The Stealth Commission Candidacy of Rafael Ciordia

Here's what's now coming into focus.

The first weird thing I heard about Rafael, apart from the fact that he has no reason in the world to run for BP Commission, was that he, Rafael, whom no one knows, decided he shouldn't have yard signs.  The alleged reason is that Rafael is environmentally conscious, and he doesn't want to have created for him yard signs that will wind up in land fills.  It's also true that signs cost money, but why would anyone think Rafael doesn't want or need to spend money?

The next odd thing I heard about Rafael is that you can't easily reach him.  There's a phone number available, and it's the same phone number he listed on his application for candidacy, but it's not Rafael's phone number.  It's the phone number of his partner, Eddie Bridges.  Some people reached Rafael using the e-mail address he included with his application.  I was not told if Rafael was upset about that.

Once those Village residents met up with Rafael, they discovered that he knows nothing about BP, its government, or how it works.  Rafael has no agenda or platform.  He is, as one person described him to me, "basically clueless."

This is a little bit crazy.  We're talking about representative government, and the idea that constituents would be represented by someone who knows nothing about the constituents, the place, or the government.  Who would think of such a thing?  I guess we already talked about that.  Steve Bernard would think of it, and so would Tracy Truppman.  And so far, each of the times it's happened, it's been a disaster.

I guess the idea here is that some fake candidate will be put up for office, and a selection of the voters/constituency will be asked to vote for them, sight unseen.  And if recent history is any indication, this approach will work.  It will "work," that is, to get the fake candidate elected.  It does not work to contribute to the betterment of the Village.  But very clearly, that's not the goal of the candidates, their sponsors, or the people who blindly vote for them.

By the way, it occurred to me I didn't start the adaptive vs maladaptive Commissions story back quite far enough.  I started with the destructive manipulations of Steve Bernard.  But just before that, starting in 2006, we had a normal Commission, which didn't include Steve Bernard.  For a while.  That Commission got us started with professional management, and it got a Public Works building constructed.  It was a very civilized and smooth-running Commission.  It was the last Commission whose meetings took no more than 2-2 1/2 hours.  That Commission made only one mistake.  When Ted Walker died, three of the four remaining members of that Commission made the really bad blunder of appointing Steve Bernard to fill what was left of Walker's term.  Only Kelly Mallette detected an odor no one else recognized.  And it was that stench that brought us Bryan Cooper, Barbara Watts, and Noah Jacobs, and paved the way for people like Tracy Truppman, Will Tudor, and Betsy Wise (I'm giving Jenny Johnson-Sardella a little bit of credit for having at least been part of a legitimate work group, and seeing the commitment to the end), and which is now gearing up to try to deliver to us Rafael Ciordia.  What is it about learning from mistakes, and history?


PS: I was supposed to meet Rafael yesterday.  I was supposed to join Chuck Ross.  But Rafael never responded to Chuck's offer to meet.

The Contempt is Breathtaking.

We've seen this before.  Since I moved to BP, we saw Steve Bernard do it.  He tapped people-- I'm thinking of Bryan Cooper, Barbara Watts, and Noah Jacobs-- who were completely or largely detached from the Village, its traditions, and its functioning, and he worked to get them elected to the then Commissions.  The results when it was just Steve and Bryan on the Commission, were obnoxious.  The results when he arranged a whole majority-- Cooper, Watts, and Jacobs-- were disastrous.  And Steve bizarrely orchestrated among his proteges that Jacobs, who had been here the shortest time, did not own the home in which he lived, and only got a two-year term, should be Mayor. 

Then, we had three peaceful and productive years, with only Watts still on the Commission, and Bob Anderson, who was angry and had lost interest completely, to join forces with her, and an adaptive majority that made a number of dramatic accomplishments for the Village.

And then, it was back to lawlessness and disorder.  Tracy Truppman got herself elected to the Commission, and following in the pattern of Steve Bernard, she chose underlings who were uninvolved, unknown, and disinterested, but who would do whatever she told them to do.  And she apparently had enough juice in the Village that she could get them elected, too, as Steve managed to get elected grossly inappropriate people.

After David Coviello resigned, Harvey Bilt got elected to fulfill David's term.  It didn't take long to realize that Harvey, who is a long time resident, and very involved with the Village, and who should have known better and been independent, also collapsed and became a stooge for Tracy Truppman.  Harvey finished David's term, and he did not run again.  But Will Tudor did, and Tracy worked to get him the best deal she could, which turned out to be another two year term.  Will had shown absolutely nothing during his first two year term, and although he later made very brief, tentative, and inconsequential noises which could have suggested he might have a little bit of independence from Tracy, he soon enough collapsed again, doing whatever was Tracy's bidding.  And with Will, Tracy supported the successful candidacy of Betsy Wise, who was exactly like Bryan Cooper, Noah Jacobs, and Will, in that there was no connection to the Village, apart from living here, and no commitment, except to Tracy.  None of these people know anything about the Village, and none of them care.  They all only have one patron, and that patron either was Steve Bernard or is Tracy Truppman.  The whole sense of Village government is badly corrupted by this dynamic.

Now, Betsy Wise and Jenny Johnson-Sardella, both dutiful Truppman clients, have resigned, and we are about to fill their seats.  Our choice is one candidate (Mac Kennedy) who owes nothing to Tracy, one (Ginny O'Halpin) who probably has no connection to her, and one (Rafael Ciordia) who is most likely the next bobblehead.  The best evidence for this likelihood is that Rafael, like Cooper, Jacobs, Tudor, and Wise, is uncontaminated by any connection at all to the Village, apart from the fact that he lives here, and what is known of him includes a connection of sorts to Krishan Manners, who will do anything to save Tracy (and his own job, apparently), and the fact that Tracy did not put up anyone else whom she more conspicuously backs.  Tracy wants stooges, and she's not subtle about it.  If one of her known stooges isn't running, and she didn't put up anyone else, then Rafael is it.

The issue, though, is the mindsets of people like Steve Bernard and Tracy Truppman.  Both are dramatically manipulative, and neither seems to feel remotely bound by any concept of the truth, or any apparent obligation to tell it.  Both are self-serving.  Neither one cares about the Village, its laws, rules, and traditions, or how anything affects other Village residents.  Both will work to foist onto Village residents both representatives and consequences that are not in the interests of Village residents, but are intended only to protect and elevate the patrons themselves.

It's a level of contempt-- of disdain-- that's hard to fathom.  It's a terrible way to be treated by some of our own neighbors.  But we're back where we were in 2013, and we have the opportunity to shake this off, and elect Mac Kennedy and Ginny O'Halpin.  It remains to be seen how much influence Tracy still has with the people who, like her clients, are completely out of the loop, and will believe and respond to whatever Tracy tells them.  Will they somehow come to believe that Mac Kennedy and Ginny O'Halpin are terrible people, which is what they will be told, that Tracy is working hard, and at the disadvantage of being completely unfairly under siege from evil-doers, and will they bother, which they would normally never do, to come out for a special election in order to vote for Rafael Ciordia, who, they'll be told, is the only person who can save their dear, special Tracy from the forces of the dark side?  Rafael Ciordia, they'll ask?  Who's he?  I've never heard of him.  Oh, he's great, Tracy will reassure.  Very involved, and very concerned.  Do me and all of us, and yourself, a favor, and vote for him.  It's really important.

We shall see.

If You Don't Know Mac Kennedy. Or If You Do.

Mac Kennedy is running in the special election to fill two Commission seats.  The election is on Tuesday, January 7, 2020.  Long before anyone knew about these two open seats, Mac made plans-- holiday plans and business plans-- that will keep him out of town for part of the time in which he could do the usual style of campaigning.  So he's eager for chances to meet and talk to as many of his neighbors as possible, and concentrated opportunities to do that are really efficient right now.

Art Gonzalez is having a meet Mac Kennedy event at his house on Friday, December 6, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM.  Art, and Mac, would love for you to come by.  If I were Mac, I would be more interested in meeting people I don't already know, and particularly people who don't agree with me, than in huddling with people who are already on the bandwagon.  But Mac, and Art, say everyone is welcome.

"Wine and appetizers."

Art's address is 10926 Griffing Boulevard.

Art would like to know how many people to expect, so let him know at usaart@yahoo.com

And...They're Off!

On January 7, we're having an election to fill two Commission seats, and there are three candidates.  They are listed on the Village website as Mac Kennedy, Rafael Ciordia, and Virginia (Ginny) O'Halpin.  This is not alphabetical order, the lady isn't first, and I don't know what accounts for the order of candidates listed.  It's possible it reflects the order of when candidates turned in their paperwork to declare themselves.

Mac Kennedy hit the ground running, BP resident-wise.  He made himself well known as soon as he moved here, which was probably around five years ago.   He's been on a board, he's volunteered in other ways, he comes to meetings, he has strong opinions, and he's outspoken about them.  In full disclosure sort of thing, I have become friendly with Mac.  I like his brashness, I like his style-- especially his writing style and word usage--, and I have complete confidence that he has the best welfare of the Village centrally at heart.  I don't always agree with him about particulars, but he cares very much about the Village.  And perhaps most critically right now, I know that Mac fully understands the disruption and corruption that are Tracy Truppman, and he wants her displaced.  There is nothing more important and more urgent in Biscayne Park right now.

I know nothing at all about Rafael Ciordia.  My friend, Chuck Ross, knows who Rafael is, and he pointed him out to me at one or two of the most recent Commission meetings.  I've never heard of Rafael.  If it weren't for the fact that Chuck knows everyone, he wouldn't have heard of him, either.  I'm assuming, because Rafael is an approved BP Commission candidate, that Rafael lives in BP.  He has no involvement with the Village in any way.  I have no reason to think he knows anything about the Village, apart from the fact that he lives here, presumably.  I'm going to make one guess, though.  I'm going to guess that he knows Tracy Truppman, or she knows him.  Rafael is exactly like Will Tudor, or Betsy Wise.  These are people who are totally disconnected from the Village, except that they happen to live here, and Tracy finds them, persuades them to run, and they then become bobbleheads.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella could have been somewhat more independent, but she wasn't.  So Rafael is fairly standard Tracy Truppman material.  Tracy demands to control everything.  For a little while, it appeared that maybe Will Tudor had developed some independence, but he's surrendered it.  He's back to being Mama's good boy.  So Tracy only needs one more bobblehead, and I'm guessing this is where Rafael comes in.

I've known Ginny O'Halpin, at a distance, for several years.  I don't know her well.  I don't know when she and her late husband moved here, but they alternated their time between here and one or two other places for at least a few years.  As best I know, Ginny is here full time now.  Ginny is not involved with the Village.  She has not been on any regular boards (she might have been on one or two ad hoc committees), and she does not generally come to meetings.  In that sense, she looks, superficially, like Tracy, Jenny, Will, or Betsy.  Or Rafael.  Except I do know Ginny at least a little, and she's a very nice person.  And as often as I've spoken to her, which isn't often, she always seemed to care about the Park.  And Chuck has confidence in her.  But there's a really weird factor about Ginny, and it cements my confidence in her candidacy: Milt Hunter.  Milt Hunter?  Yes, Milt Hunter.  The rumor I heard is that it was Milt Hunter who persuaded Ginny to run.  So, who cares what Milt Hunter thinks about anything, including who should run for Commission?  That's what you're asking yourself, right?  It's a good question.  And let me tell you the answer.  As best I understand, Milt Hunter hates my guts.  I have guesses as to why he does, but he never said.  We used to be "friends," but then, he suddenly hated my guts.  So we weren't friends any more.  And as part of his declaration of enemyship, he dedicated himself to keeping me from getting re-elected to the Commission.  Milt worked very, very hard to get Tracy Truppman and her then two stooges elected.  He couldn't think about anything else, and he couldn't think straight.  He was in a blind frenzy to do anything he could to get Tracy et al elected.  And he succeeded.  But then, poor Milt Hunter came to realize he had made a really big mistake in getting Tracy/Jenny/Will elected to the Commission.  He's railed furiously against them since.  And against Betsy Wise.  (Funny, and sad, enough, on top of whatever Milt was so mad at me about before, he then got even more mad at me, because I didn't defeat his efforts to get Tracy elected.  This is what I mean about a blind frenzy.  Mrs Bonadies, my high school calculus teacher, used to ask students who got certain things wrong "Are you deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid, Mr_____?"  And you have to read that with a southern accent.)  All Milt wants-- now-- is to displace Tracy and her domination over the Village.  So if Milt Hunter got Ginny O'Halpin to run, then that tells me something about whence Ginny is coming, and what she wants.  And doesn't want.  And that's what I need to know right now.

I'm very happy to vote for Mac Kennedy.  I'm going to campaign for him.  I hope I hear something from Ginny O'Halpin, and assuming I get confirmation of what I already suspect about her, I'll be happy to vote for her, and campaign for her, too.  Rafael Ciordia?  No.

"UnChartered" Territory

Yes, of course I know the correct term is uncharted territory.  That's why I put "unChartered" in quotes.  And why I capitalized "Chartered" in "unChartered."  I'm talking about the Village Charter, and the current effort to manipulate it.

From time to time (three times, including now, since I moved here in 2005), the Village Commission appoints a committee to review the Charter.  We creatively call this the Charter Review Committee.  It's not uncommon that most of the members of the Charter Review Committee are nominated by individual Commissioners, with maybe a couple added "at large."  That's sort of what happened this year.  Sort of.  It turns out that most of the then Commission, before almost a quorum of it resigned, don't really have any connections in the Village, and therefore, couldn't nominate anyone.  And most of the nominees live very close to and/or are known by, Tracy Truppman.  If anyone imagined that Tracy came up with almost all of the nominees, and had her stooges on the Commission, while there was the whole complement of stooges still there, name them as nominees, that person would probably have hit the nail more or less on the head.

We have a Committee composed of people almost all of whom know nothing about the Village or its Charter, who are not parts of any Boards or work groups (until now), and who do not attend meetings.  Just to give one comical example, one of the members actually did attend a Commission meeting, once, a month or two ago.  It was unclear why she was there, but she introduced herself by letting everyone know she and her husband were new Village residents, having lived in Colorado, and they had gotten a Code infraction citation.  Well, she told us, she and her husband never even knew there was such a thing as Codes.  I guess we're asked to assume they don't have Codes in Colorado.  Or maybe they weren't in touch enough to know about those Codes, either.  But such a new resident is supposed to read and understand the Village Charter, and consider whether or not it should be changed?  It's unimaginable she knew we have a Charter any more than she knew we have Codes.

So, these people have been entrusted with reviewing the Village Charter.  The Charter is to the Village what a Constitution is to the United States or a given state.  It's not for sport, and it's not trivial.  For example, for us to change our Charter, which we have done, a proposed change has to be agreed upon by a referendum vote by Village residents.  The last time we changed the Charter, to move our elections from private elections in off years to the general election, there was a popular movement to make this change, a Charter Review Committee agreed this change would be a good idea, the then Commission made its recommendation (which was not to move the election: we can talk about that dysfunctional Commission some other time, but let me only mention the names Jacobs, Cooper, and Watts.  'Nuf said?), and the public voted in agreement with the change.  The Charter is not just words any idiot can read.  It's a historical document, with a background, a context, and an important functional implication.  It should take more than knowing Tracy Truppman, or having a nice smile, to qualify someone to consider the Charter, and whether or not it needs to be changed.  By the way, the last Charter Review Committee, which, interestingly enough, included Jenny Johnson-Sardella (more shortly), made the one recommendation about moving the election.  The Committee before that couldn't find anything to recommend changing.  So, considering changing the Charter is something that is very carefully done, unless someone tells you it's really simple, and you don't need to know much of anything.  Which is what happened this year.

Just to complete the reference, Jenny Johnson-Sardella submitted a list of proposed changes.  Her list, although brief, was more extensive than the one-item suggestion made by the Charter Review Committee she chaired.  And it tended to be in line with some of Tracy Truppman's suggestions.  Something has inspired Jenny's creative ambitions about the Charter since she was part of a more normal Committee.

As I said, the Committee was conspicuously distorted from the start, because of who were its members.  By the first Committee meeting, one of the Commissioners who appointed a member had herself resigned from the Commission.  By the second Committee meeting, another Commissioner had resigned.  So, two of the Committee members no longer had sitting patrons on the Commission.  Unless they all really only had one patron, and it was Tracy Truppman.  But it gets worse than that.  It gets a lot worse.  As the name clearly states, the purpose of the Charter Review Committee is to review the Charter.  We have a Charter, and copies of it were made available to Committee members.  There was no evidence as to whether or not any of them read it.  We can only say they had access to it.  What the Committee reviewed was not the Charter, but it was instead a sizable list of specific suggestions for change, and that list came mostly from Tracy Truppman.  The list was of specific provisions and citations in the Charter, and what was Tracy's recommended new language.  Tracy did not give any reasoning, unless she contacted Committee members privately to twist their arms, and no reasoning was discussed by the members as they dutifully entertained each of Tracy's suggestions.  And all of them, except Roxy Ross and Manny Espinoza, mindlessly agreed to whatever Tracy wanted.

And here's an interesting illustration of this problem.  One of Tracy's preferred changes was that the Mayor be elected at large by Village voters, instead of being elected by the Commission.  As it turns out, this idea has been kicked around from time to time by various Village residents.  A prominent such resident is Kelly Mallette, who was herself a Commissioner, elected at the end of 2005, and not re-elected at the end of 2009.  (Kelly was, by the way, a fine Commissioner, but her day job keeps her in Tallahassee much of the time, and she "attended" a noteworthy number of Commission meetings by phone.  It's possible Village residents and voters never got a good enough chance to witness her in action and be engaged by her.)  In that sense, there's a history to this proposal.  But to know that history, or even to care that it exists, Committee members would have had to be involved enough in the Village, and to know people like Kelly Mallette, and that she was a Commissioner who felt this same way, in order perhaps to reach out to her.  None of that happened.  All that happened was that Tracy Truppman said she thought the Mayor should be elected at large by Village voters, and her little group of followers nodded.  None of them knew anything about this issue, that it had some support from some Village residents, or why it hasn't been adopted in 86 years.

Other suggestions were even more nonsensical and unsupported, but all of them got affirmation by Tracy's appointees.  Except, as I say, Roxy Ross and Manny Espinoza.  Roxy was so grossly and disrespectfully mistreated in the second meeting, openly insulted and suppressed by the Chair of this group, that she resigned from the Committee.  I have no idea what Manny thinks he's doing there.  He appears to be the only remaining thinker in a group of Stepford Committee members.

I've said it before, and I'm saying it yet again: hell of a Commission and Village government we elected for ourselves.

Gentlepeople, Start Your Engines.

Jenny Johnson-Sardella tendered her resignation from the BP Commission today.  We are now electing two new Commissioners on January 7.  The qualifying period for candidates begins next week, on Wednesday, November 13.

If two people who are not under Tracy Truppman's sway are elected, then Tracy is no longer in charge of anything (or everything), she no longer runs anything (or everything), she no longer intimidates and punishes people, and the Village can function.

If anyone is interested in serving a one or three year term , they should declare a candidacy as of November 13.  The two seats available are to complete terms.  Betsy Wise's term has three more years on it, and Jenny Johnson-Sardella's has one more year on it.  Next year in November, we will hold our regular election, and the terms of whoever took Jenny's seat, as well as Tracy's and Will Tudor's terms, will be over.  Any of those people can run again, or they don't have to.

Our Charter provides for election of the highest vote-getters.  In a normal election, when we elect three people, the two highest vote-getters get four year terms, and the third highest vote-getter gets a two year term.  There is no reason not to assume that in the special January 7 election, the highest vote-getter will get the three remaining years of Betsy Wise's term, and the second highest vote-getter will get the one remaining year of Jenny Johnson-Sardella's term.  That would be consistent with how we normally approach elections.

So, think it over-- but don't take too long-- and declare a candidacy during the two week period beginning Wednesday, November 13.  "May the force be with you," or whatever.

All Dressed Up, and No Place to Go.

Bob Anderson announced with special pride that he showered for the Commission meeting tonight.  Although Bob is always appropriately tarted up for these dos.  I bet he smelled nice, too.  Jeff Drayman looked nice.  So did Jared Susi.  Dan Ward was casual, but he thought he should show up, just to be sure no one was making any mischief with his tax bill.  David Raymond, sans Amy, had on his guitar tee shirt.  I liked it.  And Janey Anderson looked very nice, and so did Barbara Kuhl (Gary wasn't there), and Linda Dillon.  Ernesto Oliva was his usual dressed down self.  Dan Keys has been looking consistently sharp this past year or two.  I'd even say dapper.  Dapper Dan.  And he did tonight, too.

I don't know what was so interesting on tonight's agenda.  It was some standard nonsense, including the second reading of the magistrate Ordinance no one except Tracy Truppman wants.  And a first reading of a particularly idiotic Ordinance about establishing rules and procedures for Commission meetings.  See, here's one of the disadvantages of having a Commission composed almost completely of people who have no familiarity with how normal Commissions operate in BP.  It's true they could simply have read the Charter, but I think they think they're too unique for that.  And they clearly generally can't be bothered with the Charter anyway.  Meetings are run more or less according to standard procedure, like Robert's Rules of Order, and with adjustments made by the Mayor or the Commission.  This works perfectly well, and each Commission can have its own style.  But this Commission doesn't know anything about that, and besides, Tracy Truppman is almost single-mindedly devoted to unloading Village money on her staff of attorneys.  So she likes Ordinances, so she can pay the attorneys to do what the Village doesn't need done.

We did have one unusual guest, though.  Actually, there were two of them.  They were the county Inspector General and her assistant, and they were there to talk about the whistleblower matter.

And there was some other stuff, too.  None of it worth having on an agenda, but enough to fill time, and get the attorneys paid.  But not tonight, though.

Will Tudor had already announced he wouldn't be there.  One story was that he might have claimed he would be out of town tonight.  But two people saw him at home tonight, so it wasn't clear why he took a dive on this meeting.  Tracy Truppman was there, and so was Dan Samaria.  Who wasn't there was Jenny Johnson-Sardella.  I think we've all lost count at this point, but one person sort of tabulated that Jenny has missed five or six meetings-- Commission and workshop-- in a row!  So, with only two Commissioners in attendance, there was no quorum, and therefore no meeting.

The problem of Jenny and her apparent abdication of responsibility has come up quite a bit lately.  I wrote to her in July, to ask her to resign.  Mac Kennedy wrote to her, completely unaware that I had written to her, last month, also to ask her to resign.  And both of us, independently, cited the same two problems: she misses way too many meetings, and when she's there, she contributes nothing.  None of us could get this Commission, that is clearly on the ropes, to address the Jenny problem, the obvious solution to which is to remove her from office.  I have no reason to doubt she continues to accept the checks we send her.  She just doesn't do her job.  She doesn't even bother to show up.  And tonight, the result was a room full of people who arrived for a meeting, and an Inspector General who drove up here from Palmetto Bay for this meeting, and an attorney who will wind up charging us for whatever is her minimum fee to attend a meeting, plus whatever amount of time Tracy spent with her today before the meeting (it's so uncool to see Tracy, Krishan Manners, and the attorney all walk in together before the meeting), and all for...nothing.  Because Jenny Johnson-Sardella decided not to bother to show up again.

Chuck Ross suggested another title for this post.  He was thinking of the movie "Animal House," and the line "a new low; we're so ashamed."  Yup, that works well, too.