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?