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.