Right, or Responsibility?

What a mess hurricane Irma created, here in BP and in various other parts of the county and south Florida.  And it could have been a lot worse.  We did not take a direct hit, as we thought we would, and there wasn't much rain.  The two things that happened most were downed branches and trees, and power outages.  Frequently, it was problem one that led to problem two.  That was certainly true in BP, where whole trees fell over, and they took lines with them.  The trees simply weren't strong enough and stable enough to resist the wind.  As an aside, I still say that the problem trees were banyans/ficus, australian pine, and seagrape, more than any others.

In any event, the reasons for the damage we all suffered were trees that could not withstand hurricane force winds, and trees that were not adequately and appropriately pruned for maximum strength and resistance.  Last year and the year before, our then Manager, Heidi Siegel, with the support of the Commission, engaged a company called Raydel to do Village-wide tree work, to improve our canopy, so it would be stronger and more resistant.  I can only assume the damage we suffered from Irma would have been worse, if we had not hired Raydel.  But we ran out of fiscal resolve to continue the tree maintenance program, and we got the result we got.

Raydel was hired to prune trees in the medians and other public spaces.  They were not hired to prune trees on private properties, or even in swales.  It's been our general understanding that such attention is the responsibility of property owners.  On the other hand, FPL, out of its concern for power lines, has been known to prune trees on private properties, because those trees, or specific branches of them, have represented more or less direct threats to the power lines.  Some property owners have been exercised about FPL's taking this kind of initiative with their-- the property owners'-- trees.

Every municipality served by FPL, most certainly including BP, has a contract with this electric company.  The contract allows FPL to sacrifice at least specific tree branches, if they threaten power lines, and that includes branches on private property.  It absolutely and without question includes branches and trees in public rights of way, including swales and other easements.  FPL is not wrong, then, to remove all or part of a branch that they think threatens the lines.  They're not obligated to be "nice" about it, or to employ the most pleasing pruning design.  Again, the assumption-- my assumption, anyway-- is that if you want pruning done "right," you get your own tree service, and have them remove branches as you think they should be removed.  But removing those branches that threaten the power (the power coming to your house!) is not your call.  And that's by contractual agreement.

The City of Coral Gables (CCG) has interpreted the contract to say not only that FPL has the right to do tree maintenance with a goal toward preserving the delivery of electric power, but frankly, and contractually (according to CCG governors and attorneys), they have the responsibility to deal with the trees.  CCG is suing FPL for not having been more aggressive about tree maintenance, and thus jeopardizing the delivery of electric power in CCG during and after hurricane Irma.

It's a different view to take, and I don't know how successful CCG will be in proposing to shift blame for the power outages from themselves, and all the owners of private property in CCG, onto FPL.  In theory, if CCG wins, the public will be excused from worrying about, and paying for, tree maintenance, but it will also be deprived of the opportunity to demand a specific approach to the task.  FPL's goal is to keep the power lines free.  It's not to make your canopy as pleasing and pretty as possible.  If that's what you want, you have to do it yourself.

One question is what would happen, and what would have happened, if FPL had known what we didn't know, or pretended not to know, and if they had done what we didn't do?  What if FPL had come through BP and removed all the banyans/ficuses, austalian pines, and seagrapes we left standing?  Presumably, there would have been a greater outcry than there was a few years ago, when the county removed several australian pines on Griffing.  But FPL would have been right, and those of us who would have insisted the trees were no threat would have been wrong.  And apart from whether anyone is right or wrong, no one who lost power failed to complain about it.  It's a huge trouble and expense to FPL, when they have to clean up the power outage mess, and no one else likes it, either.

This, of course, raises the other question of who's going to pay for tree maintenance.  Part of CCG's argument is that FPL's profit last year was about a half billion dollars.  Presumably, CCG is trying to argue that FPL has tons of money, and they should easily be able to pay for tree maintenance.  But FPL is a private company, not a public service, and their goal is to make as much money as they can.  They're not in any way looking to "do the right thing," even if a better canopy would have saved them the time, trouble, and expense of dealing with lost power, downed lines, and the reason the lines were down.  You'd think that as a private business, they'd be smart enough to think about that, but they're not.  Almost no business is smart that way.  And anyway, they just shift the cost onto their customers, pleading to the Public Service Commission that it cost them $______ to restore everyone's power.  So if you don't pay the cost by hiring your own tree service, or by paying enough extra tax to the municipality to do this for you, you'll pay it to FPL.  And you'll lose power anyway, because FPL isn't smart enough..; oh, never mind.  Or maybe they are smart enough.  Maybe they've figured out that it's easier and more successful for them to get the PSC to let them raise rates in response to the extra expense of hurricane clean-up than it would be to get the PSC to allow them to build a larger fund in advance, on the actuarial assumption that the expense will come eventually.

We should try to keep abreast of CCG's campaign to get FPL seen as the responsible party, when it comes to power outages caused by branches and trees that shouldn't have been there.  Maybe it's a suit (excuse the pun) we should follow.  In the meantime, it would be really stupid of us to forget what this is all about: trees and branches that should have been removed, but weren't (because everyone got cheap and short-sighted) and which should be removed now.

Correction

For many years, the Village has had a requirement that parking should be provided "on the property," not just in the swale.  Some homeowners never followed this requirement, and for whatever reasons, the Village did not enforce it.  In 2015, the Code Review Committee presented to the Commission a new proposed Code, and it strengthened and clarified requirements for parking.  The requirement for parking "on the property" was retained in the 2015 proposal.

At that point, there were over 60 properties that were out of compliance, and they always had been.  The Commission adjusted and ratified the CRC's proposal, but there were still some issues that were in some dispute, among Village residents and among Commissioners.  So there were ongoing efforts to further adjust the Code.  For the moment, the 2015 Code was the Code of record.

At that point, Village homeowners who were out of compliance, and always had been, did one of two things.  One was to adhere to the new Code, and that adherence took the form of designing and constructing proper parking where it should be, and where it should always have been.  About half of the 60+ property owners took that route.  The other half decided to do nothing, either because they didn't want to (they never wanted to), or because they wanted to wait for the final adjustment.

One thing that is important to realize here is that if homeowners whose properties are out of compliance felt more confident about what the Code was, and that it would not change, more of them would presumably have made the changes necessary.  So most Village residents, even among those whose properties were out of compliance and had always been so, actually want to do the "right thing."  Half already did, and more would have, if the last Commission had not hung them up by still considering possible changes.

From 2015, there has been a driveway and swale Code, and it required, as has always been required, parking "on the property."  Toward the end of 2016, there was another proposal, but it didn't pass.  So the controlling Code was and still is the 2015 Code.

When I quoted in the immediately preceding blog post that there were 12 properties out of compliance, I was wrong.  The correct number is 31 such properties.  It's still true that Will Tudor's property, and his sister-in-law's property, are among those out of compliance, but they are two of 31, not two of 12.

There's a "big picture" here.  Tracy Truppman's posture is that she doesn't want to ask her neighbors to spend money to improve their properties.  She doesn't argue that adherence to the old and new Code isn't an improvement.  She just doesn't want to be the "heavy" who makes this imposition on her neighbors.  That's the little picture.  The big picture is that what the old Code required, and the new Code reiterated, represents an improvement in the neighborhood.  Some people are asked to make a sacrifice for the good of the whole Village.

It's true that this kind of improvement costs money, and people don't like to spend money.  I myself was sensitive to that during my tenure on the Commission, and I advocated allowing people in less generous fiscal circumstances to have more time to make the changes.  In reality, the deadline for the change was September of 2015.  I have spoken to Village residents whose properties are not in compliance, but who recognize the value of complying, and who simply couldn't afford to comply by September, 2015.  Their intentions are good, and I lobbied to give them more time.  But I never took the position Tracy takes, which is to construct a Code that allows the weakest homeowners to control the look and functioning of the whole neighborhood, and thus to sacrifice the neighborhood and its appearance and its functioning and its good intentions for the lack of ambition of a few of its residents.  That's not how you protect and improve a neighborhood.  It's not how you try to enhance things like property values.  Frankly, it's a gross failure of leadership.  (Tracy told us previously that she doesn't think the Commission should, as she put it, "legislate from the bench."  Now, she shows us that she doesn't think the interests of the whole Village should be imposed on a very small minority of Village homeowners.  Those two things represent almost everything the Commission has to do.  So it's unclear why Tracy worked to get a job she doesn't want to do.)

And it wouldn't make any difference if Tracy is a failed leader, except that she controls the thinking and the behavior of three other Commissioners.  It is those three other Commissioners who make Tracy's failure a failure of the whole government of the Village, and thus of the Village itself.  It's now about one year down, and one to go, for two of the pets Tracy keeps on a short leash.  And it's three more years of Tracy and her other pet.

There Isn't Much to Say. And Not Much Point in Saying It.

Commission meetings are increasingly poorly attended these days.  Last week, we had the second reading of the budget Ordinance, and I think Linda Dillon, Chuck Ross, and I were the audience.  Tonight, we had the October Commission meeting.  Maybe there were eight of us.  At the beginning.  When I left, there were about four.  I've sat through plenty of bad and oppressive Commission meetings, but it's getting impossible to sit through these.

The bobbleheads were bobbling tonight.  It was clear they didn't really even know about what they were agreeing with each other, but bobble in agreement they did.  The first matter was a Resolution Roxy Ross introduced in support of federal sanctions imposed against the autocracy in Venezuela.  I have to say that when I read the proposal, I rolled my eyes.  This has nothing to do with BP, and it's a kind of clutter in the Agenda.  Harvey Bilt felt it was important to make that point explicitly, and he voted against it.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella couldn't support it, unless some of the language was adjusted.  Tracy Truppman was resistant, but she was ultimately content with Jenny's insistence that something be changed.  Will Tudor clearly couldn't have cared less, and seemed to know nothing about it.  But when Roxy was challenged as to why this was our business, she pointed out that we have some BP residents who are Venezuelan or have Venezuelan connections, and since it's an international concern, we should get on board, too.  Tracy was slightly mollified when she was reassured that the document Roxy presented was from the County, and not from Roxy.  But all in all, the bobbleheads made way too much out of this and gave Roxy way too hard a time.  But they passed it 4-1 (you show 'em, Harvey; you da man).

Then, it was our new driveway and swale Ordinance.  It's new, because even though Tracy lamely tried to claim it wasn't her Ordinance, it was in fact hers and hers alone.  She single-handedly rewrote the Ordinance the Code Review wrote, and which was then adjusted by the last Commission, in response to feedback from many residents, and which has consumed 2-3 years of Village time and attention.  But Tracy has no use for anyone except herself, and she simply discarded the whole thing.  Fortunately for Tracy, she has complete ownership of three other Village residents, who all happen to be on the Commission, and she simply forged ahead, rewriting, and lying about whose product this was.  It was so obnoxious and insulting that Roxy Ross got up, gathered her things, and withdrew from the meeting.  I mean really, what was the point in being there?  Tracy plus three other stooges equals whatever Tracy wants it to equal.  "Listening to residents?"  The only BP resident to whom Tracy ever listens is Rhonda's housemate.  And since hardly anyone bothers to attend meetings any more, Tracy can make up any story she likes about what some anonymous resident allegedly told her, and just do whatever she wants.  Which is what she does.

The only other funny thing was from last week, when we had the budget meeting.  For whatever nonsensical reason, Chester ("Doc") Morris made a special appearance specifically and explicitly for the purpose of thanking the Commission for hiring Grubbs, the company that did part of our hurricane clean-up.  I think Chester thought he was thanking those five Commissioners for having hired Grubbs.  But it was the last Commission that made the contract with Grubbs, and Roxy Ross is the only remaining member of that Commission.  If you think Tracy or anyone else corrected Chester, and told him they were glad he was satisfied, but they weren't the ones to thank (except Roxy), you can forget it.  I'm telling you...  Truppman, Trump...  Coincidence?

Come to think about it, there was one other comical thing from tonight.  While Tracy was trying to explain why the driveway/swale Ordinance should be written whatever way she wanted to write it, she got someone to acknowledge that there were 12 properties completely out of compliance with what was everyone's plan (until tonight).  She wanted to write an Ordinance that would satisfy those 12 properties.  As they were discussing this, Tracy and two of her dopes agreed with each other about writing an Ordinance that wouldn't threaten those 12 properties, and then they all looked at the other bobblehead: Will.  Will couldn't speak.  He probably wasn't sure what to say.  He couldn't admit that he should at least recuse himself (knowing his pals would cover him anyway), and he couldn't disclose.  His is one of the 12 properties that was never in compliance, and his sister-in-law's is another.  The fact is that preventing the Village from making him put a driveway on his property is the one and only reason Will ever wanted to be on the Commission.  And there it was, the table set for him.  He could have been graceful and open about it.  He was going to get his way anyway.  But no.