I realize my mistake. First of all, the title of this post appears to present two equal concepts: "good news," and "bad news." The strengths of the adjectives are the same, although the directions are different. I didn't say Spectacular News, Slightly Disappointing News, or Satisfactory News, Disastrous News. No, the title I chose suggests the two kinds of news are about equal in weight. Second, I used the common way to say this, which is to say good first, and bad second. There's a subliminal effect from using this construction. It focuses on, or accents, the good -- because "good" comes first -- so that the reader may think the good predominates over the bad.
Last night, I got an e-mail from Mac Kennedy. The circulation was blind, but Mac explicitly addressed his communication to all the people running for Commission: "Campaign Colleagues." These people are his opponents. They're the ones Mac is technically trying to beat in this election. Mac's message was to remind his opponents that a financial report is due today, and there are noteworthy consequences if the report is not made on time. For what it's worth, the penalty for late reports is $50 per day for each of the first three days late, and $500 per day after that. So, yeah, "serious repercussions," as Mac warned.
Now, I've run for office here before. Twice. And I've gotten notices of financial reports coming due. But I don't get these notices from my opponents. I get them from Village administration, or specifically, from the clerk. But compliments of a majority of our current Commission, we don't have competent Village administration now. Ginny O'Halpin, Dan Samaria, and Will Tudor have been more than content to saddle us with one incompetent interim manager after another. And these three Commissioners have had no ambition to find us a competent manager, despite urging from many Village residents, two of whom are their own Commission colleagues. These incompetent and clearly disinterested interim managers fall down on the job, are uninterested in it, or actively resist it. And that's been perfectly fine with Ginny, Dan, and Will. This is really, really bad. I suppose the least I could have done was to entitle this post "Bad News, Good News."
Today, I had a reason to call Chuck Ross. It turned out he was busy. He was at the recreation center, going over more CITT-related documents, to try to salvage more of the Village's presentation to CITT, to save us money that we then wouldn't have to pay back to CITT. What went unspoken was that no one in the administration is blocking Chuck from helping the Village any more. That's almost like good news. Well, it's a bit of a relief. David Hernandez was trying to prevent the Village from making its best case, and Roseann Prado isn't trying to prevent it. Roseann appears not to be doing much of anything. She's not informing candidates of upcoming due dates for reports, but she's also not preventing Chuck Ross from trying to bail out the Village from suffering loss.
Now that I think about it, maybe it's not so clear how bad is the bad news compared to how good is the good news. Maybe "Good News, Bad News" is good enough. Although the main good thing about it was that it wasn't too bad. It could have been worse.
I may have five opponents for three seats on the commission, but those folks are still five neighbors who are willing to work their asses off for the rest of us. (At least we hope they'll work their asses off rather than merely using them to warm seats on our fancy commissioner chairs.) Three of those fine folks haven't served before, two have never run for office, and one hasn't run for 15 years or so. The least I can do is give everyone a friendly "heads up!" I calendarize the hell out of my life so I don't miss deadlines and so I arrive prepared, so when that reminder popped up yesterday it took only seconds to forward it along to my neighbors and colleagues. For the record, I didn't send that email to sitting Comm. Will Tudor. On the commission now, we agree to get things done for future meetings, but Will has a history of forgetting his homework. Perhaps his dog eats it. Dunno, but he doesn't need more reminders from me.
ReplyDeleteSo, I gather from your comments that not all five of your opponents works his or her ass off. Or has even demonstrated a willingness to work his or her ass off.
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