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.