Art,
Early Monday morning, I sent e-mails to Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria. I titled each one "I Have a Question."
Ginny,
When you proposed to elevate Roseann to interim manager, your theory was that it is the normal protocol here to elevate the Village clerk whenever we need an interim manager.
But when we were ready to consider replacing Krishan as manager, you said you had taken it upon yourself to approach David Hernandez, who was at the time the director of public works, and who was not the Village clerk, to act as interim manager.
So, very recently, you said you think it's our protocol to elevate the Village clerk, but just a few months ago, you apparently had no idea of such a theory, and from then until very, very recently, you stood very firmly behind David, and refused either to question his performance, or begin the process of replacing him with a properly vetted manager.
My question to you is where you got the idea, apparently all of a sudden, that our protocol is to elevate the Village clerk to interim manager, when you apparently never before thought this, and consistently stood behind your original choice, which you now say you think was wrong? Did someone tell you this (that the protocol is to elevate the Village clerk)? Who told it to you? What inquiry did you do to confirm if it was true? Is there someone on whom you rely for "institutional knowledge" about the Village, since you were never particularly actively involved (you don't come to Commission meetings. etc)? Who is that?
Fred
Dan,
It is well known among some of us -- and we appreciate it, and congratulate you for it -- that you relied somewhat heavily on certain long time Village residents for insight, guidance, and "institutional knowledge" during your first two years on the Commission. And I will tell you as an aside that this reliance of yours resulted in very many excellent contributions on your part.
The people on whom you relied most heavily were the Rosses and the Andersons.
But in recent months, you have stopped consulting any of them. (As an aside, the quality of your contributions has deteriorated dramatically.)
My question is, since you felt a need to consult with a collection of people (Rosses and Andersons, at least) before, and you don't consult with them now, is there someone else with whom you now consult? Is there someone else on whom you rely for perspective and knowledge? Who is that person, or those people?
Fred
It's now been a whole day, and I haven't gotten a response of any kind from either Ginny or Dan. The questions I asked are very easy and straightforward, and neither Ginny nor Dan would have to think hard, or ask anyone else, to know the answers. You and I have read enough news articles to know there are some people who decline to answer questions from journalists, for example. In a different kind of setting, there are the people who "take the 5th [Amendment]." And everyone has a pretty clear sense of what this kind of evasiveness means.
I would much prefer that everyone who knows something say what they know. And they have their reasons for not doing so. I would like it if the people who told me what I reported would come forward and say they know it, and how they know it. But I don't out people if they say they don't want to be outed. As one of the newspapers under attack for producing "fake news" said, sources are anonymous to the reader, but they're not anonymous to the person who wrote the article. I do the best I can to check for consistency, and I don't say things on the strength of one potentially unreliable report.
If you still want to dismiss what I say as just a collection of dots I have tortured to connect, you can.
Fred,
ReplyDeleteI think you've done a fabulous job at trying to connect the dots and I am sorry you've been tortured. I go back to my original point which was that whether they're getting their 411 from Milt, Tracy or whomever else it is on them and them alone. Lets go with a scenario, say someone came to you for advice and you provided that advice, then they made a decision on the commission that others disagree with, who is responsible for that decision you or them? We need to hold the folks in power responsible no matter where they are getting there 411. I know you're looking for a smoking gun and I wish you well in your investigation but for me whether you find one or you dont makes little difference. The commissioners are ultimately responsible for any and all decisions. In November we get to vote not just locally but Nationally and Nationally I will vote not for those that advise the President but for the President himself his advisors are irrelevant in my decision.
Art, of course you're right that the buck stops with them. But they're weak-minded people, and they're deliberately being used. If you were on the Commission, neither Milt nor anyone else could control you, because you're not weak-minded. Although Commissioners are technically ultimately responsible for the "decisions" "they" make, if someone else corrupts their thinking, because their thinking is corruptible, then that person is predatory and manipulative. Whether it's Steve Bernard corrupting the thinking of the weak-minded Bryan Cooper, Noah Jacobs, and Barbara Watts, Tracy Truppman corrupting the thinking of the weak-minded Jenny Johnson-Sadella, Will Tudor, and even, somehow, Betsy Wise, or Milt Hunter corrupting the thinking of the weak-minded Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria, the dynamic is the same. And again, I don't disagree with you about where the buck stops. But it's more complicated than simply that, if you want to accept that this is more than simply two dimensional. Which it is.
DeleteAnd Art, regarding your hypothetical of someone coming to me for advice. (Which in a sense people do all day, every day, because that's my day job.) I don't lie to people, or bamboozle them. I tell them what I know, and what I believe (and the difference between the two), and what I think their options are, and whom else to consult, and I try to help them figure out what they themselves think is best. Someone else will find it much easier to support their own theory than to support mine. I don't have the level of contempt for other people and their thinking that Bernard, Truppman, and Hunter do.
DeleteArt, regarding November... We do not get to vote for or against Ginny or Dan.
Delete"The president" is an interesting concept. It's true the vote you cast will be for a president, and you will either laud or criticize whoever that person turns out to be. But no president can function without advisors. Who those advisors are is critically important. And you not only don't get to vote for those advisors, but you won't even know who many of them are. But decisions the president "makes" rest very substantially on those advisors, and the advice they give.
If you take the present example, there are many people who are either pleased with Trump or mad at him, because of decisions he "makes." But he's in no position to make decisions on his own. He doesn't know enough. Trump himself doesn't know almost anything about anything. Any normal president just doesn't know very much about many things. They all rely very heavily on advisors. That's where they get their information and their theories.
The same can be true of BP, at least with some Commissioners. BP is of course very small scale, but still, it's necessary for Commissioners to learn what they don't happen automatically to know. And most of them/us don't happen to know much. So they/we have to learn. It's critically important whence they/we get their/our information. And since it's so easy to find out, I bothered to ask. And was not given an answer.
And Fred you're a Dr. I am not and apparently you have diagnosed the 3 you mention, who am I to argue with your diagnosis?
ReplyDeleteI never made diagnoses of any of them. They're not my patients. All I did was observe, as you or anyone else could, that they're predatory and manipulative. If you've observed them as I have, and you disagree with me, that's fine. I might also have opinions about whether or not they're tall, or short, or fat, or thin. That would be my observation and impression.
DeleteHe is extraordinarily weak-minded and easily manipulated. If you were a close friend of Sean Hannity, or if you were a fly on the wall in high level meetings in China or North Korea or other places, they would tell you the same thing. He's very unintelligent, and all you have to do is flatter him, and tell him how wonderful he is, and you can have your way with him.
ReplyDeleteWell I can certainly agree with you on this one!
ReplyDeleteFrankly, it's very annoying to get these phone calls.
ReplyDeleteIt was Chester Morris who wanted to explain two things. One was that Harvey Bilt reportedly advised Dan Samaria the last time Dan ran for Commission, and Harvey's reported advice had to do with how to get elected. I pointed out to Chester that the time Dan ran before that, his opposition was...Harvey. So Harvey wasn't advising him then. And both Harvey and Dan refused to do what candidates always do: participate in a Meet the Candidates event. Presumably, Harvey again advised Dan to duck this event. This may have been good advice for Dan, but it was terrible advice for residents and voters in the Village. It's hard to imagine why Harvey would care more about Dan than he does about the Village and its residents, but perhaps that's the case.
Chester's other insight was that Dan couldn't talk to Roxy Ross any more anyway, because Roxy is also on the Commission, and Chester assumed Dan would also not be allowed to talk to Chuck, for reasons that were very vague. I agreed with Chester that Dan could not talk to Rox, disagreed that he could not talk to Chuck, and pointed out that even if that restriction was accepted, it did not explain why Dan stopped talking to the Andersons. Chester agreed. And the bottom line, which is a still unanswered question, because Dan won't answer it, is to whom does Dan talk now. Which was the point of this post.
Chester won't post comments on this blog. He says he doesn't know how. Over the years, he has declined my several offers to come over (he lives two blocks away, down the same street where I live) and show him.
One more dot: The last post before this one argued that Milt Hunter is the puppetmaster pulling the strings of Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria. The present post documented my effort to find out directly from Ginny and Dan who advises them, since it's clear someone one. And it's now been two days without a response from either of them.
ReplyDeleteBut after each post, I have gotten phone calls and e-mails -- from David Hernandez. This is despite my response to David telling him that in that he has no further connection to the Village, I have neither need nor desire to hear from him. But he is persistently there, scoffing at me for focusing on Milt Hunter. David is clearly very connected to Milt, and protective of him. (There is, by the way, no particular reason the public works director, who became the interim manager, should have much to do with Milt Hunter. Neither of them, on the surface, has much reason to take any interest or even notice of the other.)
So David protects Milt, whom he has little or no reason to know, and two Commissioners protect David, who did a poor job and was unworthy of being protected, and who the Commissioner who claims to have approached David in the first place later said was not the natural person to elevate. These four people -- Ginny, Dan, David, and Milt -- are unnaturally, irrationally, and inexplicably connected to each other.
As I said, it's another dot.
In thinking back when Dan was the lone voice on the prior commission he welcomed suggestions and advice from a number of people with real experience and/or institutional knowledge. As you said Fred, he made some pretty solid decisions. Now that he is part of a threesome he's no longer interested in any viewpoint that doesn't align with his and he's shown quite a stubborn streak - rather combative at times. His having limited his advisors has certainly clouded his perspective.
ReplyDeleteI also remember back to when Rox, Bob, Al Chlidress, Steve and Bryan were the commission. Many votes were 3/2 - 3 who wanted progress (Rox, Bob and Al) and the other 2. That used to get Dan all worked up. Now apparently 3/2 is just fine.
I can't prove anything anymore than you can but when I hear words coming out of both Ginny and Dan's mouth that I've seen in emails and/or ND posts by Milt I have to wonder. Yet I also agree with Art. At the end of the day Ginny and Dan are responsible for their own actions. It's just unfortunate that our village is suffering the consequences.
Janey,
DeleteAlthough I agree in theory, or as a technicality, that "Ginny and Dan are responsible for their own actions," the fact is that they are only technically "responsible." They don't know what their actions are, or what they mean. This was not explained adequately to them. And I don't credit Dan for his past performance. I only credit him for listening to people who gave him adaptive advice. I don't think he fully understood that advice any more than he fully understands whatever advice, or instructions, he's given now.
We have elected people who are not capable of independent thought. They are also not honest enough to answer simple questions, like about whose advice they take. So, if we would blame them, we should blame ourselves. We're the ones who elected them, or who failed to elect anyone else.