Did I Ever Mention That I Moved Here in 2005?

So, I've seen X number of Commissions.  I was a member of one.  And I've heard about some that preceded my moving to the Park.

Until 2006, Commissioners were assigned to manage departments (police, recreation, public works, finance).  That was their Village job, and those were the areas they had to oversee, and for which they were responsible.

In 2006, we switched to a form of government in which the Commission set general policy and direction, and a professional manager was hired to manage all of the specific departments and functions.  The Commission still had a job to do, but it wasn't "hands on," so to speak, and it had only to do with what we came to call "vision."  As an aside, the Commissions, which had lowered their own stipends before anyway, made the symbolic gesture of lowering them again, now that Commissioners had a different task, which was in some ways an easier task.  All they had to do was figure out where they wanted to see the Village go, if anywhere, and how it should evolve, if it should.  They had to figure out what areas of Village functioning to prioritize, since we're very, um, modestly endowed financially, and we can't do everything.  It was then up to the paid professional manager to make happen what the Commission wanted to have happen.

Did I mention that I moved here in 2005?  It was in July.  I first voted in a BP election at the end of that year.  So there was a lot I didn't know about the Village, and how it had functioned.  I don't know how efficient and successful were individual Commissioners at running Village departments, but presumably, they themselves didn't think they were particularly efficient and successful at it, which is why they voted in favor of professional management, and to lower their own stipends.

Our first professional manager, Frank Spence, was our Keystone Kops phase.  We didn't know what to do with a manager, or how to use one, and Frank was sort of half in and half out anyway.  But we erected a Public Works building on a site that had been an embarrassing disgrace and an insult to our employees.  The Commission was fully supportive of Frank, and it may have done at least as much following as leading.

Our next manager was Ana Garcia.  The first Commission that worked with her largely stayed out of her way, and let her work.  She had a lot of work to do.  The first thing Ana did was slash a bloated Public Works Department, and she saved us a good deal of money.  The unfortunate position Ana took was to support the church's effort to establish a day school at the church.  In my opinion, the then Commission didn't know any better than to take Ana's advice that there was nothing we could do to prevent it.  But other than that, the Commission and Ana worked very well together.  Everyone wanted the same thing, which was a better, more functional, and fiscally leaner Village.  It was at this point that we started to think about annexation, to increase revenues.

And that was where the first functional problem developed.  Just there, as an opportunity to apply to annex a nearby tract was presenting itself, we got a new Commission.  And this Commission (majority) didn't want anything.  Well, one of them did.  Bryan Cooper wanted the Village to end as an independent municipality, and he imagined some scenario whereby Miami Shores would annex us.  And in a weird way, Barbara Watts wanted something.  She wanted BP to advocate for environmental causes in various places in the county.  But her focus was never on BP, except that she liked Earth Day, and liked the little shows we put on for ourselves, with acoustic instruments, and no lights.  Noah Jacobs wanted one thing, and it was to be Noah Jacobs.  Specifically, Noah wanted to be Mayor Noah Jacobs.  He insisted upon it.  He wanted everyone to call him Mayor Jacobs, even after he left office.  But other than trying to get the Village to fail, singing songs in the dark on Earth Day, and being called Mayor Jacobs, the three of them -- the majority -- didn't want anything.  They didn't want annexation (so they refused to apply), and they obstructed much of what Ana Garcia was trying to do.  So she quit.  And that Commission hired Heidi Siegel.  And we soon got a new Commission majority that didn't include Bryan Cooper or Noah Jacobs.  It was a majority that wanted something.  And so did Heidi Siegel.

That Commission (full disclosure?) accomplished a lot with Heidi Siegel.  But that Commission -- well, one member of it -- ruffled some feathers, and the balance changed three years later.  We got ourselves a new Commission majority that didn't want anything.  It...wanted...nothing.  Anything desirable, or helpful, or useful, or satisfying was verboten.  The Village slid.  There was no desire, no vision, and nothing to hang onto.  That Commission hired a manager who wouldn't complain about nonfunction, and it hired a lawyer who provided lots of "defense."  It was the bunker mentality, circle-the-wagons kind of defense.  In fact, if I'm misrepresenting the lack of desire of that Commission, then the only thing it wanted was to be there.  And to have power.  It was sneering, vindictive, self-aggrandizing power that did nothing for the Village.  To the Village?  Oh, yeah.  There was nail-biting fiscal compromise, and it came from not wanting anything positive.  We paid a lot of money to prevent anything good from happening here.

But then, it appeared all to come crumbling down.  The majority was four, and first one, then another, then a third quit.  We replaced them all.  For the second time in three years, we made the mistake of agreeing to "anyone but..."  And we thought we had an ace in the hole, because one of the Commissioners left standing was the one who seemed to be on a positive track.  So, with that Commissioner, and the three new ones, all of whom we thought wanted something, we were back in business.  The last holdover, who didn't want anything, would simply be outvoted.  Except...

The ace in the hole turned out to be a joker.  And he flipped the other way.  And one of the new ones we personally liked, and who had what we allowed ourselves to believe was something related to municipal experience years ago in New York, didn't want anything at all.  The two of them joined the holdover from our worst days, and we were instead back to inertia and obstructiveness.  The majority didn't want anything, and they hired an interim manager who didn't want anything.  Except a mirror.

We recently had one more chance to elect a Commission the majority of which wanted something.  That was in November, 2020.  We chose to continue aimlessness and meaninglessness instead.

We struggled from 2011 to 2013, and we've struggled consistently since 2016.  It's a bad business when the people in charge don't want anything.

It seems to me I've told this story before, but I'm moved to tell it again.  I particularly like a movie called "Household Saints."  It's about an Italian Catholic family in NYC, and the daughter wants to become a nun.  The father, who owns a butcher shop, is very disapproving of his daughter's ambition.  He explains that most women who come into the shop want something in particular.  And they get upset if it isn't available, or if it isn't just right.  Nuns, he says, are different.  They ask for something, and if it's not available, they just settle on anything, without complaint or disappointment.  They don't really want anything.  They don't care.  Nothing upsets them, or disappoints them.  (And thus, nothing really pleases or excites them.)  The symbolism is pretty clear: they're nuns, and they're disconnected, sexless, empty, without desire.

That doesn't work well in government.  We see it at every level.  We see electeds whose only real desire is to stay in office, and have a title, and get paid by the government.  It's in their interest not to do anything, because anything the government does will upset someone.  The result is stagnation, and failure to address the needs of people.  That's what we've been doing to ourselves, continuously since 2016.

See you at the polls in 2022.  We'll have a chance to replace three Commissioners who don't want anything with at least one (ideally three) who want something.

The Problem With Home-Grown Services

We've had home-grown services.  We've had several of them.  We have some of them now.

Apart from the Commissioners, who must be BP residents, we have had and still have functionaries and decision-makers who are BP residents.  When I moved here in '05, the person in charge of the Recreation Department was a BP resident.  So was the Code officer.  I didn't know the person in charge of Recreation, but I heard she had..."issues."  I knew and liked the Code officer.  But I heard from a number of people that she had favorites, whom she protected by perhaps not citing them for violations, and others whom she more aggressively cited, even if the alleged infraction was not clear. 

Years ago, before my time, there was a police chief who was also a resident here.  I haven't heard enough to know if that created problems, like the problem described about the Code officer.  During my time, we've had two BP police officers who lived here.  One does now.  I haven't heard about any problems.

And then, of course, there was the drama about BP running its own sanitation function.  In theory, this is no more problematic than BP running any other internal function.  But there were several or many BP residents who very strongly opposed outsourcing, and many of them were in the longstanding habit of tipping, or otherwise rewarding, our dedicated sanitation workers for, shall we call it, extra special service.  It could have been special pick-ups, special placement of receptacles, or other such gestures and favors. And if someone else's garbage didn't get picked up, that wasn't the complaint of the favored residents.  One of the complaints from some of those people is that they don't like an outsourced contractor, because they're treated like -- no better than -- everyone else.

That's a little background and perspective, but it's not what I most wanted to discuss in this post.  We have several BP boards.  They are manned by volunteers who are all BP residents.  And some of those boards are comparatively powerful.  Two of them are categorized as "quasi-judicial."  They have a lot to say about what happens in BP, and to whom it happens.  If you don't like their rulings, you can hire a lawyer, and appeal to the district court.  

There are municipalities that don't rely on locals for functions like that.  There's just too much room for favoritism, conflict of interest, and imposition of personal interpretation.  And we've had accusations like those.

A big example of a possible problem is the "quasi-judicial" Code Compliance Board.  That board is made up of BP residents who have to pass judgment on the complaints of other BP residents -- their friends, enemies, neighbors, various other BP property-owners -- regarding Code citations, and the fines those property-owners are expected to pay.  There's loads of room for trouble with an arrangement like that.  And we -- BP and its Commissions -- have been very attentive to that room for trouble.  We've been vigilant and as open-minded as possible.  Over decades, we have been able to reassure ourselves that no possible trouble has happened.  For one thing, there has reportedly never been anyone who has challenged a Code Compliance Board ruling, by taking the board or the Village to court.  Perhaps the board itself is aware of and concerned about the possibility of trouble, or even the appearance of trouble, because one of the biggest complaints about the board is that it is too deferential, regarding things like excusing or reducing fines.

The other "quasi-judicial" board is Planning and Zoning.  And again, there's loads of room for trouble.  P&Z receives applications for work someone wants to do on a property, and the board has to approve, or deny, the proposal.  Much of the time, the indicators are very clear to everyone, and they include things like how many feet of setback were included.  If the proposal respects Code requirements like those, then the plan is approved.  If it doesn't, then the plan is either denied or adjusted.  If the proposal is a good idea, but the Codes don't permit it, then the board can encourage the property-owner to apply for a variance, and the board can offer support for the variance.  Or, the board can say the proposal is not consistent with the Codes, and violation of the Codes is not necessary, but the property-owner can apply for a variance anyway, and the board will discourage the Commission from granting the variance.  It is only the Commission that can grant variances.  (In "full disclosure," I was a member of P&Z for some years, and I know very well how this board works.)

The problem with P&Z comes with the Code requirement, if you can call it a requirement, that proposals, apart from complying with objective things like measurable set-backs, be "harmonious" with the Village, or with the block in which the proposal is proposed.  This is 100% subjective.  The Village is an almost uniquely heterogeneous place, and the concept of harmony is extremely tenuous.  We have a range of architectural styles, lots of colors, and there's little meaning to the idea of harmony.  But P&Z can and does use this theory to deny certain proposals.

I have seen P&Z deny color palettes, for example, on the basis of some entirely subjective sense of the proposed color scheme's not somehow fitting in with the neighborhood, or with the other houses on the block in question.  It's not because the requested colors were not included in the Village's approved palette (they were), but because of some idea that the approved colors requested did not fit with the other surrounding houses.

That's an example of how a board like P&Z can in some sense abuse its authority, and go beyond the Codes, for purely subjective reasons.  And I'll add another kind of example that I know very well, because it was about my property.  I wanted solar panels, and I wanted some of them on the street-facing roof.  We don't have a Code about solar panels.  Because ours is an "inclusive" Code, if something is not mentioned in the Codes, then it's not allowed.  Solar panels are not mentioned in our Codes, so in theory, they're not allowed.  But we do allow them.  The Village, and its P&Z boards, have decided to allow them anyway.  But the P&Z board has arbitrarily imposed a restriction on solar panels.  We have a Code that limits ducting and AC installations that are roof-mounted to parts of the roof not visible from the street, so P&Z has commandeered the liberty to apply the same restriction to solar panels.  The board ignores the fact that it doesn't make any functional difference where ductwork or AC units are mounted, but it makes a tremendous functional difference where solar panels are mounted.  (The end of the story about my solar panels is that I was forced to apply for a variance, and the then Village attorney told the Commission that it could not block me from having street-facing panels, and my variance charge had to be refunded to me.  But all of this started because the P&Z board arrogated to itself more authority than it was entitled to have.)

So, those are examples of how P&Z can use entirely subjective factors to deny requests.  But what about the other possibility?  Can P&Z use subjective factors, or perhaps abdicate the use of them, to permit what is clearly disharmonious with the Village and its general range of styles and usages?  It can, and it did.  And it's not a good story.

There was a proposal for a house on 117th St, on the south side of the street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.  The proposal was for a two-story house, which is permitted by the Codes, and the "footprint" of the proposed house respected the setbacks.  But the house used up a very substantial proportion of the buildable part of the property, and it was entirely two stories.  The house now exists, because P&Z did not deny the application.  It did not choose to consider the proposed structure disharmonious with the Village or with block and street where the house was to be built.  What is on that lot now is a massive structure that provides visibility from the second floor to all other properties on that block.  No one who lives on that block has privacy any more.  And what makes this story more tragic than it would otherwise be is that the applicant for the permit, who is also a contractor, was also a Village resident, and was and perhaps still is also a member of P&Z.  There is no more overpowering conflict of interest than that.  And even if, as I assume happened, the applicant, who made this proposal to his own board, recused himself from the actual deliberation and vote, it was not lost on anyone who this person was to the board.  The contractor/builder/owner of the house will move away some day.  The house will be there for many decades.  It might be there for 100 years or more.  And if you want to add the maximum insult to the injuries, the builder/homeowner, who was on P&Z, has just resigned from P&Z.  He got what he wanted, and the rest of us pay for it, because P&Z couldn't tell its own member the proposal was disharmonious, which it very grossly is.

Not every municipality uses residents of the municipality as members of the P&Z board, like some don't use local residents as members of a Code Compliance board.  It's dicey.  There's lots of room for trouble, of the conflict of interest kind.  Funny enough, during the reign of Truppman, Tracy tried to replace our Code Compliance board with a paid magistrate.  But Tracy was on such a campaign of domination and control that it was not possible to assume she was replacing a group that could be subject to conflict of interest with someone who couldn't.  There had never been identifiable problems with our Code Compliance board, and the appearance was not that she was trying to replace a problem with a solution, but that she was trying to replace a solution with a problem.  And no one has given enough thought to the idea that it's problematic having a P&Z board made up of people who may very well have interests besides simply and dispassionately interpreting the Codes.  We ought to think about that.

BP Trash Talk

 

Happy Sunny Sunday, Neighbors.

On our final day of the holiday season, I’d like to wish you well for the new year and to also update you on an urgent village matter that will directly impact our quality of life in the coming years: solid waste collection. Strange to “talk trash” while also wishing you a Happy New Year, but the timing is quite important if not also awkward.

I originally posted this message on Nextdoor (link below) and emailed it to the database of village residents, so apologies if this is a re- or three-peat. I want to ensure that as many residents as possible are aware of some serious impending changes regarding how/when our garbage, recycling and yard waste/debris are collected. I’m actively soliciting feedback before a critical commission meeting this Tuesday, January 5.

As you are likely aware, we have trash issues, and they’re coming to a head on Tuesday. The quality of our service has been diminishing while our rates increase. In 2019, the then-manager and commission allowed our trash contract to expire, and since then we’ve been chasing a solution while existing without a village manager who’s charged with spearheading that effort for us. Our new manager, Mario Diaz, started just one month ago, and he tackled “trash” immediately at the commission’s direction, which is the reason for this post and request for feedback.

At the Tuesday, January 5, 7pm commission meeting, Mario will be presenting options for trash collection. He based his research on past commission meetings when we debated trash and on his own experience with solid waste after consulting with other experts. He’s also presenting his recommendation to move to Miami-Dade County trash collection, which will be dramatically different in several ways. If the commission votes to approve Mario’s recommendation on Tuesday, the changes will start soon and will be long-term. I don’t want anyone surprised because this happened so quickly and right after the holidays when we’ve all been preoccupied. Mario did what we asked him to do and as quickly as we requested. Now, the commission fulfills its part of process on Tuesday.

I’m purposely not sharing my opinion in this email. Rather, I’m encouraging you to read the agenda item for yourself and let me know what you think. I’m only one of five commissioners voting on the matter, so feel free to share your thoughts with us all separately. (Florida has cumbersome laws about elected officials being part of a conversation outside of a public meeting, so contact us separately and never share what any official said about any village business.) Educate yourself on trash now before the changes take place. I’d much rather hear your opinions now than your complaints later when trash bites you in the butt!

You’ll also notice several other important agenda items, including Mario’s 2021 priorities and outsourcing our Public Works manager, among other things. Engage with me on all topics, please.

After too much holiday baking (i.e., eating), winter-cleaning our overgrown gardens for the past week, and supporting my husband, Dan Schneiger, on his wildly successful village food drive (thanks to everyone who contributed!), I’m spending most of the day today in final meeting preparations, plus I’ll also be working on village business Monday night. Please don’t hesitate to reply to this email or call my village cell: 305.213.5139. I have been “talking trash” with residents for many months, and I’m hoping to hear from you, too. More than anything, I’m really hoping to resolve our trash situation soon so I can focus on Mac’s 2021 Wish List for Biscayne Park. Look for another post on that topic.

Here’s to your health & happiness in 2021, and cheers to Biscayne Park, our “Oasis in the Heart of Miami.” That short tagline speaks volumes about the potential of our lovely community, so I hope it sticks. It’s my north star in my work as one of your commissioners.

Link to the Jan5 meeting agenda, back-up materials, and Zoom instructions. Note separate instructions about how to make public comment:

https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/index.asp?SEC=A482E78D-C7CA-4E86-BD0D-AA20BD7CDAEB&DE=1ED5017F-E983-4F6F-B96F-94F73A806E63&Type=B_EV

Link to my Nextdoor post on the topic of “trash” and other agenda items:

https://nextdoor.com/p/g_5NmmBmxtx7?view=detail

Best regards,

Mac

MacDonald Kennedy

Commissioner, Village of Biscayne Park

This Village

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald's (you didn't know that, did you?  Neither did I.) The Great Gatsby begins this way: "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.  'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone...just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had'...I'm inclined to reserve all judgements, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores...Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.  I am still afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested and as I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.  And after boasting this way of my tolerance, I come to the admission that it has a limit."

A friend, who is a lawyer, called me yesterday about a couple of things, and one of them was one of his clients, who has come to own a couple of properties in the Village, and whose in-laws own others, and my friend portrayed his client and the client's in-laws as misfits.  We're talking here, among other things, about people who maintain properties very poorly, who seem preferentially not to get along with each other, and who live like what is derisively referred to as "trailer trash."  This is complete with internecine squabbles, sabotages, and mutually destructive legal maneuvering.  My friend's client's wife was going to make a will which would have left nothing to her husband (don't ask; I didn't), but she died precipitously, so he got "everything," and now, he and her family are fighting with each other.

It's not to say that such uncivilized goings-on don't occur in lots of places.  They do.  But there's something that invites these kinds of residents in BP.   For who knows what reasons, our property values have been comparatively low, for the kinds of properties which are valued.  The same BP property would cost more in MSV, only 1/2-1 mile down the road.  So we're easy access, so to speak, for people who want to own properties, but don't want to live somewhere even cheaper, like parts of CNM.

Also, we're small.  We're not the smallest municipality in the county, but the combination (or "perfect storm") of our being inexpensive enough to avail easy access, and small, mean that we sometimes get property owners who figure out that they can be bigger fish in a smaller pond than they could get away with somewhere else.

Further, we're unusually simple, at least insofar as that we sort of only have one zone (plus the exception for the church), which means that up to a point, "it doesn't take a rocket scientist," so to speak.

So we get some weird neighbors, some of whom become weird Commissioners.  And again, it's not as if this doesn't happen in many other places.  It does.  It just seems like the concentration is higher here.

It's an interesting social exercise to talk about making provisions for, let's call them, less fortunate people.  We contribute to the CNM effort to support the poor and elderly, and we acquire (free) from the county various "Thanksgiving" provisions to distribute to our own neighbors.  (We used to, when we had Commissions that could get their acts together.)  We try, as Fitzgerald's narrator recounted, to remember that some people -- and some of us -- are essentially less fortunate than are others.  That's the mantra: less fortunate, or not as lucky.  That's what makes the theory work.  It's what motivates those of us who are more fortunate, and luckier.  But we approach Fitzgerald's narrator's "limit," or have creeping ill feeling about it, when those we tell ourselves we're helping either don't help themselves, or they position themselves as adversaries to us.  It's easier to write off as a disadvantage someone's station in life than it is to write off their attitude, in the context of adequate capacity and resources.

Just to take one example -- and it's one that gets noteworthy mention from some BP residents and property-owners -- there are some people who could afford to maintain their properties better, and the Codes say they're required to maintain them better, but they just don't feel like it.  Not only are the conditions of their properties not important to them, but their neighbors and the rules by which we (choose to) live together are not important to them.  This is the kind of realization, and affront, that tests the limits of our tolerance.

And whether it's the Steve Bernards or the Tracy Truppmans of the Village, some people's delusions of grandeur and autocracy also test the limits of our willingness, and ability, to tolerate.  Difficult childhoods?  Personality quirks?  We expect people to rise to the occasion.  At the very least, they should be grateful for what they're given, including support.

Long ago, I adopted a theory that some misbehaviors are understandable, but not acceptable.  I get it.  That's how you feel.  And I understand why you feel that way.  But you can't act like that.

It's a curiosity that in the Village, we allow more misbehavior than might be allowed somewhere else.  We're not exactly so small, and so intimate, that we can't bring ourselves to make demands of ourselves.  Not exactly.  There are limits.