His Own Worst Enemy.

According to an article in today's Miami Herald, Dan Samaria is suing someone.  It's a little unclear whom he's suing.  Or for what, exactly.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article243740042.html

The Herald article includes the document that is the suit, and it lists as defendants the Village, Tracy Truppman, Krishan Manners, and Rebecca Rodriguez.  Samaria wants $1M.  (And his lawyer doesn't know the difference between "block" and bloc.)   The Village has deeper pockets than do Truppman, Manners, or Rodriguez, but there is no other explanation for why Samaria would be suing the Village.  Samaria, by the way, has constructed for himself some understanding (fantasy) that suing the Village doesn't mean suing the residents of the Village.

Dan Samaria had some problems that led to some lender's foreclosing on his house in BP.  Dan has been fighting this for years.  His current complaint/suit is that a delicate balance was upset by Manners, Truppman, and Rodriguez, when they questioned his legitimacy as a BP resident, and therefore, as a BP Commissioner.  Whether or not a delicate balance was upset is debatable.  That Truppman, Rodriguez, and Manners tried to disenfranchise him from his elected office is without question.  Dan's refusal to answer a question -- where do you live? -- unnecessarily gave ammunition to Truppman, et al.  Dan was right to note that even after Truppman, et al, were alleging that he didn't live in his house, Commission documents from the Village were hand-delivered, as always, to the house where he was alleged not to live.  As the Herald article recapitulates, the judge in the matter dismissed the suit in Dan's favor, since he clearly lived here, and there was no reason to think he didn't, or evidence that he didn't.  Further, it wouldn't have mattered if Dan hadn't lived here, as long as he asserted that he intended to move back.  Dan had won his case.

In the meantime, Dan had previously settled into a habit of seeking advice from various Village residents.  They most prominently included Roxy and Chuck Ross, and Bob and Janey Anderson.  Once Roxy was re-elected to the Commission, Dan could no longer seek advice, or discuss Commission matters, with her.  At about that time, he stopped consulting with Chuck Ross and the Andersons, too.

The hearing at which Dan prevailed was also noteworthy.  Dan was represented by a very prominent Miami lawyer, who happens to live in BP, and is Roxy Ross' boss.  And this lawyer did not charge Dan what would have been a high fee for such representation.  He didn't charge Dan anything.  The judge at the hearing noted with some surprise the comparatively extensive gallery of people in attendance.  There were probably about 15 of us, and we were there only to support Dan.

It's worth noting that Krishan Manners was quoted in the Herald article as saying that Dan's jeopardy in terms of his attempt to hang onto his house was common knowledge.  It was, because Dan wasn't shy about discussing it.  It's also worth noting that neither Dan's lawyer at the hearing, nor the judge, nor Dan's current lawyer have challenged the concept of that jeopardy.  In that same vein, it's unclear what Dan would argue is his loss.

After some jostling, and Tracy Truppman's attempt to resist, the Commission finally changed, with new members Ginny O'Halpin, Mac Kennedy, and Roxy Ross.  Once that Commission was seated, a very early order of business was to dismiss Krishan Manners.  All Commissioners, except Tracy's remaining stooge, Will Tudor, who for some reason did not resign with Tracy and the rest of the stooges, agreed to this dismissal.  In theory, there was now a Commission majority that could have included Dan, Ginny, Mac, and Roxy.

But Dan was adrift.  He was no longer taking logical and adaptive advice, and he was no longer thinking straight.  It also turned out that Ginny did not know what she was doing.  It was possible that the two of them could have followed the lead of Roxy Ross and Mac Kennedy.  But instead, they joined forces with Will Tudor, who was the remaining person who had supported the effort against Dan.  Dan forgot entirely who had supported him, who advised him, and who was on his side.  Instead, he attached himself to the last remaining person who tried to get him thrown off the Commission and out of the Village.

Dan has shut down ever since.  He does not listen to reason, and he does not respond to e-mails.  He and Ginny and Will have circled their three little wagons, and have supported the tenure of INTERIM manager David Hernandez, who appears increasingly to be at war against anyone who wants what's good for the Village.  And whose version of knowing how to manage is that he doesn't.

Dan had a chance to be helpful to the Village.  But he doesn't know how, he doesn't ask for help from the right people, and he doesn't appear to care.  Dan has turned his back on a lot of people who took time, and went to trouble, to help him.  As the twisted saying goes, Dan snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  And he's made an awful fool of himself.

Intolerance BP-Style

If anyone needs proof that intolerance, ignorance and hate live under our very noses, request a copy of an email written by a BP resident yesterday on the topic of our recent Pride Parade. It's public record, so the village clerk will send it to you upon request. The letter, littered with misspelled words and nonsensical ramblings, was written to every elected official except the gay one (me), condemning the gay "lifestyle choice" and going on to basically say: What next? Allowing '”other cultures” like Mexicans, Jews, Blacks and Haitians to have parades? The author seems to be OK with Christian events like Santa’s attendance at our annual Winterfest and pagan events like Halloween at the Rec Center. Her concern is that Jews or Blacks or Mexicans may start parading in our streets now that the gays have broken the seal. Perhaps she’s not aware that our diverse community welcomes and celebrates gays and folks from a parade of nations and every color in the big gay rainbow in addition to humans that worship all manner of gods with upper- and lowercase g’s. (“God” forbid, some neighbors may not worship any god at all!) A main gripe of this neighbor was that the gay "lifestyle choice" was paraded past her house ... which it wasn't, not that it matters. And, Biscayne Park (until this parade, it seems) was the "perfect family neighborhood with strong family values." I won't name the neighbor, but expect that person to "out" herself if she reads this. However, I won't ignore such vile whether it's aimed at me (it was by name, very directly) because I'm gay or at other neighbors because of their ethnicity, religion or national origin. Count me in for next year’s parades for Cinco de Mayo, Haitian Mardi Gras, Martin Luther King Day, and Jewish holidays (the list of that neighbor’s specific concerns). Headed outside now to put the rainbow flag back up directly above the BLM sign that’s been up since the BP vigil honoring George Floyd. Does anyone have flags for Haiti, Mexico, and Israel that I can borrow? My household is a bastion of acceptance. Hell, I’ll even defend the right to spew intolerance, if there’s a flag for that. Oh wait, that flag is being removed from public spaces. PS: That email was sent to the village manager and every elected official except me. IMO, any of those recipients, all representatives of this diverse community, who don’t reply to the author and challenge the intolerance is complicit in that intolerance. These days, silence = compliance.

I Think David Raymond Has a Dilemma.

If you don't know David Raymond, he's one of our neighbors.  He lives with his wife, Amy, on 9th Avenue at the corner of 116th St.  David and Amy moved here a few years or so ago, and they've both become involved with the Village.  Amy's claim to fame is that she's part of the Art Advisory Board.  They generally come to (or now watch on ZOOM) meetings, and they're reasonably thoughtful and generous with their opinions.

David has been part of an informal discussion about the fact that our current Commission has stopped functioning with respect to finding a qualified, properly credentialed, and appropriately experienced manager.  As a frame of reference, David was one of the people who offered to help David Hernandez find CITT-related documentation, and David H refused David R's help.  This is not as crazy as how David H handled the help he got from Chuck Ross, but it's still pretty crazy.  David H has done nothing about the CITT problem, he appears incapable of doing anything about it, and he should be starving for any help he can get.  David R, by the way, has extensive government experience.

Before I go on, let me clarify something I said.  I said David H did nothing about the CITT problem.  In fact, he did do one thing: he got an extension on the deadline for us to produce documentation.  But he didn't look for any more documentation, and he won't let anyone help him.  It's sort of like getting a stay of execution, so you can bolster your defense, but doing nothing to bolster your defense.  So all that happens is that instead of being executed this month, your big victory is that you get executed in a month or two.  But still...

Not that you could possibly have failed to notice this, but I've been what you call all over the Commission to start a search for a proper new manager.  And I'm not the only one.  That's where David R comes in.  David R has decided to stimulate a petition "to ask the Commission to immediately commence [I don't split infinitives, but David R apparently does]...the process of hiring a qualified, experienced permanent Village manager."  David says he's "hoping to use the 'right to be heard' provision in the Charter" as his standing.  David's e-mail address starts with obewan, so he obviously thinks of himself as supernaturally composed.  Very Zen-like, you know?  To me, a petition with 100-200 Village residents' endorsements is more like a demand than a request, but this is how David put it.

David then specifies that he wants to start with an e-mail list of Village residents, and this will, according to David, result in signed documents, which will be sent back to David, and he will then print them out, and present them.  I myself am not sure how this kind of technology works, but David seems to have some scheme in mind.

David sent this idea to six people, myself included.  He wants us to help him get signatures, or find people willing to join the request/demand/complaint.  He says he's not asking anyone to go door-to-door, but he'd like us to distribute "it" to any Village resident who might sign and return "it."  But it's still not clear to me what "it" is.  It started out being called a "petition," then sounded like it was online or via e-mail, and then again sounded like a physical object.  So I'm a little lost.

At the end of David's request of the six of us, he reminded us that "things are going to continue to [deteriorate].  Can you imagine," David asked rhetorically, "what our finances will look like next year, with these folks in charge?  They can't even construct a sentence, or spell."  And David is exactly right about everything he said or imagined.  We started out in trouble, which quickly became deep trouble, and it's getting worse.  We have an interim manager who doesn't know what he's doing, and a Commission majority who don't know what they're doing, either.  And they all support each other.  It's really, really important that we get this to change.  The easiest change is to get a proper manager.  The next change we can hope for is that Will Tudor will 1) not run again, and/or 2) not get re-elected.  After that, it would be great if Commissioners had better sense than to re-elect Ginny O'Halpin as mayor, and if Ginny and Dan Samaria either settled into a minority, where they can't do any damage, or resigned.  Dan was actually OK for his first two years, when he was getting help from the right people.  But he's stopped consulting them, and no one knows whence he gets his material any more.  It's pretty bad stuff.

But in the meantime, we need the Commission to do its job, which is to use the proper procedure to deal with the fact that we have an interim manager.  This is our fourth time with an interim manager, and in the past, we knew what to do about it.  Now, we have a Commission majority and interim manager that "function" like four chickens with their heads cut off, and it's going to cost us increasing adaptation and money.

So, here's what I recommend.  I don't know what David R really wants to do about a "petition."  But you don't need one.  You can write to the Commissioners.  They are Virginia O'Halpin (vohalpin@___), Mac Kennedy (mkennedy@___), Roxy Ross (rross@____), Dan Samaria (dsamaria@____), and Will Tudor (wtudor@____).  After the @ comes biscayneparkfl.gov for all of them.  You can write one e-mail, and address it to all of them.

I'm still waiting for David R to tell me if he wants me to publish his e-mail address and/or phone number.  If he does, I will.  But until then, please tell your Commissioners to start the search for a proper manager.  It's clear they don't think David H is a proper manager.  If they did, they'd start the search, then hire David.  They can do that.  But they know that with appropriate comparison, David H comes in somewhere around last.  Why they want to continue to bet on a losing horse is a mystery.  But they're betting your/our money.

A Question of Character.

The following is an e-mail thread:

From Chuck Ross on 6/19/20 at 2:20 PM
David Hernandez (DH) represented to me that he was in possession of certain records in connection with CITT projects in addition to those that I located on 4/22 & 4/28.  In fact, DH represented they were much more valuable than any records I had located.
On 6/3, the day prior to my meeting with our auditor, Enrique Llerena, I called DH and requested he make those valuable records available at the rec center, as they may be useful in our review of the report Rox and I had prepared.  DH refused to do so.  I was concerned at that time [that] it may have been detrimental to assisting the auditor with his investigation and did not understand why DH was withholding those documents.
Accordingly, consider this a pubic records request (PRR) for an inspection of all CITT records or copies of same held by DH, CITT records or copies transmitted by DH to the auditor, [or] CITT records or copies transmitted to the Village Finance Director's office.
Chuck Ross

From David Hernandez on 6/19/20 at 2:36 PM
Mr Ross, are you aware that every time a resident request (sic) a public record request (sic) it's (sic) cost the village of Biscayne Park tax payer money by spending administration time to provide this information?

From Chuck Ross on 6/19/20 at 2:55 PM
Are you trying to obstruct my PRR?  It seems like an act of intimidation.
If you only had provided the documents before the meeting as I requested we would not be having this exchange.  Look into the mirror and you will see who may be costing the taxpayers money.  Aside from that, these are documents that should be readily available and I am not asking for anyone to make copies.  Most of these records  are likely the records I located that you copied sometime after 4/28.  I need to confirm that you in fact copied the records I set aside and I would like to view the additional records you [claimed you] located.

From David Hernandez on 6/19/20 at 3:18 PM
Your opinion is well noted.  I can assure you that or (sic) top priority is your PRR, and I shall rearrange all other issues that the village is working on at the present time.  Thank you for your prompt attention to this important issue.

From Chuck Ross on 6/19/20 at 5:05 PM
Yes, David, a complete response to CITT needs to be a priority, you should have made it a priority over two months ago.  And while I appreciate your attempt at sarcasm, after you gave me permission to review the records, you then interfered with attempts to continue a review of CITT records for over two weeks.  If you had assisted me or someone you delegated in the CITT review of records, or better yet, contacted Paul [Winkeljohn]'s office to engage his assistance, it's possible that this could have been concluded by now.  Instead, you used the records I found to get an extension on May 4th for 60 days, to July 31, failed to inform the Commission that you had secured the extension, and then did nothing while you held me off from continuing to review the records for approx. two weeks.  When you finally allowed me to go in one last time I found additional records that I left for you.

From David Hernandez on 6/19/20 at 6:15 PM
Let's agree to disagree.  Keep in mind as the Manager (sic) we have Covid, Solid Waste, Code issues and FEMA and numerous other issues and topics even preparation for Commissioners (sic) agenda actions and request.  I appreciate that you have passion for "ONE" issue and I am willing to get to the bottom of this subject matter.  Yet maybe you can put your name in the hat to apply for the Village Manager job once it becomes available so that all application (sic) can be vetted fairly.

A separate conversation began between Mac Kennedy and Bob Anderson, and it centered on brick pavers in the intersection at 9th Avenue and 113th St.  Bob said his memory was that this was done when Ana Garcia was manager here.  Mac then copied David Hernandez, so David could look into this.  David asked, having already been told, who Ana was.  Chuck Ross got included in this conversation, and he told David he was "certain" that he told David who Ana Garcia was, and that a "good portion of [the] CITT projects took place" on her watch.  He wondered if maybe David wasn't listening to him, and he expressed surprise that David had "not already reached out to [Ana] as part of the investigation [he] claimed [he] started on [his] own."  He then gave David Ana's phone number.  David complained that he didn't know how he was supposed to know how to reach Ana, and Chuck replied that Ana's contact information is on google and Linkedin, that she is a past president of the MDMA, and that she is presently the manager for the City of Dania Beach.  David then replied to Bob Anderson, openly copying Chuck, and issuing the following report at 8:51 PM: "Going evening driving home I spoke to. Ana very knowledgeable on CITT and I found information that you did.  I must admit you where and asset of information and the village must be grateful to what you provide especially on PW issue during your tenure.  However Chuck Ross does not have a clue.  None the less, let's discuss at your convenience Thanks." (sic, sic, sic)

Juneteenth

Juneteenth is a portmanteau of June 19, 1865.  This date is supposed to represent something to do with slaves in this country being freed.

The fact is, the Civil War ended in April, 1865, but word didn't travel fast then, and some areas were resistant to freeing slaves anyway.

June 19, 1865, was the date that slaves were supposedly finally freed in the last slave-owning stronghold, which was Texas.

I say supposedly freed, because some slave-owners resisted so much that they killed some of the slaves they owned, rather than allow them to be free, and even more than that, blacks were never treated properly in this country, after April, 1865, June, 1865, or today.  There have been lots and lots of ways of suppressing and disadvantaging them, and all those undermining methods have been employed.

It would be wrong to say the Civil War didn't accomplish anything.  It did, but it was limited, and other abuses were substituted.  Just to take one example, after the Civil War, when the country in general "made the mistake" of allowing blacks to vote, they voted in many other blacks.  So gerrymandering was exaggerated, and voter suppression evolved, so that legislatures were no longer significantly black in some areas, as they temporarily were after the war.  Suppression was rampant, and insidious, and it took many forms.  It could have been public education distortion, college admission quotas, loan access, or any of a number of mechanisms.  And of course -- of course -- police brutality.

As it happens, a few years ago, I made a study of the Constitutional "Second Amendment."  One person who opined about it had reason to think the so-called permission to bear arms which was supposedly granted by the Second Amendment was particularly for the purpose of allowing southern states slave-owners, and bounty-hunters, to own guns, so they could track down and either re-capture or kill run-away slaves.  It's not a long step from that kind of "social contract" to the approach all of us, clearly including legislatures and law enforcement, take to black people.

A century after the Civil War, we had activity that sort of culminated in what we call the "Civil Rights Movement."  That, like the Civil War, accomplished some things.  But there were two problems.  One was that it left way too much room for the same kind of racist mischief that was made after the Civil War.   The other problem -- and I'm taking a massive risk here; I can never run for general office after I leave a "paper trail" like this -- is that it relied in part on celebrating black culture.  "Black [was] beautiful."  The effect of that was that the disadvantages and limitations this country spent centuries imposing on black people became an acceptable, and even emulated, condition.  If some black people needed to feel good about themselves, and unique, by dressing in certain ways, for example, that was a celebrated style, and that's fine.  Unless the evolution of that style eventually included wearing trousers that were too big, and were falling off.  In my opinion, at least, that wasn't fine any more.  But what also got indirectly promoted as characteristic of black people was substandard education, which, as I say, was imposed on black people, and relentless destruction of the family unit.  If no one worked to correct that, then there was a general and societal "dumbing down" of people in general, if people in general, out of lack of personal ambition or out of wish to identify, adopted the characteristics and styles of a group who were impeded by chronic disadvantage.  And that happened, without question.  It has contributed to much greater acceptance of single-parent families, among all groups, and to elevation of styles like "gangsta."

And through all of this, we never stopped imposing disadvantages.  Never.  Today -- and I mean almost literally today -- there is further upheaval about racism reinvigorated by symbolic clowns like Donald Trump.  And that's after Watts, Arthur MacDuffie, and many others.  We simply don't quit.  We continue to be relentless, and we liberally add "blaming the victims."

I have heard or read many black people talk about how difficult it is -- how difficult it's made for them -- to be black.  The way they describe it is that they have to work twice as hard to get half as much.  And those are the lucky ones who don't get gratuitously incarcerated, or assassinated.  Every black parent will talk openly about their concerns, especially for their sons, who appear to be favorite targets.

One of my homepages -- I'm embarrassed to say it's msn.com -- publishes a daily poll.  The polls are moronic -- the questions are stupid, and the answers from which respondents can choose are sometimes like the "are you still beating your wife" joke -- and I long ago stopped answering them.  But I watch them come and go.  The first question on today's poll is "Do you think Juneteenth should be a national holiday."  The possible answers are "yes," "no," and "I don't know."  But the question is -- setting aside that Juneteenth isn't specifically about what people think it's about -- should Juneteenth be a national holiday to celebrate what?  That we finally stopped abusing black people after the Civil War, or after the Civil Rights Movement, or since yesterday?  We didn't.  A holiday called Juneteenth is no more meaningful than MLK's birthday.  It's just another sad day, and another sad reminder, and another day that we might very well violate the spirit of what Juneteenth is theoretically supposed to mean.

It will take an amazing effort to restructure most of American society to address racism.  Elevating Juneteenth to national holiday status?  I myself wouldn't bother.  But maybe black people don't feel that way.  If it would make them feel better to have that designation, it's fine with me.  But it doesn't accomplish anything real.  I've fleetingly wondered about the proposal to pay reparations.  But I can't make sense of it.  There isn't enough money in the world to compensate American black people for the centuries of mistreatment they've received here.  Whatever we could imagine giving them wouldn't be enough.  On the other hand, the token we would cough up would also be too much.  What would we give them?  A hundred million dollars each?  Ten million dollars each?  A million dollars each?  Do you know what happens to lottery winners, or people who make a lot of money playing sports?  Most of them declare bankruptcy.  It's too much money, and the vast majority of people don't know how to handle it.  All we can do is resolve to show proper respect, from one human being to another, and stop beating on them.  Caucasians should treat black people the same way they treat other Caucasian people, or themselves.  And we would have to work harder -- twice as hard, to accomplish half as much -- to correct what we can of the damage that has been done.  The schools don't have to be better.  They have to be the same.  And the students have to have eaten breakfast, at homes where two parents can receive the support and encouragement that everyone else gets, so they can form the happy and stable families everyone else is allowed to form.  Those two parents have to have the same chances to have learned and trained and gotten proper jobs that people who are not black have.  Once all that happens, no one will care about, or remember, Juneteenth.

Happy Juneteenth.

Apparently, I Did a Good Deed! Who Knew?

A couple or so days ago, I was trying to watch a movie.  It wasn't late, but it seems I was tired, and I fell asleep.  What awakened me was the telephone.  My landline rings three times before it goes to voicemail.  By the time I was awake enough to know what awakened me, I missed the call.  But I have caller ID, and I checked.  I think it was around 6:00 PM, and David Hernandez called me.

I have a policy.  Unless my daughter calls, or sometimes Chuck Ross, if someone doesn't leave me a message asking for a return call, I don't call back.  David didn't leave a message, so I didn't call him.

Late this morning, David called me again.  But I was in the middle of something, and didn't want to be distracted, so I again resorted to my policy: if David wants to talk to me, he'll leave me a message asking for a return call, and he'll get one.  Again, no message.

Later than that, I was on the phone, and it rang again.  I checked, and it was David again.  Well, I was getting curious, so I put my other call on hold, and switched over to David.  He started to tell me something, and I let him know I was on the other line.  Either this was really quick, or he could ask me to call him back.  He said it was really quick.  He called to tell me he really likes this blog, and he feels "like a protagonist in a movie."  I told him I was glad to know he enjoys reading the posts, and that it was exciting for him that he felt like a movie star.  I then returned to my call.

This is the second time David has called me to tell me some version of he "gets a kick out of the blog," he finds it funny, or, as it was today, that he's somehow flattered to get attention.  It was Oscar Wilde who said "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about."  David is apparently an adherent.  Not to mention, of course, that he thinks he's telling me how little he cares what I or anyone else says about him.  As if there was any doubt that he doesn't care.

I know what has been said about David in this blog.  I've said most of it.  And frankly, it hasn't been flattering.  There were a few ways David could have handled this "problem."  Since I've talked about him repeatedly, and several other people have said, either in this blog or in public comments, the same things, he could have applied a bit of introspection.  Maybe there's something he would come to think he could and should change.  He could have called me, or come by, to let me know how concerning to him it is that anyone should misunderstand him.  He could have explained himself, or perhaps apologized.  He could have defended himself, and disputed anything he thought I got wrong, and which he would presumably have thought others, too, have gotten wrong.

But no, that's not how David works.  His angle is to try to tell me he couldn't care less what I say.  In fact, he's dismissive, and if anything, it only amuses him, and makes him feel as if he's in the limelight.  I just live here, and my only importance to David is that I provide part of his oversized salary.

I was talking today to someone who has government experience, and who watched last night's meeting.  He said that if he'd been on the Commission, and witnessed David's intrusiveness, his attitudes toward Commissioners, and his contributions, like that he didn't approve of things being added to the agenda, he would have fired David "on the spot."

But fortunately for David, he doesn't have to deal with people like the person who called me, or with me.  He can thumb his nose at people like us, and he does.  As long as he has three Commissioners who have no idea what they're doing, are grossly incompetent, and frankly don't care, David can carry on any way he wants to.

If David gets any royalties from the imaginary movie in which he further imagines himself to be the star, I hope he remembers who wrote the screenplay.  If David makes money from the job he's doing, I should, too.  He's no longer just a "legend in his own mind."  He thinks I helped his fame.

The Rolling Stones Were Half Right.

"You can't always get what you want."  And don't expect an explanation.

By someone's calculation, there were seven non-Commissioner residents who made public comments during tonight's meeting, and five of them urged the Commission to begin a search for a PERMANENT manager.

The answer was simply no.  The obstruction came from the now reliable three amigos: Ginny O'Halpin, Dan Samaria, and Will Tudor.  All any of them had to offer was refusal to discuss the matter.  They say nothing as to why this kind of discussion, or the actual search, so terrifies them.

A curiosity regarded the previously listed, and now withdrawn, matter of what we could call redistribution of Commissioners' stipends.  It was Ginny O'Halpin who proposed this redistribution, and the result of it would have been to lower the mayor's stipend (Ginny's, at the moment), and increase the stipends of the other four Commissioners.  When this agenda item was mentioned, Ginny announced she had withdrawn it.  And she gave a very peculiar explanation.  She said that "over $17K" had been spent on attorneys, and in view of this expenditure, Ginny has decided she no longer wants to share her stipend.  She gives the impression that she is jealous of all the money that got unloaded on lawyers, and now, she wants to grab as much as she can get, too.  Yuck!

As David Hernandez came to realize that he was getting protection from the majority of the Commission, he became increasingly outspoken, and intrusive.  Not only did he talk over Roxy Ross, a Commissioner who at the time had the floor -- and David would very simply not shut up -- but he later declared that he did not favor any additions to the agenda, as if such a decision was his to make, or frankly had anything to do with him.  He acted like a willful and enabled child who understood that no one was going to limit his behavior.

Then, we had a quick review of the sanitation contract expectation, with a collection of mistakes.

A discussion of a manager's report was aimless and insubstantial.  The big exploration was whether we should have manager's reports once a month or twice a month.  Unless you were ZOOMed in, you have no idea how much discussion this meaningless hair-splitting took.  Interestingly, Mac Kennedy thought he was doing David Hernandez a favor, by inviting him to produce reports only monthly.  But David must have realized that Mac was actually demanding more of him, by asking him to produce reports with actually meaningful content.  Mac's eventual way of expressing that was to refer to the less substantial, and more frequent, offerings as "fluff pieces."  If Mac was asking for more than "fluff pieces," David was declining.  Unable?  Can't be bothered?  Who knows.  It sounded to me mostly like childish and entitled bad behavior.

After this nonsensical conversation came to an arbitrary and empty end, Dan Samaria read some statement as to how amazing is police chief Luis Cabrera.  Mac Kennedy said he thought it was Luis who wrote most of this statement.  I listened to this discussion, but it was impossible to tell what it was about.  One attention-getting insight was that INTERIM manager David Hernandez agreed that Luis was doing a wonderful job, and that David, as the INTERIM manager, is authorized to contract with the police chief, but it was police chief Luis Cabrera who encouraged the Village to hire David Hernandez as public works manager.  So, are the two of them helping each other, potentially at the expense of the Village?  This kind of potential for conflict of interest was described as "the elephant in the room."  Indeed.

There was another angle regarding this matter, and that was the suggestion that a contract or employment agreement was important to protect the police chief.  It didn't take much reading between lines to realize that the problem was that Luis Cabrera might have felt vulnerable to subversive influences from recent former Commissioners (or just one).  What got overlooked in this "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" discussion was that the police chief would not have been in jeopardy but for the collusion, or cowardice, of the immediately former manager.  So, what would have been important to protect the chief was a proper and independent manager.  Checkmate.

Mac Kennedy is talking to himself regarding improving the reliability of a Village calendar.  His own joke was that David Hernandez repeatedly cries "micromanaging" every time anyone tries to improve David's functioning.  Well, OK, Mac is also talking to Roxy Ross.  Will Tudor had no idea what this is about.  Neither did Dan Samaria, who sounded like he was reading from a prepared statement about...not "micromanaging" the manager.  Ginny O'Halpin joined Will Tudor in agreeing that calendars are a good idea.  The "good" outcome of this discussion was that Ginny was getting really bored, and she just wanted to "move on."

Rox Ross thought we should have more protections at active work sites in the Village.  No one could argue with that, right?  Will Tudor doesn't like too much histrionics, like with workshops and other momentum-producing processes.  The next thing we know, someone will require approved parking surfaces, and will require Will to have one.  Rox tried more or less desperately to get the Commission simply to agree to let the Village attorney compose this, but too many people still can't get enough of hearing themselves talk, so the discussion dragged on unbearably.

The crumbs at the end included repeated references from the auditor and our accountant to the remarkable help provided by Chuck Ross, and David Hernandez's admission to Mac Kennedy that no, not all of the boxes of records have been explored.  Mac didn't ask why not, and David didn't say.  David's idea of an accomplishment is getting an extension.  But he doesn't use the extra time to accomplish anything real.

So, do you get what you need?  That's what the Stones reassured.  Although they qualified the reassurance with words like "sometimes" and "might."  It depends what you need.  If you need a Commission that does its job, and that can hold a minimal agenda to a modest investment of time (I quit at 4+ hours tonight, for maybe 2 hours, or maybe less, worth of business), no, you don't get what you need.

"If You Ain't Want Him Killed, Why'd You Leave Him With Me?"

Walter Mosley writes crime fiction, and his recurring character/detective is Easy Rawlins.  In Devil In a Blue Dress, of which I have the movie, Rawlins has moved from Texas to Los Angeles, has lost his job (Mosley is black -- well, half; his mother is Caucasian and Jewish --, Rawlins is black, and that provides overpowering parts of the dynamics in Mosley's stories), and he needs a way to make money.  He gets mixed up in something that was not as straightforward as he hoped it would be, and he's in increasing trouble.  Rawlins, played by Denzel Washington, calls his old friend and inveterate bad boy, Mouse, played by Don Cheadle, and Mouse comes to California to help his friend.

At some point, Rawlins and Mouse are going to try to save the dazzling Caucasian woman who might know where important evidence is, and they have taken with them Joppy, who sort of got Rawlins into this trouble, even though he's Rawlins' friend.  Once they get to the secluded cabin where Joppy believes the bad guys have the girl, Rawlins tells Mouse to tie up Joppy.  Mouse offers to shoot Joppy, but Rawlins doesn't want that.  Rawlins sneaks up to the cabin, finds the bad guys about to torture the girl, starts shooting, at which point Mouse comes along, and shoots, too, and they kill all the bad guys, and save the girl.

When they get back to the car, Rawlins wants to know where Joppy is.  Well...he's dead.  And Mouse is sheepish.  Rawlins complains, and says he didn't want Joppy dead.  Mouse defends himself, and says Rawlins only said he didn't want Joppy shot.  So Mouse choked him.  He explains that if he was to help his friend Rawlins, he couldn't be wasting time tying up Joppy.  It was then he spoke the line that is the title of this post.  Rawlins had to understand that this is how Mouse rolls.  Of course it is.  It's what got Mouse his reputation in Texas.  Mouse is slightly indirectly suggesting it's why Rawlins left Joppy in Mouse's "care."

A New York Times article about the assassination of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta on Saturday contains the following recapitulation:  "The police were called to the scene initially because Mr Brooks had fallen asleep on the drive-through line of the restaurant.  The video shows Officer Brosnan waking Mr Brooks in the driver's seat of a car and asking him to move the car to a parking space.  Officer Brosnan appears to be unsure whether to let Mr Brooks sleep there, or to take further action.

"He calls for another police officer, and Officer Rolfe arrives 12 minutes later.  Officer Rolfe searches Mr Brooks, and then puts him through a sobriety test, which he fails.  Mr Brooks asks the officers if he can lock his car up under their supervision, and walk to his sister's house, which is a short distance away.  'I can just go home,' he says.

"Officer Rolfe asks Mr Brooks to take a breath test for alcohol.  Mr Brooks admits he has been drinking and says 'I don't want to refuse anything.'  When the test is complete, Officer Rolfe tells Mr Brooks he 'has had too much drink to be driving,' and begins to handcuff him.  Only then is Mr Brooks seen offering any resistance."

Other parts of the article, and other descriptions, make clear the "resistance" involved a scuffle, in which officers applied a Taser to Brooks, who had been totally cooperative, until police escalated a calm situation, and Brooks somehow came away with the Taser.  Then, he ran...away.  Representative James Clyburn of SC said "They'd already patted him down, he had no weapon on him -- where did they think he was going to go?...So he's running away -- my goodness, you've got his car; you can easily find him.  But no, you fire bullets into his back."

Stacey Abrams of Georgia called for "reformation of how police officers do their jobs, how law enforcement does its job, because what happened yesterday to Rayshard Brooks was a function of excessive force...The fact that they were either embarrassed, or, you know, panicked, led them to murder a man who they knew only had a Taser in his hand."  Ms Abrams is clearly omitting, at least in this quote, to reference the underlying and overriding dynamic.

Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota is more direct.  "You can't really reform a department that is rotten to the root -- what you can do is rebuild... What we are saying is the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist any more... And we can't go about creating a different process with the same infrastructure in place."

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates (GWB and Obama) referenced the military, and he mentioned a "legacy of racism that should be confronted in society, including within a military that is increasingly diverse."

And then, there's the other police-related issue that gets increasing discussion.  Various people, especially the police, and especially when they're being criticized for behavior like this, complain that too much of solving non-police problems is unloaded on police.  It seems fair enough to agree that police are somehow expected to be front line mental health professionals.  Which they're not qualified to do, but it falls to them anyway.  But they're also asked to be referees in non-criminal spats.  This is part of what people like Rep Omar are getting at, apart from the rotten culture of prejudices.  And she mistakenly thinks the prejudiced and dangerous people are the police.  It's true that deputized and armed prejudiced people are more problematic than anyone else, but they're most certainly not the only culprits.

The point is that racism, and various other prejudices, are rampant.  And they're insidious.  You can't legislate them away, and you can't make every rule and every law that will adequately protect blacks, and women, and Jews, and Muslims, and Native Americans, and homosexuals.  It's actually a terrible dilemma to know that there's a massive problem that seems impossible to solve.

Some countries manage parts of this better than we do, and some manage parts of it worse.  We treat blacks worse than almost anyone else does, and we treat women and homosexuals better than they do in the middle east.  OK, sometimes, it doesn't look dramatically better, but it's at least somewhat better.

The real question, considering the title of this post, and the story about Mouse and Devil in a Blue Dress, is why Brosnan called Rolfe.  Everything was fine until then.  Was it because, as Mouse implied, Brosnan unconsciously wanted something done that he knew he himself wouldn't do?  So he called for..."back-up?"  He had a very tidy solution to what was essentially a non-problem.  And he did it all by himself.  For what did he need "back-up?"  Rolfe, and everyone, might properly ask the same question Mouse asked: "If you ain't want him killed, why'd you [call] me?"  In fact, it would be similarly fair to ask why anyone called the police at all.  Rayshard Brooks was sleeping in his car, and others at the Wendy's were simply driving around him.  Brooks wasn't harming anyone.  And police were called why?  Does Mouse know the answer?

BP Commission Meeting Tomorrow

Tomorrow, 630p, (Tuesday, June 16), the BP commission will hold a "special" meeting in an attempt to complete our agenda from two weeks ago. If we pull this off, we'll sorta be caught up on OLD agenda items, although we still won't have accomplished much of anything progressive for the village. #babysteps #exerciseinfrustration

Tomorrow night's agenda includes some important if not-very-sexy topics, so I hope to see a full Zoom room. Pour a glass of something, log in from home, and stay informed. Watch your elected officials live, in action. And, voice your opinion during public comment as well. Remember, your comments are NOT limited to topics on this agenda. You may speak freely on anything that's on your mind related to village business.

Here's a quick rundown of tomorrow's agenda:

TRASH

We are setting the assessment rate for next year for trash services. We set that rate, which is part of the taxes we all pay to the County, which is then handed back over to us to pay our vendor. So tomorrow night, "trash" will be on the agenda again, this time as it relates to how much you pay for it. Note that at the last commission meeting, we instructed the village manager to lay out all options to us at the August 4 commission meeting: in-house collection; bids from as many waste companies as possible; piggy-backing onto the contract of another city. The manager had originally told us he could do that done for the July 7 commission meeting, but we gave him until August to make sure he has ample time to get a full presentation of options ready for us. We also instructed him to get the RFP out (public request for contract bids, as required by law), and tomorrow night we'll hear if he got that done in the past two weeks or not.

MANAGER'S REPORT

I've proposed a new reporting system from the administration to residents and the commission, which takes less time and creates less burden for them while also holding them accountable to completing their own goals each month. This is my attempt at helping the village to get more done ... more of the important stuff that everyone agrees upon in advance. (Read my full proposal on the link below.)

POLICE CHIEF CONTRACT

Commissioner Dan is requesting that we have a contract for the police chief, "to inspire confidence in the Department as an effective, community-based policing organization." We will discuss that with the chief and possibly make a determination. (Read Dan's full proposal on the link below.)

VILLAGE CALENDAR OF RESPONSIBILITIES

This one's mine as well. The village often misses contract deadlines and all sorts of important matters across departments because we have no structure to remind staff, residents and the commission in advance. (Very odd to be involved in an organization with no structure, not even a calendar of what’s happening around here and when.) Without advance reminders (which should all be public in government), we rush into last-minute decisions (waste contract, staff insurance, drain cleaning, you name it). I am proposing an online calendar of all of these important tasks, along with reminders weeks and months in advance, in an effort to get things done well, on time and in full transparency to the public. (Read my full proposal on the link below.)

CONSTRUCTION SITE REQUIREMENTS

This item is being proposed by Commissioner Rox and pertains to how construction sites are managed in BP. (Read Rox's full proposal on the link below.)

OTHER REPORTS

The manager will report back on topics that will include: CITT funding (that's the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the County is asking us to give back because we can't show how we spent it on road repairs and other transit matters); FEMA update (that's the hundreds of thousands of dollars we're still trying to get from the federal government from Irma clean-up); drain update and the recent flash floods in the village; other topics from the public and commission, plus whatever else the manager wants to report.

WHAT'S MISSING

We were originally scheduled to discuss Mayor Ginny's proposal to reapportion the pay of electeds: less money for the mayor and more for commissioners. That item is missing from the final agenda, so I'm not clear on what happened to it. That may end up being discussed tomorrow as well.

Please note that this special meeting will start at 630p, not 7p as reported by the interim manager in his weekly video report last Friday. See the attachment below for the full agenda and back-up docs, instructions for joining via Zoom, and notes about registering to speak at public comment. I've been told that this will be the last meeting held solely on Zoom. In July, the commission starts meeting in person at the log cabin again, although it's unclear if the meetings will also be Zoomed and if virtual participation will be permitted. I've asked that the commission discuss that tomorrow night.

https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/index.asp?SEC=A482E78D-C7CA-4E86-BD0D-AA20BD7CDAEB&DE=96571345-C85F-47D8-8BB9-C9369A7096A8&Type=B_EV

I Feel So Misunderstood By David Hernandez.

This is a small neighborhood.  Words travel fast enough.  If David Hernandez feels that I'm picking on him, or if he thinks I'm mad at him, or if he's mad at me, it doesn't take terribly long for his unhappiness to get communicated to me.  And he doesn't tell me himself.

Of course I've used blog posts to discuss David Hernandez.  He's our INTERIM manager, and that kind of issue is what this blog is about.  It's perfectly fair to say I've criticized David, for things he's done, things he hasn't done, and the way he does or doesn't do things.  And if it makes him feel any better, my main complaint is really not about him.  It's about the Commission that has ceased functioning, and has not been able to get past step 2 (step 1 was either firing a manager or accepting a resignation from one, and step 2 is choosing an INTERIM replacement), so it can move on to step 3, which is finding a properly credentialed and experienced PERMANENT manager.  Frankly, I'm told David likes his INTERIM gig, and has even leaned on Commissioners not to end it so fast.  But David can say whatever he wants to Commissioners.  He doesn't control them.  He can ask the question, and it's their job to tell him the answer is no.  And when I say it's their "job," I don't only mean it's their responsibility.  It's actually their job.  We hired them, we pay them, and they have a job description.  Replacing an INTERIM manager with a PERMANENT one, ASAP, is part of their job description.  And they're (the majority of them are) not doing it.

If I have ever pointed out imperfections, or even outright failings, about David, it was just to underscore the point that he's an INTERIM guy.  That's what he was chosen to be.  That's what he agreed to be.  He was not remotely "vetted" the way we vet people to whom we want to offer the job of PERMANENT manager.  And that was OK.  We didn't need him, and we didn't choose him, to be "that" guy.

As it happens, unhappily enough, David has a ton of work to do.  He has massive responsibilities that even the most carefully vetted and selected PERMANENT manager doesn't have.  David was chosen in February.  We all knew that in the summer, it would be hurricane season, and budget season would start.  But that was months away (from February), and it should have been most likely that we would have our PERMANENT person by then.  But who knew that we had this increasingly loudly ticking clock from CITT?  Did everyone understand, and remember, the FEMA problem?  And no one at the time could have predicted the problems brought to us by the coronavirus.  Or that American police would assassinate George Floyd.  (And some black kid in Atlanta yesterday or the day before.  The crime for which he was executed on the spot by police was falling asleep in his car in a fast food take-out line.)  These are really big issues, singly, for sure, but even more so in the aggregate, and they all land on the desk of the manager.  I suppose it's not nice to say it this way, but if David Hernandez had any brains, he would be agitating to get out of the hot seat he occupies.  He wouldn't need me to scold our Commission for not doing their job.  He himself would be scolding them.  Or threatening to abandon his post, because it's not what he expected to be agreeing to do, and it's too much, and it's over his head.

But no, he likes his comfy chair.  With the side pockets to hold the money.  And if anything about his performance dissatisfies someone like me, it clearly doesn't dissatisfy David.

Last night, I got an e-mail from the Village.  I guess it's an "e-blast."  I'm not sure to whom it was blasted, or when.  This e-mail was entitled "Video Statement from David Hernandez, Interim Village Manager 06 12 2020."  So David, and whoever was working the video, made a recording.  David states clearly that he is the INTERIM Village manager, although it's not clear David has much of a clear understanding what "Interim" means.  And David recapitulates a number of issues with which he and the Commission are presumably grappling.

On the surface of it -- for the first couple or so minutes of this video -- I thought it was a nice and frankly helpful recapitulation.  David and the Commission aren't really doing anything.  But they're paying attention to a few problem areas, and David might have some suggestions about some of them.  One of those areas, which has earned attention, and seemingly increasing criticism, from many of us is waste disposal.  In particular, the possible problem might be our particular contractor, WastePro.  Fair enough.  Over the past three and a half years we dropped many balls, and that was certainly one of them.  But here's the problem, David-wise.

David included in the title of this e-mail a date: 06 12 2020, which was this past Friday.  I received this e-mail late in the day (7:22 PM) on Saturday, June 13.  By the time I watched David's video, it was Sunday morning, June 14.  I'm prepared to assume that David was telling the truth about the date of creation of this video.  I have no idea what time of day David would say it was created.  But when did he send it out?  Did he send it on Friday, June 12, and I mysteriously didn't get it that day?  Or did he somehow not send it until Saturday evening, June 13?  (The video, just to the right of the number of views, says June 13.)  What difference does it make?  David talks about a special bulk trash pick-up that WastePro will perform on Saturday, June 13.  Never mind that it took me over 12 hours to get to David's video.  If I had watched it the instant I received it, it would already have been too late to put out anything for WastePro's special pick-up.

Of course there will be special bulk pick-ups in the future.  If I have anything bulky, which I don't, that has to go out, I can catch it next time.  I can sit on whatever I might have wanted to be rid of, for a few or several more months.  This, in itself, is not a huge deal.  But this kind of bad aim is of a type.  It's a milder version of David's allowing Chuck Ross to find vitally important documentation, then David's accusing Chuck of who knows what, and claiming the whole accomplishment for himself.  And being out to lunch about the FEMA problem.

I have no wish to complain about David.  He was chosen, urgently, to be an INTERIM guy, and replacing him, as immediately as possible, is what should have happened.  My gripe is with the majority of the current Commission.  If I have identified any examples of why we need the "right" person, it wasn't because I'm mad at David.  It's because I want to get the attention of the majority of the Commission.

We (the majority of our current Commission) have failed repeatedly to do this job.  Our next chance is two days from now, Tuesday evening, June 16, at 6:30.  I have written to the Commissioners to urge them to set aside anything else on their agenda, and formalize and begin the process of choosing a PERMANENT manager, as we ALWAYS have done in this circumstance.  It's not less important, and less urgent now, because there's so much going on.  It's MORE important, and MORE urgent now, because there's so much going on.

We're a modest municipality.  We need to stop acting like a two-bit burg.  If it doesn't just feel that way, then we have a Charter that reminds us that's the way it is.

Stand, And Be Counted. If You Count.

It's hard to choose a time when I would say this started.  I could pick February, but for simplicity, I think I'll pick yesterday.

Yesterday very early in the morning, I sent an e-mail to all five of our Commissioners.  The short version is that I complained that they're not doing their job, because they keep not even starting the process of finding a permanent manager, and they waste massive amounts of time doing other unimportant things.  You know my style, so you know how gently I expressed this, and how friendly I was.

At some point yesterday -- in one case, within probably an hour -- I got return e-mails from two of our Commissioners.  The content of the replies was either to acknowledge receipt of my e-mail, provide substance, or even agreement, or both.  If you want to guess which two Commissioners responded, go ahead.  If you tell me your guess, I'll tell you if you guessed right.

Several minutes ago, a little less than a day and a half later, I sent the same five Commissioners another e-mail, pointing out that only two Commissioners had bothered even to acknowledge receipt of the first e-mail, and I suggested that this kind of "failure to communicate" was simply an example of the "you're not doing your job" problem.  At that point, I heard from one of the three who couldn't be bothered yesterday, and his response was sort of a combination of he was busy, and he didn't feel well, and it ended with his reassurance that he'd look at the e-mails, including the one that was now about a day and a half old, when he got home.

Then, one of the two Commissioners who could be bothered to read and respond to yesterday morning's e-mail wrote back again, to tell me about last night's vigil/walk at the park.  I had already said I couldn't go, because I already had an appointment booked at that time.  He told me that (only) two of our five Commissioners came (could be bothered to come) to the vigil, and he made me the same offer I made you: would I like to guess which two Commissioners came (could be bothered to come) to the vigil.  This Commissioner then added that MSV also had a demonstration/protest/vigil in their downtown, and all of their electeds came.

Take your pick.  Either we got trouble here in "River City" (and it's not a pool table), or "Houston, we have a problem."

We have a Commission that expends breathtaking amounts of time -- consecutive 5 1/2 hour meetings, which do not result in addressing the whole agenda -- and does not accomplish our most urgent goal, which at this moment is finding a new manager.  We have two Commissioners who understand the issues, are locked onto the tasks, and bother to communicate with their constituents.  The other three do no more than take our money.  And pat themselves on the back for being Commissioners.

I'm Mad at John Oliver. But This is Excellent.

Actually, I love John Oliver.  But I got mad at him last year, because there was a lot of MeToo stuff going on, and he interviewed Dustin Hoffman, who had been accused of sexy talk from many years ago, and Hoffman tried to explain that he didn't do anything to anyone, and it was common culture back then (engaged in by males and females on movie sets), and Oliver cut him off, saying he simply chose to believe whatever any woman said about Hoffman.  I thought Oliver was very unfair, and I have a general and categorical aversion to anything that ignores context.  So I vowed not to watch or listen to Oliver any more.  I thought he was being indirectly dishonest.

But someone sent me this link, and it's pretty -- forgive the awful pun -- arresting.  This is the kind of fantastic work Oliver and his writers typically do.

This is a whole show, and it's 33 minutes long.  I'm just warning you.  I would only add to this that Kamala Harris, who was a prosecutor, said a day or two ago that it is very hard to convict police, because people tend to want to believe whatever the police say.  I'm sure Harris must have seen various videos, including the one of the assassination of George Floyd, and I guess she doesn't think even that will "trump" the defensive argument from the police.  I wouldn't know.  She probably would.

https://decider.com/2020/06/08/john-oliver-spotlights-kimberly-jones-police-brutality-in-new-last-night-tonight/


PS: I'm sorry these blog links are not "live," so they'll display as blue, and you can just click on them to watch whatever it is.  You have to cut and paste the URL.  If anyone knows that blogpost links can be made "live," and can tell me how to do it, I'll be grateful.

The Way Out

I have nothing to tell you that you don't already know.  And you think of it whatever way you think of it.  I don't expect to change anyone's mind.

This country, at the very least, is built on racism.  I'm not looking for an argument.  It just is.  Many places are built on racism.  Racism has been critical to Australian culture.  Just a few minutes ago, I heard on the radio some Australian activist who is working to incite a challenge to anti-aboriginal racism.  Yeah, yet another aboriginal person just died in police custody.  This is for them what black people who are disproportionately arrested (disproportionate to the likelihood that a Caucasian person would be arrested for the same alleged offense) and disproportionately convicted, and disproportionately punished is for us.

South Africa is built on racism.

Racism is sort of rampant in the world.  If it makes you feel better, it's part of human nature to form packs, like dogs and many other beasts, and every pack of "us" requires some designation of "them."

And it's not only racial prejudice.  Sometimes, the "them" is Jews.  In the past in this country, it's been whoever was the current most common immigrant, and it's been Irish, Germans, and whoever else.

It seemed almost, in a twisted way, to make a kind of perverted sense at the time of WWII for Americans to declare Japanese-AMERICANS to be the "them."  Likewise, if you ignore critical elements of reality, it seems almost logical today to call Muslims of various nationalities, including AMERICAN, "them."

So now, because, this particular week, of the assassination of George Floyd, we are again rising up.  We had a big, and partially successful, uprising which amounted to the American Civil War.  Then, there was the civil rights movement, with some notable names.  Each uprising accomplished something, but none of them, individually or in the aggregate, suppressed the problem enough.  And that's the only realistic goal.  I told you, humans are pack animals, the "usses" will always need "thems," and the underlying anthropological problem will not disappear.  Never.

I'll give you a glaring example.  Was Barack Obama the first American "black" president?  And why was he "black?"  What qualifies him to be "black" identically qualifies him to be "white."  He is precisely 50% of each.  But there is a need to declare him an us or a them.  Even he would say he's black.  I don't know what that sounds like when he says it to his mother, but as far as I know, that's what he calls himself.

So, "thanks" to George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and a slew of very recent victims, not to mention the massive throngs of remote and forgotten victims, we appear to be trying again.  And there seems to be real momentum this time.  Whether or not it will last is unclear.  But it feels like something.

All day, every day, I get e-mails.  So many of them want a donation, and it's to a variety of kinds of groups.  If I gave the minimum donation to every worthy cause, I would go broke pretty fast.  So I don't donate.  I don't disagree, and I'm not unsympathetic, but I can't afford to respond to this with money.

It's a really weird time in the world right now, with the coronavirus, and even if I wanted to go join a protest gathering, I wouldn't do it.  My daughter got heavy-handed with me, and she twisted my arm to come see her and my son-in-law and my grandchildren in Massachusetts last month.  But I lost my nerve, and I canceled the trip the day before I was supposed to go.  My daughter has applied new torque, and now, I have a flight booked for July.  It's very possible I'll cancel that, too.  I'm afraid of airports and airplanes.  And anyway, Chuck Ross just offered me the use of his diesel car, and I'll give him my electric car, so I can drive myself there.  I might do that.

But the point is, we don't have a lot of great choices as to what to do to contain this racist aggression.  And to make matters vastly worse, the aggressors are way too often the police.  "Protect and serve" whom?  This will take a huge and sustained effort.

Today, I got a piece of mail I've been wondering about, and for which I've been waiting.  It's a Dade County form that represents a request I would be making, and what I would be requesting is a mail-in ballot.  And I don't even have to fill out the form.  There's a phone number I can call, and a website where I can just do this myself.  And that's the answer.  We have institutionalized, formalized, and legitimized racism, and all other forms of prejudice, by electing people who will enact these primitive and destructive urges for us.  And we have to replace them.  We all have to vote.

And I'm sorry to say it, but the support of racism exists on one side of the "aisle" far more than it does on the other.  And that side of the aisle is well aware of this imbalance.  That's why that side of the aisle works hard to minimize voter participation, which they do in a collection of ways.  They know that most Americans don't favor them, and if everyone voted, or everyone who wanted to vote voted, they would be out on their...ears.

So, look for the form.  At this point, don't assume you'll be voting in person at the polls.  Fill out the form.  Get a mail-in ballot.  And vote.  If the coronavirus has receded by November, then you can go to the polls, if you prefer (I do), and vote there.   But vote.  You're not out living your normal life right now.  You're mostly home alone.  You have a lot of time to think.  You know who the "good guys" are.

BP: Thanks for Rocking the House.

Last night, Biscayne Park held its monthly commission meeting via Zoom, and we
rocked the house! I believe there were more than 60 Biscayne Park residents in attendance … our largest virtual attendance to date and also significantly larger than most regular commission meetings at the log cabin. Biscayne Parker’s, your passion, steadfastness and level of understanding of the wide variety of topics were inspiring. You keep these commissioners on our toes, and that’s a good thing!!

One hot topic was our trash collection, and the commission finally took steps to move forward. At the August meeting our manager will present three different fully vetted options to consider: competitive bids from other outside companies, in-house collection, and piggybacking onto other local communities for a better contract. We also learned quite a bit about how our recycling is being handled, and the news was sad. And, we discussed the teeth that are in our current contract but the village has never used to hold waste pro accountable. Expect better from us moving forward … and hold us to that please.

Regarding the redevelopment project on 6th Avenue, the topic is moving to a separate community workshop at a date to be determined in July. I requested and FDOT agreed to come back with a more elaborate presentation including street views in daytime and nighttime, marking all landscaping materials that will be removed, location of lights, painting yellow stripes through front yards of several properties so we can all get a visual indication of what the project will actually look like from street level. Additionally, they will be providing the physical address of a nearby streetlight that they selected so we can drive there and see it for ourselves at night when it’s turned on. Then, we will really understand how the lights will impact in our village.

In other news:

We told former attorneys Gray/Robinson to stick those ridiculous bills where the sun don’t shine. I suggested that if they want to further dispute those bills, we should invite them to a public meeting to go through them in person. I, for one, would be happy to set aside a special meeting on that topic alone. I’ll bring the popcorn.

Whistleblower ordinance voted through to first reading.

We approved the tree grant, so this summer we will be seeing many, many new trees added in the village! Hats off to the members of the Parks and Parkways board for managing that very important project, which contributes directly to the “oasis” nature of our community.

The new qualifying period for folks running for commissioner at the NOV3 election is Aug3-21. The ring has been readied for hats to be tossed in! We will fill three seats: those now occupied by Rox, Will and moi.

But, perhaps the best part of the entire evening was seeing 64 residents engaged in the process of making this village better … and more than 20 of them speaking out on various topics at public comment, in addition to others who emailed their comments to commissioners in advance. Engagement from residents like that is a sign of fabulous things to come for this village. As Commissioner I can’t thank all of you enough for caring.

Please join us on Tuesday, June 16 at 6:30 PM for another zoom meeting to discuss a list of other important topics that we didn’t complete last night, many of them new topics that will organize this place and move us forward more aggressively.

-          - Manager’s report (my item)

-          - Village calendar (my item)

-          - Reducing mayor’s salary and giving commissioners a raise (Ginny’s item)

-          - Police chief contract (Dan’s item)

-          - Construction site requirements (Rox’s item)

PS: I was named Vice Mayor for the next six months! I was expecting a tiara. They probably don’t make one big enough to fit my big head, given that it’s gotta hold all those words bouncing around inside my skull before I can regurgitate them on my colleagues.

"This Is Not a Protest. This Is Chaos."

It was Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta, who spoke those words.  And Mayor Bottoms was not the only American local official who expressed exactly that sentiment.

The death of black American George Floyd has led over the course of about a week to increasing levels of bereavement, helplessness, resentment, rage and finally, outburst. The latter has included looting and wanton destruction.

It wasn’t just George Floyd. It was all other black Americans killed by police, and by Americans who are not police, over weeks, and months, and years, and decades, and centuries. Some are recent and easy to name, and most are more remote and anonymous. Black Americans, and many other Americans, are “mad as hell, and [they’re] not gonna to take it any more,” to quote a line from the movie, “Network.”

This week is not the only time the protest has been like this. Often it’s much less powerful and raging, and sometimes, it has been like this.

But Mayor Bottoms, who is herself a black American, and rare other elected officials, have articulated something important. There’s a difference – and a critical one – between protest, even borne of intense frustration and anger, and more gratuitous and selfish, or even antisocial, mischief. The latter occurs under the guise of the former. Mayor Bottoms recognized that. And she called it what it was.

The same is true of the behavior of American police. An honest police chief, or an honest president, would say a version of what Mayor Bottoms said: “This isn’t law enforcement.  This is institutionalized racism. It’s arbitrary public execution. It’s symbolic genocide.”

(Boy, do I hate to dredge this up.  I complain vigorously whenever anyone else dredges it up.  But the fact is, we in BP have perpetrated our own less murderous version of the same thing.  I liked Ray Atesiano.  I thought he was a good guy.  He was a little out of his depth as police chief, because he wasn't a commanding enough public speaker, and he was too susceptible to the subversive and corrupting influence of people like Larry Churchman.  But I did like him.  I regret what he allowed to happen to himself.  But the buck stopped with him, and that's the way it had to be.)

It wouldn’t be easy for a Caucasian American person who holds any of the public’s trust to say what needs to be said of the police. And frankly, of Caucasian Americans.  I don’t imagine that it was entirely easy for Mayor Bottoms, who had to have relied on a lot of support from black Atlantans, just to get elected, and has now told them they’re behaving like bad children, to have said it.

I doubt it was easy for Colin Kaepernick to have done what he did. He certainly paid a price for it. I don’t know if he regrets the “stance” he took, even though he was completely right.

It seems that someone, though, has to admit that Caucasians in this country have hidden behind a lie. And a scam. Whether it’s real so-called police, even though some, like the person who assassinated Philando Castile, tried to claim they’d had inadequate training (how much training does an armed police officer need not to gun down entirely innocent citizens?), or chronologically adult children, like George Zimmerman, who seem to want to be policemen when they grow up (which they never will), they all need to stop hiding behind the trope about “law and order.” It isn’t. It’s lawlessness and disorder. It is, as Mayor Bottoms rightly called it, “chaos.”

Has It Ever Occurred to You That What FPL Charges is an Invention?

In my opinion, I don't use particularly much electric power.  The glaring example of the electric power I don't use is that I tend to run my central air conditioning on the less cold side.  And it's typically off completely from some time in October until some time in May.  I just leave windows open when I'm home.  I unplug things I'm not using, which reduces some weird phenomenon called phantom usage of electricity.

In 2010, I got an electric car.  I plugged it in at home, and I never noticed an increase in my electric bills.  The choices, I thought, were either that it took extremely little electricity to charge the car, or that the electrician who created the circuit for me did something wrong/illegal, and somehow created a new circuit that somehow bypassed my electric meter.  I parted ways with that car in 2014, and I never noticed a decrease in my electric bills.

In 2016, I got another electric car, and this time, I did notice an increase in my bills.  It wasn't massive, but it was there.  And this car was much more powerful and had a significantly longer range than the first one, so it took much more electricity to charge it.  Also, I had to have the terminal receptacle changed from what it was with the first car, and the strength of the circuit had to be upgraded from 110 to 220.  So I figured between one thing and another, there was some explanation for why my electric bills were now higher.  (It was still a lot cheaper than buying gas, but it was an increase.)

In August, 2019, I got solar panels.  This created a few changes.  One was that if the solar panels did what they were supposed to do, then I should be buying less electricity from FPL.  For all I knew, it could be a lot less.  Two other changes also turned out to be important.  One was that a company called SolarEdge would be providing monitoring for me, so I could tell from one day, or one hour, or one minute, to the next how much solar energy my panels were creating.  And it works, too.  For example, I can watch production go up over the course of a day -- and it stops going up when the sun "goes down" -- and production is very different on sunny days than it is on cloudy days.  The second change was that FPL had to replace my electric meter with one that transmits electronically to FPL (and doesn't ever have to be read by a reader).  And it's a two-way meter, that registers electric power usage for which FPL will charge me, but also electric power production (from my solar panels) which FPL buys from me, and which will lower my bill.  During every day, for example, I make so much electric power that I spend several or many hours only selling power to FPL, and when it's not sunny, which is most of the hours of the day, I'm only buying.

So, here's what happened to my electric bills.  Starting at the end of the summer, 2019, my bills went down very dramatically.  For three months in a row this past winter, my bills were $9.99, which is FPL's minimum charge.  Then, although my AC was still off, and my usage pattern didn't change (no one else in the house, for example), my bill was suddenly $10.05.  I'm not concerned about the six cents.  I'm just curious why there was any change at all in the bill, since there was no change in the usage.

Then, during this past month, I heard a rumor that FPL was lowering everyone's bill, out of courtesy, sympathy, or whatever, about the coronavirus.  And sure enough, my monthly estimate, which I can track every day because of my new meter, suddenly dropped to $7.12.  This is lower than FPL's minimum charge, but this was the generous gesture they decided to make.  For about two days.  At which point, the estimate went back to $10.05.  And during this period, because it was the end of May, and south Florida was warming up, I occasionally turned on my central AC.  For the past few nights, I've had it on, although not cold, all night in my bedroom.  But the projected bill, which can and does change every day, stays at $10.05.

So I don't know what FPL bills mean.  I don't know if they reflect how much power customers use.  They must mean at least a little something.  It's true that when I do something dramatic to increase or decrease usage, like plugging in a hungry electric car, or installing solar panels, the bill changes in the appropriate direction.  But I don't know if the amounts we all pay are real.  They should be, if they're increasingly automated, and don't depend on a reader to read or misread something, or someone to write something correctly or incorrectly.  But I can't see how these bills could be real.  They don't make sense.