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.