A "Witch Hunt"

I imagine last night's Commission meeting looked different to different people, depending on which side of the Commission desk you occupied, and who you were.  Various parts of it were frankly ugly affairs.

The meeting was better-attended than are most, and it turned out that the issue that drew most of the crowd was our recently completed and dedicated new construction: the new Village Hall and the restored log cabin.  We learned for the first time that we are substantially over budget on these projects, and a number of our neighbors had something to say about that fact.  As well, perhaps, they should.  It is, and will be, as they correctly pointed out, our own money.  Well, the overage and some of the rest is our money.  Most of the money came from the State.  But be that as it may, we will now have to figure out how to pay for what we bought.

That, in itself, was not the biggest problem.  It was disappointing and concerning to learn we will have to find ways to dig deeper, and there will certainly be ample further discussion about how bad is the damage, and how to resolve it.  In fact, we decided not even to attempt the discussion last night, and we have scheduled a special meeting to discuss only this issue.  The meeting is to be in the log cabin on April 20 at 6:30.

The problem was the attitude of a number of our neighbors.  They were angry, sure, but they were also nasty and very quick to blame and accuse.  They had found scapegoats and other targets, and they were very eager to take aim at them.  In at least one case familiar to me, a mutual personal vendetta was rationalized as a reason to attack the Manager.  It was tit for tat, for sure, but still, the venom was unnecessary.  Another of our neighbors, who somewhat typically does this, used the opportunity to point out that in his career of leadership, he has never been so irresponsible.  It seemed important to him to declare others irresponsible, so he could profit from what he presented as a contrast.  Another neighbor thought the Manager and all the Commissioners should be dismissed.  A couple of people used the opportunity to "conclude" (although it was actually already their premise) that we should now severely cut back expenses.  For example, they repeatedly reminded themselves, as if it had just occurred to them, we should definitely not replace Krishan Manners, who had been preceded by Candido Sosa-Cruz, whose position had been created by a different Manager.  No, this was taken as the opportunity to scrap the position altogether.

And of course, there was the harping about the furniture, and the "dais."  The project we thought we planned was going to cost us about $400K more than we were granted by the State of Florida.  Some of us have complained about that: that we should actually have to spend any of our own money on our own enhancement.  But we knew about it, and we agreed to it.  We borrowed for that.  What we just learned is that the actual cost of this project was about $300K more than we expected it to be.  The target of complaint, though, was about $8000 in furniture for the new building (that's $8000 beyond what was very generously donated to the Village by David Coviello's law firm, and Roxy and Chuck Ross personally) and a $24K Commission table produced by the contractor, who happens to be a Village resident.  I agree $24K is a lot for that table.  We got bids, and no one could reliably do it better and cheaper.  The only one who might have come close is a Village resident who, for whatever were his reasons, was willing to donate the labor.  We only had to pay for materials, though we never learned what the cost of those materials would be.  But let's assume the furniture that resident would have made would have been cheaper.  And let's assume we could somehow have spent less on the other building, maybe by shopping at Ikea or someplace.  In fact, let's assume we could have gotten the furniture and Commission desk for free (since it offends us to pay for anything).  Let's assume we save the whole $32K.  Does that mitigate the $400K we borrowed, or the $300K more that we now have to figure out how to raise?  It's a great arguing point, though, even though it doesn't actually mean anything.  "And you horrible, irresponsible people spent $24K for a 'throne' (for yourselves)?"

And that's what happened last night.  Fury got unleashed.  Not just about the furniture, but about a general sense of incompetence or disinterest on the parts of the Manager and the Commission.  One of our neighbors who was raging, the one who wanted everyone fired, also criticized us for listening to him and others without crying, begging for forgiveness, or whatever other expression he was apparently hoping to see.

One of our neighbors wrote to us today to complain about last night's "witch hunt."  He didn't like it that it seemed like a witch hunt.  Neither did I.  And it did.

As I said, there's a special meeting to talk about nothing but this issue.  It's on April 20 at 6:30.  Please come.  It's an important issue.  We have to understand it and deal with it.  Slogans and spitting aren't going to help much, so maybe leave those at home.