GableStage. Not in BP. In...the Gables. For at Least a Little While Longer.

My father died at the end of 2016.  Some years before that, my mother, who's now 92, had two strokes, and she's a complete invalid, living with round-the-clock care in Surfside.  One of my brothers died a couple of months ago.  My children, and my two grandchildren, live in other states.

Here's my point.  If Donald Trump somehow gets re-elected-- if this is really what Americans want-- and my mother dies in the next couple of years, I'm out of here.  I can't live among people who want "Donald Trump," and if I don't have to be here for my mother, then I don't have to be here at all.

What holds me here for now, apart from my mother and a few really good friends, is the life I have created for myself, and that life includes certain essential things.  They largely center on cultural activities.  And work.  But I can work anywhere, and at 69, I could theoretically be thinking about a different pace anyway.

There are several places I go to meet my need for culture.  If I like a place enough to go there, I almost invariably subscribe to their yearly offerings.  And if I like them enough to subscribe, then I almost always donate to support them.  (This is an old theme/rant for me, but no cultural organization I know of, anywhere, supports itself by selling tickets.  They all need extra support from grants and donors.  In normal countries, the public/government supports the cultural organizations.  In this country, support comes from local governments-- municipality, state, and county,-- well-endowed foundations, like the Knight Foundation in our area, and donations from people like me and you.)

A bedrock for me is GableStage.  This is a theater organization that has been here for 21 years.  For the moment, it is aptly named, since its playhouse is on the grounds of the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.  But GableStage has been saying for several years that it plans to move to the Coconut Grove Playhouse, if this old venue ever really does get renovated, and if that happens, then GableStage won't be in the Gables any more.  I suppose they'll deal with the misnomer, if and when it happens.  Maybe for nostalgia's sake...

The founder, artistic director, and main play director of GableStage is Joe Adler.  I don't know much about Joe Adler, except that he comes from New York (the accent isn't subtle), and he used to work on Broadway.  At some point, he came down here, as any sane northerner would, and he started GableStage.

GableStage is a year-round organization.  They put on six plays a year: one play every other month.  It's a month for rehearsals, etc, and a month for presentations.  Scheduling for the presentations is Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, and two shows on Sundays.

I don't know what tickets cost.  As I said, I don't buy them that way.  I just subscribe.  I go to every play.  I don't even know what the play is until I get there.  Sight unseen, no questions asked.  Joe Adler chooses the plays, which are almost always very good or excellent.  He chooses the actors, who are more or less 100% local professionals, and who are always exceptional.  He's had one set designer for the whole 21 years, and sets are magnificent.  Always.  The directing could not possibly be better.  I've seen a few plays on Broadway (I don't want to get started on the crazy NJ woman I was dating for the first half of 2015), and I saw one play on Broadway, then at GableStage.  The directing on Broadway is either not better than or not as good as the directing at GableStage.  The best play I have ever seen in my life was "The Mountaintop," which was at GableStage.  As great as the play was, the acting was better.  I happened to see youtube clips from the same play done on Broadway, with Angela Bassett and Samuel L Jackson in the two roles.  It wasn't even close.  If Bassett and Jackson saw what I saw at GableStage, they would retire.  You can't beat that.  They couldn't.

So, I have somehow managed to get too busy to respond to e-mail and resubscribe yet for the coming year.  Someone is watching, because if they don't hear from you, and you're a regular, you get mail.  It came today.  Oh, right, I owe GableStage a call.  Will do it today.  It's $300 for the six plays-- $50 each ticket-- and you get an extra ticket for one extra admission any time during the year.  They say the $300 is 45% off the single ticket price, which must then be about $90 per ticket.  The theater at GableStage is very small.  I doubt there are more than about 200 seats.  Do you want to know what it would cost to see a play on Broadway, in an intimate setting, and with the likelihood that what you would see would not be as good as GableStage?  And did I mention the free parking at GableStage?

I very highly recommend GableStage.  If you're not sure, try one play.  If you're a little more adventurous, subscribe for one season.  If you don't fall in love, pat yourself on the back for being a good sport, and don't go back next year.  But I have a feeling...  You can call them at 305-445-1119, or you can go to their website at www.gablestage.org.

BP CODE ATTACK

This is a lengthy post, so “mute” or move on now … or refill your coffee and have a seat. You may not like everything you read, but you need to know how BP operates these days before you’re the next victim.

Last week, my husband and I were the victims of attacks from BP Code, and as a result I’ve requested the immediate termination of Code Officer Christina Caserta. BP residents need to be aware of the unscrupulous methods this village employee uses to intimidate and threaten residents who complain about Code or other village matters. Whether Caserta schemed up these attacks on her own or at the behest of her boss, Village Manager Krishan Manners, or Mayor Tracy Truppman remains to be determined. I am an outspoken critic of them both, most notably at commission meetings where I’m a member of the chorus pointing out their shortcomings/violations and calling for them to step down or be terminated. If you’re labeled a “complainiac” by village leaders, the hired help or their minions, be prepared to take them on the way my husband and I have been forced to for the past year. That culminated in an explosive Code Compliance meeting this past Thursday from which Caserta stormed out in an epic hissy fit unbecoming a village employee and costing the village money in the process.

Here’s the quick version of an ugly story that’s been unfolding for the past year.

As is my right, I complain about goings-on in this village: where I live peacefully with my husband; in which we’ve invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars in a home we love; where we follow the rules closely and pay our exorbitant tax bill; where we volunteer as board members and at village events; where we donate money for projects; and, most notably, where we complain about the sad state of code enforcement. We maintain our home to very high personal standards (drive past and take a look; wave hello when you see me gardening every weekend), but we expect other residents to merely meet the minimum requirements as set by current code. That’s the “contract” by which we all live in this or any community: meet the minimum standards. Those standards do not include dangerous construction sites open to the street (pools with no fences; rusty rebar sticking out of deep, open trenches), cars parked on lawns and properties strewn with trash.

At the risk of sounding like a persnickety old queer, that’s just not good enough, and more importantly it fails to meet our minimum code requirements that should keep our VERY expensive village looking good. Those codes already exist, but our village manager and code officer have made a very clear choice to not enforce them, at least not evenly. And, if you point out dangerous violations, they ignore you … and eventually they target you with the power of code that they selectively enforce.

In the past year, we have been given three warnings for code violations that were completely bogus. Those code warnings included a dirty roof that we had already had professionally cleaned and which I had reported to them. Caserta also warned us about a pile of garden soil in a permitted project that she had specifically directed to be placed there (in Spanish to the contractor operating the backhoe in our driveway). Yup, at my request she visited the site to help me make sure we stayed in compliance, then she told the guy in Spanish (I don’t speak Spanish) where to move the pile … so she could return and warn us about it. That’s how that unethical village employee operates. What she didn’t count on was this resident pushes back on bullies. I have a low tolerance threshold for abuse of power, so she got a big face full of Mac in an email to her boss in which I disclosed her bullying tactics. Of course, she backed off with her tail between her legs and sorta apologized for being “overzealous.” As if. If Caserta were “overzealous” about her work, this village would be pristine instead of boasting entire streets that make Appalachia look like Mar-a-Lago.

Worth mentioning that these warnings from Caserta came on the heels of an email my husband sent to the village about Caserta’s poor job performance. Her response to that email the very next day was a fistful of warnings, and that day we knew we were her target. Our only question was whether she decided to target us on her own or at the direction of Krishan Manners and/or Tracy Truppman.

Caserta’s attack on us came to a head two weeks ago when we received two official, legal notices from the city to appear before the Code Compliance Board for installing a fence without a permit. If you’ve never received one of those notices, they’re rather intimidating and include warnings about fines of $500/day and a separate fine of $5,000. The notice is taped to your house (charming site for neighbors to see) and delivered via certified mail that requires your signature. Although we knew the charge was without merit (we installed that fence 3-1/2 years ago with a permit, which I located in my files), we took the matter very seriously and prepared our defense with documents, photos and all relevant details. We knew Caserta was gunning for us, and we were prepared. I cancelled a business trip to appear before the board, and Dan and I showed up as ordered at 7p last Thursday at the Log Cabin.

We walked in to be informed by Caserta that she had dropped our case and we were not on the agenda. We could leave the meeting we had prepared for and for which I had canceled a business trip ... just that casually. She had made up a bogus violation (she later admitted she had the permit we were charged with not having), she caused me to cancel a business trip and wasted our time in preparing, then she chose not to tell us the case was dropped and we didn’t need to come, even though she had notified us twice to appear. (I had emailed Caserta personally to question the violation, to which she never replied, in true BP style.) Well, we were there as ordered and demanded that our case be heard because we wanted answers as to the origins of this bogus violation. We don’t tolerate bullies.

Caserta stammered and stumbled through a disjointed response to the board and us about why the case started in the first place and why she chose not to tell us it had been dropped, trying her best to make something, anything, stick. She looked like a fool and she knew it. It was a pathetic and transparent display of abuse of power, and she wasn't nearly as good defending or explaining it as she was doing it. We volunteered to push our item to the end of the agenda in the interest of expediting the meeting for the other residents in attendance.

The very first case involved another property owner whose time had also been wasted by our code officer, so that started another ridiculous encounter with Caserta who couldn’t string together a cohesive thought. At that point, she knew her incompetence has been revealed (and our case was still coming, with us sitting patiently with a stack of evidence and my laptop fired up), so she stood us in a teen-worthy hissy fit and abruptly ended the meeting before ANY cases could be heard. She grabbed her audio recorder and papers and directed the board and residents to leave, getting a bit of a tongue-lashing in the process. She wasted village resources and the time of the volunteer board and residents who reported as she directed, all because she had been caught in the act of abusing her power as Code Officer. Twice during her tirade, she threatened to quit (which Dan and I wholeheartedly supported) while uttering things as strange as "You're not my father" and "You're not my employer." (Given that my taxes pay her salary, I kinda am.) She also told me to complain on Nextdoor if I didn’t like it, so I suppose that means I’m here following her orders again by posting on a public blog. (I posted this same message on ND this morning.) She gave equally disrespectful and petulant answers to questions posed by board members, all tax-paying village residents and volunteers.

Christina Caserta has a history of failing to do her job properly (look around), failing to adequately communicate, and, most egregiously, using her powers as a Code Officer to intimidate and to threaten, most recently this past Thursday night at the village Code Compliance meeting. Her tactics are not working, and for those attempts she should be fired immediately “with cause.” That's not how you treat residents who pay their taxes and follow the rules. My husband and I fully expect to be her targets again, even more so as a result of Thursday night’s encounter, of our official complaint the next day and of this post. We aren’t impressed or intimidated, and we hope you aren’t either when she comes after you.

"Special?" And a "Workshop?"

This coming Wednesday, July 24, there are two Commission events.  The "special meeting" at 6:30 is a quickie, and it is to approve the millage for the coming year.  The proposal is to keep the millage at 9.7

As I have said many times, this kind of proposal-- keeping the millage unchanged-- in itself has no meaning.  The number of mills is the same, but the number of dollars isn't.  Property values change (they usually increase, but sometimes, they decrease), and those who have the Homestead Exemption discount are almost always behind the assessment, so they almost always pay more each year.  In a case like this, it's 9.7 mills on an underassessment.  But it's not enough so that they're not undersupporting the Village.  And our expenses aren't the same, either.  Not only do costs generally naturally increase with inflation, and yearly raises, and increasing costs of things like health care premiums, but this year, we are in the unusual position of having legal expenses that are comparatively going through the roof.  It appears our mayor has developed the habit of making very liberal use of private legal advice she doesn't share with anyone else, and for which we have to pay.

So, saying our millage should remain at 9.7 is irrational.  The most that can be said is that a budget will be proposed that doesn't spend more than the revenue.  In that sense, it's a balanced budget, which they all are.  And we can choose to spend/do more, if the revenue is higher, or we will spend/do less, if the revenue is lower.  But since the Village is not able to meet its responsibilities as a municipality, and our current mayor is blowing considerably more money than have mayors ever before, on her excessive need for legal advice, hand-holding, or hiring legal henchwomen, there is no reason to think a continued millage of 9.7 is enough.  It's not been enough for the past several or many years, and there's no reason it should be enough now.  And this discussion is expected to be quick.  One thing that will make it quicker is, once again, the Village's refusal to provide back-up so that other Village residents can see if any mistakes or mischief is being made.

Then, at 7:00, there is another meeting which is supposedly for the purpose of discussing "Meetings Policies and Procedures," and devising a tighter structure for the meetings.  The problem here is that the mayor-- Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman-- and her stooges on the Commission have already locked down meetings, so that they exclude Village residents as much as possible, and accomplish as little as possible.  And the proposal for new structure was simply cut and pasted, as they say, by Will Tudor from municipalities that are not Biscayne Park, and are considerably larger and less agile.  This part of the second meeting is completely nonsensical, and it does not apply to us.  Further, the problem the current Commission-- mostly Big Mama-- is seemingly trying to solve is one that this Commission-- mostly Big Mama-- has created.  If we could get rid of this Commission, we wouldn't have the problem, and we wouldn't need a solution.

I myself won't be there.  I have another commitment, which I am unmotivated to change in order to watch myself and my neighbors get further sidelined.  But I'll find out what happens, apart from what is entirely predictable, and I'll let you know.

"Promises, Promises"

This past Tuesday night, there was a Commission event.  It was billed as a workshop, and the purpose was to consider budget fields for the coming year.  A workshop means that no votes will be taken, nor any binding decisions made, and the typical intention is to include non-Commissioner Village residents more than usual.  Generally, it is hoped that more opinion, and insight, would be offered by non-Commissioner Village residents.

Almost no non-Commissioner Village residents attended this supposed workshop.  There were maybe six such Village residents.  I myself wasn't there, but that's because I've been out of town all week.  It seems the most prominent reason others weren't there was that very conspicuously, no back-up was included in the agenda item.  This is unheard of.  Village residents who are interested in the budget pore in great detail over the proposed budget, looking for areas that are unexplained, and for errors, inconsistencies, and expenditures that are either considered excessive or inadequate.  When the draft budget is not available, no one has the slightest idea what's going on.

And it's not for failure to ask.  At least a few Village residents who are normally very interested in the budget asked the Commissioners and the manager for the back-up, and why it wasn't included, and no one was given any response.  None.  What came closest to a response of any kind was an e-mail from the current Village attorney, more or less dismissing the matter at all.  "Thanks for your interest" sort of thing.

So the so-called meeting happened, it lasted three hours, the non-Commissioner Village residents were iced out, and the Commission (three or four of them) decided to do whatever they wanted, having successfully handicapped the concept that anyone else would have anything to say about it.  What runs the Village is one Commissioner (Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman) with the mindless support of Jenny Johnson-Sardella and Betsy Wise, and the usual extra boost provided by Will Tudor.  Dan Samaria complains, but he's boxed out, too.  He's the new Roxy Ross.  So to speak.

As filthy and contemptible, and contemptuous, as this is, it's made worse by the people who are perpetrating it.  Tracy Truppman, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, and Will Tudor had a somewhat unusual candidacy.  None of them had Village government experience, and none of them had any articulated agenda.  They all avoided, as much as they could, settings in which they would have to account for themselves.  The one thing they all alleged was that they would "listen to the residents."  "Voice of the residents" was one campaign phrase used.  That was the one proposal any of them made.  It was the closest any of them came to making their neighbors a promise.  And that offer turned out to be the farthest thing from any actual intention any of them actually had.

They have made a relentless campaign of not listening to their neighbors.  They work first to avoid having to hear what their neighbors have to say.  To the extent they are in any way forced to hear anything, they ignore it completely.  No mayor has been anything like this one when it comes to stopping neighbors from speaking at public comment.  Not only is she strict about the three minute limit, but if anyone talks over that, she interrupts them in a very childish way, just trying to talk louder than they do.  She has also instituted a policy that restricts what Village residents can say at public comment.  No mayor has ever before done this.  And whatever words find a way to get spoken by our neighbors are unresponded-to, including direct questions that are never answered.  E-mails to the Commission and to the manager are not answered.  Fulfillment of public records requests is blocked.

If there was one thing the current Commission is most careful not to do, it's listen to their neighbors.  And this week's budget exercise was a glaring example.  Even this Commission has never before sunk this low.  Keeping their promise to Village residents was a rank failure.  Maybe they had more success keeping promises they made to each other.  But no one knows what those promises were.  We're not told.


PS: I have not elaborated any detail here, like Big Mama's generosity to her lawyer girl, or the Commission's agreement to go further with Betsy Wise's "branding" adventure that doesn't interest anyone.  I'll leave those particulars to commenters.

Another Whopper. And the Natives Are Getting Increasingly Restless.

What a mess of a Commission meeting.  It was sort of all over the place.  It started, before the meeting, with an agenda that was completely unmanageable.  How, and why, that very obvious fact didn't occur to the manager and the mayor, who typically put together the agenda, is unexplained.  Normally, with a normal manager and mayor, someone would stop loading an unmanageable agenda.  But the manager and mayor not being normal, that's not what happened.

Then, we started the meeting.  It was a rambling and disorganized affair, and the Commissioners couldn't really figure out how to handle it.  Betsy Wise announced at the outset that she had to leave by 9:00, because she couldn't get a babysitter (it's too bad no one told Betsy when she ran that meetings would occur on a totally predictable basis, and that no one should be on the Commission, if they couldn't clear the time to attend meetings), and there were occasional references to aiming certain parts of the excessive agenda to early enough that Betsy would be there to vote.  It didn't successfully enough happen, but that was the metronome for the first half of the meeting.

Interestingly, one of the first pieces of business was an attempt, again, to derail Dan Samaria's wish to address a problem with the Commission.  Specifically, the problem was with Tracy Truppman.  Tracy, her new girl Rebecca Rodriguez (supposedly the Village's attorney), and even our state Representative, Dotie Joseph, worked to curb Dan and his interest in good government.

We then had some presentations, which took up time.  The auditors let us know that our audits are done, which Tracy interpreted to mean that Village finances never functioned properly until she got on the Commission.  This is standard material for Tracy.  There was some more blah, blah, blah until we got to the two Ordinances.

Ordinance #1 should never have been presented.  The procedure was entirely wrong, not to mention that no speaker from the audience approved of it in any way.  It took us almost 40 minutes to agree that putting it on the agenda was faulty, and to redirect the content of it to a discussion item, which is what it should have been all along.  The person who reportedly put it there-- attorney Rebecca Rodriguez-- was raked considerably over the coals by non-Commissioner Village residents, but she could never admit she had made a mistake.  And the fact that she charged us for the work she should never have done also did not concern her.  She was pressed as to how many $225 hours she put into this wrong Ordinance, and she tried to hide.  She sort of copped to what sounded like about 5-7 hours.  But it was hard to tell.  Anyway, the whole matter was a total and expensive waste.

Ordinance #2 was related, as it turns out, to Ordinance #1, because it was about overages in our legal expenses for this year.  Although Tracy's attorney, Rebecca Rodriguez, tried to focus on the extra expense of having to appeal the denial of our application for FEMA reimbursement, speakers from the audience pointed out two problems.  One was that Gray Robinson told us that we would only be billed for one attorney, but in fact, we were billed for three at a time.  As Roxy Ross illustrated it, before the current GR crew, John Herrin billed us for an average of 3.75 hours per meeting, which included preparation and attendance.  The new crew, either because there were three of them, or because they're inept and inefficient, billed us for 14.5 hours for the March 19 meeting.  To put it slightly differently, we paid $842 for legal services for meetings that involved John Herrin, and $3252.50 for the March 19 meeting.  And then, there were the other legal bills, for April.  The meeting on April 2 resulted in a bill for three attorneys and 10.8 hours, and cost us $2430.  Conference calls between the staff of attorneys and Tracy Truppman consumed 1.8 hours on 3/21 (two attorneys, total $405), 2.4 hours on 4/1 (three attorneys, total $540: not an April Fool's joke), 3.8 hours on 4/16 (three attorneys, total $855), 3.7 hours on 4/18 (two attorneys, $832.50), and 3.7 more hours on 4/26 (three attorneys, another $832.50).  These conference calls all included the two or three attorneys, Tracy Truppman, and the Village manager.  And there were other billing irregularities.

But the other problem was this.  Not only did Gray Robinson bill us excessively, and not only did Tracy Truppman apparently rely extremely heavily on seemingly endless legal advice (not shared with the Commission, much less the rest of us), but it turned out, as a few Village residents pointed out, that the advice was wrong.  Some of it was illegal.  The attorneys, who, with Tracy Truppman's great encouragement, have their hands very deep in the Village's pocket, don't seem to know what they're doing.  They're not up on the law and applicable statutes.  But of course, Tracy Truppman doesn't hire them for that.  She hires them, at our expense, to run interference for her.  Which they do.

So, the Commission, mostly Will Tudor, patted itself on the back, and thought it had made a wonderful accomplishment, when it agreed to extend the Village's coffers by $15K, instead of the $50K of our money Tracy was trying to give away.  And that $15K concession was on condition that we not do some other project that was going to cost $20K.  That money, too, is now earmarked for Tracy's legal stooges.

We didn't really do anything else.  There wasn't time.  What we were shown was a level of arrogance and contempt for the Village and its residents never before seen here.  Dan Samaria was trying to oust Tracy as mayor.  But Tracy ain't goin' nowhere.  She loves this gig.  And she likes feeling so generous with other people's (our) money to impress her new girls.

Fine. If You Don't Care, I Don't Care. Although...

Once again, those of us on Chuck Ross' CrimeWatch circulation got an e-mail about car invasions.  Chuck strategically and correctly does not use the word "break-ins," because no car was broken into.  The cars were left UNLOCKED(!!!!!), so no effort was expended by our visitors in what Chuck describes as "rummaging" through the vehicles, and taking whatever looked good.

And hey, it's your stuff.  If you want people to help themselves to it, that's up to you.  There are only two things I would ask you to keep in mind.  First, if BP is seen and known as a place where cars are left unlocked, then it attracts people who will try to help themselves to my belongings just the same as they'll help themselves to yours.  And since I'm not as unconcerned about this as you are, I don't want to send that message.  I don't want you to send that message.

Second, if you want to make your car coffee mug, or your tools, or your wallet, available, to strangers who are up to no good, then, as I say, it's your stuff.  But please don't leave your firearms in your unlocked car.  When people take your money, or charge things on your credit card, that's your problem.  When they tote your gun to amplify the mischief they can make, it's everyone's problem.  Please don't make those kinds of decisions for the rest of us.


By the way, as an aside, it appears Tracy Truppman is working to undermine CrimeWatch and its effectiveness.  If you know about CrimeWatch, and you appreciate it, please let the Commission know you don't approve of any efforts to neutralize it.

"We Had a Good Thing Going."

Yesterday, I ran into David Coviello at Home Depot.  David looks great, and things seem to be going well for him.  His father died some months ago, and his mother didn't move down here, as he thought she would.  But he and Lucas are working on the house, and he visits his mother in Connecticut.

Naturally, we talked BP.  He said he doesn't really keep up with our goings on, or, as some say, mishugas, but he does follow this blog.  Same old same old.  What could I say?  It's bad.

We didn't talk long, but as we were parting, he said "we had a good thing going."  And we did.  He and Roxy Ross and I got along well, and we accomplished a lot for the Village.  We didn't always agree, but we trusted each other, and we respected each other.  We had our eyes on the same ball.  It was always just about the Village, and making it whatever was each of our version, or vision, of the best it could be.  We were solicitous of the opinions of our neighbors, and we welcomed hearing from them.  And we always responded.  We worked well with the best of Heidi Siegel.  Heidi at her best is pretty great.

We outsourced sanitation, which has worked well, and saved us all a lot of money.  We even got WastePro to offer all of the Village's sanitation employees work with them, for more money, and still assigned to BP.  They didn't choose to accept the offer, for whatever were their reasons, but they were welcome.

We got the log cabin renovated, and the administration building built.  We managed our police problems.  When Heidi left, we hired a new manager, and she was someone who was accepted and appreciated by everyone who had anything to say in BP.

We got a survey to determine the extent of our drainage problems.  We put ourselves on a path to address those problems.

I myself am sorry we didn't accomplish even more.  We did the best we could.

As David said, "we had a good thing going."