"The Air Is Humming. Is Something Great A-Coming?" To Paraphrase Stephen Sondheim.

In November, we have elections for Village Commission seats.  There should be three of them available, and they would be the seats currently filled by Roxy Ross, Will Tudor, and Harvey Bilt.  The only reason we wouldn't have three seats to fill is if we had more than three seats to fill.  That is, if Tracy Truppman, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, or both decided to resign, with the timing being that those seats, too, would be contested during the November election.

I have had no reason to think Tracy or Jenny plans to resign.  No one has said any such thing.  If I had to guess-- and it would only be a guess at this point-- I would guess that Roxy Ross isn't running for re-election.  She's done a stunning job for the Village, but I get the sense that she might be feeling there's nothing more she can do, since she has a Commission majority single-mindedly, and mindlessly, poised against her.  And unfortunately for all of us, it's personal.  The anti-Roxy majority don't want anything, and certainly nothing for the Village.  Their only intention is to defeat whatever Roxy suggests.  I'm saying "they," but it's really only Tracy.  The others are empty-headed stooges, who simply do whatever Tracy tells them to do.

I couldn't begin to guess what Will's and Harvey's plans are with respect to the Commission.  Will ran with only one goal: to prevent the Village, through its Commission's attention to the driveway and swale Ordinance, from making him install a driveway on his property.  I'm guessing he made clear to Tracy, when they were running together, that this was all he wanted, and she agreed to protect him.  The problem for Will is the same as the adage "you can't buy silence; you can only rent it."  Will can only succeed, if he, or someone sympathetic to him, is on the Commission for as long as he owns property here.  The tide turns diametrically as soon as there's an unsympathetic (to Will and his goal) Commission.  So Will has reason always to want to be on the Commission, at least as long as he lives here.  But it's unlikely he always will be on the Commission.  That party will come to an end at some point.

I have no idea what are Harvey's plans, and it's partly because I have no idea what Harvey is doing on the Commission.  He snagged what he must have thought would be an easy opportunity to get on the Commission-- although it turned out to be harder than he probably expected-- and he has done nothing with his tenure so far.  Nothing except listen to himself talk.  But there was never any apparent theme or agenda, and no recognizable accomplishments.  Harvey has as much reason to run for re-election as he had to run in the first place.  If it was about a thrill, or to pat himself on the back for the achievement, then whether or not he runs for re-election depends on how thrilled he's been, or how affirming he thinks this whole project has been for him.  It's not about the Village; it's just about Harvey.  And no one but Harvey can know how this feels to him.

So the question is what happens as a result of the November elections.  Most likely, Tracy and Jenny stay.  But unless Tracy can arrange to control one of the other three seats to be contested, she no longer single-handedly runs the Village, which will make her unhappy.  She's highly motivated to control one of those other three seats.  If Will or Harvey or both run, and Tracy can get at least one of them re-elected, we're back to Village death for another two years.  If Roxy doesn't run, and if Will and Harvey either don't run, or neither of them wins, and Tracy doesn't find another stooge to fill Roxy's seat, or Will's or Harvey's, then the Village can function again.

And this unmasks another potentially interesting dynamic.  Because Tracy has the stifling and deadening effect she does, and exerts dictatorial power over Village administration, our manager, Krishan Manners, has also been non-functional.  Tracy has made clear to him that he does whatever she tells him, and backs her up completely, or he's history.  If Tracy is not in power any more, one of two things happens to Krishan.  Either he begins to function as a municipal manager is supposed to, but which Tracy has forbidden him to do so far, or we find out Krishan is not the right person for this job, and we get someone else.  Remember, the Village had very, very enthusiastically chosen Sharon Ragoonan as its manager in 2016, and all of us had high hopes.  Tracy simply assassinated her, presumably for what amounts to personal reasons for Tracy, and she selected and elevated Krishan in Sharon's place.  I'm not reluctant to say at this point that when we had to replace Heidi Siegel in 2016, I reached out to Krishan, whom we all liked a lot, to ask him to apply, and he said he didn't want to.  In that sense, he's like Harvey: neither of them was interested in the job, when the competition was stiff, but each agreed, when they thought it was easier.  Harvey turned out not to want or be about anything.  It's completely unclear what Krishan could or would do, if a proper Village Commission allowed him normal functioning.

So we'll see.  It could be interesting and filled with optimism, or it could just be sad.


PS: It's clear Tracy still has juice in the Village.  She was able to muster up a few stalwarts to claim to want to be on the Foundation, so she could keep Nicole Susi and me off it.  I could think instantly of at least a couple of names of people Tracy has already shown she can stimulate to be her new stooges, or she can continue to back Will and Harvey, if either or both is still interested in staying on the Commission.  She can probably lean on enough Village residents for their votes to get her old or new stooges elected, too.  Here's a funny story.  When I ran in 2016, one of our neighbors on 8th Avenue, not far from where Tracy lives, met me and agreed to have my campaign sign in her and her husband's yard.  The next thing I know, the sign has been moved back so it's hidden, and I think it later disappeared.  What I learned was that Tracy confronted her neighbor, had a temper tantrum, and demanded the neighbor not feature my campaign sign.  Does Tracy still have that much sway with our neighbors now?  I don't know.  Maybe.  Certainly with some of them.