Let Me Try to Talk About Roxy and Chuck Ross in a Different Way.

I have no doubt there have been better BP Commissions and worse ones over the years and decades. I've seen and heard about some of each.  And I've seen and heard about some of the Commissioners who made some of those Commissions good, and others not so good.

As I've said a million times, I moved here in the middle of 2005.  It was a few months or so before I started to attend Commission meetings.  I don't remember much about the Commission that ended at the end of 2005, but I remember fairly well the one that started then.  The Commissioners then were Ted Walker, John Hornbuckle, Bob Anderson, Kelly Mallette, and Chester Morris.  It was over a year later that Walker died, and his seat was filled with an appointment made by the remaining four.  The appointed Commissioner was Steve Bernard.

This first Commission I remember well was a good one.  After Walker died, Hornbuckle became the Mayor.  Meetings were tight, and they didn't last longer than 2-2 1/2 hours.  And the Commission accomplished some very important things.  The same voters who elected Mallette and Morris, and re-elected Hornbuckle, approved a Charter change that moved running of the Village and its departments from Commissioners to a professional manager.  So this Commission was the first to turn over many parts of its functioning to a manager, and to find a manager to whom to turn them over.  Symbolically, and the last (so far) step along a way that had already been established, this Commission also lowered its stipend.  And this Commission finished a process that had already been begun, which was to build a public works building.  So, some real accomplishments there, and all in the interests of the Village.

I'm going to skip over '07, in part because I'm not sure I remember the details (Mallette and Morris were in the middle of four year terms, Anderson and Bernard were re-elected, and I'm not sure who the two year term person was: it might have been Hornbuckle), and go to '09, which was a very important year.  Mallette shockingly didn't get re-elected.  I didn't see that coming, and I don't understand it.  She's a delightful person, and she was a wonderful Commissioner.  I told her as many times that there was no chance she wouldn't get re-elected as I told other people years later that there was no chance Donald Trump would get elected.  Wrong both times.  Morris didn't run for re-election.  Hornbuckle didn't get re-elected.  Anderson and Bernard were in the middle of four year terms.  The three new Commissioners who joined them were Roxy Ross, Al Childress, and Bryan Cooper.

I have to pause part of this story to talk about the Rosses.  Chuck, and, for all I knew, Rox, were in some way associated with Steve Bernard.  Steve was one of the most subversive and seditious people I have known in BP.  He was divisive, mischievous, and did not have an agenda, except to sow discontent.  I have no idea how Chuck, and possibly, for all I then knew, Rox, got associated with him.  But I was sure Chuck was.  I was wary of Rox, because I wasn't sure she, too, wasn't associated with Steve, and I told her so.  She reassured me many times that she was completely independent, and no feeling she did or didn't have regarding Steve Bernard would have any bearing on how she would conduct herself as a Commissioner.  She later told me that she worked harder for my vote than she did for anyone else's.  But she didn't get it.  Chuck and I were already friends, and one day, we were doing something related to campaigning.  Chuck opened the trunk of his car, and he had some campaign signs for Bryan Cooper, who I already knew was a Steve Bernard devotee.  So I figured that if I already knew there was some association between Chuck and Steve, and if Chuck was helping Bryan, then I was prepared to make an unfavorable assumption about Rox.  Wrong, wrong, wrong!  Rox is Rox.  She is not Chuck.  She is not Steve Bernard.  She is who she said she was: completely independent, with her own set of ethics, and an intellect and moral compass that are entirely unique.  I told Rox I didn't vote for her that first time.  When she's in a mood to tease me in a playful way, she reminds me about my lapse of faith.  She was right, I was wrong, and I've apologized as many times as I'm going to apologize.

So, Steve Bernard made the same mistake about Rox that I did.  He assumed...  When it came time for the new Commission to nominate one of its members to be the Mayor, someone (it had to have been Anderson or Childress) nominated Rox, she accepted the nomination, she, Anderson, and Childress elected her Mayor, and Bernard went on an unrelenting rampage, to punish Rox for not bowing and deferring to him, and anointing him as he expected.  If you weren't at those meetings, it's hard to envision the disruptiveness, overtalking, sniggling, sniping, and gross childishness Bernard and Cooper showed toward Rox, all meeting, every meeting.  I have no idea how Rox kept her composure.  It was not infrequent that she had to stop meetings for a several minute break.  These two children were totally out of control, and it was all aimed at Roxy Ross.  But she always looked forward, she never lost it (as anyone else in the world would have), and all she ever tried to do was make the Village "A Better Place to Be."  That was her slogan.

As another aside, there is no such thing as training to learn to be an elected representative.  People can become expert in particular areas that have implications for government functioning, or they can "major" in public policy or something.  But there is no curriculum anywhere that selects the best candidates, and provides the relevant education, for someone to be a good governor.  Roxy Ross is, by profession, a paralegal.  All paralegals know a great deal about the law, and Rox is an exceptionally talented and committed paralegal.  She is also breathtakingly well-organized.  She's patient, but she is not distractible.  She has a wonderful personal style.  Almost every good thing that has happened in BP since 2009 has happened because of the leadership or the support of Roxy Ross.  What creates the Roxy Ross we know is intelligence, raw talent, her personal style, and her innate ethical sense.  And Roxy is part of a team.  The other part of that team is Chuck Ross.

Chuck is a hoot.  It's the most obvious thing about him.  He's energetic, he's unrestrained, he's opinionated (and almost always right), and he makes things happen.  He's super smart, which makes the combination of him and Rox almost a bit scary.  They're both super smart.  Chuck, and Rox, are also deeply devoted.  Neither of them flinches from that devotion.  And the prime recipient of that devotion for the past +/- 13 years has been this Village.  It's been you and I.  They have each other, they both have day jobs, and they give the appearance of caring more about us than they do about anything or anyone else.

Rox had initially become active with the Recreation Advisory Board, and Chuck took over Citizens' CrimeWatch from his predecessor, Joe Chao.  As good a job as Joe did with CCW, Chuck exploded its relevance here.  I think he has quadrupled or quintupled the membership, created strong working alliances with a succession of police chiefs (until Tracy Truppman interrupted Chuck's success), and he made a name for himself in the county's CCW.  Chuck has won county awards for best CCW chairperson, I think more than once.  There seems to be no one, and no one's story, Chuck doesn't know.

Chuck is an accountant.  He's been amazingly helpful to Rox, and to us, in helping to analyze Village finances, and the Village books.  He's worked well with the succession of our Finance Directors, and they all value his contributions.  They say so publicly.

You know the story of Chuck's attempt to help David Hernandez, so we wouldn't be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars in CITT money which we might have had to refund.  Had it not been for Chuck.  And Chuck has taken his share of flak, too, from a variety of unappreciative and/or embarrassed people.

Have you ever seen a movie called "Chef?"  2014, written and directed by Jon Favreau, and he's the star of it.  It's a really terrific movie, and parts of it are set in Miami.  Favreau's character is a spectacular chef in a restaurant owned by Dustin Hoffman's character.  A well-known critic, played by Oliver Platt, is coming to eat, and will write a review.  Platt's reviewer pans the meal, as well as Favreau's character, whom he had promoted enthusiastically some years before.  Favreau's character gets infuriated, and a Twitter pissing contest ensues.  Favreau's chef says he'll cook an entirely new menu, just for Platt's reviewer, on a date specified.  The restaurant is packed, waiting for the showdown.  Favreau's chef is going to innovate, but Hoffman's restaurant owner insists on presenting only the standards.  There's a showdown between the two of them, and Favreau's chef quits.  Platt's reviewer shows up for the challenge menu, finds the same old, same old, chuckles, and starts tweeting.  Favreau's chef comes storming back in to confront the smug and self-satisfied reviewer.  He yells at the reviewer, telling him how hard everyone works to provide a wonderful meal for patrons, how good the food really is, how the reviewer doesn't even understand the process and mechanics of creating the dishes, and how the reviewer just sits there, offering nothing, and taking pathetic pleasure in criticizing people who do what the reviewer can't do.

That's what Roxy and Chuck Ross have had to put up with from a number of us, and from some people who work for us.  Some of us, and some of our employees, have no concept at all about what makes excellent municipal functioning, and they wouldn't know it if it hit them in the face.  They're limited and wholly inadequate to the task, and all they can do is criticize people who do what they couldn't dream of doing.  They're too foolish and unappreciative to allow master craftspeople to take the lead.  But knowing Rox and Chuck as I do, I suspect they will retain much better and clearer memories of those of us who were grateful.

It's not that I will personally miss Roxy and Chuck Ross when they move to Gainesville.  They are extremely close friends to me, and of course I'll miss them.  What's at issue is that we -- the Village -- will miss them.  Many of us don't realize how much we'll miss them, and we won't know it while it's happening.  Their absence might be dramatically deflating, or it might be subtly deflating.  Some opportunities for vision and great functioning might continue, or come to us again some time.  We're very lucky to have Mac Kennedy and Art Gonzalez on the Commission now.  Unfortunately for us, the current majority of the Commission -- the three Commissioners who are not Mac and Art -- don't listen and follow along as they should.  They don't have enough sense, and they're too taken with themselves and what they imagine is some sort of personal accomplishment: being a Commissioner.  They don't know that their being a Commissioner is not about them.  It's about you.  It's about the Village where you live.  It's about making BP "A Better Place to Be," which is what Roxy and Chuck Ross worked hard and long to do every day, for years, and for free.