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.