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.