Monday, November 11, 2019
"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.
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For purpose of further illustration, another suggestion made by Tracy was that all Commission terms be four years. This means that every four years, three terms would expire, and in the alternating two years, two terms would expire. None of this was explained.
ReplyDeleteYet another of Tracy's suggestions, which was almost breathtaking, was that it be made vastly harder to remove a Commissioner from office. Tracy wants the matter handled by the state, and not by the Village. What's interesting here is that one of our Charter's stated reasons for considering removal from office is a pattern of unexcused missed meetings. We already had that, with Jenny Johnson-Sardella, and the Commission, dominated by Tracy, already refused to pay attention to it. If Tracy is already refusing to uphold the Charter she swore to honor, why would anyone care what changes she wants to make to it?
And at the time Jenny Johnson-Sardella compiled her suggestions for Charter change, she was already in a pattern of abdicating her responsibility to the Village, the Commission, and the Charter, by refusing to come to any meetings. But she recommends Charter changes?
One of Will Tudor's suggestions was to separately elect, by independent popular vote, not only the Mayor, but also the Vice Mayor, whose term would be what Will called "permanent." Clearly, Will wasn't at all thinking about what he was typing, but we really can't elect a Vice Mayor, and then be stuck with this person until he or she either resigns or dies.
And Judith Gersten, the Chair of this posse, was single-mindedly dedicated to shepherding the group, to make sure it agreed with whatever Tracy wanted, and perhaps separately to mount an unexplained assault on Roxy Ross. And on me, whatever that was about. I was just sitting there in the audience. But it's true I do criticize Tracy, and it appeared clear Judith understand her orders.
I've posted the message below on ND and emailed it to the village to have it read at a public meeting, which they say they'll do but then don't. Regarding Jenny's notes to the board, they should be discarded entirely. She had already resigned from the commission when the board met to consider commissioner notes, so her opinion matters no more than any other resident.
ReplyDeleteGiven that:
1. BP, its elected officials and admin are currently embroiled in an official investigation into Ethics violations,
2. and given that two commissioners (both members of the FL Bar) just quit their positions with no notice or explanation (one just 10 months into her four year term of office),
3. and given that two members of the Charter Review Advisory Board were appointed directly by those two commissioners,
4. and given that we are electing two new commissioners in January and working with a skeleton commission until then (and just last week couldn’t meet quorum to even conduct a commission meeting:
BP has no business moving forward with this board or even considering making changes to our Charter (ie Constitution) until this is all cleared up. If we need the board at all, it should be only after the NOV 2020 election of a “clean” commission that’s unencumbered with the current swamp sludge. If the CRAB members have any sense of ethics themselves, they will send this message back to the commission: “Table this group until BP and its staff/officials are all cleared of Ethics charges. Now is not the time for us to make suggestions for Charter revisions, and this commission does not have the moral or ethical authority to move those suggestions forward to an election.”
Fred, you stated it well at public comment, the process was corrupted from the start.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I agree with Mac, at a minimum the board should be suspended and further, the Chair should be replaced, the better option is that it be completely reorganized/disbanded. Now that Rox has resigned other than Dan Keys, no one has any institutional knowledge on this board, another reason it should be reorganized/disbanded.
Among the reasons to remove that Chair are the Chair’s bias towards Rox, Fred, Dan Keys and anyone else that is not on board with the program. Listen to the tap you will hear her trying to twist Manny's words to confuse his votes* and positions.
One example that I noted, and I think this may capture how the Chair slanted the debate. The discussion for Vice Mayor (VM) was boiled down to keeping the way it is, that is a 6-month rotation among the 4 Commissioners, something they labeled blended and the other hybrid. My memory tells that blended or Hybrid would be to vote for VM and the other, second highest votes would become VM, during their term.
When she called the vote, the options became blended, hybrid or no, no being the 6-month rotation. I think it speaks volumes that a vote for the current charter was no. One more thing, the Chair indicated she insists that term limits are important, but at the same time she wants consistency. This describes the lack of logic and reasoning at this meeting by the Chair and the rest went along with this except Manny.
Another thing, the Chair seems to be acting as the secretary, this is a conflict. Lastly, the Attorney is attending the meetings, and no one has budgeted for this additional cost or even projected it.
* She claimed they weren't voting on anything until they have finished with their review, but she tallied the two or three items things they finished, so call it what you like, but they did takes votes.
Chuck,
DeleteThere was so much wrong with this meeting, and this group, and this Commission, that it's hard to know where to start. Just in terms of the meeting, the Chair started out, before the meeting was even called to order, by picking a nonsensical fight with Dan Keys, and working to diminish his possible role in the process. Then, the Chair made gratuitous and grossly false accusations against me and Rox, for allegedly having laughed at her husband's Parkinson's condition at a Commission meeting. This never happened. I have great concern about the Chair if she thinks it did.
The Chair carefully shepherded this meeting, as you say commandeering the role of secretary, when the Village clerk, who really had no business being there, was there, and keeping careful track of who was inclined how on issues. And nursing them along until they understood the desired position. And again, this is without any real consideration of the issues. The Chair's very clear goal was to deliver to Tracy Truppman a consensus of agreement with her.
And the Village attorney at a meeting like this? Unheard of. And outrageous. And unnecessary, except again to nudge the group to Tracy's desired conclusion.
The rest of us will have to work, as we did with moving the election, to educate our neighbors on why this is all wrong, and not in anyone's interest. Not to mention that it is illegitimate.
Everything corrupts this process. Mac's comments say it best. I will work to get them read.
Fred
2nd paragaraph, 2nd sentence should be tape not tap.
ReplyDeleteSo it sounds like rather than actually review the charter this group of uninvolved, unaware residents has done two things. One is to rubber stamp Tracy's wish list. Two is to overly complicate things pushing for changes that while they might make sense in a larger community make exactly ZERO sense here. We have a tough enough time getting people to run. Now they want people to pick whether to run for mayor, VM or commission??? I can picture either not having enough candidates to cover 3 different areas or having only 1 for each.
ReplyDeleteThen there's term limits. I totally get that in big cities where money talks and an incumbent's ability to raise funds makes it tough for newcomers. Here? We run bare bones, grass roots campaigns primarily self-funded. Did they say why they wanted term limits?
I absolutely agree this committee needs to be disbanded at least until the new commissioners can get on and make their own appointments. They shouldn't be treated like 2nd class citizens. This is too crucial with too much potential to go wrong. A very expensive, long term mistake. As for removing the chair.....that would require Tracy to do the right and honorable thing......so....we know that ain't gonna happen.
"They" don't want term limits. "They" have no reason to want anything. Tracy wants term limits, for whatever are her undisclosed reasons*, and she's sent her suggestions to her appointees, who dutifully and mindlessly agree to whatever she wants. In answer to your question as to why "they" want term limits, one of the Stepford Committee members suggested that limiting terms of Commissioners would make opportunity for all the Village residents (in her fantasy life) who want to serve the Village, but can't, because the Commission is clogged up with lifers. Clearly, this isn't remotely true, but this was what she offered. What I said in public comment AT THE END was that the way she could prove herself wrong about this fantasy was the boards that have fewer members than seats. If there were really frustrated Village residents who wanted to serve the Village, they'd apply to be on those boards. But they don't, so there aren't.
DeleteBy the way, more about the Jenny example. Jenny chaired a committee just like this one, and that committee made one suggestion, which was enacted (to move the election). Now, Jenny made several suggestions, and they are in line with what Tracy wants. But this was never discussed in a Commission meeting. So how would anyone suppose Jenny came to favor ideas that Tracy happens to favor, having herself already become comprehensively familiar with the Charter, without discussion anyone witnessed? It's become a sick joke, as is this "Commission."
*If you want to know my imagining as to why Tracy would want term limits, considering that Tracy is only and 100% about herself, it's because she knows the Tracy show/circus isn't going to last long, and she doesn't want anyone in the future to turn out to be more popular than she is. I think she's guessing she might be able to squeeze one more term out of her neighbors before they get openly sick to death of her, and dump her, so she chose a limit of two terms, consecutive or not.
This is a great post and should be on Nextdoor so more people can read it.
ReplyDeleteOMG you mean someone actually said - with a straight face - the commission is clogged with "lifers"??? I wish I had been there. I would have asked her to name some. On the other hand we can name several commissions where all 3 who were elected were brand new. And I am now big enough to admit we paid one helluva price for that. If people don't run it's cause they're just flat out not interested. It's obviously not out of any fear of the "lifers".
ReplyDeleteNo, Janey, the Committee member did not use the word lifer. I used that word to summarize the suggestions of two people. One was the Committee member in question, who said term limits would make room for other Village residents who would like to serve the Village, as if the absence of term limits foreclosed openings on the Commission. The other person was the Chair of this Committee, who said that without term limits, Commissioners could remain Commissioners as long as they chose to, as if Village residents had nothing to say about it. The sense of it was that without term limits, Commissioners could somehow choose to remain on the Commission as long as they wanted to, blocking any openings for anyone else.
DeleteAs for your conclusion that many Village residents are simply not interested (in serving the Village, or at least not unless they can be in the limelight and get paid a few bucks), that was the point I made about Board openings. Those openings represent opportunities for Village residents to serve the Village, if that's what they want to do. Clearly, as I implied, and you said, they don't want to. And term limits preventing Commissioners from having the opportunity to be re-elected as many times as Village residents want to be served by them don't cause other residents to want to (serve the Village). Which is fine, but then about what are they whining?
By the way, Janey, you allude to a very interesting dilemma. You say you're "now big enough to admit" it was a mistake to have elected three people who knew nothing about the Village (your euphemism was that they were "brand new." They weren't. They'd lived here long enough to have been involved, if they'd given a shit. But they didn't, and they were outsiders in their own Village.). But I don't think you agreed to elect them-- in fact, you worked very hard to get them elected-- because you thought it would be a good thing to have a Commission that knew nothing about the Village, or that knowing nothing about the Village wouldn't matter in Commissioners. No, you worked hard to get them elected, because you were trying to prevent some other eventuality that you considered a huge and glaring and, as you explained it to yourself, worse, problem: the re-election of Fred. You thought anything would be better for the Village than that. So, as sort of an aside, are you saying you're "now big enough" to see that as a mistake? Was there something in fact worse than another 2-4 years of Fred, and you worked hard and successfully to get it to happen to us? If so, you're sort of in a no-win, or damned if you did, and damned if you didn't, situation.
DeleteYou put me in mind of an e-conversation Milt Hunter offered me a year or more ago. Milt wrote an angry e-mail to me, essentially blaming me for mistakes he asserted I made during the last election in which I was a candidate, and that it was somehow my own fault that I didn't get re-elected. He seemed to be saying I could or should have gotten re-elected, but for my lapses. But the reality of it was that Milt worked even harder than you did to prevent me from getting re-elected. So Milt was angry at me, because he was more successful than I was. I didn't save him, and the Village, from himself.
I wonder if that's part of what you mean when you talk about being big enough to admit something, and that "we paid one helluva price" for your having been successful at what you did. Are you just as angry as Milt is, because Fred wasn't as successful as you were, and he didn't save you from yourself? You can see how that's quite a dilemma for you.
Or, to put the question another way, how big are you now? Are you "big enough" to admit you made a mistake, or are you just big enough, as Milt is, to blame Fred? You put it in an interesting way: you're "big enough to admit we paid one helluva price." What exactly about the price "we paid" are YOU admitting?
Oh, I forgot, there was one more Charter change in the past several years, and it happened just before I moved here in the middle of 2005. A committee, in 2004 or 2005, decided that the Charter should be changed to provide for professional management. The then Commission agreed with the change, and lowered its own stipend to demonstrate its diminished responsibility, and Village residents agreed to the change in a referendum vote in December, 2005.
ReplyDeleteSo, we've had two very specific Charter changes in the past 14 years. One was to use professional management, and the other was to move the vote so that we vote for Village issues during the general election. I don't have a copy of Tracy's suggestions to the Charter Review Committee, but if I remember correctly, Tracy would like to move the Village election back to its own schedule, separate from the general election.