It Could Cost You, or You Could Break Even, or You Could Come Out Ahead!

Orchestramiami's "Friendraiser" is on Saturday, November 9, at 7:00.  The location is the offices of Shulman and Associates at 100 NE 38th Street (in the design district).

Very cute.  A "Friendraiser" is of course a fundraiser, and they're trying to be "friend"ly about it.

Orchestramiami (OM) is a wonderful local music organization.  The founder and artistic director, and pianist, and conductor, is Elaine Rinaldi, who is a purely delightful person.  Elaine does everything for the organization.  She has a board of directors, as is required, and of which ("full disclosure," and all that) I am a member, but it is Elaine who does all the work.  She seems to like it that way.

Anyway, this year, she is/we are doing a more or less typical fundraiser.  Admission is free, which is not always the case for fundraisers.  Some are frankly expensive to attend.  The offers are these: "meet new friends and fellow music-lovers;" "enjoy free drinks and light refreshments" (Elaine commonly provides wine and cheese/fruit after chamber concerts, and both the wine and the eats are good.); "musical performances by members of the orchestra" ("the orchestra" is an interesting phrase.  Elaine has many musicians who play for her.  Some play in full orchestral ensembles, and some play in small chamber groups.  She doesn't specify how many musicians will play, or in what configurations.  But I've never heard any Orchestramiami performance in which the music was not wonderfully well-performed, so I'll vouch for whatever Elaine does.); "a 50-50 raffle, door prizes" (I told you you could leave with more than you brought.); "a silent auction and much more" (you know about silent auctions, and I have no idea what the "much more" is.)

Elaine ends her e-flyer with "All proceeds from the raffle and auction go to supporting your orchestra, Orchestramiami."  Elaine underlined your, so I'm telling you what she wants you to know.

And Elaine is right.  Orchestramiami is "your" orchestra.  Or it could be.  And it should be.  Orchestramiami is accessible, and it has a personal style to it.  You don't just "meet...fellow music-lovers."  You meet Elaine.  And the other musicians.  And Elaine's parents.  Just to concretize how accessible is Orchestramiami, some performances are free.  The ones for which there is a charge are very inexpensive.  I've told Elaine that she/we should charge more, but she likes it this way.

I'm inviting you to come to Orchestramiami's "friendraiser" on November 9.  No one asked for a head count, and there are no "tickets" to reserve.  So just show up.  If you want to.  If great people, mingling, wonderful music, wine and "light refreshments," and a chance to acquire something interesting float your boat.  If they do, I'll see you there.

We Had to Pinch Ourselves.

Not one.  Not two.  But three meetings tonight.

The first one was about our fearless Commission's decision to replace 80 years' worth of Code Compliance Boards with a magistrate.  The stated reason to do this wasn't what you would call real.  It was more theoretical.  Well, Will Tudor's explanation was theoretical.  Will's idea was that we had somehow always been doing this wrong, and Will, who isn't an attorney, decided the right way to have a Code Compliance Board was to have an attorney magistrate, who would, according to Will's imaginings, have the right kind of experience or qualification or something, and whose expertise would shield the Village from the liability under which we simply must have been laboring all this time.  And Village attorney Rebecca Rodriguez reassured Will, and Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman, that she could not ethically allow the Village to have a Code Compliance function that wasn't staffed by an attorney.  Ah, those attorneys.  They do look out for each other's incomes.

Apparently, according to Will, we're skating on very thin ice with our Code Compliance Boards composed of people who are not what Will would call experts, even though they know the Village and the Codes backwards and forwards.  And the jeopardy we create for ourselves, according to Will, is that we could get sued.  Gary Kuhl reviewed for Will our history of getting sued, because of bad Code Compliance Board decisions.  The score so far is zero.  We've never been sued.  Suing a Code Compliance Board is not provided for by law.  But a dissatisfied Village resident could appeal a bad Code Compliance Board decision to the District Court.  That hasn't happened, either.  I did mention that Will's concern wasn't what you would call real.

So, the gang busied itself figuring out which Code functions would be assigned to the magistrate (essentially all of them), and which to a newly constituted Code Compliance Board made of Village residents lovingly selected by Tracy Truppman.  It was an exciting (oh, no it wasn't; but it had lots of inaudible mumbling in it) discussion that somehow, amazingly, resulted in Tracy's triaging Code functions exactly as she wanted to.  Dan Samaria was poised to protest, but apparently, it wasn't too hard for Tracy to hypnotize him with suggestions like "I think we should assign items 1-5, 7, and 8-13 to the magistrate.  What do you think, Vice Mayor and Commissioner Tudor?"  And those boys were just as good as girls for Big Mama.  Which was a good thing, because there were no other girls there, apart from Big Mama.  And Rebecca girl.  And Rosanne "Madame Clerk" Prado.

But the problem was that in public comment, every person who spoke complained about this scheme.  Everyone thought it was wrong.  And botched.  No one thought it should happen.  In part, it was because the Commission was reduced to Big Mama, Dan Samaria, and Willy Boy Tudor.  Betsy Wise has resigned, and Jenny Johnson-Sardella has apparently stopped coming to meetings.  And what's left of the Commission is under investigation by the county Ethics Commission.  It was a hell of a "quorum," which Willy Boy reminded us it still was.  And the discussion in which the three mouseketeers engaged made clear they had no experience with what our Code Compliance Board does, and has been doing over the course of many decades, and no idea how it works.  No idea at all.  So, every person who spoke pleaded with the Commission not to go forward with this ill-conceived scheme.  But it seemed Big Mama was on a mission.  Mac Kennedy didn't use this term-- although he described it perfectly-- but Big Mama has weaponized the Code Compliance function to punish her critics, and she can control the function better if it's one person she personally hires, instead of five of her neighbors.  So, the three agreed.

Meeting #2 was a Resolution to set a date for the election to replace Betsy Wise.  Yes, of course we have to do that, because Betsy lasted less than one year before she resigned.  But there was another pressing matter.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella has now missed four of 10 Commission meetings, and at least two workshops, this year.  She failed to show up tonight, too.  Her name was called, and she was noted absent.  It was clear she had not called in to say something prevented her from attending.  She's just stopped coming.  So again, every non-Commissioner Village resident who spoke during public comment pointed this out, and how Jenny has gotten e-mails from some of us, letting her know she should resign, and most important, that it is the Commission's responsibility to discuss this matter, and either get Jenny to resign, or remove her from office.   And it's time-sensitive, too.  We're about to spend $16K on an election to replace Betsy, and it wouldn't cost us any more, or very little more, to hold elections for both of their seats.  So, we asked the Commission to discuss this matter tonight.  Well, they were so busy talking about meaningless things, like what a shame it was that we have to do this on short notice at a time of year that people's thoughts, and maybe the people themselves, are elsewhere, that they never said one word about the Jenny problem.

Did I wait around to audit tonight's alleged version of the branding workshop adventure?  No, I did not.  There was a rumor that Betsy Wise, whose "baby" this was, was going to make an appearance for this project, but who cared any more?  (Another rumor was that Betsy might have claimed that she resigned, because of either "death threats" or "threats."  Both are preposterous, and either the rumor was false, or Betsy made up a doozy as an excuse to get off this bus.)

You sit there, for hours, and you raise issues, which all of your neighbors echo, and ask questions, and the meeting proceeds as if you never said anything, or weren't even there.  You have to pinch yourself, to see if you're still alive, or maybe you've turned into a ghost, and that's why you're so completely ignored.  It's a hell of a Commission we elected for ourselves.

Yeah, Well...

There's been a flurry of e-mails in the past couple of days.  There was something about some meetings that weren't exactly noticed in the usual way, and about which most people found out, because Janey Anderson talked about them on Nextdoor.  Apparently, one of the meetings, or possibly two of them, are tonight.

Here are the text messages I just got from someone in attendance at one or both of these meetings:

"Betsy quit!!"  I assume that means she resigned her Commission seat.  The next text message said
"Special election in 90 days."
Then, "Now they are going to recruit a new Code Compliance Board...Old members can't reapply."  And "Tracy just said 'I'm concerned about attorney fees for the Board.'"
And finally, "Code Compliance workshop," and "Now a communications workshop with only two Commissioners."  It was not specified which two.

So, I wasn't told why Betsy Wise resigned, or if she gave a reason.

Yes, of course we now have to have a special election to fill her seat.  For what it's worth, that special election will cost us several thousand dollars.  Not that it isn't better to spend several thousand dollars than to have Betsy Wise on the Commission, but it's just noteworthy that we have yet another expense.  And I think it was at the last Commission meeting, or maybe some meeting shortly before that, that Betsy was asked if she really donated her stipend back to the Village, as she had previously said she would, but she never answered.  I'm guessing the answer was no.

Interesting about resurrecting the Code Compliance Board, after Tracy Truppman insulted all the members to the point that they all quit.  And no discussion about making an exception, in view of Tracy's trampling of everyone, so that the prior members, who were doing a wonderful job, could reoccupy their seats.  Apparently, Tracy sees yet another opportunity to control a new group of members, and she doesn't let pass opportunities like that.

And what's this concern about the cost of an attorney?  Since when does Tracy Truppman care how much Village money gets diverted to her attorneys?  Usually, it's the more, the better.  And she was willing to pay some magistrate what an attorney would cost, or maybe more.  Frankly, I'm not even sure it was past practice to have the Village attorney at the Code Compliance meetings.  I'll find out.

A communications workshop with only two Commissioners present?  I wonder which two.  The only one who alleged an interest in this is the one who just resigned.  Although Will Tudor, in some of his past ramblings and incoherent sputterings, did once or twice talk about improving communications.  But neither he nor anyone else ever actually did it (except Dan Samaria and his televising Commission meetings), or even discussed a real plan.  So, I really don't know which two Commissioners bothered to pretend to be part of a discussion like that.

Well, I suppose I'll find out more tomorrow.  And if I do, or if anyone who was there elaborates in a comment, I'll let you know.

The Deconstruction of Biscayne Park. And of Reality.

I don't know how to account for the composition of tonight's Commission.  My first thought was that Betsy Wise and Jenny Johnson-Sardella are a tag team, and they decide for each meeting which one is staying home.  Tonight, it was Jenny who stayed home.

But later, when the Commission had its version of a pointed discussion-- well, when I say "discussion"...-- about our problem with attorneys' fees, and Dan Samaria kept invoking Jenny, who wasn't there to support his complaint, I thought maybe who stayed home was more specific and strategic than just a coin toss, or a rotation.

So, about this "discussion..."  It wasn't like Dan's attempt to discuss removing Tracy from office.  They were both gang bangs, but of different sorts.  Somebody clued Tracy in that if removing her from office was a topic to be "discussed," then she had to recuse herself.  Really, this time.  She had to leave the room.  So Betsy and Rebecca Rodriguez beat up on Dan, with Will Tudor playing a pathetic version of the good cop.  Dan was out of his depth.  He was taking it from every side, and he couldn't keep his head above water.  Yeah, Dan, we'll discuss this matter... some other month.

But the "discussion" about the attorneys' fees was more ridiculously caricaturish.  Tracy went from promising to look more closely into attorneys' fees to reassuring everyone that she already has, and there's no problem.  And Betsy promised us the same thing.  Both of them asked Rebecca Rodriguez if she was cheating the Village, and she said she wasn't.  It was a twisted song and dance.  And once again, good ol' country boy/good cop Will Tudor said he was concerned, and that we should have an auditor look at our attorneys' fees, then voted against Dan Samaria's motion to do that, substituting his own motion, which the girls voted down.  And this time, it was Rebecca Rodriguez who recused herself, making an effective tag team with Tracy.  If you've ever watched wrestling on TV, with the wrestlers tagging each other, and the ones who were supposed to win bashing the ones who were supposed to lose over the heads with folding chairs, that's what happened to Dan Samaria.

The whole meeting was ridiculous.  It was pathetic.  And it started with Dale Blanton announcing his resignation from the Code Compliance Board, of which he was the only remaining member.  He told me he thought the way the Commission treated the Code Compliance Board was "rather shitty," a term he was considering using in his public comment.  But he didn't.

And one of the most pathetic things all night was that suddenly, the microphones didn't work.  The one that initially most conspicuously didn't work (although it did for the CITT guys) was the one for public comment.  One of Gary Kuhl's best lines of the night was that the malfunction of that microphone seemed symbolic of this Commission's relentless attempt to silence Village residents.  Literally, it seemed.  Gary's other best line of the night, which was really the story of the last almost three years, is that the Commission just doesn't care.  And it really doesn't.  It doesn't care about non-Commission Village residents, it doesn't care about the manager's mistreatment of Village residents, and general failure to function, it doesn't care about the Code officer's rank abuse of Village residents (who criticize Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman), it doesn't care about excessive legal bills, it doesn't care about anything.  It just fails to function, destroys Village traditions and morale, and bleeds Village money.

Yup, Dale was right.  And so was Gary.  This Commission really is "rather shitty," and it truly and deeply doesn't care.  If there was any good news, it was that the County Ethics Committee guy was there again, and he was taking notes.