Rafa Has Given Me His Permission to "Cut and Paste" This e-Conversation.

Rafa wrote to me regarding the last post:

Now you’re just auditioning to be my chief of communications.  And for the record, the full line was “when a woman tells you she feels threatened, believe her”.  

Hope to catch you doing a random act of kindness come 1•4•2020. See my challenge to our village neighbors on Next Door.

Have a great holiday and healthy, prosperous new year.

Rafael

I replied:

I'm not on Next Door.

I hope we all see a non-random act of decency from you before 1/7/20.  If we see it very soon, you'll save your Village over $16K.  But if you think either of your opponents would make such a terrible Commissioner that it's deeply important that you do something to prevent it, then you should stay in the race.  And I'd be curious to know which of your opponents strikes you as that bad, and what's so bad about them.  I myself must have missed it.

Fred

PS: PPS: Since you're correcting me, and quoting your line more precisely, I gather it was a staged and pre-planned quip.  Interesting.  Tracy and Krishan really do have you very tightly by the balls.

Also, I'm sure it's clear to you that you could have responded to me in the blog, so the conversation would have been public.  I encourage that.

Rafa wrote back:

My friend, journalism with integrity 101.  The video is there, you didn’t even have to take notes.  Quoting partials takes them out of context, and that’s the stuff of hyper-partisan politics.  I told you I strive to be ,ore public servant. And my prepared thoughts included adding “and children too.  And men won’t tell you we are threatened.  But sometimes we are... yadda yadda.  

Also - I said trying not to be trite … “Residents come and go, the village is forever” but really *at least hopefully* 25 more years until Biscayne’s wondrous shore is creeping up to our elevation.

So much to say, so little time.  And the questions were pretty softball, don’t you think?  I was sure there’d be some good ones like the OCITT audit, and details about the negotiations with CNM and the 121 street maintenance split, and the FEMA reimbursement delays.  Alas.

I’m totally OK with you thinking Tracey/Krishan have my in their court.  You are predisposed to that notion, and anything I could say would only have you double and triple down. 

I won’t be commenting on your blog. I will have conversations (face to face, or digitally) with you, and you can cut and paste to your blog all you want to, if you need to. All I would ask is that you are faithful in the representation of my words.

Best,

Rafael

I concluded:

Rafa,

I don't consider myself a "journalist," but it seems to me journalism 101 can be a two-way street.  It is certainly the responsibility of the "journalist" to report accurately.  But it is the reciprocal jeopardy of the "journalist" to have to be revealed to be wrong, when s/he is wrong.  You have two kinds of opportunities to "out" me.  You can ask me for access to the blog, in which case you have to reassure me you won't sabotage anyone else's material, or you can post any comment you like, with no restriction from me.  And you've taken that second opportunity, so you know it's available to you.  Frankly, I think that on the surface, it's unfair of you to communicate with me only privately to tell me I was wrong about something.  But you've resolved that unfairness by giving me permission to "cut and paste...all [I] want to," and I accept your offer.  What I plan to do is "cut and paste" the entire back and forth we're now having (unless you tell me you've changed your mind, and withdrawn your permission), so there's no danger to you of my not being "faithful in the representation of [your] words."  They're your words.  All I'm going to do is cut and paste them.  By the way, there are many* typos and incorrect usages.  I'm going to cut and paste your comments precisely as they are.  I'm not going to fix anything for you.  If you want something fixed, you'll have to do it yourself.

You should not feel there's little time to say as much as you want said.  Take the time.  Say it all.  You have an audience.  You have made zero outreach to me.  (You only eventually accommodated Chuck and me when we reached out to you.)  Political candidates are not permitted to campaign on Next Door.  I have no idea what method you're using to try to introduce yourself to your neighbors in such a way that they would want to vote for you to represent them.  It all seems unbelievably sketchy to me.  I don't tell you how to run your life, or how to run for office, but if you didn't have abundant secret help, you would be dead in the water in this campaign.  You couldn't do what you're doing without Tracy and Krishan working for you.  And as I said in the blog post about which you commented to me, you adopted a very peculiar angle about our exploded attorney's fees and the sergeant-at-arms, and almost no one in the world, except Tracy and Krishan, would look at it that way.  Everyone who has said a word about it thinks one way, and Tracy and Krishan, and now you, think another way.  Coincidence, huh?

I'm going out to do yard work.  When I come back, and maybe after I get cleaned up, I'll do the "cut and paste" task.  If I haven't heard from you to ask me not to do that after all, then my light is green.

Fred

*I said "many," but on review, there are only a few.

Also, I forgot to respond to Rafa's estimation that the questions were what he called "softball."  I agree with him.  I, too, would have liked to see more probing questions.  What was interesting, coming from someone who has not been involved with the Village in any way, nor come much to Commission meetings, was what Rafa was expecting.  Why would he have expected questions about CITT, the various negotiations with CNM, and delays in reimbursement from FEMA?  He doesn't, from the context of an uninvolved and uninformed Village resident, have any awareness of these issues.  Whoever told him what questions would be on the exam didn't tell him the right questions.