Hits and Misses. Well, No Hits This Time.

Two issues stand out from last Wednesday's Commission meeting.  One was a variance request, and the other was portrayals of horror over the 2016 audit that is thus far incomplete.

The variance issue was typical of those that come before the Commission.  Homeowners wanted something, they asked Planning and Zoning to approve it, P&Z refused to approve whatever it was, and the homeowners appealed the denial to the Commission.  That's the way they're all structured.

To be eligible for a variance, homeowners have to show four things, which boil down to two things.  They have to show that the requested action is in some way necessary for the proper use, advantage, and enjoyment of the property, and they have to show that whatever they want to do won't compromise their neighbors, and that their neighbors don't mind.  In this case, P&Z considered the matter, and they concluded that none of the four requirements was met.

Also in this case, a few things are worth mentioning.  The homeowner is in some respects a public celebrity.  He is a television newscaster.  A few years ago, when the then Commission honored some Village residents for military service, this resident, who had been in service earlier in this life, gave what amounted to keynote comments.  He is also, as he found a way to mention in his argument last Wednesday, an attorney (or at least he went to law school and was admitted to the Florida Bar).  He's forceful in presenting whatever he wants to present.  And for what it might also be worth, he's black.

P&Z's "case" was presented by its representative, Dan Schneiger.  According to Dan, the application was not felt to have met any of the four required criteria, so P&Z unanimously denied the request.  In addition (as is not uncommon in these disputes), P&Z disagreed with some of the applicant's assertions of the state of the wall in question, and whether, as the applicant claimed, even a seven year old child could easily walk over the four foot wall.  P&Z's conclusion was that if anyone could scale the wall, it was because dirt had been mounded up on the street side of the wall.  But even at that...

The other part of the assertion of necessity for this wall (actually, it was only an extra one foot vertical extension of the wall that was requested) was that the applicant was concerned about crime.  He cited wider-spread concerns on the parts of some Village residents that crime here was increasing.  And it should be recalled that the applicant has what is perhaps more visibility, being a kind of celebrity, than might other Village residents.

Finally, the application included letters from several nearby neighbors who said they had no problem with the applicant's increasing the height of the wall.

So this was the stand-off that led to presentation of the matter at the Commission meeting.  Commissioners clearly did not know how to proceed with this application.  In my personal opinion, they did not want to frustrate someone with the kind of community (County, TV viewership) visibility enjoyed by the applicant, and I believe they did not want to make a decision that could possibly be interpreted as racist.  So first, it was David Coviello who said he had no problem with the application, and then, it was Roxy Ross who offered a motion to approve the application.  The vote was 5-0 to approve it.  And this is against a vote of 5-0 on the part of P&Z to deny it.

In my opinion, the Commission was completely wrong to have approved this application.  P&Z (the trusted and relied-upon neighbors who devote their time, trouble, energy, and discretion to studying these matters) unanimously denied the application.  Although it seems they were wrong to conclude that the proposed work would compromise the applicant's direct neighbors (they said the application did not meet any of the requirements), the applicant very clearly did not meet any of the other three requirements.  And applications for variances must meet all four requirements.  To the extent that the applicant cited a concern about crime, even though his property was no different than anyone else's, this argument should allow all BP property owners to have walls, as high as they think would protect them.  This decision was a failure of confidence in P&Z, and a failure of leadership toward the whole neighborhood.

The second noteworthy issue from this meeting was concern about last year's audit, still not completed.  It was almost exclusively Tracy Truppman who was critical.  In fact, she was nearly searing.  She criticized the Finance Director, the former Manager, the current Manager, and the immediate past Commission (two of whose members are now her colleagues) for failure to materialize this audit.  Tracy did not offer any speculation as to how so many people all made the same failure.  She also did not propose anything new as to how to get this audit completed faster than the current Manager is already attempting to do it.

But really, completing the audit didn't seem to be Tracy's main goal.  She seemed mostly just to want to complain, to invent consequences, and to blame.  Tracy, and Will Tudor, who continues to struggle to find a place and a meaning for himself on the Commission, since there really isn't one, wanted to suggest that other fiscal decisions could now not be made, because, in their imaginations, we have no idea what is the state of our finances, and whether the Village's books can collapse under the weight of imagined fines and other punishments for a late audit, the results of which are not known.

Roxy Ross tried to point out that the Village's finances (within the context of their overpowering limitations) are actually in pretty good shape.  We have about half a million dollars more in the bank now than we did at this time last year.  But Tracy wasn't listening.  This was not the narrative that interested her.  It wasn't one she could use.  So she perseverated on her expressed dire concern.

This concern seems to have something in common with others of Tracy's concerns.  It's enough to fret and fuss and catastrophize about, but not enough to do anything about.  Other than, of course, to wait a little longer until the matter concludes itself, which is what it is doing.  It still seems that concluding things in an adaptive way is not what Tracy wants.  All she really seems to want is to demonize someone.  It does little good to demonize a former Manager who no longer works here, or a Police Chief who no longer works here, or a Commission majority she succeeded in displacing-- oh-oh, now what?  Tracy seems to be gunning for the current Manager.