Better Late Than Never? Not Really.

Today is Wednesday, July 20, 2016.  We have a special Commission meeting tonight, and probably the main Agenda item is the final vote to select the new Manager.

At 8:54 this AM, I received an e-mail from one of our neighbors.  The e-mail was entitled "Don't know where you stand, but..."  The first sentence of the e-mail was "Most likely, you have already decided which of the three candidates you would like to see as our new Manager."

Yup, that's right.  By now, I have decided.  I haven't voted-- I won't, until tonight-- but I have made my decision.

I think we advertised for this position in April.  We seated two review groups, and between these two groups, we reduced 47 qualified applicants to 12 semifinalists.  This reduction occurred by May 25.  On May 6, I had published a blog post, asking anyone with special interest, but especially anyone who was thinking of running for Commission this November, to contact me, so I could give them an inside track.  No one ever responded to this offer.  At a Commission meeting on June 6, we reduced the 12 to four finalists.  One of them dropped out very quickly.  I privately interviewed the three remaining finalists, and on June 24, we had formal in-person interviews-- one on one Commissioner to finalist-- in rotation.  The public interviews, before everyone who attended the open meeting, occurred on July 12.  That was eight days ago.

So today, one of our neighbors-- one in whom I happen to have exceptional confidence-- sent me an e-mail, offering to tell me her preference, and how she decided as she did.  And she correctly noted that it was "most likely" that I had already made up my mind.

Why do people wait until the last minute, until in their own estimation(!), it is in some sense "too late," to say what they want?  I wanted to know.  I asked!  I got nuthin' back.  So now, when I've already made up my mind, she wants to give me her opinion?

Of course, I'll listen.  I wrote back to tell her what I thought, and why I thought so, and to what extent I agreed with her observations and reasoning, and I offered to share the results of the background investigation for which we paid.  But why now?

This reminds me of the great sanitation debate.  I had made clear I thought outsourcing was best, but I said I would vote against it, if 1) a sizable proportion of our neighbors really didn't want it, and 2) they agreed to pay whatever not outsourcing would cost.  I put out a blog post about a month before the vote, asking for these two things.  What we got was an alleged petition, presented at the meeting when the vote was to occur, and reportedly a "rush job," only begun three days before the meeting.  It didn't have to be a rush job.  I had said a month earlier exactly what I needed in order to vote not to outsource.  I would have helped craft the petition statement, since I was the one who needed the reassurance.  But again, I got nuthin', until it was unquestionably too late.  As it turned out, I later examined and vetted the petition, and I found out it was mostly phony, so it wouldn't have helped the "let's not outsource" cause anyway, but whatever it was would have needed to be presented long before it was.

What's the point in waiting until the information presented doesn't matter any more?  Even information I get now might influence my vote several hours from now, but it's not a fair opportunity to consider and discuss it.  Do you realize how much time and trouble I've taken to get where I am?  Do you think that telling me, now, that I should see it your way instead, will have a lot of influence in possibly changing my mind?  (I didn't say whether I agreed or disagreed with our neighbor.  I mean, I told her, but I'm not specifying it here.)  And in each of the cases I mentioned, I actually specifically asked for input well in advance.