One of My Friends Thinks My Comment Was "Well Said."

Last night (Wednesday), there was a Commission meeting.  It was a "special" meeting (you know how some children are referred to as "special," especially in the context of school?), and there were only two items on the agenda.  Neither of them required much of any discussion.  Which I suppose explains why the meeting only lasted about 2 1/2 hours.

It's entirely fair to say I am disgusted, or perhaps beyond disgusted, with the majority of the current Commission.  They don't want anything, and they don't do anything.  Ginny smiles, is a version of adorable, and contributes nothing.  Dan is in some orbit no one can track.  And Will Tudor fumfers.  (I know I use that word a lot about Will, but it is truly all he does.  Tune in to the past meetings, and watch him.  He sits quietly under his headset, and when he gets called on, and asked if he has anything to add, he first says "no," and then he fumfers for a while.  The "content" of the fumfering is stock phrases, or pieces of them, almost always reiterating things someone else has just said, and he adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.  Check him out.)

To be even more fair, there's the minority of the Commission.  Roxy Ross, "bless her heart," goes on about vitally important things that don't make any difference, because the majority ignore her, and in that context, she wastes time.  And it was her last real meeting anyway.  She'd do better to shrug her shoulders, say "naw, I got nothin,'" or "what difference does it make?  you people are going to do whatever you want anyway," and not waste her time or anyone else's.  And I'm not complaining about Roxy, or sniping at her.  Roxy Ross is one of the best friends I have ever had.  I treasure her.  I just don't like her spitting into the wind, or giving people what they don't deserve, or using up time for what unfortunately turns out to be nothing.

And there's Mac Kennedy, whose verbal productions account for a whole meeting's worth of content in themselves.  Mac talks WAY too much.  I've told him that repeatedly.  And it's not that what he says isn't worth saying, or even very important.  Much of it is.  It's just unmodulated.  And it seems self-serving in the sense that it often has a sizable component of reminding everyone else what a terrific and devoted and thoughtful Commissioner Mac is.  Which he absolutely is.  Mac is in most senses a wonderful Commissioner.  He represents very special value to the Village.  Here's what I told Mac several weeks ago, in an unrelated conversation.  If I arrived at the poll to vote on November 3, and I got there just as the poll was closing, and I was the last voter, and the poll worker said that all the votes (except mine) were in and counted, and it was already known that Art Gonzalez came in first, and Judi Hamelburg came in second, and Mac and I were tied -- dead even -- for third, and whoever I voted for would win, I'd vote for Mac.  He's great.  But he simply does not (can not?) rein himself in.  And he should.  He should have a talk with John Hornbuckle, who might be able to help Mac understand that all you have to do is figure out the issue, and decide where you stand on it, so you can vote.  No one needs the whole, seemingly endless, speech, where you demonstrate how smart you are, how much you care, and how there's no detail you haven't thought of.  I already know this about Mac.  That's why I'd vote for him over myself.  It's why I voted for him -- and Art -- already (and I checked the website, and I know my vote has been counted).

Anyway...  Public comment.  This meeting was only going to be pathetic anyway.  There were no other options.  The agenda contained something about the manager search, and something about WastePro.  The thing about WastePro, just to show you how bad things have gotten, is that the majority of this Commission, and the interim so-called manager, have still done absolutely nothing, and last night's proposal was to extend the contract yet again, this time until June.  As for the manager search, and again for a frame of reference, we had 28 applicants.  A special committee of non-Commissioner BP residents chose its 10 favorites.  Of those 10, five have already found other jobs, or withdrawn.  Because the majority of this Commission is inert.  It is paralyzed.  I didn't hook it up to an EEG, so I'm not sure if it's brain dead.  But it might be.  Nothing happens, unless it happens on its own, or a can gets kicked further down the road.  They can't.  They won't.  They don't want to.  They don't care.  They don't know how.  Whatever it is, they just don't do anything, because they don't want anything.  And maybe not wanting anything is either a cover or a consequence of having not the slightest idea what to do or how to do it.

So I pointed all of that out to them, and I suggested they just adjourn last night's meeting, don't even pretend, and let the next Commission, as soon as next week, consider these matters.  If the next Commission tragically includes Will Tudor, then we're dead anyway.  If it includes Judi Hamelburg, or William Abreu (I know, you forgot about him, right?), we're probably still dead.  But there's a chance we can rise from the ashes of the past four years.  So here's hoping.  In any event, nothing was going to happen last night.  Nothing could have happened.  Not with these three.  And I added that Will Tudor should withdraw his candidacy now, and Ginny and Dan should resign now.  We really do need to function, and it's not going to happen with those three.  It probably won't happen with Ginny, Dan, and Judi, either.  And after I made my comment, I walked away from my mobile phone, and the Zoom meeting.  What was the point in staying, and listening?  When I came back, maybe an hour or an hour and a half later, the predictable was happening.  I missed the bit about the manager, so I don't know what they did about that.  Whatever it was, it had no way to be adaptive or purposeful.  They were going on, endlessly, about WastePro.  They discussed matters like agreeing that WastePro garbage trucks should be equipped with brooms, to sweep up crumbs left in the street.  This is the kind of matter that got Commission attention.

And I discovered the text message from one of my friends, who had also been part of the Zoom audience.  

I should add here that Tudor never has anything to say.  He never has had.  I've said before, and I'll say again, that by his emptiness, and willingness to go along with anything, he has enabled every bad thing that has happened to the Village since the end of 2016.  He agreed to all of Tracy's insanity.  He never challenged any of it.  He was fine with Krishan.  He was the only current Commissioner who didn't want to see him go.  And once Krishan was replaced by David Hernandez, who was actually much, much worse, Tudor had no complaints about David.  Tudor signed on to Roseann.  Yesterday, I got an e-mail from Roseann.  It was sent to all the Commission candidates.  It was about how large campaign signs can be, and how close to the street they can be placed.  Now, two months after the campaign started, and a few days before the election.  Now, Roseann wants to send out e-mails about campaign signs.  What Roseann can't be bothered to send e-mails about is candidate financial reports that are due at various intervals.  I hear about those from...Mac Kennedy.  This is nuts.

The only other "funny" thing about Tudor is his alleged "research" into the "numbers" involved in reviving our own sanitation program.  That came up, again, last night.  I'm not going to say the word fumfering again, because I think if I do, you'll explode.  (When I was campaigning door-to-door, one of our neighbors, a Tudor devotee, said Tudor is a "numbers guy."  Yeah?  As evidenced by what?)  Waiting for Tudor and his researches about an in-house sanitation program is like waiting for Trump and his health care plan.  No one should hold their breath.