

So that was the meeting.  If you have a preference for the title, feel free to comment.

"Funny Little City(sic)."

I was talking this morning with my brother.  The topic was politics, and new regimes.  We talked about the big new regime, and the small one.

My brother was under the impression that we in BP "can't pay [our] bills" on our revenue.  I told him that we do pay our bills; it's only that we're selective about what we agree is a bill.  We won't agree that street repair is a bill, because we choose not to try to repair our streets.  (Because we couldn't afford to repair them.)  The same is true of median development.  We built a new building, and renovated the log cabin, but only because more than half the money was donated to us by the State, and we groused about paying the rest.  Not only do we not agree to improve drainage, and therefore that improving drainage is even a bill, but some of us want to claim that we don't need to improve drainage, because we don't have a drainage problem.  That's what some of us assert.  So we won't have a bill.  And we won't then fail to be able to pay the bill.

My brother of course fully understood our little "situation."  We have extremely limited ability to have revenue, because we don't have the diversification of revenue sources available to almost all municipalities.  He knows all about Golden Beach and Indian Creek Village.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He also knows all about the municipalities like CNM, and CMB (where he lives).  They have revenue sources, and they're not one bit shy about tapping them.  They know what they need, and they know what they want, and they're going to take proper care of themselves.  Among other things, they have pride.  Or call it self-respect.

My brother thought we charged ourselves as much as we could: 10 mills.  No, I told him, we can't quite get ourselves to pull that particular trigger.  We stall ourselves out at 9.7, a number that has no meaning, except it's been the same number for a few years now.  It's not the same revenue for the Village, nor is it the same tax from property owners.  It's just a millage number we choose not to change.  Even though it doesn't mean anything.  My brother asked me how much the difference between 9.7 mills and 10 mills was worth to the Village.  I told him I didn't know, because property values are a moving target, and there are new sales, but I estimated that since it was recently about $50K, and values have improved and been bolstered by some recent and substantial sales, it was probably somewhere around $75K or so now.  It's the difference between trying to decide whether to redo the Codes, or instead resurfacing the tot lot, but being unable to decide which to do, so not doing either...and doing both.  That's what we could do with $75K: both.

And I pointed out, being back on my soapbox and all, that what that $75K would cost the average BP property owner used to be about $45 per year, but is now probably about $60 per year.

My brother thought we were limited to 10 mills ad valorem property tax, but I told him that the 10 mill limit is only for the easy part.  It's what an elected body can impose on property owners, on it's own initiative.  But a municipality is not limited at all to 10 mills.  I don't know if there is a limit to what residents of a municipality can choose to charge themselves for ad valorem property tax.  It's just a matter of how motivated they are to address municipal issues and responsibilities, and how much pride they have.

The fact is, we could charge ourselves twice as much millage as we do, if we agreed by referendum to do it.  The Village portion of the ad valorem tax bill could be 19.4 mills, instead of 9.7.  And that wouldn't double the overall ad valorem bill (the one you just paid, or are just getting ready to pay).  It would only double about a third of the bill.  The two other major portions are for the County and the School Board, and we have nothing to do with how much they charge County property-owners.

I realize I get very little support for an idea like this.  I get none from the Commissions.  Some years back, Steve Bernard suggested we tax ourselves at 10 mills.  He was on the Commission then.  Nowadays, Dan Keys is known to agree we should increase our millage.  I don't know what he thought many years ago, when he was on the Commission.

Very interestingly, Mac Kennedy advocated for increased millage, so we can get our work done.  What's interesting about that is that Mac, and Dan Schneiger, are new Village residents.  People like them do the heavy fiscal lifting in the Village, because they established a property value recently.  They homestead, of course, but in the meantime, they're the big dogs, ad valorem tax-wise.  And they're willing to go higher, and suggest the rest of us do, too.  People like Max Deitermann, who owns very expensive property here, don't urge low taxes.

People like Max, and Mac and Dan, not only have the most to "lose" by our having higher millage, but coincidentally (?), people like them are also strong advocates for an improved, "Best We Can Be," Village.  And they have the experience with property ownership, municipal development, and design sense, to know what it takes.

But too many of the rest of us can't see that far, or that wide.  We fuss over the silliest, most insignificant, things and amounts of money.  We resist ponying up a few dollars to improve ourselves.  We complain about a very substantial Village Hall project, because we have to pay for part of it.  Some of us form whole campaigns over not wanting to have to construct driveways on our properties, which we have to do anyway, and which will improve our own properties(!), as well as the Village overall.

My brother and I talked about all of this, which is what led him twice to describe us as a "funny little city(sic)."

Reality Really Does Bite Some Times.

I was elected to the Commission in December, 2013.  I had a very clear track record in the Village, owing to my continuous involvement at reasonably high levels, and I faithfully attended Commission meetings for eight years before that.  It would not be hard, or inaccurate, to argue that I had a pretty good sense of what was going on in the Village, and how things worked.

In addition to my normal activities, I also started a Village-focused blog (this one) in which I held forth without much, if any, restraint regarding my opinions and positions about things.  And there was the Meet the Candidates event that year, where I further expressed opinions and even intentions.

To take two issues that were prominent at the time, I expressed myself in this blog, making clear I did not favor annexation, and at the Meet the Candidates event, I answered a direct question regarding outsourcing sanitation to say I didn't favor it.  What I knew or thought I knew, and what I imagined, led me to both conclusions, with the confidence that came from limited information.  "Ignorance is bliss" kind of thing.  (It's not the truth that sets you free; it's not knowing what the truth is.)

Once I became a Commissioner, and was exposed to much more information, I famously and publicly changed my mind about both issues.  I would say I learned things I had not previously known, and I had a chance to discuss both issues with people in conversations that were far beyond the superficial and emotional ones I had had before.

Before I became a Commissioner, my exposure to reality was incomplete.  After I became a Commissioner, it was much more complete and extensive.  The other thing that happens after someone becomes a Commissioner is that he or she begins to hear from people who had not been in the inner circle or comfort zone of the pre-Commissioner.  The result of all this is that you are offered opportunities to expand what you know, and how you think, and you're in a position to feel more responsible to consider those opportunities.

So the new Commissioner, or probably any elected official of any length of tenure, has a choice.  In some cases, this choice is a dilemma.  Do you ignore or refuse to hear what is newly offered, because you've already made up your mind?  Do you hear it, but dismiss it, because you feel personally committed, or beholden to your supporters, not to waver from your original path?

One of our neighbors chided me for being "closed-minded" about something.  I think it was outsourcing.  She was angry and frustrated with me, because I decided the right path was not the one she favored.  What I said to her was that I couldn't think of any better example of open-mindedness than an ability and willingness to change one's mind, given new information.  And I still feel that way.

As an elected official, you are guaranteed to frustrate and disappoint someone.  No matter what you do or don't do, and no matter the issue.  You only decide whom you're willing to frustrate and disappoint, and on what basis you will do it.  You can respond to what you used to think, or what your friends prefer, or what you feel you promised.  Or, you can respond to what you come to learn is true, and more true than what you thought before.  If actual reality happens to be in line with what you already thought, good for you.  If it isn't, you have a complicated dilemma on your hands.  But no matter what you do, or don't do, you are guaranteed to upset someone (perhaps it makes you feel better that you've pleased someone else), and that someone will have as compelling, impassioned, and strident a competing approach as the one you went with instead.

For me, I decided it was better to be "right," whatever "right" was.  And my way of trying to answer that question was to choose whatever I thought made the Village a better (stronger, more stable, more likely to succeed, more pleasing) place.

The problem was expressed in one of the questions in this year's Meet the Candidates event: would you rather choose something that makes people happy now, or would you take a broader and longer range view that might leave some people-- maybe lots of people-- unhappy?  Or angry.  Or furious.  Or wanting nothing more than to get you out of office.  That's the choice, and that's the dilemma.  It will happen to every elected official, frequently.  It doesn't feel like that at first, when you get elected.  You feel chosen, like someone's choice from among others.  (Which of course you were.)  You feel approved of.  You feel uniquely legitimate, as if someone has told you you were right, and you should do whatever you think is best.  (For...?)  I'm sure that's the way every election winner feels.  And I felt that way even though I knew that there was a population of Village residents who really didn't want me there.

That's what I, and every other elected official, thinks and feels, and I have not the slightest doubt it's what our new elected officials think and feel.  That's why they'll confront and deal with what we all did.  The only question is which way they'll go, on any issue, and what will inform and motivate the choices they will make.



"The color of truth is grey."  Andre Gide, Author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951)

"Inclusion and Diversity?" Again?

(Mac Kennedy asked me to post something about this matter on this blog.  I told him he was more than welcome to do it himself, but he wanted me to do it.  So here it is.  You're welcome, Mac.)



Mac Kennedy is up in arms.  He's let the whole world know about it.  He seems to have gotten someone kicked off Nextdoor, and now, he's railing at the Commission, and the rest of us.  Outgoing Commissioners, incoming Commissioners, everyone.  Mac wants something done!  He wants someone read the riot act.

And here's what this is all about.  Ron Coyle, one of our neighbors and even a former BP Commissioner, was simply and perfectly legally speaking his mind on Nextdoor, and he happened, innocently enough, I'm sure, to observe "Let's be objective, we are surrounded by negros [sic], pretend you are in South Africa, and not America USA [sic].  It's hard to believe but that is where we find ourselves here in the Park...I've lived here all of my life, 58 years, and we have never seen the amount of crime we are now seeing.  The darkening of our demographics is profoundly to blame...the public schools in the area...are all overrun with darkies...we spend exorbitant amounts more to send our kids to schools with students and teachers of the proper caliber and color."  And then, he cites Darwin, although the citation seems relatively like a non sequitur.

So, Mac, what's the problem?  Ron has an opinion, and he's clearly thought carefully about the matter.  Doesn't he have every right to his opinion, and to share it with the rest of us?

And some of our neighbors turned out to be really intolerant of Ron Coyle and his ideas.  Words like "racism," "ugliness," "bigotry," "hatred," "twisted," "offensive," and "deplorable" were used.  Some wanted him "muted" from Nextdoor, or worse.  Just because Ron Coyle, lifelong BP resident and even former Commissioner, happens to take a very dim view of "negros [sic]" or "darkles," or whatever he likes to call them.

Some wondered whether Ron also took a dim view of homosexual people, or hispanics, or Jews, or any of a number of other groups.  But Ron never said that.  All he intensely and viscerally hates is "negros [sic]."  You know, "darkies."  Really, what's the big deal, if Ron Coyle happens to hate black people?

And some people seemed to think it is a big deal.  Like as if they thought Ron Coyle's hatred and intolerance were not only offensive, but to worry about.  Mac Kennedy, for example, allowed himself to consider that someone with such thoughts could "act out...physically," and that this seemed to him like the kind of sentiment that leads to behaviors about which people would in retrospect say "why didn't someone do something before?"  Another BP resident, commenting on Nextdoor, wrote "For a long time, many of us, including me, have had our heads in the sand, or have looked the other way, and have said this is the stuff that goes on in other places or in the movies.  Well, no, it's alive and well and living amongst us...Knowing that this exists in our midst, and more importantly, seeing it and hearing it, has given me a new perspective."

But come on, Mac, people don't spout this kind of antisocial nonsense, and then act out, having gotten it off their chests.  Well, maybe they do.  Yeah, OK, people like racist Ron Coyle might be to worry about.

But what's he going to do, "go postal?"  I mean, he doesn't have a gun or anything, does he?  (Mac, I'm asking, does he?)

Three years ago, at the Meet the Candidates event, we were asked about our concerns regarding "diversity" in BP.  I particularly remember David Coviello's response.  (Frankly, I don't think any of us thought there was much of a problem about tolerance of diversity.)  David said that while he was campaigning, one of our neighbors said something about David's age, apparently judging it to be greater than it was, on account of David's (very, very slightly) receding hairline.  So David suggested sensitivity regarding our elderly population.  (Jeez, David, did you take a look at Drew Dillworth, who gave up and shaved his head, or Noah Jacobs, or me?  And you were whining about your mane?  Talk about lack of sensitivity!)  I mean, three years ago, that's what we thought we had to worry about regarding tolerance of other people.  And now, we have people who think "Make America Great Again" really means "Make America White Again," and some well-spoken white supremacist named Spencer, and Ron Coyle.  Man, have we lost a lot of ground in only three years.

I Was Wrong. They Do Have an Agenda.

Last night, the outgoing Commission had its last business meeting.  The urgent matter was approving the second reading of an Ordinance, but a few other matters were added, to get them off the books and into action.  One of those matters was the commitment the Village already intended, to acquire four new police vehicles.  There are four that are very high mileage and increasingly low reliability, the maintenance costs for them exceed the cost of a lease-purchase, the money was already set aside in the new budget, and all we had to do is place the final stamp of approval on the commitment.  The matter was listed in the Consent part of the Agenda, because it wasn't worth discussion.  Or so we assumed.

We received a letter from one of the Commissioners-elect, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, telling us why this matter should not be considered by the outgoing Commission.  It involved an expense, and Jenny proposed that it was not properly publicized.  Jenny couldn't be at the meeting, for reasons she did not specify.

Tracy Truppman, another Commissioner-elect, was there, and she said the same thing Jenny did.  Will Tudor, the other Commissioner-elect and "three-pack" member, wasn't there.

Jenny and Tracy had outgoing Commissioner Barbara Watts to add muscle for them, and Barbara took the matter off the Consent Agenda, so we would have to discuss it.

As I said, this matter has been discussed before.  It was discussed a few months ago, when the budget was approved.  The reason to cycle out old, high-mileage, and low-reliability police cruisers is that they cost too much to maintain, and they're not reliable.  These are emergency vehicles we're talking about.  Emergency vehicles that are not reliable is not a good thing.  So on the surface of it, there was no reason not to go forward with the intention, as we had already planned and for which we had made fiscal room, and the sooner, the better.  These cars take many months to complete, because they are specially equipped.  They're much more expensive than similar models for sale at car dealerships.

The only reason not to move ahead with this plan last night was to preserve the opportunity to cancel it.  And since cancelling the intention to order these cruisers is the one and only possible outcome of delaying the order, then it must be the reason two of our Commissioners-elect, and one outgoing Commissioner, wanted the delay.

We're then left to wonder why they would want to cancel such an order.  It can't be that police cruisers are considered trivial or unnecessary.  We very typically clamor for more police action and visibility and effectiveness.  It can't be saving money.  Repairing old cruisers, apart from keeping them unreliable and unavailable, costs more than paying the lease on new vehicles.

But there is one reason the new Commission might want us not to have new cruisers.  Tracy Truppman has told us what that reason is.  Tracy has decided, for whatever are her reasons, that we should cut back what she somehow understands or imagines our police expense to be, by no longer offering our officers take-home vehicles.  So presumably, Tracy, with the apparent agreement of Jenny and Barbara, has calculated that the fewer police cruisers we have, the less available they are to be provided as take-homes to our officers.  This is apparently Tracy's, and Jenny's and Barbara's, idea of an end run around the contracted commitment we made to our police officers, providing a take-home vehicle as a consolation or compensation for underpaying them.

And let's say, just for purpose of discussion, that Tracy and Jenny and Barbara had a point worth looking at.  Let's suppose that if we have fewer vehicles, and they're not very good, that we would have grounds not to be able to spare them for our officers to take home.  The theory about police officers taking home their cruisers versus not taking them home, apart from how the officers feel about it, is that if officers take home their vehicles, then municipalities have to have more vehicles available.  And the vehicles are only used when the given officer is on duty, or when he or she is commuting to and from the Village.  If officers don't take home their cruisers, and have to use their personal cars to commute to and from work, then the municipality needs fewer cruisers, and those cruisers are used continuously, by whoever is on duty each shift.  So one scheme requires more vehicles, which are spared when officers are off duty, and the other scheme requires fewer vehicles, which wear out much sooner, because they're used much more heavily.  Most knowledgeable people who calculate this conclude that it's essentially a wash, with the difference represented by the consolation or compensation experienced by the officers.  And since our officers-- the ones we underpay-- have been more or less content to accept the take-home vehicles as consolation or compensation enough, that's what we do.  It's in their PBA contract with us.

But here's the other problem, and the real problem, with Jenny's and Tracy's and Barbara's proposal.  Setting aside how not nice and not respectful and not honorable it is.  If we don't have newer police cruisers, then we have older police cruisers.  Those are the unreliable ones, that eat up more money in repairs than it would cost to replace them.  It means that when you or I have an emergency, and we need police help, we might not get it, if a cruiser won't start, or dies on the way to us.  It completely defeats the entire purpose of an emergency vehicle.

So last night, we went ahead with our lease commitment.  Bob Anderson wasn't there, and the vote to make the commitment was 3-1, with Barbara Watts representing her incoming replacements, who are trying to figure out a way to squeeze the BP police department.  This was what Tracy told us she would try to do, it's the way she said she'd try to do it, and she's been good for her agenda.

"Reality Bites"

Donald Trump told us he was going to rid us of all the pesky and illegitimate illegal aliens.  "Eleven million" of them, he estimated.  Since Trump has never held any elected office, and has no government experience of any kind, it wasn't clear whence he got his figure.  But that's what he told everyone.  And for whatever were their reasons, they believed him.  So they elected him President of the United States, because he said he was going to correct all the ills he and his supporters felt sure there must be.  Even though none of them had any reason to know.  And many Republicans who did have a reason to know were very reluctant, if not downright refusing, to back him.

Yesterday-- and who could possibly know why-- Trump told us he was going to rid us of "two to three million" illegal aliens.  And he specified that the aliens he would deal with were the criminals, whom we would apprehend, and we'd either incarcerate them, or deport them.

I have no idea whence Trump got his "11 million" number, or why he decided it was somehow really "two to three million," but when the bluster settled, he found himself where we already are: if someone commits a crime, and is caught, and is an illegal alien, they either get incarcerated or deported.  That is precisely, in detail, what we already do.  It's unclear whether Trump would have been elected, if he had said it's all working fine, and he wouldn't change a thing: if he had said there is a process, and that process has due constraints and requirements, and he couldn't properly or legally do things any differently.

We just elected a new Commission.  The Commission is new importantly because there is a new majority.  Not only are they numerically a majority, but they ran as a group or a slate, and they have declared unity.  And they've told us exactly what Donald Trump told us, and based on the same thing.  They've told us the system is terrible, and the Commissioners are terrible, and no one has had the imagination or assertiveness they have to straighten it all out, and they know all this because they have overactive fantasy lives.  Just like Donald Trump and his supporters do.  Trump's platform is deconstructing already.  I wonder when our new Commissioners' will.

I've been hearing about two targets at which our new Commission will reportedly take aim.  One is the recreation function of the Village, and the other is the Police department.  And as best I can tell, trying to read between lines, since none of the new Commissioners has been at all specific (with one exception), this is about reining in expenses.

I don't know what the asserted issue about recreation will be.  We aren't told.  We've been Trumped: we're just told cuts will be made, with no examples given as to what kinds of cuts these might be.  Very, very recently, there has been outcry about the poor surfacing of the tot lot.  BP residents-- most certainly those with tots-- have been agitating for a surface that is cleaner, easier to keep clean, and less likely to feature used hypodermic needles and animal excrement, for example.  One alternative we considered was rubber surfacing made just for this kind of purpose.  And it's not cheap.  So let's assume that at the very least, the new Commission will ignore an upgrade like this.  So what are they going to tell their neighbors who want better from us?  Tough luck, we're more interested in saving pennies, and cutting corners?  Oh, that'll be a winner.  And even if they don't upgrade the surface of the tot lot, that leaves us with no savings.  It's just avoiding a new expense.  So what would they like to cut?  Don't expect me to tell you.  I'm wondering myself.  They, like Donald Trump, managed to get themselves elected on the strength of meaningless slogans and platitudes, and absolutely no relevant experience, but at some point, they're going to have to do something.  And will have to be based on something.  They'll have to get real.

And what do they think they're going to do to reduce the police budget?  The police budget in BP, as is true essentially everywhere, is about half of the overall budget.  The fact that it's half of our budget is not a sign of anything amiss.   And it isn't more than that, because we underpay our police officers, and we provide for them as little as possible.  If we're not the lowest in the County, we're very near it.  We don't provide adequate training opportunities, because we can't afford to, we're at pains to provide adequate equipment, and we rely on hand-me-down cruisers, because we can't afford a fleet of new cars.  And much of what we do provide for our officers (which means for ourselves, since they're here for the one and only reason to serve and protect us) is according to our contract with them.  So we can't change it until the contract comes up for renewal.  And when it does, and we try to tell our officers, whom we underpay, that we would like to take from them their take-home cruisers (that's the one exception), which are part of the reason, or the compensation, or the excuse, that they agree to work for less than anyone else, how do we imagine they will react?  Maybe they'll tell us we're so magically wonderful to work for that they'd stay here even if we didn't pay them anything, and they had to lease their cars from us.  Or maybe not.

It'll be interesting to watch Donald Trump, and our new Commission, deconstruct, as they have to face reality.  We'll see how they adjust when their fantasies get replaced by real issues and real people and real problems.

Please come to Commission meetings.  If you don't want to participate, at least bear witness.

Conflict of Interest. The Song and Dance Game Anyone Can Play.

It is almost guaranteed you were not at the drainage presentation at the log cabin yesterday morning.  Very few Village residents were there.

The issue was how to address our problem with ground water.  The presenters were representatives of the Craig A Smith Company, which specializes in improving drainage in communities.

The Smith reps gave us a slide show about the drainage problem they say we have.  They've performed a study, for which we paid, and we already had a previous study performed by staff at FIU.  I don't know if we paid for that study.  It was from 2003.  But the studies agreed we have a problem, and the Smith reps explained what we can do about it.  The main thing we can do is find funding, and hire Smith to do the work.

It wouldn't take a genius to imagine the possibility that Smith were motivated to find a problem, and offer to accept money to ameliorate it.  You could make such an argument about anyone in business.  They think everyone needs whatever they're selling.  Perhaps of interest, though, Smith did give us some ideas about how to find grant funding that at least in some cases has allowed municipalities to achieve even extensive drainage upgrades without spending a dime of their own money.  So there was a level of understanding there of the limitation of some municipalities when it comes to being able to accomplish large projects like this one.  But still, Smith had something substantial to gain, if they could persuade us we have a problem, and we should fix it.

On the other side, there were some of the few Village residents present who frankly predictably argued that we don't really have a drainage problem.  These BP residents, none of whom is an appropriately trained, credentialed, and experienced civil engineer, and who did not technically study the matter beyond taking companion photographs after and further after rain, decided they know more about these matters than do professionals who do nothing but this all day, every day, for a broad range of municipalities.  They seemed to be arguing something that is very much not in their own bailiwicks.  One of these BP neighbors even trotted out his stash of photographs, taken two hours apart, showing a nice and tidy disappearance of puddles after the rain.  (Of course, the "before" photographs showed very small puddles, so it's not clear that he didn't choose either times of light rain, or streets that don't happen to have much of a problem.)

Likewise, it wouldn't take a genius to conclude that if someone doesn't want to pay for something, a great starting place would be to conclude that whatever it is isn't needed.   Frankly, that seems to be what was going on here regarding the drainage issue.  The people who seemed most poised against the idea that we have a drainage problem, and/or that the Smith proposal was what we should do about it, tend generally to resist anything that costs more money.

On the surface of it, it's a tough dilemma: which people are more motivated by conflict of interest?  Is it the prospective "vendor," who could be using us, or any other area, just to get work?  Or is it the BP residents who never seem to want to pay for anything, now finding (or imagining) a reason we shouldn't have to pay for this, either?  And some of those same residents also tend not to like change, as well as being poised against any suggestion made by a sometimes majority of the current Commission.

One BP resident seemed to propose to disqualify at least part of the resident questionnaire aspect of the investigation, when she pointed out that her block was designated as having a problem, while she herself had completed the questionnaire, and said that in her experience and observation, the block had no problem.  But it was pointed out that there were a few questionnaires from that block indicating that some of her neighbors apparently do think there's a problem.  Were her neighbors overstating a problem?  Was she understating one?

As Gene Schreiner of Craig A Smith said, he didn't approach the Village suggesting it had a problem it should hire him to solve.  It was the Village who reached out to Craig A Smith, complaining of something.  He's just doing what we asked him to do.  And he said he's seen evidence of the kind of macadam damage that water causes.  And we have some residents who complain of various kinds of water intrusion and damage.  I asked Mr Schreiner to prove to us, with photographs, that this water damage problem exists here, and to add that proof as an amendment to the voluminous report his company already provided.  He says he will.

This is a very expensive project.  It's no less expensive if we can find some funding source that will pay for it.  It just becomes not our money.  But it's our Village.  If we don't really have a problem, we shouldn't pay, or ask anyone else to pay, to fix one.  But if we do have a problem (and much of the evidence and testimony made it seemingly impossible to imagine we don't), it would be foolish and short-sighted of us not to commit ourselves to addressing it.  And sometimes, foolishness and short-sightedness have been our specialty.  Especially when it comes to ponying up for something.

I Said it Before, and I'll Say it Again. We Have One Real Problem Here.

Well, maybe 1 and 1A.

Our problem is money.  We don't have enough.  We live as fakes, because we try to pretend we really don't have our problem, or it's not the problem, or it's not a problem.  We stick our heads in the sand.  We whistle in the dark.

Some people complain that there ought to be training to be a parent.  You should need a license, to show that you have an idea what you're doing.  Other people say the same thing about being an elected official, or a judge.

Likewise, it's possible for an area to become a municipality without having to demonstrate real viability.  We did that, in 1933.  And we're not viable today, either.  I don't know who paid to create our streets.  Maybe it was Arthur Griffing.  I should try to look it up.  Maybe I'll ask Seth Bramson.  But unless creating streets used to be dirt cheap (sorry), it's something we could not have done then, with donations from the few BP residents at the time.  Somehow, the streets lasted, more or less, and we use the same ones today.  But they're in disrepair, getting worse over time (as does everything), and we can't afford to fix them.

I have no reason to believe our very generously provided and arrayed medians were ever other than spare.  Is that back in vogue now, since we embrace minimalism?  But they're not really minimal, or minimalist.  They're ratty, skanky, and just poorly developed.  Watch them, and walk them.  They're used often enough as ready places to do U-turns, and they're used as garbage dumps and pet excrement receptacles.  They're used for what they look like.  And why aren't they better developed?  Why aren't they treated with the pride they deserve?  Apart from the obstructiveness and failure to provide leadership from the relevant Board, it's because we can't afford to do anything with them.

We would never have improved the log cabin and built the new administration building, if we hadn't gotten a grant of funds representing over half the cost.  We never did, and we couldn't have.  It's true we're cheap (that's 1A), but it's also true we simply could not have afforded it.

We have a drainage problem here.  Yeah, yeah, I know, Milton, no, we don't really have a drainage problem.  Yes, we do.  And it's not that Milton and some others don't want to pay to address that problem.  Well, they don't, but also, it's way too expensive for us.  The rough estimate at this point, for a new Village-wide drainage system, is about $13M.  Maybe we could get another matching grant for half of it?  Oh, good, then it's only $6.5M.  No way.  Not around here.

Do not be fooled.  This is not about sharpening pencils, and trying to ferret out fraud and other mischief.  The budget is bare bones.  It's only deciding which of the comparatively minor municipal responsibilities we want to address, at the expense of the rest of them, while we continue to sing ourselves the song about how we don't really have the major problems.  Furthermore, there is no fraud.  There never was.  It's true that before we had professional management, we had non-professional mismanagement.  But that wasn't fraud.  It was just the ineptitude you have to get from people trying to do a job they weren't trained to do and didn't know how to do.  Now, we have the professionals, the jobs are done properly, and we're still very deep in a large fiscal hole.

We need an infusion, and we're not going to get it.  Our amazing opportunity was squandered by a Commission that didn't know what it was doing, had no vision, and didn't want anything for the Village.  That was the last Commission.  The current Commission, which is a few weeks from being over, tried its best, but it was too late.  The opportunity for annexation appears to be in the rear view mirror, and we're on a super highway.  We can't pull over and back up.

We could try to do better with millage, but we won't get far.  The difference between 9.7 mills and 10 mills will get us maybe let's say up to $100K.  It's hard to tell, because values are a moving target, especially with some recent nice sales.  So I would have said something like $50K, but I'm rounding up.  We could get heroic, and use referendum to jump ourselves up to 12 mills, or 15, or 20.  Just for a few years.  (Stop laughing yourself sick, and get up off the floor.  I'm trying to have a real conversation with you here.)  The facts are, no one would agree to that, and it would be even less fair to our high value neighbors than we're already being.  You do understand that most of us pay too little tax, and some of us pay way too much.  Increasing millage hurts the latter neighbors the most.

So another possibility is to use assessments.  Apparently, some kinds of assessment don't count as part of the millage.  We can have our millage-- let's say 9.7, or 10-- and an assessment.  That's a way of raising our taxes, and it affects everyone the same.  It's not ad valorem.  If the assessment, let's say for the police, or the medians, or whatever else, is $500 or $1000 per year, it's that amount for everyone, whether their house is worth $200K or $2M.  That's a bad deal for those of us who are limited?  True.  But it's respectful and appreciative of the bad deal suffered by those of us who paid a lot for our houses.

The point is, we have to do something.  We can't just act like children.  When we do that for long enough, we eventually have to do something about the log cabin, and build a new administration building.  And many of us fuss and complain about it.  But it's because for decades, we didn't rise to the normal maintenance occasion.  And if we continue to wait, while our streets deteriorate, thanks in part to our drainage problem, we'll have to pay to fix them both, and it won't be cheap.  And we'll still fuss and complain about all the money we have to pay.  Or that we want someone else to pay.  Because we're cheap (you remember problem 1A), and we don't want to take real responsibility.  We're grown-ups, because we have some sort of income, and we own houses and drive cars?  Very nice.  But it's more complicated than that, and it requires more from us.

So that's our problem.  It's our main problem.  It's problem 1.  And problem 1A.  If there's a problem 1B, it's the need we always have, but don't always satisfy, for a Commission with vision and ambition, that will invite us, urge us, and require us to take responsibility for ourselves and our Village.  That's our problem.  That's our problem.

PS: We're $1000 short of the goal for the "Ballplayer" sculpture that's in Griffing Park.  We need that much more in donations.  If you haven't donated to this sculpture, please do so.  Donate any amount you like, write a check to the Village, and memo it "Ballplayer."  Ten c-notes, 20 fifties, 50 twenties, or 100 sawbucks will do it.  If you're thinking of a fin, step it up.  If you want me or Chuck Ross to pick it up from you, contact us.  We'll be right over.  And we don't have these kinds of dumb problems if every BP property owner pays $8 (eight dollars) per year in an extra tax/assessment/donation. OK, fine, $7.   Sheesh.

Thank You For the Opportunity to Serve the Village.

Tracy Truppman and Jenny Johnson-Sardella won four year terms on the Commission, and Will Tudor won a two year term.  Dan Samaria and I did not win opportunities to serve you on the Commission.

I have served the Village continuously for about 11 years-- the last three on the Commission-- and I will continue to serve the Village.  I will ask the Commissioners to appoint me to any Board that is undermanned.  I will continue to attend Commission meetings faithfully, as I always have.

I am very proud of my service to the Village, perhaps especially my time on the Commission.  I'm very glad we outsourced sanitation.  I'm glad we belatedly did the best we could to try to expand and diversify our tax base through an attempt at annexation.   I'm glad we very materially improved Village Hall.  I'm glad we opened and deepened the discussion about driveways and swales.

I'm sorry we didn't complete that discussion.  I'm sorry we didn't succeed in increasing our revenue as we needed to.  I'm sorry we did not (yet?) commit to improving our medians.  We didn't quite get around to a Code Ordinance regarding landscaping, especially on new construction and substantial renovation.

The new Commission will have a chance to do that, if it has the wherewithal and ambition for the Village.  The new Commission can revisit the matter of outsourcing sanitation.  It can either cancel the contract with WastePro, or it can decide not to renew that contract, and instead to rebuild the program "in house."  The great thing about doing this is that now, it is exactly the same task as if we had done it instead of outsourcing: we would have to, and would have had to, buy new trucks and hire new personnel.  It's just a matter of what the new Commission wants for the Village and its residents.  As I have said before, the experiment we tried was outsourcing.  The experiment we didn't try was keeping the garbage collection program in house in the right way, and sending out the bill that would have been appropriate.  The new Commission may want to try that experiment.

Thank you again.  I'm not going anywhere.

Fred

A Gripe, and Hubris. Qualification Enough?

Poor Jill Stein.  I don't even disagree with her.  I, too, am a strong advocate of ecological soundness and conservation.  But that's all she and the Green Party have.  They're one issue, and it isn't going anywhere, at least not on a national political stage.

The same is true of Gary Johnson.  Setting aside that he's completely inept, he's got nothin'.  The Libertarians' whole agenda is that they don't want anything.  They want to be left alone.  It don't work that way in a country and a society like this one.  Neither the Greens nor the Libertarians have a meaningful, or even noteworthy, presence.  And they shouldn't.  This is a big, complicated, connected machine, and they only want to take a simple and contained view of it.  They're not operating in reality.

Generally speaking, these fringe movements don't get far on the big stage.  Although Hitler did.  And for a short while, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson seemed to.  But on little enough stages, with few enough people paying attention, cults like these stand a better chance.  People whose only stated agenda is to pay lower taxes can make some headway for themselves.  Until they begin to effect that agenda, and the larger system begins to fall apart.

But what we've seen here in BP in recent years (maybe before, too) is the temporary ascendancy of people who have no connection to the neighborhood, have one specific gripe, and decide that being so mad at someone or other that they can't take it any more, somehow qualifies them to be Commissioners.  The last "perfect storm" we had of people like that lasted from late 2011 to late 2013, and it was a disaster.  The Village's functioning ground to a halt, there was nothing but aimless and empty sniping, and we lost valuable opportunities to improve the Village.  We won't recover from some of that.

We're about to do it again.  Someone who might be the frontrunner has lived here for 13 years, never been on any Board or work group, never come to Commission meetings, except some of them after he declared his candidacy, and never even voted in the Village.  For 13 years.  And he's retired from government service.  How little could someone possibly care?  But he's got his gripe.  He's affected by the September, 2015, driveway and swale Code Ordinance, and for whatever reasons, he thought the late 2016 version would affect him even more.  That's it.  That's his issue.  That's his agenda.  And he wants to be a Commissioner, and possibly have to serve the Village continually and faithfully for up to four years (something he's never before been willing to do for even one day), because he doesn't want to be made install a driveway, which he would and should have had to do anyway.

If we play our cards really wrong, we'll elect three people who have little or no connection to Village functioning, who have been unable to articulate an agenda, and who have not been able to be bothered to sit through Commission meetings.  Since three of them are running as a slate (the "three-pack"), they can represent a majority of the Commission, if all three are elected.  These are three people who are essentially disconnected from most Village functioning and who want nothing.  This is what we limped away from three years ago, still licking our wounds to this day.

Here's what happens when you have power, but you don't want anything: nothing.  If there's nothing you want, there's nothing to do.  What you do is try not to do anything.  If something comes along, you deflect it, or you obstruct it.  Because nothing is perfect, and you're expected to address imperfections, but you don't want anything, you cast blame instead.  You blame the people who used to occupy the seats you now occupy.  If available, you blame a previous Manager.  Or the present one.  The last group who did this-- the group that ended its power three years ago-- were part of why Ana Garcia left.  She couldn't do anything with them or for them, and all they wanted to do was accuse her.

Funny enough, one of the "three-pack" complained to me and others bitterly about our hiring of the current Manager.   When that same candidate later told us we should rely heavily on the new Manager for her expertise and wisdom regarding Codes, I told the new Manager about this candidate's recent very opposite posture.  It was like a joke, if a somewhat sick one.  The new Manager already knew about it.

But that's what you get, and what we all get, when we give power to people who don't know what to do with it, and don't actually want anything anyway.  They have no agenda.

Just be careful with your vote.

I Wonder Whether I'm the Bad Cop or the Good Cop. Or the Worse Cop.

I myself couldn't tell.  I voted against the new driveway and swale Ordinance, because it didn't have enough teeth, and it wasn't far-reaching enough.  I said I was voting against it, not because it was asking too much of BP homeowners, but because it was not asking enough.

The Ordinance as we considered it caused too much aggravation for not enough gain.  We would have left a proportion of properties still allowed to park solely on the swale, and exempted from creating a driveway, and we did not outlaw impervious surfaces.  I wanted more.  So in voting down the issue, because it wasn't demanding (mean) enough, I felt like a bad cop.

The result of my vote against the proposed Ordinance was that we would revert to the current Code.  And many or most of our neighbors who spoke in opposition to the new Ordinance pleaded instead for better adherence to the Code we already have.  As part of my embarrassed slithering away from the Ordinance I had heretofore supported, I expressed agreement that we should, as these neighbors offered, apply ourselves to serious insistence on compliance with what we have.  If we're not going all the way, I want us to be honest about doing what we're already supposed to be doing.  So then, I felt like a good cop.

The reason I felt even like a good "cop" was that I know very well that the people who argue for stricter adherence to the Code we have, which we passed in 2015, really don't want adherence to that Code, either.  In truth, I don't think they want anything, except to keep doing what they're doing, and they think the old Code allows them to do it.

Here's the 2015 Code to which many of those who resisted the 2016 update want to limit their responsibility to adhere:

      5.6.8  Parking must be available, accommodating a specified number of cars, on the property, which means "within the lot lines [which exclude the swales] of all properties."
      5.6.8(a)  All parking surfaces shall be of approved materials except as provided elsewhere.
      5.6.8(b)  All parking surfaces must have an [approved] improved approach across the swale
      5.6.8  Construction of a portion of a parking surface in the swale...such as the apron and parking surface approach, shall require the property-owner to indemnify, hold harmless, and defend the Village from any and all actions...associated with...proposed work within the Village right-of-way.

Furthermore:

      5.6.1(a)(1) Nonconforming residential properties that do not have an approved approach shall have one (1) year from the date of enactment of this Ordinance (September, 2015) to have the compliant surface permitted and installed.

This codified Ordinance does provide one partial loophole for some Village property-owners:

      5.6.1(a)(2) Existing nonconforming parking surfaces permitted by the Village may remain unless a substantial portion, fifty (50) percent or greater, requires repair, or an addition to the parking surface occurs, and/but
      5.6.1(a)(3)  When an approved parking surface exists, all vehicles shall park on said approved parking surface effective upon enactment of this Ordinance (September, 2015).

What my vote, and those of Commissioners Anderson and Watts, in opposition to the new proposed revision did was re-deliver to Village residents and homeowners the default version of the parking and swale Ordinance, as excerpted above.  But this is very little less onerous, and perhaps in some ways more onerous, than the revision they fought.  So in that sense, I'm a worse cop.  "Be careful what you wish for..." the alleged Chinese proverb begins.

Because the other thing for which those who resisted the new revision wished was more aggressive adherence to the Code just discussed.  In my own rounds of the Village, I can attest that many Village properties are not at all in keeping with the letter or the spirit of the already codified Ordinance.  I would certainly not be one to argue against stronger demands for compliance.

Cervantes gave us the caricature of the knight who foolishly tilts at windmills.  Some of those who resisted the new revision complained that Village residents and homeowners were caught unawares by the revision.  By the tabulation of some, there have been 29 public meetings-- Commission meetings and workshops-- where these Ordinances have been discussed.  Openly, with prior notice, minutes kept, and an audience of spectators and participants.  And that doesn't take into account all the Code Review Committee meetings that were also fully open to the public.

They also complained that the Commission took it upon itself further to improve, in its judgement, the proposed Ordinance delivered to it by the Code Review Committee.  As if that wasn't precisely the job of the Commission.  As if the CRC, or any other Board or work group, was some highest or final authority in the Village.

I have always been a fierce defender of the Village's Boards, and I still am.  Or at least I'm still more than willing to be.  But that's on condition that the Boards have as much deference to the proper role of the Commission as I have to the proper role of the Boards, and the Boards work collaboratively and responsively with the Commission and the rest of the Village.

So for the moment, we are returned to the codified 5.6 section of the Code, describing permitted requirements for parking, and use of the swales.  It was my intention to further improve and strengthen this Ordinance, to "drive" parking off swales, onto property, and to limit or prevent impervious materials from being used.

By the way, some of those who resisted my effort to rid the Village of impervious surfacing agitate at the same time for ecological consideration.  Ecological consideration starts at home, so to speak.  It's disingenuous to appeal to South Miami or somewhere else to preserve some reportedly ecologically sensitive habitat, if we refuse to take our own measures here.  It is ecologically destructive to prevent surface water from penetrating into the ground, where it can dissipate, and instead leave it to erode the streets.

But here's what's really interesting about this matter, and why I'm not sure what kind of cop I am.  There had been bitter complaint about this Ordinance revision.  One of our neighbors furiously criticized "just three people [David Coviello, Roxy Ross, and me] who impose this on the whole neighborhood."  (I'm paraphrasing.)  So when I flinched, and didn't agree to the revision, the basis for complaint was gone.  In fact, the matter has now been postponed to the January, 2017, meeting, where it will be reconsidered by a new Commission, and that new Commission might not include me.  It might include a numerical majority of Village residents who have never been in office, most of whom have little or no Village profile and experience, and some of whom also complained about this revision.

You'd think several people would have approached me after the meeting to thank me for sparing them from the reviled imposition.  Not one person approached me at all.  Not one person thanked me for having acceded to their wishes, or for seeing the matter in a different way.  The reason is that those people weren't really complaining.  They just wanted someone to blame for this move to improve the neighborhood.

Now, a new Commission, of people wholly unprepared to deal with matters like this, are going to have to take responsibility.  They don't get David Coviello, Roxy Ross, and me to do the heavy lifting.   As one of the candidates said at the meeting, it isn't, in her view of it, the job of the Commission to "legislate from the dais."  In fact, that is precisely the one and only responsibility of the Commission.  And now, she's trying to get into the hot seat.  Clearly, it's not where she wants to be.

In "A Few Good Men," Jack Nicholson's character challenged and confronted polite society.  "You don't want to know the truth [of how order is kept]," he told them.  "You want me on that wall [protecting you].  You need me on that wall."  Because the public themselves don't want to take these responsibilities.  They want someone else to do what they then don't have to do, and for which they can then cast blame.

Just to Be Clear About Our Problematic Finances

 
Just a few years ago, some of us, including me, expressed dire concern about the state of the Village's finances.  The sky was falling, we shouted, and something had to be done.  The issue in play then was annexation, which those of us who were shrieking about Village finances proposed might even be life-saving.

But then, some of us crepe-hangers and gnashers of teeth and tearers of clothes seemed to be spending money like there was no tomorrow.  We decided to renovate the log cabin and build a new Village Hall, and we spared no expense.  Some said we invented completely frivolous expenditures.

How can this be, some wondered?  What gives?  Are we in trouble, really, or are we awash in dough, and misled by some dishonest and manipulative Village residents?

Are we in deep fiscal trouble?  Yes, we are.  We always have been.  We can rearrange the deck chairs here, but we can't prevent the ship from sinking, which it gradually is.  No matter whether we repair the sun shade over the tot lot, or we don't, the streets will continue to erode.  And there's nothing we can do about it.

All streets erode over time, and the only question is whether they get maintained and repaired.  One of the things that erodes streets is prolonged exposure to water.  If an area, like let's say Biscayne Park, has poor drainage, the streets are exposed to immersion in water, and water pressure from below, and this weakens the asphalt/macadam.  Our problem, again, is that we have no way of repairing our streets.  Some residents were even heard to complain recently that the North Miami side of 121st St was resurfaced in the past couple of months, and it makes our side look bad.  Some wondered why North Miami didn't do us the courteous gesture of slapping some new asphalt on our side, too.  Because it costs money to recoat streets, and North Miami has no reason to spend their money to recoat our streets.  And we can't afford to do it ourselves.

That's only the surface treatment.  More destructive are the erosion by water and the invasion from tree roots.  We have no way of attending to these problems.  We also can't afford to improve our medians (at least not from Village coffers), increase and improve lighting, or any of a number of other municipal responsibilities.

Some Village residents who don't want us to spend the money-- or to try to find it to spend-- argue that we don't really have a water/drainage problem.  Considering the pooling that happens after heavy rains, and the obvious deterioration of the streets, this claim is like the knight in Monty Python's "Holy Grail," who suffers amputation in battle, and calls it only a "flesh wound."

So if we have such fiscal trouble, how is it we undertake a major project like the log cabin and the new Village Hall?  Well, the State spotted us over half the money.  And we borrowed about half of the rest.  With those kinds of underwriting and deferred payment assists, we give the appearance of being fiscally competent.  We're not.  What we can do is drain our reserve, and then commit to a manageable $35K per year payment on the loan.

I have very recently had two relevant conversations with our neighbors.  One was about a reserve we had in about 2007 or 2008.  The neighbor recalled that reserve as having been about $500K.  (It was actually about $800K.)  Where, the neighbor wondered, did the money go?  It "went" to two places.  One was that we spent it on the cost of existing as a municipality.  About 80% of our homes are homesteaded, and the ad valorem revenue on homesteaded properties cannot increase by more than 3% per year.  Expenses are in no way limited like that, and they can, and do, increase as much as they want.  We just can't keep up with them.

The other place the money went was that at the end of 2007, and through 2008 and 2009, the economy crashed.  With it went property values.  And when property values decrease, and the assessments on them decrease, the ad valorem property tax decreases.  We took a very big ad valorem hit in those years.

The other conversation I had was about the money we don't have to pay for clean-up after hurricanes.  The resident was concerned what we would do, since we don't seem to be able to afford the clean-up.  The fact is, we don't lay out all the money for hurricane clean-up.  The contractors put us on account, and we pay it over time.  And FEMA reimburses us most of it.  But it was a good enough illustration of a problem.  And the last time we paid for hurricane clean-up, in '05, it cost us about $1.2M.  No normal BP reserve could ever cover that.

We cannot afford our existence.  We pretend we can, or that limitations are due to one mistake, or element of irresponsibility, or another, but we really can't, and they're really not.  We act like the important decisions are whether we should resurface the tot lot, or buy new police cruisers, or pay for an assistant to the Manager, but this is very small stuff.  And we scrutinize the budget and what supports it, and argue about whether we should charge ourselves 9.7 mills, or 9.3 mills, or 10 mills.  But it doesn't matter.  We lose, regardless of which millage we choose.  Millage won't support us here.  We desperately needed annexation, but we screwed up badly, and we didn't get it.  Every time a long homesteaded house sells, and it gets upgraded (at least in terms of the ad valorem tax), it helps us, for a while.  We get a nice infusion for the first few years, but then that property gets the protection that is outstripped by reality.

We are, in no uncertain terms, in trouble.  We can afford the small stuff, and with enough propping up, we can even afford a specific big project, but we cannot afford our real lives.

Harvey Bilt and I. Life, As it Should Be, in Biscayne Park.

Harvey Bilt, and his wife, Vicki, and I have been friends for some years.  I don't remember how we met, but we like each other.

Three years ago, Harvey and I both ran for Commission.  I came in third, and Harvey came in fourth, six votes behind me.  Only the top three vote-getters won seats.  I felt bad for Harvey, whom I like and who I thought would make a good Commissioner, and he was happy for me.  It changed nothing between us.

When I decided at the last minute to run again, Harvey was one of the first to accept a campaign yard sign.  I had a sense that it was his pleasure to show support, and it was certainly my honor to have support from him.

Over the course of these several weeks of the campaign season, Harvey has changed his mind about me as a Commissioner.  I don't know why, since we didn't talk about it, but apparently, he no longer thinks I've been a good Commissioner, or that I would be a good one if I had a second term.  He has said so publicly.

Harvey and I had the following e-mail conversation today:

Harvey,
You accepted from me a campaign yard sign some weeks ago, but more recently, you have made clear publicly that you don't approve of me as a Commissioner.
Can I conclude that the campaign yard sign is not still there (I haven't looked), and I should pick it back up from you?
Fred

Fred,
You are still a friend, and your sign is still displayed.
Harvey

Harvey,
As you say, and I'm glad you say it, you and I are friends.  I'm pleased and proud to have you as a friend.
But the sign is there for a very specific reason, and that reason could exist even if you and I were not friends.  It's there because I'm running for office, and your having that sign there helps me be more public, and it suggests to others that I have your support.  If I don't have your support, you are under no obligation to help me win, and you might have compelling reason not to want to give others the impression that you approve of me.  No one seeing my sign in your yard knows how much you don't approve of me as a Commissioner.
If you still want the sign there, or are simply willing to have it there, we'll leave it there, and thanks for your help.  But it has no negative impact on our friendship, or my respect for you, if you ask me to remove the sign.
Fred

To put it another way, your gesture of friendship to me is your willingness to display my sign, even though you don't think I am or would be a good Commissioner.  My gesture of friendship to you is my offer to remove a sign you probably don't want, and it does not in any way reduce my very friendly feelings for you and Vicki.
Fred

Nope, it stays.
Harvey

Ah, Yes, the Water. The Cold, Cold Water.

Last night was the Meet the Candidates event/grilling in the run-up to our local election.  The event was very successful, the turnout was quite satisfying, and I think all of us made our positions clear.

We were asked a reasonable array of questions about various Village matters.  Everyone got to make his or her case to the audience.

There was a very distinct theme to the responses, more or less as predictable and as promised by the four who are not incumbents.  They all promised to "listen to the residents" (which all candidates promise to do, and all elected officials do), and they all criticized the current state of the Commission and its (in)attention (as the challengers imagine it) to the budget.  One candidate reassured us in response to a question a voter posed to her, to the effect of wondering whether she would take the same positions and approaches as a Commissioner that she does as a candidate, that she could be relied upon not to waver from her current path.  No matter what she encounters, or what she learns, she will not change her mind or her approach.

Those who are not now, and have never been, elected officials seem to understand that somehow, no one before ever thought of the idea of listening to residents/constituents.  And no one ever thought of how to confront a budget, with its limitations.  It never occurred to BP Commissioners to try to manage a manager.  It's an interesting perspective to adopt.  One of my friends who was there described the approaches of these candidates who have never actually had to deal with this kind of material as "pandering and naive."

Frankly, I think that's probably right.  Passing attention, from a great distance away, allowed authoritative conclusions about a range of difficult problems and dilemmas.  And there was largely little or no sense of what made those problems and dilemmas so difficult.

I took the title of this post from a comment made by one of the candidates, regarding the things she imagines herself improving.  Various Village residents have long complained about the water supplied to us from CNM.  Some complain about what they interpret as the purity and cleanliness of the water, and some complain about the pressure.  The candidate in question reassured us she's going to get to the bottom of this, and get those "two and a half inch" pipes replaced and/or enlarged.  As if no one ever thought about this problem, or tried to do anything about it.

If I get re-elected, we will still have two new, uninitiated, clearly poorly informed Commissioners.  If I don't get re-elected, we'll have three.  Presumably, they will start their tenures as they promised: persistently soliciting and "listening to" the thoughts and wishes of their neighbors.  And they'll certainly hear plenty of those thoughts and wishes, whether they still want to or not.  But they won't all be the same thoughts, the same wishes, and the same theories.  They'll conflict with each other.  If our candidates, two or three of whom will become Commissioners, really are pandering, and if their approach really does spring from naivete, they will get a rude awakening, fast.  It will feel like very cold water to them.  They'll find out that just as is true of the current Commission, and the one before that, and the ones before that, they, too, will soon be accused of not "listening" to their neighbors.  They'll find out that simple answers don't really address difficult and sometimes impossible problems.

They'll find out that a very limited-- frankly wholely inadequate-- budget can be tweaked a tiny bit here, and a tiny bit there, but overall, it will never serve the needs of this Village.  We had our best chance to help ourselves-- an early application for annexation-- but we blew it.  One candidate last night talked about maybe annexing some other tract.  But it isn't likely to happen, for exactly the reason our recent attempt failed.

The new Commission will have a choice, as all elected bodies have a choice.  That choice was represented by one of the questions posed to us last night: would you try to respond to what makes Village residents happy, or would you take a different, perhaps longer, view?  As I said last night, keeping the residents du jour happy has for decades involved not spending money on things like necessary attention to the log cabin.  Past Commissions ignored the man behind the curtain, and they oversaw a municipal headquarters that was decreasing functional, and in no way adequate to the need.  The current Commission, the one that ends next month, took the longer view.  And we made some 2015-2016 Village residents unhappy.  Those who choose to be unhappy can remain that way for the next few years, until the loan is repaid.  But many decades and even some generations of future Village residents will be very happy for what we are leaving them.  And in the meantime, we have dramatically improved our functioning, our appearance, and our sense of place.

As one of my friends put it, in a question that was not asked last night, we are improving the Village's "brand."  That translates variously, but most certainly including our sense of value, and our property values.

OK, That's Part of the Answer.

I've wondered what our other Commission choices were all about, and I've now gotten part of an answer.

I'm told that three of them-- Jenny Johnson-Sardella, Tracy Truppman, and Will Tudor-- have been campaigning together, as a slate.  They have told voters that it is their aim to get rid of the David Coviello, Roxy Ross, and Fred Jonas bloc.  They can't get rid of Coviello and Ross, because each has two years remaining on their terms.  But they can get rid of me.

So that's one expressed purpose of their candidacies: displace me.  Good.  Then what?  From what I'm told, no other agenda has been described.  In fact, other than the broad and non-specific complaint about Coviello, Ross, and me, it's not even made clear what that complaint is about.

The candidates' campaign signs might reveal a clue.  Each candidate's sign says something about the "voices" of Village residents.  One of them talks about "cents."  So presumably, the JTT bloc feel Village residents have not been listened to, and perhaps that the Village budget has not been handled correctly.

The question of whether Villagers' voices have been heard and listened to is an old dilemma.  It's a dilemma here, and it is everywhere.  Have Village residents been heard?  Of course they have.  But the opinions of various Village residents, or even groupings of them, have not always been obeyed.  Probably in every case, some Village residents want one thing, and others want something else.  So no matter what Commissioners do or don't do, someone can always complain of not having been heard.  And someone always does.  In recent years, Ross/Anderson/Childress were accused of not having listened to residents, and they were overturned by Cooper/Watts/Jacobs, who were also accused of not having listened to residents.  That bloc was replaced by Coviello/Ross/Jonas, who are identically accused of not listening to residents.  And it's true.  Every vote taken by anyone seems to reflect having "listened to" some residents, and not having "listened to" others.

In reality, no elected official "listens to" every resident, or even particular ones, in the sense of obeying them, all the time.  Apart from the fact that different residents want different things, elected officials are also in a position to have to "listen to" facts and realities that may be different from what various residents want.  Sometimes-- and my case is most certainly exemplary of this-- you learn things you didn't previously know about an issue, and you change your mind.  Not only do you come to think you were wrong to have thought and wanted what you did before, but you come to think your neighbors who wanted the same thing were wrong.

When you're elected to represent a constituency, you no longer have the luxury of simply trying to please and satisfy all of your neighbors, or a group of them, or some of them.  You come to focus on a bigger picture.

Take, for example, the apparent thrust of the new candidate bloc: JTT.  They advertise something about listening to their neighbors, and elevating concern for finances.  Every elected official, and every resident/constituent, is concerned about finances, but let's assume these three mean something specific about it.  Let's assume they are concerned about the money the Village spent for its new Village Hall and log cabin renovation.  I don't know that that's their issue, but I'm guessing it might be.

Decades of BP Commissions took the position that Village residents should save their money, and not make a responsible attempt to address aggregating problems with what was then Village Hall and is now the log cabin.  That posture, which was presumably respectful of what Villagers wanted, or what it was assumed they wanted, left us with a Village Hall that was not adequately workable, in which there was no storage, and that, after attempts to address it, had water leaks from the roof and rats running wild inside.  And a toilet that couldn't be used, because it sat on rotting floor boards.  We saved money, though.  And anyone who didn't want to pay for adequate repairs was "listened to."

And how do you "listen to" residents?  You can always hear the ones who are most vocal.  Do you just listen to them?  If  "listening to" residents means essentially what it says, we can just switch to a town meeting form of government, and have residents at large (or whichever of them care enough to cast a vote) vote on issues to be decided.  We have never chosen to do that, but perhaps it's a worthy idea to consider.  We can then disband the Commission, and get together a few times a year to vote.

The other thing worth noting is concern for the budget.  There are various ways to enact worry about it.  One is to insist that budgets be balanced, so no more is spent than what is taken in.  We already do that.  For special expenses, like the Village Hall/log cabin, we had to borrow.  But we set aside money to pay back the loan, so we still respected the budget.  Within the budget, which doesn't cover everything there is, we can deploy resources in one direction more than in another.  And we do.  And every time we, or any Commission, does that, we increase focus on one thing (to the satisfaction of some, and the disapproval of others) at the expense of another.  Do JTT think the current Commission has gotten its priorities wrong?  They haven't said so.

Or is this one of those issues of deciding the Village (its current Commission) is just spending too much money altogether, and both expenses, and the taxes that support them, should be lower?  Sure, that's an argument.  We can constrict here, and constrict there.  And if we constrict enough, we can lower our overall expenses.  But if we do that, and lower our taxes, too, then we still can't do what we already can't do, and what any self-respecting municipality should do: fix streets, improve medians, increase lighting, and any of a number of other responsibilities.

So apart from railing against CRJ (really just me, since the others aren't going anywhere for two more years), what would the new bloc like to do?  They still haven't said.  Platitudes about listening to residents, and being fiscally sensible, sure.  But what does this look like, in their view?

And what do they propose now?  We have a beautiful new Village Hall and a gorgeously renovated log cabin.  They're all done.  Is the new bloc devoted to preventing any new improvements, because some residents speak against them, and they cost money?  Again, they haven't told us.  And we need to know.  Assuming I'm not persuaded that "For the Best We Can Be" is represented by some of the other candidates, and I don't therefore drop out of the race, I'm still going to get three Commissioners.  I'd vote for myself, of course, but ideally, I'd vote for two more.  I'm getting them, whether I vote for them or not.  So for whom else would I vote?  And how would I know?

The Nature of the Problem

John Ise used to live in BP.  Now, he lives in MSV.  And he's a regular correspondent for the Biscayne Times.  In the October, 2016, number (Volume 14, Issue 8; I can't include the link to the article, because it's not yet on the BT's site), John complains about municipal Codes.  In this case, he's complaining about MSV Codes, but his gripe is applicable anywhere.  He calls his post "Rules and More Rules," and he subtitles it "Let's bring back common sense and compromise."

John presents a few examples of what he and some others consider legislating, or Coding, gone amok.  He paints pictures of MSV residents who appear to be doing nothing about which any sensible and reasonable person would complain, but which are prohibited-- or, as with BP Codes, not specifically permitted-- by the local Codes.  If you read John's complaint, and the complaint of his exemplars, without thinking beyond the examples, you would have the impulse to agree with him.

Why, for example, should vegetable gardens be permitted in MSV back yards, but not front yards?  "No neighbor had complained," John points out about the MSV resident's front yard garden, "and few today comprehend what 'problem' the citation was seeking to resolve."

In another example, a dog groomer with a storefront wanted to move to a larger space in MSV, having occupied the smaller space for 52 years.  The groomer encountered resistance, because apparently, dog grooming is not "explicitly permitted" in MSV.  There was no discussion as to why the business was not challenged for 52 years.  Presumably, it was considered "grandfathered," as long as it didn't change, such as by relocating.

John goes on to say "A stroll through the hundreds of pages of the Village Code of Ordinances shows the excruciating detail given to much of modern life," including limits on how many pets residents can keep.

But then, John says, as if offhandedly, "Of course we need effective and commonly understood code enforcement and rules.  They protect us from pollution, enforce public safety, and provide order...If anyone doubts the need for some level of adherence to code, take a quick drive through some of the dilapidated pockets of unincorporated Dade, including the western border of Miami Shores, where you'll find cars being disassembled on front lawns...and where the occasional snarling pit bull growls as you stroll by."

John adds that "Councilman Mac Glinn cautions me that there's a story behind every layer of the Village Code.  But as in life, Village regulations require a balancing act that ensures mutual respect, personal responsibility, and even a healthy sense of humor."

And that's the problem, presented admirably clearly.  If you don't have Codes, you can't guarantee, or at least impose, order, respect, and personal responsibility.  You need them, when you live in a community with other people, but they're not always natural, springing from what you might like to imagine as an automatic sensitivity between one neighbor and another.  If you do have Codes, you wind up limiting what might, in sensible and sensitive enough hands, have been a development that wasn't bad.  You limit creativity and expression.  You step on toes.  You might dumb things down.

It is, as John says, a balancing act.  And anyone, on either side of any issue, can complain, and feel mistreated.  And they do.  Is one right, and the other wrong?  Are they both right?  Are they both wrong?  Who knows?

The problem is that no one can write Code that covers every possibility and anticipates everything.  The Code-writing pen is not that kind of scalpel.  You do the best you can, either as the Code-writer, or the person responsible for ratifying a proposed Code, and you know that no matter what you do, or don't do, someone will have been adversely affected.  It is absolutely guaranteed by the process.  If there's a better way, no one has told the world what it is.