Is It True What They Say About Lemmings?

I wasn't sure what to call this post.  My first thought was "The Brains of the Operation," which turns out to be Dan Samaria.  But that title seemed like too much of a punchline.  Then, I thought of "Reality Bites," which I think I used in the past, or maybe something like "It's a Bit More Complicated Than it First Seems."  But the latter was too dry and academic.  So I decided on the title about lemmings.  I think it appropriately describes last night's special Commission adventure.

The reason for last night's meeting was to discuss the legislative agenda for the Village to communicate to our lobbyist.  The state has money to give out to municipalities, and it's the job of the municipalities to ask for it.  And the request, now cutely and ungrammatically referred to as an "ask," has to be for a specific purpose or project.  So the alleged purpose of last night's meeting was for the whole Commission to arrive at some sort of consensus about what to request.

BP Commissions always have this kind of meeting for the purpose of organizing this kind of list of priorities.  Well, BP Commissions always did have this kind of meeting, until the reign of Tracy Truppman.  In December of 2017, Tracy unilaterally (the only way she knows how to do anything) compiled a list of Village requests, which she had the manager submit to the lobbyist.  She was caught doing this, scolded for it, did her usual defensive and blaming-everyone-else dance, had her stooges vote to retroactively approve what she wrongly did, which they did without having familiarized themselves with what she did, and did it again in April of this year.  Much of this was the subject of reminders and complaints from the audience last night.  Tracy did not, of course, respond to any of this.

Tracy started out by noting that each Commissioner had submitted his and her own lists of priorities, and she noted that one priority-- the poor condition of the roads-- was shared by everyone.  So she proposed to request some wavering number of millions of dollars from the state for road resurfacing.  It seems to me the high number was 70-something million dollars, and the low number might have been around $55M.  Whatever it was, everyone very quickly realized it was ridiculous.  But that wasn't the problem.  The problem, as it increasingly came into focus and couldn't be ignored, was that there were reasons the roads were falling apart, and, as Dan Samaria, the brains of the Commission, pointed out, it wouldn't do any good simply to resurface roads that were being actively and inexorably eroded from below.  It would be, as Dan starkly, but correctly, put it, "wasted money."

Attention was then grudgingly paid to the real causes of the problem, which were summarized as a rising water table, old and leaking water pipes which we don't control, and the fact that most of the Village (Tracy wrongly said the whole Village) is on a septic tank system, not sewer pipes.  The discussion then got increasingly vague, sketchy and meaningless, including concepts like separating ourselves from the water system that is owned by North Miami (we can't afford the pipes, and we'd still be receiving water from CNM anyway), and paying some sort of attention to our drainage problem.  There was also some fantastical, if fleeting, talk about converting ourselves to sewage pipes instead of septic tanks.  Several tens of thousands of dollars per house?  That conversation ended quickly.  The further problem, especially for Tracy, was that this left us where we were with the last Commission, which is terrifying to Tracy, who continues to try to make a career out of demonizing the past Commission, and attempting to portray herself as the Mama in shining armor who's going to right all the wrongs she fantasizes she inherited.  So this conversation fizzled out, with the new Public Works Manager resolving to explore all of these matters further.  How this insight didn't precede and possibly obviate the need for this discussion is a bit mysterious.  It appears that Tracy, Jenny, and Will, who pat themselves on the backs (well, Tracy does, and the other two just let their heads bobble) for having hired a Public Works Manager, never actually spoke to him about this problem.  The whole thing had a bit of a Three Stooges or Keystone Kops quality to it, and it was onto another windmill.  The lemmings had all followed each other over some cliff.

The next favorite ambition had to do either with improvements at the recreation center, or getting a generator for Village Hall.  This conversation, too, was jerky and somewhat incoherent, and for me, it was no longer worth the time to listen.

I'm told there was one other idea floated, and for which someone thinks we would need extra funding.  Betsy Wise wants to open a school in Biscayne Park.  Maybe she can get funding from Donald Trump, who can open the Biscayne Park campus of Trump University.  Yeah, that's who we are.

The "Sunshine State." That Could Be Useful.

I had a plan.  My plan involved solar panels on my roof.  I contracted for 21 panels, and my intention was to put them on the north-facing roof, which is the front of my house, the south-facing roof, and some on the side-facing roofs.

My reasoning was this: most days of the year, the sun is south of us.  But in the summer, when the electricity demand (and my electric bills) are highest, the sun is mostly north of us.  For a few hours in the middle of the day, the arc places the sun more or less directly overhead.  So I wanted north-facing panels to capture solar rays when they're most intense, and I need them the most.

The procedure for solar panels is to present a plan to the Planning and Zoning Board, which will either approve or not approve of the proposal.  It was not clear to me until recently upon what factors disapproval depended.

The Village's Code is "inclusive."  That means that anything not mentioned in the Code is not permitted.  Solar panels are not mentioned.  But the Village, and the P&Z Board, have established an informal approach to solar panels, so that they can be permitted.  P&Z has chosen to think of them as part of the broader area of mechanical features, which include things like duct work and roof-mounted central air conditioners.  And there are Codes for those.  Importantly, I learned, the Code says no mechanical features can be placed on the roof so they're visible from the street.  P&Z has further interpreted this to mean the street in front of the house.  This interpretation came to have an interesting result.

So, because my desired north-facing panels would be very visible from the street in front of my north-facing house, P&Z denied my request for placement.  They suggested that I should just put all the panels I want on the south-facing, east-facing, and west-facing roof slopes, so they couldn't be seen from the street.  Well, that's fine, except it deprives me of as much solar energy as I can get when I need it the most.  So, I argued with P&Z.  But they were rock solidly firm in their refusal to tolerate solar panels that would be visible from the street (in front of my house).  One member of the Board even pointed out that she considers it her job, and the Board's job, to protect the Village (from me and my unsightly solar panels).  She also pointed out that it seemed to her that I self-centeredly just wanted whatever I wanted, and I didn't seem to care about anyone else or the Village as a whole.

I made a number of arguments to P&Z.  I pointed out why it was best, in terms of best function, for some panels to be north-facing.  I pointed out to the Board that they were just making up their own rules anyway, since solar panels are not addressed in the Code, but we approve of them anyway, and even if they could be imagined to be something like "mechanical features," they're functional in a unique way that depends on where they are, which is not true of any other mechanical features, and that the Board was being inconsistent.  Here are the inconsistencies.  Some years ago, this same Board approved a new home design on 6th Avenue, and that home has solar panels.  They are visible from the street (6th Avenue) in front of the house.  More recently, this same Board approved a new home design for a two-story house on 119th Street, and that house has a large array of solar panels.  Those panels are all on the south-facing roof slope, but, because the house is two stories, the panels can be seen from the street behind the house: 118th St.

But P&Z was immovable.  The answer was no.  They did offer me one other option, though.  I could request a variance.  In theory.  But for anyone to get a variance request approved, it has to be accepted by the Commission.  This is the current Commission, which is the same Commission that would upend any rock to find anyone at all to be on a Board so that the Commission (Tracy Truppman) would not have to appoint me.  So no, I can't get a variance request granted by this Commission.  It's a personal vendetta for Tracy, and she has no greater pleasure than to tell me no about anything.

As it happens, because I had to make a meteorologic argument to the Commission, whose members believed the sun is never north of us (really?), I brought along an expert witness.  I brought Brian McNoldy, who is a friend of mine, a BP resident, and a meteorologist.  Brian later wrote to me as follows:  That is a very odd board right now, with an awkward and unprofessional dynamic. Kind of hard to describe unless you experience it in person. 

Solar panels should be encouraged to the point where if someone wants to cover their entire roof with them, go for it! It looks good; it is good [Emphasis mine].  However, they are functional hardware whose ideal placement is dictated by nature, not humans. Someone's comment about Coral Gables not allowing them on the front-facing parts of roofs was absurd. What does that have to remotely do with us? With cars parked on lawns and trash out anytime anyone feels like it, Biscayne Park is most definitely not emulating Coral Gables in any way. Visible solar panels is sooooooooooo far down on the list of concerns that why even bother questioning a homeowner.

In your case (and in ours should we want to add them), a north-facing house would logically put solar panels on the north-facing roofs to gather the most amount of watts in the summer months. There is no question about that. During the October-March portion of the year, those panels would not be nearly as efficient, but that's also when our electric demands are less. South-facing panels would be the big winners during those months.

I had to try not to laugh when Elizabeth said the sun path diagram I gave them was "abstract" and she couldn't be bothered with it.  It's about as real and non-abstract as it gets... you can literally hold it in your hand and read off exactly where and when the sun will rise and set and reach its highest point in the sky on any day of the year.  Quite handy for planting a garden or installing solar panels!  But you only need to live here for a year to learn what it shows anyway... if you pay attention to shadows and what windows and plants get sun when.

I also wrote to Chuck Ross, to keep him informed of the details of my effort, because he takes an interest.  When I told Chuck what was the outcome of my effort, he wrote to me as follows:  The position that the sight of solar panels on the front of a house, that your request somehow compromises the look of the Village and is selfish on your part, is absurd and a joke.

Two people, not in the same place at the same, both used the word "absurd."

Back to the drawing board for me and the solar panel contractor.  The contractor had an idea for how to maximize the availability of the east- and west-facing roof slopes, and part of the south-facing slope: cut back, or down, the trees.  I told them that this is Biscayne Park, and we don't cut down trees to make room for solar panels.  At least P&Z seemed to appreciate the prioritizing, but it didn't change their minds.  I, and Brian McNoldy, and Chuck Ross, and "god," are all wrong, and P&Z, with its sense of what does or should look good, is right.  It could do us a lot of good to be the "Sunshine State."  But it doesn't have to.  We could squander our advantage instead.

A Dictatorship Comes Closer to Perfection.

Tracy Truppman might not be the most autocratic Commissioner the Village has ever had.  (I hope she won't experience that comment as a challenge to step up her despotism.)  That distinction probably goes to Ed Burke.  But Tracy is working hard to cement her total control over everything in the Village.  The fact that she couldn't do it without enabling stooges, who are statutorily entitled to their own power, but cede it all to Tracy, is a curiosity.  And Tracy's job is harder, because we have a Charter Ed Burke didn't have, and it sets out specifically to prevent Tracy from doing what she's doing.

However Tracy managed it, she has secured a critical first line of protection.  She has put together a Commission that won't challenge her.  And she hired a manager who also won't challenge her.  It takes a little more than that to choke the life out of the Village and its government, and she's working on the rest.

In an indoctrination meeting for the new Commission, Tracy had the new Village attorney reassure the Commissioners that they are not required to respond to negative e-mails.  This is a curious statement from the new Village attorney, because it has no meaning of its own.  Of course Commissioners are not required to respond to criticism.  They're not required to respond to anything.  John Herrin doesn't have to tell them that.  And many of them don't, even without his telling them they don't have to.  They don't feel like it, they can't be bothered, they object to being criticized, or whatever, and they ignore their neighbors.  So why did John Herrin tell them they're excused?  Because it wasn't John Herrin telling them anything.  It was Tracy Truppman demonstrating that John Herrin is a puppet, too, and entering onto the record that it is officially permissible for Commissioners to ignore their neighbors.  Those are the people whose votes Commissioners occasionally want.

And then, there's this, now to be attached to Village communications pertaining to meetings:  "DECORUM - All comments must be addressed to the Commission as a body and not to individuals. Any person making impertinent or slanderous remarks, or who becomes boisterous while addressing the Commission, shall be barred from further audience before the Commission by the presiding officer, unless permission to continue or again address the commission is granted by the majority vote of the Commission members present. No clapping, applauding, heckling or verbal outbursts in support or in opposition to a speaker or his/her remarks shall be permitted. No signs or placards shall be allowed in the Commission Chambers. Please mute or turn off your cell phone or pager at the start of the meeting. Failure to do so may result in being barred from the meeting. Persons exiting the Chamber shall do so quietly."  Tracy has clearly moved to the next level of suppressing her neighbors, who are supposedly her constituents.  These are also the people whose voices she proposed should be heard.  At least that was her come-on, when she was running for office.  Cute phrase, too: "barred from further audience before the Commission."  It kind of speaks for itself.  Tracy always avoided commitments to "decorum" when they might have affected her prerogative with respect to her colleagues or her neighbors.  But she's much more enthusiastic about it when it serves the purpose of shutting down others' challenges of her.  Not even signs or placards are allowed in Tracy's domain.

It'll be interesting to see if any of Tracy's supposed colleagues (they're really just underlings, subordinates, and stooges) raises any issues about this muzzling of those who attend Commission meetings.  The beat(down) goes on.

Either She's Not Too Bright, Or She's Not Honest. Or Both.

Well, I listened to the recording of the Commission meeting from this past Tuesday.  Tracy was her usual pushy and manipulative self regarding what she experienced as "accusations" of her with respect to communication of the legislative agenda.  What's at issue is what the Village wants, for which it needs state fiscal help, and we have a lobbyist who communicates our wishes to the state legislature.  In the current instance, on two occasions a legislative agenda was somehow created, without discussion among the Commission or in the presence of the public.

Tracy correctly understood that the complaint was that this happened in secret, and she addressed the matter in reaction to having been scolded for it.  Although it was never made clear by anyone who complained whether they thought the culprit was Tracy or Krishan Manners, it didn't really matter, since the fault was the same: someone authored a list of agenda items, and communicated it to the lobbyist, who asked the state legislators for their support, and no one else in the Village knew anything about it.  This is grossly improper, it is not the way things happen in the Village, and it is built on contempt for the residents of Biscayne Park.

Tracy's explanations/excuses/slimy maneuvers focused on vague and fleeting ideas, including repeated references to "we," without her ever specifying who "we" were.  It was a "wish" list, "not my list," and she found for Krishan his accustomed position under the bus.  And something about a "time frame."  But she never addressed the complaint: that none of this was ever discussed at a Commission meeting.  As much as she wanted to blame Krishan for it, she clearly knew about it.  She can take her pick as to whether she wants this to look like Krishan's fault, or her own fault.  But she could never admit there was fault, and that this was wrong.

And then Betsy Wise, clearly a very good dog already, and one who has learned several tricks, imposed herself to chime in.  She's "new here," she said.  She sometimes claims to have lived here for many years, so I guess she didn't mean she's a new resident.  If she means she's new to Village government, it becomes hard to understand what perspective she thought she was bringing to the discussion, apart from running interference for Mama.  It was "unfortunate," she sniped, that the people who had complained had already left the meeting.  It wasn't hard for old Betsy Wise to put two and two together: "if they were really interested," she concluded...  Yes, that's it, Betsy.  The Village residents who have toiled for years, and given of themselves and their time and their expertise and even their money, are apparently not really interested.  But someone who might or might not have lived here for who knows exactly how many years, and who awoke one day, just before the qualifying period to run was up, and decided that since John McCain had recently died, then she should be a Commissioner, is the one who is genuinely interested in the Village.  Smooth, Bets.  You don't need me to tell you this, but don't forget to cash those checks.  Every little bit, huh, girl?

But the new Commission found something that was really worthy of its careful attention, and that took the most time during the meeting.  They tried to choose a time for a Meet-Your-New-Commissioners pot luck do, and to continue the holiday decorations contest.  I'm so embarrassed for having thought they lost sight of what's really important.

When I'm Wrong, I'm Wrong.

I didn't offer to bet anyone money that Tracy Truppman would be mayor again, and that the vote would be 5-0.  But I would have taken that bet, if anyone had offered it to me.  I wonder how much I would have lost.  Well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

There were two Commission meetings tonight.  The first was the dissolution of the Commission of the past two years, and the second was the investiture of the Commission for the next two years.

The first meeting was mostly a goodbye and thank you to Roxy Ross, and a goodbye to Harvey Bilt.  Public comment centered on two things in that first meeting.  One was expressions of gratitude to Roxy, who was in a different orbit from the rest of any elected officials I've ever seen or heard of.  Janey Anderson described Roxy as the "adult in the room" in the past Commission.  That's to say the least.  Janey and Gary Kuhl both mentioned that they didn't always agree with Roxy, but they always respected her.  I didn't always agree with Roxy, either, and when I didn't, I almost always eventually figured out what I got wrong.  There really wasn't enough anyone with a brain and a soul could say about Roxy.  And Chuck was mentioned, too, as he very much should have been.  What a team the two of them always made.  Total brains and commitment, and endless devotion and generosity.  And never, ever was it about them.  It was always about the Village.  Anyway...

The second focus in public comments was Tracy's continual mishandling of communication of the Village's wish list for our legislative representative.  I'm saying mishandling, but it was really commandeering.  The comments were as if it was Tracy and Krishan Manners, but there is no Krishan Manners.  There's no anyone, but Tracy Truppman.  I have never heard the phrase "Charter violation" mentioned so many times in such a concentration.  Tracy does whatever she wants, and no one else really exists.

So then, there was the second meeting.  Two new, and one re-elected, Commissioners recited their vows.  It was all very painful.  This looked like the final dumbing down of the Commission of the Village of Biscayne Park.  And then, it was time to elect a mayor.

Procedurally, the Village doesn't have a mayor for several minutes.  The old Commission, the one with the mayor, had been dissolved, and a new mayor hadn't yet been chosen.  So there should be no one to lead the meeting.  Normally, the person who would step in would be either the Village attorney, or the Village manager.  But this being the universe that revolves around Tracy Truppman, it didn't go that way.  Tracy ran the meeting, and the election for mayor, herself.  It's not even worth pointing out the Charter violations.  There is no Charter.  So Tracy entertained nominations for, um, mayor, and dutiful Jenny Johnson-Sardella thought it would offer valuable continuity if Tracy was mayor again.  After a bit of fumbling to figure out how to deal with this illegal nomination, Dan Samaria suggested maybe this wasn't the way to go.  Dan started out saying that there is a new mayor more or less every two years.  Tracy disagreed with Dan, but Dan was more or less right.  And Dan further explained that there were some concerns, even open ones, about Tracy's management of the mayor's responsibility.  For who knows what reason, Dan nominated Will Tudor.  For at least a fleeting moment, Dan Samaria was the brains of the Commission, and the adult at the table.  Think about that.  And Will commented, too.  But it wasn't to decline the nomination from Dan.  Instead, it was to agree that the last two years have been what Will called "interesting" (I would have said dysfunctional, destructive, destabilizing, and illegal, but Will liked "interesting"), but still to be willing to have Tracy back on her throne.

So, that's how it went.  Tracy had most of her reliable old and new stooges marshalled, and she righted her little lifeboat.  She got the Village attorney to agree that she could take a vote, which she did.  Well, not only did Dan Samaria stick to his at least temporary ethics and focus on what's good for the Village, but Will Tudor also voted against Tracy as mayor.  Tracy won-- of course, she won-- but by the smallest majority she could have had.  The girls did what Mama wanted them to do, and the boys got a little independent.  I suppose it will remain to be seen in what way Tracy will punish them for their independence.  Tracy was hoping for a Commission with less, not more, independence.

I was torn about whether or not to leave at that point.  I could see how things were going to go.  Maybe I was slightly interested to see what Dan Samaria would do with his effort to remain off the leash.  I've seen Will Tudor's versions of independence before.  They don't mean much, and they don't impress.  But I finally decided not to stomach any more of this when Tracy launched into her defense of herself and her continual Charter violations by saying the "accusations" were all faulty.  Yup, that's Tracy.  Same old Tracy.  I'll see if I can stomach a meeting next month.

This Is Ridiculous. Do Not Let It Get Away From You.

I've written before about musimelange.  It is a series of magical evenings at the M Building in upper Wynwood (30th St and NW 2nd Avenue), and the content is gourmet food, excellent wine, and an intimate chamber concert.  There are four such events per year, and the first usually occurs in January.  Events are always on Monday evenings at 7:30.

The cost of a musimelange evening is $65 at the door (well worth it), $60 in advance, and $50 if you subscribe to the season of four.  Considering what these events are, the quality of every part of them, and the uniqueness of the experience, getting this for $60 or $50 per evening is an exceptional bargain.

Well... musimelange is now making you an offer you can't, or shouldn't, refuse.  You can have all four evenings, complete with the food, the wine, the music, and the desserts, for $150.  And you'll meet really cool people, including the chefs and the performers.  This is insane.  You couldn't duplicate the experience, unless you had loads of money and you wanted to host it yourself in your home, and there's no way you could do it for $37.50 per person.

And let me tell you what the program is for the coming season.  On January 28, the title of the evening is "Amour."  The trio is Konstantin Soukhovetski (a bit outrageous, loaded with style, and a magnificent pianist), Anne Chicheportiche (the founder of musimelange, and a wonderful violinist), and Ashley Garritson (a cellist Anne typically uses, very well-known and accomplished in classical music around town, and a delightful person).  On February 25, the program is called Musijazz.  Anne has done this before (although she tries to stick to classical chamber programs), and it works very well.  I'm guessing she'll use Jim Gasior, who is a highly acclaimed local jazz pianist, and probably someone else.  The last time Anne did Musijazz, she also had Wendy Peterson, who is a wonderful singer and has a nice history of duets with Jim Gasior.  The title of the program on March 11 is Farinelli.  If you know of Farinelli, or the movie about him, you know he was a castrato.  The performer is countertenor Max Emanuel Cencic, and the program is baroque.  The countertenor voice is a male alto/soprano.  It is a magnificent voice.  I don't know Cencic, but I have total confidence in Anne Chicheportiche.  She would not have engaged him if he wasn't a great singer.  April 22 is called "Tutti," and it is described simply as a "showcase."  I don't ask questions.  I know that whatever is presented at musimelange is top notch.  That's just the way Anne does things.

So, what you do is go to musimelange.com, buy tickets, and use the promotional code MUSI-CYBER19.  You really don't want to overthink this.

Where Are We Going With This?

I suspect many Biscayne Parkers would either refer to the Park as "quaint," or they'd agree it's a good description of what and who we are.  It's what many of us want us to be, and to continue to be.  Some of us cling tightly to this thematic description.

There's a contingent who don't like two-story houses here.  (They're within the Code, but some people persist in not liking them.)  I hear complaints about the contemporary-style houses, even the older ones.  Some don't like the creeping SoBe effect, with two-story additions on the backs of one-story houses.

A few years or so back, there was a battle, of sorts, regarding metal roofs.  Not charming.  Too industrial.  Ruination to the Village.  Imagine, some fretted, if X percent of BP houses eventually converted to metal roofs.  No, no, no!  And then, we changed the Code to allow them, and now, we have a few more than we did.

And it's not just the style of newer homes, but also the mass of them.  P&Z won't approve a design that doesn't respect setbacks, but even at that, some of the newer projects seem imposing.  There were complaints about what Max Deitermann did with the old "Larry King" property.  And there's the modern, two-story, energy-efficient house in the block just west of mine.  Some BPers don't like these projects, because the new construction seems too dominant for the lot and for the surrounding houses.

It's worth the reminder here that among the factors P&Z can take into account is "harmony" with the Village, and even with the section or block in question.  So, when P&Z have accepted an architectural proposal, we are to assume they have looked at the Code requirements overall, the setbacks, and even the "sense" of the project being proposed.  They have agreed that it will look in some sense nice, or at least that it won't look bad, or disproportionate, or provocative.  That even includes things like colors.

Well, there's a very interesting project most of the way to completion.  It's in 117th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues, on the south side of the street.  Mac Kennedy and I were trying to figure out how many lots this project occupies.  We weren't sure if the street frontage was one lot, or two.  The depth seems clearly to be two.  So the building occupies either two or four lots.  It's two-story, and it's a very modern style.  Just west of the front of the house is the "hacienda," a double front Spanish-style house.  To the east of the house in question is another Spanish-style one-story house.  It's a little unbelievable to walk around this part of the block, to see how vast is this new house.  As a frame of reference, and at risk of being provocative, no one on this block has any privacy any more.  The backs of all the other houses, and all of the back yards, are now fully visible from this structure.  Not to be crass about it, but if any of those neighbors are typically relaxed about their attire in the "privacy" of their homes, or if they like skinny-dipping, that party is about to be over, unless they're also exhibitionistic.

In "full disclosure," the builder of the house, who, as far as I know, intends to occupy it when it's done, is also a member of P&Z.  I would of course like to assume he recused himself from consideration of the plan that was proposed, and that his P&Z colleagues didn't grant him anything they wouldn't have granted anyone else, but I'm just stating the fact.

One of my friends, who more or less always stays "above the fray," recently sent me a text message, to ask if I had seen this house.  If I hadn't, he suggested I "take a look."  I said I had in fact seen it, that in my opinion, it was "massive," and also in my opinion, it seemed "too big for the lot."  He replied with "looks out of place to me."  "Me, too," I agreed.

These are the particulars: the evolution of permitted paint colors; roofing materials; increasing size of houses, changes of styles of houses.  But the bigger picture is whether the Village has, or should have, an architectural theme.  (In further disclosure, I will say that I don't think it has or should have.  I think we're very eclectic, and I'm good with us that way.  My larger concerns are landscaping and general maintenance.)  Some people who think it should think that theme should be old-timey, low key, low rise.  Hey, that's a philosophy.  But it might be a slippery slope that leads to some other BP home/property-owners who are also OK with low rent, little demanded of property-owners, and conditions and presentations that are frankly unkempt.  I suppose this isn't the time for me to remind us that we just elected an entire Commission of BP residents who have no personal ambition regarding property appearance, and who are extremely unlikely to make demands on the rest of us.  It's true, though.

But what do we think of our growing evolution to more modern styles, and increasing mass?  Interestingly, the builder of the new project in 117th St has preserved a little stand of small trees and shrubs in front of the house.  If this is indicative 1) that he intends to landscape, and 2) that his landscape theme will be more redolent, that's nice.  It won't distract much from the mass and dominance of the building, but it's the most we can get from him now.

Half Full, or Half Empty?

On my walk yesterday morning, the first guy I encountered was standing outside, in shorts and no shirt, putting air in his car tire.  He looked at me, smiled, and said "another day in paradise."

At the end of my walk, I encountered a couple walking their dogs.  The husband said that he heard that this week, the high temperature for the day will get as low as 80.  He said we should be thankful the high would finally get that "low."

My daughter visited for a few days last week.  She returned on Sunday to Boston, where the highs will likely be in the 40s.

A high of 80?  Or higher?  Yup, paradise.  And anyone who thinks that's too hot should remember this in January and February, when it isn't frigidly cold, or snowing, or icy, and we're not bundled up because it's painful to be outside, and we can manipulate our keys and mobile phones, and even think.

THANKS, ROXANNA ROSS!

Last night was the last regular BP commission meeting for Commissioner (and former mayor) Roxanna Ross. I joined other residents in taking to the podium during public comment to thank Rox for her service to this community and to commend her for her selfless work on behalf of this village for the past nine years. In an effort to keep the focus on Rox, I resisted the urge to bring up the raping of our medians that’s taking place at the direction of the village manager … or his dereliction of duty regarding code enforcement village-wide … or our mayor lying to residents about the perils of voter suppression in Biscayne Park.

The passion, time and energy that Rox has thrown into that position is worthy of some public comment here, as well. Words used to describe Rox last night also distinguish her from her undistinguished and indistinguishable colleagues on the dais: prepared, thoughtful, available, responsive, reliable, steady, strategic, visionary and accountable, even from residents (including me) who admitted that they may not have agreed with every decision and choice Rox made on our behalf.

Hats off to Roxanna Ross! She will be missed on the BP commission. She's the very kind of leader every community would want, and our other commissioners pale in comparison to her on the dais. To put it bluntly, she makes them look like a clown car spilling out of the Log Cabin.

Give 'Em an Inch...

I hope I have made clear how accessible is this blog.  It's "mine," in the sense that I started it, and blogspot licenses it to me (I'm the administrator), but I have been as open as the system makes possible to anyone who wants to participate in any way.  If you want to comment, feel free.  I don't touch anyone else's comments (although I have the power to delete them).  Anyone who wants to publish a post of his or her own is more than welcome.  I have anyone who wants that access receive from the blog an invitation to be a guest author.  They accept the invitation, and they publish whatever they want.  I don't touch other people's posts, either.  I comment, sure.  You can, too.  But that's it.  And the people who are guest authors have full and unrestricted access to any part of this blog.  They can do what I can do.  And they can do what I wouldn't do.

Two seemingly related things have happened.  One was probably a year or so ago.  I'm not sure when it happened.  There was an old draft I did, probably in 2014, and I never published it.  But I didn't delete it, either.  I just wanted to save it.  Well, it's gone.  It has apparently been deleted.  And not by me.  I have a strong suspicion as to who deleted it (someone with access, and who had strong feelings about that draft), but I never asked, and the person never volunteered.

The second thing happened probably in recent weeks.  Jared Susi, who is a guest author, published two posts in the service of his Commission campaign.  I read them.  I read every post.  I didn't remember finding any technical fault with them.  If I had, I would have told Jared, and encouraged him to fix whatever I thought wasn't right.  Well, someone made some changes, and the grammar they adopted wasn't right.  Two people brought this to Jared's attention.  Because of things that were said to Jared, and by whom, Jared has a suspicion as to who molested his posts.

No one here is allowed, by me, to touch anything anyone else does.  Comment?  Disagree?  Fine.  Edit or corrupt?  Absolutely not.

So I'm removing both of these people from the guest authors list.  I can't have this.  I won't have this done to me, and much more so, I won't have this done to a guest.  This is a public space.  We're all neighbors.  There is an honor system, and I certainly demand we honor each other, even if we disagree.

Tracy Truppman, 3. Village of Biscayne Park, 0.

Betsy Wise got the most votes.  Dan Samaria came in second.  Each has a four-year term.  Will Tudor came in third, and he gets a two-year term.  Jared Susi came in fourth.

The fact is, it wouldn't have mattered if Jared had come in third, or first.  Tracy "won" anyway.  She only needed one stooge to keep things going.  All three are a luxury, so she can enjoy 5-0s, and no one to embarrass her by making clear how uninformed, perspective-lacking, and self-involved she and her pets are.  Although now, she can afford to let Betsy get all independent without threatening the bottom line.  4-1 works just as well as 5-0, as Tracy quickly learned when she had to figure out how to marginalize Roxy Ross.

I was talking to someone about the results last night.  I wondered how Betsy got the most votes.  The person to whom I was talking, who is a woman, pointed out that in this "year of the woman," Betsy gets extra points for gender, and "no one knows anything bad about Betsy."  Well, it's true Betsy is a woman, but so what?  Roxy is a woman, and she got snubbed completely, by her recent male and female Commission "colleagues."  And Tracy and Jenny are women, and they're tragically bad Commissioners.  And as for not knowing anything bad about Betsy, that's the problem.  There's nothing bad or good to know about Betsy.  We take it on faith that she even lives here.  She has had no involvement with the Village at all, until she suddenly decided she should be on the Commission.  In my opinion, the fact that no one knows anything bad or good about Betsy should be held against her.  It shouldn't be a selling point. And of course the other reason no one knows anything about Betsy is that she refused to present herself in the time-honored way of participating in a candidates' forum.  So I still don't get it.

Dan Samaria has a number of pluses.  He's been around, he's been involved, and he comes to Commission meetings.  But I still don't understand what his platform was.  And he had Tracy working too hard for him. And he, too, refused to participate in a candidates' forum.

Will Tudor has spent two years showing us how little is there.  He rides Tracy's toy train, too.  And he wouldn't participate in a candidates' forum, either.  And despite all the help Tracy gave him, and being an incumbent, he only came in third?  To a total unknown, and a guy who's lost twice in the past?  Yuck!

No, I still say the Village scored zero points with these three.

She Takes 'Em Sort Of Like She Dishes 'Em Out.

"I Voted Today."  Yay.  I'm hoping for what I think is best, here and elsewhere around the country.

I like to vote on election day.  It feels different from early voting, or voting by absentee ballot.  Voting is a community (small or large) expression, and voting in person on election day has a community feeling you don't get the other ways.  Among other things, you interact with your neighbors, who are there in the same spirit as you are.

I got to the poll at 6:00 AM, an hour before it opened.  I was third in line.  Behind me was a couple I hadn't previously met.  Behind them was Tracy Truppman.  Someone told Tracy she looked very nice.  She said "I'll take all the lies I can get."  I thought it was very fair of her to be willing to accept being lied to the same way she lies to other people.  The difference is that Tracy can self-impose insight to decide if something someone tells her isn't true.  When she lies to other people, they often don't have a perspective to know they're not being told the truth.

A case in point was the husband of the couple behind me.  We were talking about a variety of things, and among them was the local election.  He happened to mention that Will Tudor is his next door neighbor, and he said he had suggested to Will years ago that Will run for Commission.  Presumably, Will gave his neighbor some version of "aw, shucks," and he didn't run until two years ago.  For whatever reason, the neighbor pointed out that Will's decision was at that point independent of the suggestion the neighbor made years before.

The neighbor then, unsolicited by me, went on to complain about how Village Commissions don't do anything.  He gave as an example that the streets are so bad.  He concluded "we ought to be ashamed of ourselves."  I told him I thought so, too.  He added that he had recently run into Harvey Bilt at Cafe Creme, and Harvey confirmed that he was not running for re-election.  According to our neighbor, Harvey gave what seemed to me to be a very curious explanation: the Commission doesn't accomplish anything.  If that was Harvey's complaint, why was he so much a part of the inertia and non-function?

I was thinking about our neighbor's confidence in Will Tudor, and his frustration that the Commission-- the current one, anyway-- doesn't do anything, and I told him he should come to Commission meetings.  I told him that sometimes, you can form an image of what someone would be like as a Commissioner, but that they might turn out to be very different than you imagined they would be.  I hope he decides to come watch some time.

Once we got into the polling room, the usual group of volunteers was there.  Among them was our Village clerk.  She saw Tracy, and she jokingly said "I don't recognize you."  Tracy responded with "you're fired," which she delivered with that nervous, self-conscious, and faintly paranoid laugh Tracy does.

Well, I did vote.

To hell with code and rules ...

Here's a little dose of what we're in store for with the incoming clown car of commissioners. Apparently, rules and code don't apply to candidates for commission, as evidenced by this sign on the front porch of Betsy Wise's home, directly across from the BP rec center polling place. This sign violates campaign rules, no question about that. I've reported it to the village, with no response ... no surprise there. But, several other residents also reported it and were told (hearsay, they may chime in) that the village attorney approves the sign even though it violates the rules. 

But, even more important to point out is the hypocrisy of these candidates. What, exactly, is "positive" about this sign ... or respectful or courteous or showing any integrity, to village rules or to neighbors or to the other candidate? Betsy, Will and Dan would be well-served to live by their own words.

And, as this sign clearly states, they are running as a "slate," even though one of them (Dan Samaria) told me to my face that they aren't and he never would. Dan Samaria lied to me on my front porch. I won't vote for a liar ... or for candidates who campaign in such a reprehensible style and avoid answering questions about real issues facing this community, as these sad choices have done this campaign season. 

This is what our liar of a president has done to our country: made this kind of campaigning normal and acceptable ... ditto the behavior of elected officials like Tracy and her email about voter suppression. To the likes of Trump, Truppman, Wise, Samaria and Tudor, winning for themselves is more important than winning for the constituents or for the community. A vote for any of them is a vote for everything that’s wrong with BP. What a shameful, sad and fearful time and place in which we live, both nationally and locally. Thank God we still have our vote to make our opinions heard. I am voting for JARED SUSI and Manny Espinoza: Jared because he deserves to sit on the commission and Manny because I'd love him to "beat" any of the other three candidates, even though he can't accept that seat now. Long shot in the case of Manny, I know, but I'm voting on principle: the principles those three candidates sorely lack, as evidenced by that ugly, ugly sign on the front porch of Betsy's house today. What a lesson in civics and civility for her kids.

WTF is Wrong With These People?

I can formulate a fantasy as to why four of the five* Commission candidates refused to participate in a Meet the Candidates event I intended to organize.  It's much harder to imagine why the same four refused to participate in a similar exercise David Raymond and Art Gonzalez tried to organize.

After all of this, Milt Hunter wanted to interview the five* candidates for a post he wanted to do in his blog.  Bizarrely, the same one candidate agreed to be interviewed, and the same four refused.  Milt's description of this odyssey can be found at www.thebiscayneparker.blogspot.com.

These are people who are running for office here.  Supposedly, they want to connect to their neighbors, and impress them.  Meet the Candidates events always occur in the Village.  They're not just an opportunity, they're essentially an obligation.  This exposure is something Commission candidates owe their neighbors.  So WhereTF are they?

Clearly, they're trying to hide something, and clearly it's their lack of fitness for the job they seek.  Also clearly, they have reassured themselves they don't have to submit themselves to this kind of exposure.  Presumably, someone has told them they can get elected without bothering.  And apparently, getting elected is their only goal, and if they can avoid the risk of appearing (foolish) before their neighbors in the conventional way, they are relieved and eager to avoid it.

And this is the nonsense that's going to wind up on the BP Commission?  If we've recently become known for convicted past police officers, we can now add this to our resume.


*Today, Manny Espinoza sent out an e-mail informing various people that he is withdrawing his candidacy.  He will still be on the ballot, but presumably, he would decline a Commission seat if he won one.  He did not say why he made this decision, but it's tempting to think he may have come to realize his candidacy, and the way he's handled it, are wrong.  Since he doesn't appear to have done much actively to campaign, he isn't saving himself any time or trouble by withdrawing.  It's a shame the other three insecure and contemptuous candidates aren't able to have the same level of insight, and respect for their neighbors.


Jared Susi it is.  And what a sad day for the Village that we're getting anyone else.

BP Median "Design"

Mac Kennedy asked me to post this for him?  Anyone in the world who has to ask me for technological help is in deep trouble.

I'd like to know who's "decorating" our medians, specifically the 119th St. median between 5/6 Avenues (and other medians with new wooden posts). The design is horrific and the execution is worse. And, from what I can determine, the posts were installed without PZ authorization or a permit. BP is required to follow the same Code and permitting process that the rest of us are required to follow. 

- wooden posts are crooked, different heights, misaligned

- plant material added between the posts without PP input or authorization ... the materials are horrible choices and sickly to boot (half-dead clusia, an irresponsible, cheap choice)

The aesthetics of BP are spiraling downward fast, and BP is driving that, not merely allowing it. Whoever is playing decorator at village hall (Krishan, Tracy), please stop and get the help of professionals. You are tasked with elevating the village, but you are making this place look like a dump. Go ahead and let your front yards look like crap, but leave our public spaces alone. If you can't do anything right, just don't do anything at all.

Dan Schneiger Goes Upside the Heads of Will Tudor and Krishan Manners.

Dan either offered to let me post this, or he requested that I do.  Although Dan didn't specifically highlight the discrepancy between his extensive and expert volunteer work, and the money-grubbing and inept "job" Will does, I kept thinking about it.  Also, I kept wondering if Dan would point out to Will that a more fitting expression of respect Will could make to the P&Z Board, and to the Village, would be to install the driveway the Village's Codes require of him.  "Blow[ing] smoke up [our] ass[es]," indeed.

Dear Will,

I write this letter from me personally and not on behalf of the Planning and Zoning Board.

I am writing to let you know that I did not appreciate your campaign event last night at the beginning of the Planning and Zoning meeting. You are a candidate running for office and need to govern yourself accordingly. The Village has four other sitting commissioners, any of whom could have presented your certificates of appreciation to the Planning and Zoning Board and two of whom have never attended a P&Z meeting that I can recall. (Tracy didn’t even attend for her own driveway permit, which would have been the perfect opportunity to voice her support of our hard work.) If you want to publicly grub for votes, please feel free to hand out hot dogs at the Rec Center rather than taking up valuable time at a meeting of the board where I volunteer my time. The P&Z board had an extremely long agenda last night, with many residents waiting patiently. Unlike Commission meetings, we are a highly focused, productive and efficient board with a long agenda, and I, as a resident volunteer, don’t appreciate my time being monopolized for the purpose of furthering your campaign. While I appreciate my service being recognized, it should have been done by any commissioner who is not currently running for office or after the election itself.

And note to Krishan: By introducing Will at the podium, you have shown the board and residents in attendance that you fully endorse Will as a candidate. What will you be doing to further the campaigns of the other four candidates this week? If nothing else, you can all see that the optics of the situation are unacceptable. It’s long overdue for the current commission to consider how their dubious actions are interpreted by residents who are becoming increasingly disenchanted by the lack of accomplishments.

Secondly, I must point out that the Commission and Village Manager have shown, through their words and actions, that they absolutely do not appreciate the work done by P&Z. If you did appreciate the work we do, you would at least acknowledge the emails I have sent, requesting that Planning and Zoning be consulted on your failed attempts to put together a driveway ordinance over the past two+ years. As I have stated many times in the past, P&Z is the board that is most effected by a driveway ordinance, as we are tasked with interpreting and implementing any changes to how driveways and swales are permitted. While you delay the new driveway ordinance, we are forced to pass eyesores that will blight our community for decades.

Do not use this email as a way to question my dedication to the great work we do on P&Z or the hours and dollars I have donated to other efforts to improve the village. I am a highly credentialed designer with a Master of Architecture and  Bachelor of Environmental Design degrees with a minor in Urban Planning from a top ten architecture school. I spent twenty years thoughtfully designing mixed-use residential, commercial and government buildings and overseeing the construction of these projects for a Fortune 50 corporation. I’m the type of person with knowledge and expertise that this village sorely needs. Three long-term members of P&Z are life-long design professionals with extensive experience in the building codes, but we continue to be marginalized by a myopic mayor who still, after two years of no accomplishments, refuses to utilize the valuable resources at her disposal necessary to move the village forward.

In summary, I simply ask that all sitting commissioners please refrain from using meetings where I volunteer my time to grub for votes and blow smoke up my ass in front of residents. It’s transparent, inappropriate and just plain tacky. Rather, how about engaging in an actual debate of the issues with all candidates in the room? What are you afraid of, other than a two-year empty commission record?

Dan Schneiger

I'm Calling Out the Rest of You, Too.

Manny, you and I spoke for a while at the meet and greet.  Your theme was that because you're an accountant, you have special skills to reconcile the Village's accounts and accounting.  But we already have an accountant, and an auditor.  We don't need a Commissioner to triple check the work of the people we already hire.  We don't need you to track the money.  We need you to decide how it should be spent.  We need to know what you want for the Village, and how you would propose to get money we don't have.  So tell us more.  What's your vision for Biscayne Park?

Dan, I don't get it.  You offer to "[work] for the Village," but you already do that.  You've been doing it for years, in your role on the Recreation Advisory Board, and we appreciate it.  What's different once you're on the Commission?

Will, we've been watching you for two years, and I think we've seen it all.  Yes, you agree with whatever Tracy wants almost all the time.  And when you position yourself as not agreeing, it's without explanation, and only on condition that you're part of a minority that does not outvote her.  Your few initiatives are tentative, and without evident result.  Do we get anything different for the next two to four years of Commissioner Tudor, or is that it?

Betsy?  Betsy?  An attorney, and a stand-up entertainer.  Yup, it's not hard to see.  You're a great talker.  But "where's the beef?"  You tell us your forte is "branding."  Great.  If we need a PR firm, we'll call ya.  What do you charge?  But what's our brand?  You say you've lived here for some bunch of years.  You must have formed some sense of what the Village is about, and what its strengths are.  So?  You live across from the recreation center and the park.  Do you like living there?  Is that our brand?  Should we put more into the recreation capacity of the Park?  I've seen your property.  It seems clear to me you're not focused on anything like lushness, or the "Tree City USA" image we had been trying to cultivate (excuse the pun).  So I assume you're OK with the Village's public spaces being as spare and uninspired as you keep your property.  Our brand, in Commissioner Wise's opinion, is not about medians.  So what's it about?  We don't need you to write copy for us.  We need you to help us identify our image.  What is it for you?

I'm Calling You Out, Jared Susi. The Gauntlet is Down, Dude.

Sure, Jared, you look good compared to the competition.  Dan Samaria is the only other one who showed anything like interest in the Village.  Ever.  Apart from you.  But neither Dan nor the rest of them have any self-confidence or willingness to face the voters.  It's only you.  Will Tudor is the only one with a Commission track record, such as it is, but he won't step out on his own, without protection.

So you're it, Jared.  But what have you got?  You gave us all a superficial sampling, but I want more.  I want depth.   We all know you're a good guy, and you and Nicole are involved and productive, but you can do that without being on the Commission.  You've done it already without being on the Commission.  You and Dan Samaria are the only candidates who have lifted a finger for this Village, off or on the Commission.  And you're going to donate back your stipend?  You think you're the first Commissioner to do that?  You're not.  You might be the second.  OK, fine, it's way better than what most of the current Commissioners have done, but it's not completely unique.

What are you really going to show us, when you're a Commissioner?  (And I realize fully that if you get on the Commission, and you don't just do whatever Tracy tells you to do, she'll marginalize you in a heartbeat, and make you irrelevant.  I know that.)  But what would you do, if you could?  What do you want?  What's your vision for the neighborhood?

For example, "2-, 5-, and 10-year plans" for what?  What would you like to see happen in the Village over the next two, five, and 10 years?  And make the Village safe and pedestrian-friendly how?  What are the "character and charm of our public spaces and architecture," and what would you do to maintain them?  I mean, if you could.  Imagine that you were part of a Commission that had goals and an agenda, that wanted for the Village what you want.  Or that was available to want anything at all for the Village.  You won't be on that kind of Commission, but tell us how you and like-minded Commissioners would plan.  And what efficiencies would you like to maximize?

You know how politicians and office-seekers are, Jared.  They give the voters ethereal double talk and pablum.  But some of your neighbors are adults, and they want more than pablum.  Give it up, Jared.  What kind of neighborhood is this, once Commissioner Susi, and an imagined Commission of ambitious and visionary neighbors, get their teeth into it?

Trump's Tax Returns. And BP Elections.

Donald Trump has done something no one has done since it started.  He won't reveal his tax returns.  Anyone can imagine why he won't.  The prominent guess is that he has something compromising to hide.  That, in itself, looks like guilt to some people.  Other people say they don't care, and they suggest it's not important to know how Trump handles his money, and his reporting about it.  Still others say that maybe he's guilty of tax mischief, and maybe he's not, but they don't care, because they're more interested in something else they think he represents, and it's something they think they want.  Anyone can guess whatever they want, but we're still left with a noteworthy peculiarity.  It's the behavior of someone who's trying to hide something, and presumably, he would only want to hide it, if it was compromising to him.  Or if it might make people not want him in office, or not trust him.

Here in BP, we have five Commission candidates, and three or four of them refuse to participate in a Meet the Candidates forum.  This is almost unheard of.  And on the rare occasion in which it's happened, it's been maybe one candidate who wouldn't participate.  But most of them?  Or almost all?  Not around here.

So the question really is, what are three or four of them trying to hide?  And for the record, and those keeping score, Jared Susi was immediately agreeable to both of two Meet the Candidates fora that were proposed.  Manny Espinoza expressed agreement to one of them, but did not respond to a request about the other.  The other three-- Dan Samaria, Will Tudor, and Betsy Wise-- either refused or didn't respond to a request.  And also for the record, two of the three-- Will and Betsy-- have told some people they prefer the "one-on-one" experience to the open discussion/debate format.  The problems here are that we don't experience them reacting to each other, which is supposed to happen among Commissioners, and no one can monitor what they tell voters, for accuracy.  I, for one, have already heard about assertions that are flatly not true, or are not in accord with assertions made to others.  But if the isolated listener is not familiar with the issues, and there is no potentially corrective or differing feedback from anyone else, then very wrong impressions can be left.

In the same way that any skeptic would assume Trump is trying to hide something compromising about himself, we might guess the same thing about our secretive Commission candidates.  And what are they trying to hide?  Are they trying to hide the fact that they don't know the real issues, and are not in a position to comment intelligently about them?  Are they trying to hide that they do not have adequate skills, when it comes to interacting with a group of similarly positioned colleagues?  Are they trying to hide limited or defective thinking or rhetorical skills?  Isn't this precisely what the voters need to know?

One candidate said he would only consider participating in a Meet the Candidates exercise, if issues were not presented as if they were Ordinances to be discussed.  What?!  This is exactly what a Commissioner has to do.  And they don't want us to see how they would do it?  That really answers the question right there, doesn't it?

Only one candidate happens to be an incumbent.  In theory, he should have nothing to hide.  We've seen it all already.  So what's his concern?  Could it be that he is only willing to function, or pretend to function, as a Commissioner, if the issues have been presented to him in advance, and he has taken the opportunity to receive some form of guidance as to how to respond to them?  Or could it be that he only trusts himself among a very select group of people, but that if he had to be on his own with another group of people, he doesn't have confidence that he would look functional?

Some candidates expressed reluctance to participate, because they couldn't control the questions, or would only participate if they could.  Commissioners don't control the agenda of what they are required to consider on the Commission.  If they can't take what comes, then they're not right for the job.

So, for me, four candidates have disqualified themselves.  They are unreliable and useless to the Village.  Unfortunately for us, we're going to get at least two of them on the Commission.  Woe are we.

Big Mama Protects Her Little Brood.

Last week at the budget meeting, David Raymond wanted a few minutes for a special request.  He and Art Gonzalez wanted to organize a Meet the Candidates forum, of the type we always do here, and he wanted to request the fee for use of the log cabin be waived, as it always is for such events.  But Tracy Truppman wouldn't allow David to get on the record to make his request, and she told him he'd have to come back tonight, for the regular Commission meeting.

David wasn't there tonight, and neither was Art.  I had already heard they were having trouble getting the candidates to agree to a forum (what?!).  I wanted to do a forum, too.  Mine was to be structured a little differently from theirs.  And I wanted the fee for use of the recreation center waived.  So during public comment, I made my request, for David and Art, and for myself.  Tracy decided to shift the matter to the end of the meeting, during New Business.  And so it was.

This should have been a simple matter.  For as long as I've lived here, every Commission has unflinchingly waived the fee for use of whatever building this forum occupied.  And there has always been a forum.  Always.  All the Commission had to do was say what every Commission says: of course.  David and Art would have planned their event, if they could, and I would have planned mine, if I could.  And for the record, this election season was remarkable for an almost complete lack of cooperation and commitment on the parts of the candidates.  Only Jared Susi instantly agreed to both fora.  The other four either balked or refused.  Or didn't respond to the requests.

The matter was introduced by Roxy Ross, who explained that this is so typical and unquestioned as to be a no-brainer.  Harvey Bilt had other ideas.  He formulated for himself some concept of political liability for the Village, if it waived the fee for such an event.  No one-- not the other Commissioners or the Village Attorney-- understood Harvey's point.  Tracy then glared at Jenny Johnson-Sardella, signaling to her that it was her responsibility to come up with some obstacle.  Presumably, Jenny will later get spanked, or whatever Tracy does to people who don't do what she says, because she couldn't think of any problem.  So Tracy went on a little rampage, in which she constructed various theories having to do with candidates either being coerced or excluded, as if something unfair was being perpetrated on them.  Tracy did not want this to happen.  She wants to spare her old and new pets from any problematic exposure.  So she hit upon her tactic.

She had Roxy make a motion.  Roxy's motion was that the fee would be waived, if at least three candidates agreed to participate.  And this is where I learned what cards Tracy has.  She, and Harvey-boy, voted against Roxy's motion.  If the motion doesn't pass, then it fails.  And with Will out of the room, because someone told him he had to recuse himself, there were only four.  Two-two is a defeat for the motion.  Tracy asked Roxy if she wanted to try again.  And Roxy fell right into Tracy's trap.  Roxy adjusted her motion to waive the fees, if at least four of the candidates participate.  Tracy, and Harvey-boy, agreed to this one.

Tracy knows her cards.  She controls Will and Betsy, and she'll instruct both of them not to participate.  That leaves a maximum of three, which means the fee doesn't get waived.  It doesn't mean the event can't happen.  It just means the room has to be paid for.

But in the meantime, David and Art withdrew their request, because only Jared was willing to participate.  And only Jared was willing to participate in the event I wanted to hold.  So, because all but one of our Commission candidates this year are children who have no material, and are terrified that anyone should witness this, we will, for the first time in my memory, not a have Meet the Candidates forum.

And I will retract my earlier position about voting for three people, because we're going to get three Commissioners.  Mac Kennedy and Janey Anderson were right, and I was wrong.  The other four really are equally useless and meaningless, and it really doesn't matter which of them are on the Commission. And too bad for Jared, if he wins, and if he accepts a victory, that he will sit there, as Roxy has sat there, and allow one dictator to run the Village, with the mindless acquiescence of three stooges.  Well, now we know.

That's Curious. They're Supposed to Be Candidates Trying to Engage the Voters.

On Monday, September 24, I sent an e-mail to each of our Commission candidates.  Four of the e-mails went through, and one failed.  The one that failed was to Dan Samaria, who appeared as if he had changed his e-mail address.  So I called him and left a message for him to call me back, so I could get his correct address.  The e-mail I sent is as follows:

Hi,

I want to do something that I envision structuring as a Commission meeting, with the five of you as Commissioners.  The agenda would be four issues.  They are essentially the ones I described in the blog post of 3/13/17.  I would have to adjust them a little, since the circumstances have changed since then.  The blog address, if you don't know it, is www.biscayneparkfla.blogspot.com.

I would not impose time limits on speaking, but rather let you discuss these issues as a group, exactly as you would if you were Commissioners.  You would say as much or as little as you want.  You would come to conclusions, or not.  Someone would make a motion, or not.  This would be an opportunity for your neighbors to see what you would look like as Commissioners.  We already know that about Will, but not about the rest of you.  And maybe Will interacts differently with a different group of colleagues.

So let me know ASAP if you're willing to do this.  If you all are, or even if most of you are, I'll schedule a date, time, and place.  It would be best for everyone if it could be in the log cabin.  And sooner is better than later.

By the way, my role would be like a silent mayor, or like the manager.  All I would do is get the topics introduced.  I would have no contribution about what you do with the discussion.  The only possible exception to that, which I would have to consider, and maybe discuss with you, is if I wanted you to specify something or go further with something you said.

Let me know today or tomorrow, if possible.

Fred

PS: It's possible someone else might want to do a different Meet the Candidates event, more like the ones we typically do.  I find them stilted and inadequately productive, and I think this is better.  But there's certainly room for both.

I heard back fairly promptly from Jared Susi, agreeing without reservation to this exercise.  His exact response was "Count me in."  I never heard back from any of the other four, including that Dan Samaria did not return my call.

I proposed the same exercise last year, when we had a special election to fill David Coviello's seat.  At that time, Dan Samaria, Harvey Bilt, and Mac Kennedy declared candidacies.  Mac immediately said he would participate, and the other two declined.  It was my impression that Harvey was suspicious, and he somehow convinced Dan, his one remaining opponent after Mac dropped out, also to decline.  I have to this day failed to understand why Dan took the advice of his opponenet over the advice of a completely unbiased person.

I saw Dan Tuesday night at the Commission meeting (don't even ask; it was unbelievable), and he told me his e-mail had been hacked, and he also hadn't gotten around to returning Monday's messages until then.  But he didn't return my call.  Anyway, he didn't ask what the e-mail was about.  Will Tudor, Manny Espinoza, and Betsy Wise were also there, at least for part of the time.  None of them approached me with an answer to my e-mail proposal.

In the meantime, I learned that David Raymond and Art Gonzalez are putting together a different Meet the Candidates event, and Milton Hunter is doing interviews.  David told me everyone eventually agreed to participate in his and Art's event, but only on condition the issues not be presented as Ordinances.  That's pretty weird, because discussing Ordinances is exactly what a Commission has to do.  So why wouldn't they want to show what they got?  Unless they know they got nothin', and they don't want it to be that obvious yet.  And Dan reportedly started to balk, because he doesn't want to have to do three things (two events and an interview).  I wonder if he plans to limit the number of meetings he's willing to attend as a Commissioner, too.

The whole thing seemed to me very twisted, because people who should want every opportunity to show themselves to their neighbors seem to be balking a lot.  Maybe it's like two years ago, when discussions would happen on Nextdoor, and there would be comments to the effect that readers wanted to know what Tracy and Jenny and Will thought, and the "three pack" were very careful not to reveal anything.  It's pretty clear now what that meant.

So David and Art will try to get their event planned, and I'll try to get mine planned.  It may work out, and it may not.  The Commission meeting Tuesday night was the final acceptance of the millage and the budget, and David Raymond wanted a quick word at the end, to get the Commission to agree to let him and Art use the log cabin for free.  But Tracy refused to listen to him, and he'll have to wait until next week, at the regular meeting.  I guess I will, too.

John Hornbuckle

I moved here in 2005, and John was on the Commission then.  He soon became, or became again, Mayor.  John was a good Mayor, at least with respect to running meetings, which was all I could witness.   They were orderly, respectful, accomplished all the business each time, and lasted around two to 2 1/2 hours.  John waited patiently while his colleagues gave their opinions about things, at the end of which he gave his, and a vote was taken.

I met John's wife, Elizabeth, because we were both on Planning and Zoning, and I knew she was an architect.  I never really knew what John did professionally.

At some point, which could have been 2007 or 2009, John got "unelected" from the Commission (lost his re-election bid), and I didn't hear much from him any more.  But later, I'd see him around at various events, and he was advertising for himself.  He had a (new?) business called Compass Claims, the job of which was to represent people who had insurance claims, and they felt the insurance companies were not being fair in offering settlements.  I later came to realize this kind of advantage-taking by insurance companies is rampant.  And extreme.  So John had a job to do.  Specifically, you hire him to help you get your proper settlement, he does whatever he does to represent you and intervene, and his fee is 10% of what he gets you.

A year ago, one of my friends' house was damaged in hurricane Irma.  My friend had homeowners' insurance, and she immediately contacted the company to do something for her.  The damage made her house uninhabitable.  Her insurance company immediately started low-balling their settlement offer, was not providing any help with referrals to people who could solve the emergency problem, and they were jerking her around.  So I suggested my friend contact John, because I know him, and it's his line of work.  He quickly got involved, and he stayed with the project long (or short) enough to realize it wasn't going anywhere good.  So he referred my friend to an attorney with proper experience in this kind of problem.  With all of that, it took a long time for a proper settlement offer to get made, but it did.  It was approximately 14 times what the company wanted to pay.  And it is more than sufficient to address all the damage, and the dramatic life interruption that resulted from the unbelievable delays.  John has just delivered to my friend her check.  She's very happy.

I had no problem at all recommending John from the outset, because I know him, I like him, and I consider him hard-working and scrupulous.  Now, I can add that I have seen his work more or less first hand, and he is THE guy to call in this circumstance.

John is like me, in that it would be better if no one needed either of us professionally.  But if you have a problem with an insurance company, you want to contact John Hornbuckle.  John receives notices about posts to this blog, so I will leave it to him to provide his preferred contact information.  I'm sorry if you're ever in a situation where you need John's services, but you won't be sorry if you engage him when you do.

Well, I Met the Candidates.

Today, there was an informal meet the candidates gathering at the recreation center.  This gathering had an odd history.  It started as an announcement from Dan Samaria, seeming to suggest that all the candidates would be there.  Someone else to whom I was speaking thought Dan was arranging this only for himself.  What I heard was that the other candidates learned about it, and each of them backed out.  David Raymond seemed to say he and someone else had something to do with acting as go-betweens or mediators/negotiators, and finally, all five candidates showed up.

Manny Espinoza's table was first for me, because it was on my right, and closest when I walked in.  Manny and his wife were there, and they had by far the best food.  Very nicely catered.  Manny was interacting with his neighbors, and he was decked out in his Manny Espinoza for Commission tee shirt, which was comfortably faded from five years ago.  Manny was smiling and confident.  I asked him where he was all this time, since he has had no visibility at all in the neighborhood, and he explained that he had been too busy working to attend meetings, or anything else.  I pointed out that he wasn't too busy to run for office in 2013, but he stuck to his story.  He's offering to apply his accounting skills to looking over the Village's books, to find all the fat that no one else has found.  I tried to argue with him, but that was his position.

Jared and Nicole Susi were catercorner across the room.  They had nice food, too.  I've already seen Jared's offerings, as in this blog, and I didn't ask him anything further.  One woman in attendance said she didn't like Jared and Nicole, or she was mad at them, because Nicole referred to herself as a "Code NAZI," and said anyone who can't keep up with Code-required maintenance should move to a tent out in the country, and the woman believes it is Nicole who answers for Jared in places like Nextdoor.  She thinks Jared is sort of a fake candidate, and what we're really being offered is Nicole.  San Pellegrino water?  That's a bit rich for an event like this.  I don't drink water that expensive, so I didn't take one.

I didn't approach Dan Samaria, because I was too busy talking to other people, but Dan approached me.  He wanted either to correct me or to scold me for being concerned that Tracy Truppman would have undue influence over him.  Dan says he will reach his own conclusions in advance of meetings, and he won't change them, unless someone gives him an argument that makes better sense than what he came up with himself.

I didn't speak to Will Tudor.  I've watched him for two years, and I get it.  Chuck Ross has been telling me he thinks Will is faintly, if mostly imperceptibly, independent of Tracy, but I don't see it in any way that counts.  Dan Keys gave me a version of the same argument at the event today, but it's hard to tell when Dan is providing real insight, or when he's just being contrary.  He's always being contrary, and I can't tell when I should take him seriously.  He did give me one or two examples of what he considered Will's actual independence, but I didn't buy it.

The interesting, and prolonged, conversation was with Betsy Wise.  She's very crafty, and she's an excellent verbal dancer.  She's also very engaging.  She's charming and delightful.  Nothing she said made any sense, but it was a real pleasure to talk to her.  I really like her.  The question I kept asking her, which I think was the question Chuck asked her, and probably other people did, too, was how to juxtapose her complete absence from anything to do with the Village, with her sudden idea that it would be great if she were a Commissioner, and that she'd be a very good one.  She talked about her "skill set," which seemed mostly to do with "branding," and how she would quickly come to understand the issues and figure out how to be an effective Commissioner, essentially on the fly.  As we talked about it, and it seemed she saw what I meant by my concern, she said maybe I thought it was what she called "arrogant" for her to make this decision.  I reassured her that that's precisely what I was thinking, and that that was the word that came to my mind, too.  So here's what happens when Betsy Wise gets crafty in conversation.  She says, with what I guess is supposed to sound like humility, that she leaves it up to the voters to decide if she can be trusted with a seat at the Commission table, and she would fully accept it if they decided she couldn't.  Which is deeply disingenuous and manipulative, in a charming and self-deprecating way, since of course she would have to accept it.  She couldn't commandeer a seat at the Commission table, if she didn't win.  But my concern wasn't what would be her problem, if she didn't win.  It was what would be our problem, if she did.  The other thing I brought up in our conversation was the idea that she is a Truppman stooge, conscripted either by Tracy or by Jenny.  (The latter was the rumor I heard.)  Betsy assured me she had only spoken to Tracy twice before she decided to run, and to Jenny only twice before she decided.  She meant to reassure me that she didn't have long connections with them.  But it left the question as to why she would have had two conversations with each of them before she decided to run.  As she herself was trying to suggest, it's not like they were long time friends or acquaintances.  And she said she's only spoken to Tracy maybe a half dozen times since she declared.  I asked her how many Commission meetings she's attended since she declared, and stayed for the whole meeting.  As best I could figure out, it sounded like the answer was one.  Which is a little odd, since I don't commonly miss Commission meetings, and I've never seen her at any of them.  But maybe one of the few I missed was the one she attended.

So today didn't solve any problems.  Very nice cold cuts and cheeses, empanadas, and desserts, though.  And it was very sweet of Rosemary Wais to make decaf, just for me.

This Joint Ain't Big Enough For All of Us

This past Tuesday night, Chuck and Roxy Ross and I were having dinner at Ricky Thai Bistro.  At some point, Chuck, who was facing the back door, saw someone.  Roxy saw it, too.  I was looking in a different direction and did not see.

It was Tracy Truppman and her partner Rhonda.  From Chuck's and Roxy's report, Tracy saw us sitting at a table, and she and Rhonda turned and left.

They could not bring themselves to eat their own dinner, while we were eating ours, in a restaurant in which no one interacts with diners at any other table.  I, for one, don't even listen to the conversations of diners at other tables.

How childish.

Miami Symphony Orchestra 30th Season Grand Opening. And a Nice Discount.

The first concert for this coming season is on Sunday, October 14th.  It's at the Arsht Center, and it starts at 6:00.

The program begins with a new MiSO commission called "Orbits," and it ends with Holst's "The Planets.  Gershwin is in the middle.

I have every confidence this will be a great concert.  If you want to go, you can get tickets at www.themiso.org, or you can call MiSO at 305-275-5666.  Use promotion code PLANETS, and you get 25% off.  What, do you want it for free?  That's too much to ask.  This is a very good deal.

"A Bevy of Oddballs"

We all know John Ise.  He lived in the Park for years, then moved to the Shores.  When he was here, his big issue was that he wanted a dog park.  After he left, Howard Goldmann moved in, and he took up the campaign.  Well, we still don't have a dog park, but that's another issue.

Anyway, John got himself a side job.  He writes a regular column for the Biscayne Times.  I think he writes almost exclusively about the Shores.  But occasionally, he gets interested in his old stomping grounds: the Park.  And so it is this month, in anticipation of the November elections.

We have five candidates for BP Commission, and John decided to do a column about the election, and about the five candidates.  Since John is not a slouch at reporting, he took the approach of actually making contact with our five candidates.  Well, he tried.  And he's trying.

John reached out to each of them by phone and by e-mail.  Then, he checked in with me.  The problem was that he wasn't getting the responses he expected from five people running for office.  He wanted to know what's going on here.

Jared Susi replied to John, and he agreed to be interviewed for John's piece.  Betsy Wise replied, too, but she said she had to discuss this with the Village Manager.  What?

I then wrote an e-mail to the other three characters, to tell them to respond to John.  I heard back from Dan Samaria, who told me essentially that he didn't trust John, because, according to Dan, John misquoted him about something a few years ago.  I passed this along to John, who didn't recall ever quoting Dan at all about anything, let alone misquoting him.

John passed along to me the response he got from Manny Espinoza, stimulated by my telling these people to contact John.  This is what John wrote to Manny:

                      Dear Mr. Espinoza. 

My name is John Ise and I serve as the Greater Miami Shores “Neighborhood Correspondent” (which includes Biscayne Park) for the Biscayne Times (for previous pieces, you can see link under "Greater Miami Shores" pasted below).  I see from the Village web site you are a candidate for Village Commission.  I’m interested in doing a column on the Village election, profile of candidates, issues emphasizing, and general direction of Biscayne Park. 

I’m planning on column running for the October edition so no rush.    Please let me know if interested in chatting and if so, we can arrange a mutually convenient time.    I appreciate your consideration.  Cheers

John Ise

This is what Manny replied to John:

Good afternoon.   Before I engage my self with any type of media, I like to do my due diligence to find out who the person is trying to obtain some personal information and future plans.  With all my respect, I’ll get in touch with you by tomorrow afternoon to setup a day and time for the information you will like to make it public. I appreciate your understanding. Thanks Manny Espinoza.

What?

Will Tudor never replied to John or to me.

So John wrote back to me to say it seemed to him our current candidates, apart from Jared Susi, are "a bevy of oddballs."  If John is waiting for me to disagree with him, I hope he's not holding his breath.