Wednesday, January 9, 2019
I Miscalculated. I Didn't Go. I'm Sorry.
I was going to go to the Commission meeting last night. But I was exhausted. I would have gone anyway. But I looked at the agenda, saw there was nothing on it, and decided not to bother.
How could I have known that Tracy Truppman would get all tyrannical, and not let either of the Rosses have a proper word during Public Comment? How could I have guessed she would start overtalking Chuck when he was less than a minute into his comment? How could I have imagined Betsy Wise would introduce some nonsense at the last minute, then "bitch-slap" other residents who had actual content of their own?
So I missed the whole thing, however long it might have taken. (My other theory was that there wasn't a half hour's worth of content on the agenda anyway, which means yeah, Tracy Truppman will consume two hours or more with it, but I wouldn't miss anything substantive by staying home.) I'll try to watch the video of the meeting. I'll blog it. Or, even better, you can blog it. Let me know you were there, and that you want to report what happened, and how you understood it, and it's all yours.
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ReplyDeleteIt started before the meeting began, there was a change to the agenda format. Tracy had the clerk move the decorum rules and other disclosures normally at the back of the agenda to the top. When the meeting started Tracy warned us that if you violated the decorum rules you could be removed from the meeting.
ReplyDeleteDan Samaria objected to the format of the agenda and wanted to discuss it further after the meeting began. So, it was a bit of a mess to start with. Rox was the first to speak at public comment. She did speak for 3 minutes until Tracy told her, time was up, Rox needed more time and continued to speak, Tracy continued to tell her, time was up, Rox asked for an additional 30 sec, Tracy said yes and then gave her about 10 and cut her off. Rox was trying to give them some good advice and information, but Tracy wasn't interested and Betsy made a snarky remark about Rox not following the rules.
I went next, I prepared a statement that needed 3 minutes if I spoke rapidly. Approx. 30 seconds or less into my statement Tracy started talking over me, I continued to speak while she continued to talk over me until the Attorney interrupted. He declared that he is that parliamentarian, the attorney generally is, and that this wasn’t productive. We needed to speak about the business at hand. Then the attorney then spoke for a while about the Charter in connection with the timing of swearing in of the new Commissioners, that I had commented on and about decorum rules. I had mentioned Charter Violation, in connection with this, that must have sent Tracy off, the problem is I wasn’t accusing her of a charter violation my concern was they were being dismissive of the residents that spoke at the last meeting about what they said was a charter violation. I was also questioning who was calling the shots around here. I don’t know if anyone heard any of that.
The bottom line is my 3 minutes were interfered with and I decided to back off and not delay the meeting any further by protesting that my 1st amendment rights were violated. I was speaking about the business at hand because the Dec 4th minutes were part of the agenda BU and they needed to be approved. Setting that aside, residents often speak at public comment about pretty much whatever is on their minds. So, what’s happening is that there is selective enforcement of the decorum rules. One more thing about the decorum rules, this Commission has never voted to adopt these rules. Further, there is no ordinance for a sergeant of arms so, the Mayor does not have the authority to remove anyone.
My prepared Statement
ReplyDeleteA number of residents spoke at the Dec meeting concerned that the charter had been violated, the new Commission was not sworn in within the time frame prescribed by the charter.
In my mind, the charter violation in this case isn't the concern so much as the dismissive behavior of the Mayor towards the residents. The time delay to certify the election caused a time lapse that was only a few days. However, I believe that this excuse was a convenient set of facts that fit the circumstances used to dismiss the resident’s concerns and it was created after the fact. Again, the dismissive attitude towards the residents is the problem.
Further to the point who if anyone made the decision to defer the swearing in or who is steering the ship? Is it Krishan, is it Tracy, as most of us believe, and if so that would be a charter violation, or are we just aimlessly drifting out to sea with no one at the wheel? We need a stable leader to guide this Village, we don’t have one right now.
Next, the Charter violations in connection with the Leg Requests were presented at the Dec reg. meeting by Rox Ross before she stepped down after 9 years. Again, flippant irrelevant excuses were heard by Tracy and Krishan in an attempt to defend & deflect, however, the Mayor in fact admitted she violated the Charter or collaborated with Krishan to do so by sending the Leg Requests to our Lobbyist without running it by the Commission as is required, not once but twice.
Based on this admission, I believe it is now your duty to take this up as an agenda item according to your sworn oath as BP Commissioners to have these matters further investigated. While this is being investigated the Mayor should step down as Mayor and pass the gavel to the Vice Mayor, I believe the procedure to install her was improper.
Tracy was not the Mayor when the organizational meeting began last month, she was a Commissioner like the rest of you and should not have run the meeting. By doing so she gained an unfair advantage to have herself nominated and, in my mind, it was a conflict. In the past the organizational meetings to select the Mayor have been run by the Attorney.
Criticisms of the Mayor have been described by her as a personal attack in the past and deliberate misrepresentations. These statements and concerns have nothing to do with the individual but with the manner that Village business is being conducted and there have been no deliberate misrepresentations, I urge you to watch the meeting videos.
Lastly, the road improvement Leg. Req. that Tracy pushed through in late 2017 was not properly vetted and would have been a waste of funds. The base of our roads needs to be restored before we resurface the roads among other issues. Tracy claimed there was no harm in asking for this request, not true, harm was caused by missing an opportunity in an election year to ask for funds for a different project, maybe a lighting project around the rec ctr as an example. So, losing an opportunity is harmful, losing our credibility with our State Senators and Representatives by bringing half-baked projects is also harmful. Tracy brags it landed on the Governor’s desk but he vetoed it, if you read his reasons he vetoed it because the process we followed was flawed.
We need change.
Betsy never misses an opportunity to bitch slap residents for wasting time or whatever she views as some form of misbehavior but had no problem with them spending in the neighborhood of 20-30 minutes on "decorum". In almost 41 years of commission meeting attendance I have never seen any other commission so fixated on muzzling residents. I don't know whether it's insecurity, paranoia and/or arrogance with this bunch. I'm leaning toward arrogance. Of course with the exception of Dan the others were only VERY marginally involved or absolutely not involved at all prior to running for commission so they have no clue that past commissions faced far more critical comments than they have but were smart enough to roll with it. Betsy keeps saying they are there to conduct village business. True. However village business is driven by residents not just those 5. Guess all that inclusiveness stuff got thrown out after the election! If we're going to be ruled with the decorum rules now being at the front of the agenda, read before public comments and posted at the podium then the same needs to be done with the Residents Bill of Rights from the charter. It's painfully obvious they have never read it.
ReplyDeleteI have to correct myself. It was about 10-15 minutes on decorum. It just seemed like 30! Although if you add Tracy's verbal sparing match with Chuck and Rox together with the agenda item it was likely greater than 30 mins.!
ReplyDeleteTalk about disingenuous - when they can turn a meeting that literally had nothing of substance on the agenda into over 2 hours yet blame residents for wasting time.....that is truly the height of arrogance.
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ReplyDeleteFollow up on the lack of meeting rules. I tried to tell the Commission and the Attorney we don't have any meeting rules, so how can you enforce what you don't have? As I understand our Charter, a single elected Official cannot make up the rules, a majority of the entire Commission must vote to approve the rules.
ReplyDeleteMeeting rules have been discussed in the past but never been moved forward.
In April (Originally brought in March 2018 and pulled from the agenda) of 2018 Rox brought the concept back because the Charter requires we have some rules, it only makes common sense. Rox brought the MDC procedures as a way to open the discussion. She was hoping that the Commission would take it up and adapt the MDC procedures to BP. She got no traction, I won't go into the gory details, but she made a motion to open it for discussion and it failed for lack of a second.
Link to that meeting and discussion:
Proposed reso. 2018-05 starts at 52:55 Min. The proposal was for discussion to adopt not necessarily all of these rules but to take what the majority deemed appropriate for BP. The proposal was turned down, motion made and no second at 1:08:26.
Link to video of proposed meeting rules for discussion purposes and related BU.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vDQ69DO1OU&feature=youtu.be
https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/10.a_Ross_Memo_Proposed_Procedures_04_03_2018.pdf
Chuck,
DeleteI agree with you that in the past, Commissions have tended to work collaboratively and respectfully to agree on meeting procedures. We live in a very small community, with only five Commissioners, and very few non-Commissioner residents who come to meetings, and there's no reason not to include as many people, and their preferences and opinions, as possible.
However, as I recall it, it is the Mayor who runs meetings, and he or she can run them any way he or she wants to. We have even acknowledged that we do not adopt Robert's Rules of Order in any formal sense. Our Charter allows the Mayor to be as tyrannical as he or she wants to be. Again, the vast majority of them have not chosen to operate as caricaturish tyrants, but a rare one has, either all of the time or from time to time.
Tracy is the most tyrannical and self-focused Mayor in my memory (she's worse than Noah Jacobs), but she is not outside her Charter-given rights to run meetings any way she wants. She can give her neighbors three minutes to speak, or eight minutes, or 12 seconds, and she can rescind whatever she initially offered to give them. Likewise, she can allow her Commission colleagues to speak, or she can shut them down. We have seen her do all of that.
In my opinion, Tracy Truppman is a toxic Commissioner, and we should replace her as soon as we can. Her approach is antithetical to everything the Village stands for, and it accomplishes nothing except to impose herself. She operates, at least as far as running meetings is concerned, within her rights, but not in the spirit of the Village. She has committed many Charter violations that are not rightly hers to ignore, and I hope these will be used to remove her.
In the meantime, Tracy has been deliberate and consistent about deflecting opportunities to have decorum spelled out, like she has worked hard to avoid and commit to a vision for the Village. There's a reason we used to have these exercises, and for the fact that the offer of them was made during her tenure, and for her refusal to have any of this introduced. How meetings are run is at Tracy's discretion, and she has made sure that no one can commit her, and she won't commit herself, to any standard, especially of decency and respect for her neighbors.
She presides over (see charter language below), that means she shall be in charge of running the meeting, that is different than she makes the rules as to how it is run. She enforces the rules, but the rules are set by a majority of the Commission per the Charter (see below).
ReplyDeleteThe person in charge of the meeting cannot be the person that sets the rules or you have a tyrant as you say and I agree that’s what is going on now. For example, the police enforce the law but the law if set by the legislature. If the police made the rules and enforced the rules then you would have a police state. So, we have a police state at the moment, we need the other Commissioners to step in and say wait a minute, this isn’t working.
The last meeting is an example of why this doesn't work. So, at the next meeting we should ask the Commissioners to change the time limit to 5 minutes and see what happens.
Here is the Charter language.
Section 2.02. - Mayor and Vice-Mayor.
(A) Mayor. The Mayor shall preside at meetings of the Commission and be a voting member of the Commission. The Mayor shall be recognized as the head of Village government for all ceremonial purposes and for purposes of military law, for service of process, execution of duly authorized contracts, deeds and other documents, and as the Village official designated to represent the Village in all dealings with other governmental entities.
Section 4.01. - Commission meeting procedure.
(A) Meetings. The Commission shall hold at least eleven (11) regular monthly meetings in each calendar year, at such times and places as the Commission may prescribe by rule. Special meetings may be held on the call of the Mayor or upon the call of four members of the Commission and upon no less than twenty four (24) hours' notice to each member and the public, or such shorter time as a majority of the Commission shall deem necessary in case of an emergency affecting life, health, property or the public peace.
(B) Rules and journal. The Commission shall determine its own rules of procedure and order of business and shall keep minutes open for public inspection.
Fair enough. 4.01(B) supports your point.
DeleteChuck I think that's a great idea. With such a pitiful attendance now giving everyone who speaks at public comments an additional 2 minutes isn't going to break the bank. Isn't it funny though how it's the public that gets blamed for wasting time and costing money. They, however, seem to feel no responsibility to be concise in their comments. If Tracy and Betsy skipped their trashing of residents and verbal sparing matches with residents there would have been a big time savings. At this point while I think it's important to not back off on asserting our rights I don't have much hope. Tracy was bad enough when she had a weak supporting cast. Now she's got Betsy as her partner in crime so she's really emboldened.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but in the general realm of "who's running this place and how arrogant can they be:" At 1245 today, I received an email from our illustrious village manager cancelling the driveway workshop tonight, with less than seven hours notice. The reason: Krishan didn't get his part of the job done, and apparently he just realized that at 1245 today. That event was scheduled at the beginning of December commission meeting, posted, and has been on the village calendar since. That night while sitting in the commission meeting, I put the workshop on my work calendar, then I scheduled my January travel around it so I could attend. And, I put time and thought into what I intended to say about this never-ending code rewrite, which Tracy & Co. have sat staring at for two years already. Now, I won't be able to attend on January 24 because I'll be out of town on business. I'm sure they could give two shits that Mac won't be at the workshop, but the level of incompetence and arrogance in just cancelling things with no notice is unacceptable. I've said it before: If any of these clowns treated their "real" jobs like this, they'd be unemployed. Our village manager should be.
ReplyDeleteMac, I understand what is the protocol, and who announces and supposedly takes responsibility for things, but please realize that "Krishan" almost never means Krishan. The "workshop," or whatever it is, was scheduled for tonight. I found out from Dan Samaria that it was cancelled, and Dan disapproves. I disapprove, too. The workshop was scheduled by the Commission, and it can only be cancelled by the Commission. If "Krishan" is behind on his part, that's fine. We can discuss the matter anyway, and he can take notes. I told Dan not to accept the cancellation, and to show up anyway. I told him to tell Krishan to tell the other Commissioners that the procedure by which the "workshop" is being cancelled is faulty, and that they should all show up. I told Dan that the failure of the other Commissioners to show up should be their responsibilities, not Krishan's, and not Dan's. Dan was planning to have a meeting tonight anyway, without the rest, and I told him to proceed just that way. We need to start taking the Village back from the autocrat who runs it.
DeleteI'll see you at 7:00 tonight at the log cabin.
So Dan Samaria is going to sit on the porch of the log cabin and hold a meeting outside of the rest of the commission? That's not a legal meeting. The village manager announced to residents via email that the meeting is cancelled, and it's cancelled on the village website. I'm not going to the log cabin for no good reason because one commissioner is standing there. He doesn't even have keys to the building, so he will literally and figuratively be the "outsider."
ReplyDeleteHe told me he demanded that the log cabin be open for whatever event he's holding. He said he'd call me back-- I told him I would be there-- but he didn't. I have to assume the building will be open, and something will occur there. He mentioned Andersons and Kuhls as people who agree with him that the meeting should not be cancelled, so I would guess they will be there, too.
DeleteI want to be part of a presence that represents protest against this kind of autocracy. We're being done to here.
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ReplyDeleteDan Samaria just called me. He got Krishan to agree to open the log cabin so Dan can meet with residents about the driveway ordinance. I want to voice my opinion on public record, not to a small group of residents. And, I want to hear commissioners discuss the ordinance, which will happen next week while I'm in LA. At best, BP is a shitshow. At worst, it's unethical and bordering on anti-democracy, with commissioners (two of them attorneys) doing their best to marginalize residents and their colleague (Dan) who they sided with to get elected. I hope Dan sees how he was manipulated. Will and Dan have already fallen victim to Tracy's personal TNR program, and Jenny should be so embarrassed at her involvement in this farce.
ReplyDeleteTonight is your chance. You won't be here next week.
Delete"Bordering?"