You Have A Decision To Make. Or You Already Made It.

One person too many mentioned it, and I got curious.  So sue me.  I wanted to see what Milt Hunter was going on...and on, and on, and on, and on...about.  So I went to his blog to read his sputterings.  There were three recent posts, which Milt presented as his synthesis -- no need to ask questions, or even contact the candidates -- as to what the two incumbents (Tudor and Kennedy) and the former Commissioner (I) were about.

I found it not possible to read Milt's whole production about Mac Kennedy.  Suffice it to say that Dr Milton Hunter has applied to Mac a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, presumably based on what he gleaned from Readers' Digest, or wherever he gets his psychiatric knowledge.  I didn't get terribly far into Milt's explication, because it was intellectually faulty from the outset, purely nasty, and WAY too long.

Next, Milt dealt with Will Tudor, of whom he mostly disapproves.  In fact, Milt approves of only two things about Tudor.  One is that he recommended the creation of two new boards, one of which Milt claims to believe has "done some [unrevealed] things for the community."  Presumably, Milt thinks the other one didn't do anything for the community, and the one Milt presumably thinks did "some things for the community" hasn't met since 2019.  The other Tudor feature of which Milt doesn't disapprove is that Tudor knows his place as a Commissioner, in that he doesn't interfere.  But this reads as just the other way of expressing Milt's otherwise complaint that Tudor doesn't do anything, illustrated, for example, by Milt's complaint that Tudor "[turned] a blind eye to Tracy Truppman when she was running roughshod over our Charter and residents."  So it's hard to figure out what Milt thinks of Tudor.  And maybe he telegraphs or summarizes it at the end by suggesting that perhaps we could do worse than Tudor, but the question is whether or not we couldn't do better.  Not a ringing endorsement, but, as Milt himself says, he wishes he had more to say, but "it is what it is."

If most of Milt's unloading was on Mac, I was his second favorite target.  He begins by calling me a "troll," by which he says he refers to the internet, and he soon enough reveals the products of his attempts to "harvest," or mine, or trawl, or troll, this blog for what he tells himself is dirt.  A lot of what Milt produces is like that.  It would take very little attention or time to read what Milt believes are the characteristics of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which he thinks characterize Mac Kennedy, and realize whom they vastly better describe.  Likewise, Milt refers to what he calls my "twisted pretzel logic."  (Yes, it's redundant, but he's probably a fan of Steely Dan.  So am I.)  And what he declares as my "comfort in lying and misrepresentations in order to prop up...ambiguous narratives."  I have said before about Milt, and it bears saying again, that he's boxing with his own shadow.  Just to take one tiny example, Milt recalls that once when I ran for Commission I "secured a last place finish, edging out Harvey Bilt by a mere six votes."  This is minor, of course, but if I had more votes than did someone else, then I didn't come in last.  But Milt is dedicated to his non-reality-based narratives, and he tells it the way he likes it told.

Milt spends time on what he apparently likes to think of as my character flaws.  Top of the list?  I don't say the pledge of allegiance.  And Milt invents his own reasons for my refusal.  (No, of course he never asked me.  That might ruin the..."narrative.")

Another story Milt seems to like to tell himself is about my imagined alliances.  He can "remember" "only" one time Roxy Ross and I did not vote in lock step.  Well, I guess it's to Milt's credit that he reveals he's relying on his memory, which I suppose he is indirectly admitting might not be complete.  Milt also tells himself that Mac Kennedy is my "BFF," and he's sure I'm in some sort of cahoots with Mac.  Milt has no way to know about how many things Mac and I disagree, and he clearly doesn't care: "Narrative."

Milt makes three other complaints about me, and I think they're important.  One is that I pushed for higher taxes.  That's just one way of looking at it, but Milt is right.  The other way to look at it is that I wanted the Village better funded, so it could accomplish more.  That perspective doesn't reduce to as captivating a sound bite, but it's actually much more accurate.  Second, Milt complains that I wanted the Village to address our drainage problem.  Milt implies, of course, that the Village doesn't really have a drainage problem, and that the wish to address it is somehow corrupt.  But Milt is right about that.  I did, and do, want the Village to address the drainage problem.  And we're beginning to see a pattern with Milt.  Anything that costs money is something Milt will resist.  The same goes for Milt's other criticism of me, although Milt had to sidestep reality to make the complaint.  He noted my ongoing argument with Dan Keys over median development.  True, I've been arguing with Dan about that for years.  I think with better medians, we have a better Village.  But Milt has constructed a false and straw argument that I ever, once, suggested the Village pay to improve the medians.  I did not.  I said that if P&P would provide a comprehensive median scheme, I suspected that Village residents who have medians in their blocks would themselves pay for the improvements. And maybe others would, too.  No, of course Milt wouldn't, but I didn't necessarily mean Milt.  I meant Village residents who care about the Village.  And about their own surroundings.

An interesting swipe Milt thinks he's taking at me is regarding what he tells himself was my failure to recognize any imperfections in the Village manager at the time I was a Commissioner, until, as Milt tells it to himself, "her misconduct slapped [me] in the face, and [I] was forced into action."  No one is perfect.  The then manager wasn't perfect, I'm not perfect, and, if I can be so sacrilegious, Milt isn't perfect.  Nothing was unknown or not recognized.  But we were a team, and we worked together.  What Milt either bizarrely fails to know, or he has somehow forgotten, was that he was the reason I lost confidence in working with the manager.  I came to believe she was unfairly picking on him, and I, as a Commissioner then, couldn't have that.  I had a long talk with Milt about this.  He told me he didn't want my help or support, and he wanted to fight with the manager by himself.  But that wasn't the deal, and it wasn't my job to back away from this.

If it's Milt's idea of decency, I appreciate it.  He quoted me.  He quoted from this blog.  Not, of course, without corrupting what I said, but at least copying the quotes correctly.  I said there were two current Commission candidates whom I could not recommend -- and I clearly gave my reasoning -- and one I strongly recommended Village residents not vote for, also for reasons I made clear.  He concluded that I was "acting as judge and jury here [and] actually having the gall to steer you how to vote."  Which I didn't do, have no way to do, and which was very precisely what Milt himself was going to a tremendous amount of trouble to do.  Just as he did when he did everything to suppress me in 2016, and bring you Tracy, Jenny, and Will.  All of whom he quickly decided were terrible Commissioners.

And Milt ends with his recommendation that I am most deserving of a padded room.  Ah, yes, always the good doctor, Milton Hunter.

The fact is, there are several things Milt said about me -- presented, of course, as indictments, and badly distorted -- with which I don't disagree.  I do want us to do a better job of funding ourselves.  I do want Village improvements, even if they cost money.  Guilty, if you will, as charged.  And even if you took some of Milt's whining and flailing at something like face value, you have a decision to make.  Do you want a better Village, or do you want someone who is mild-mannered?