Oh, Janey, Forget About It. Don't Beat Yourself Up.

As we were all either milling around or making our ways out after tonight's aborted Commission meeting, Janey Anderson stopped me.  I'm not sure what her point was, but she said she hadn't realized three years ago that Tracy Truppman, et al, would be as bad as they turned out to be.  I have to admit here that I wasn't very interested in Janey's new understanding of the disaster she worked hard to help create, and the possibility that she was something like apologetic about it.  And I started out by saying it wasn't a surprise to me, although I agreed with her that Tracy and her stooges were even worse than I anticipated they would be.  But I knew they'd be bad, and they were bad.

But then, I sort of changed focus with Janey, and I reminded her that she didn't support Tracy/Jenny/Will because she thought they might be good Commissioners.  She supported them because it seemed to her essential that the Village Commission include "anyone but Fred."  "Anyone."  It shouldn't have mattered to Janey how bad she might have thought Tracy/Jenny/Will would be.  Their saving value was that they weren't Fred.  And for Janey, and a collection of others, we needed "anyone" but Fred.  I told Janey what would happen if we elected Tracy/Jenny/Will.  Janey didn't care.  I underestimated the damage.  If I hadn't underestimated, and I could have told Janey it would be this bad, she still wouldn't have cared.  We needed someone other than Fred, they weren't Fred, and the issue was settled.

Let's imagine, though, that Janey hadn't felt the way she did.  And let's imagine the collection of others hadn't, either.  In that election, Tracy and Jenny got the most votes, and Will got enough to come in third.  Fred got the fourth most votes, and Dan Samaria got the fewest.  But what if Fred had had enough support, from Janey and others, to have won a seat?  He would either have come in third, and just displaced Will, or he would have done better, and displaced Will, and knocked Tracy or Jenny down to third.  So the winners would have been some configuration of Tracy, Jenny, and Fred.  And they would have joined David Coviello and Roxy Ross.  David, Roxy, and Fred tended to be on the same page about most things.

But that would only have lasted for a few short months, until David resigned, which he knew in advance he was going to do at some point in the next two years.  And let's suppose, for the sake of discussion, that David had announced at the outset that he knew he was going to resign, and therefore, he declined someone's offer to re-elect him as mayor.  I will tell you with complete confidence that Fred would never have agreed to Tracy or Jenny as mayor, and I doubt Roxy would have, either.  So let's imagine that Roxy gets elected mayor.  And all of this lasts for those few months, until David resigns, sooner than he said he thought he would.

At this point, Harvey Bilt runs against Dan Samaria for David's seat, which is what happened, and Harvey wins, which he did.  We can't know what would have happened about the third candidate in that race; the one who dropped out: Mac Kennedy.  But let's imagine Mac doesn't run, or drops out anyway, as he did.

The Commission is then Roxy, Fred, Tracy, and Jenny, and Harvey joins them.  It turns out, amazingly enough, that Harvey has very major energy against Roxy.  I don't know why, but he just does.  If Tracy knew that, or if it took her less than five minutes to figure it out, suddenly, Tracy decides we have a new Commission, and we should re-elect the mayor.  Sort of like the thing she's bucking now, because this time, it's to her disadvantage.  But when it's to her advantage, she's all over it.

Then, she gets elected mayor, compliments of Jenny, Harvey, and herself, and she owns a majority.  It's not a supermajority, as it was when she controlled Jenny, Will, and Harvey, but it's good enough to allow her to trample and terrorize everyone, as she likes to do.  It's good enough to bring her to Sharon Ragoonan's office, to throw her out.  It's good enough to allow her to start ordering around all the Village's employees, and fire the attorney, and hire Rebecca Rodriguez, and start dumping Village money like it's counterfeit.

See, Janey?  If you had backed Fred, instead of working so hard to keep him out of office again, the result would have been the same.  It would just have taken about four or five extra months to get there.  Do you feel better now?