The Stuff They Really Do Recycle

Not the "recycling."  Not the stuff we put in those recycling bins that are green, but are supposed to be blue, and tell ourselves gets recycled after WastePro drops it off somewhere or other.

I'm talking about stuff that really will get recycled.  I think.

This coming Saturday and Sunday, April 24 and 25, the BP Foundation is sponsoring a recycling event.  It will be at the recreation center, and the focus will be "electronics."  You can pack up your old computer tower/CPU, printers, laptops and tablets, your collection of old mobile phones from companies and contracts you haven't had in years, batteries, VCRs and DVD players (if you don't actually watch those old video cassettes, give them to Goodwill, and recycle the players, and I'm talking about the DVD player you replaced, because it doesn't work, not the one that does work: keep that one), cords that go to something or other you can't remember, and you don't have that appliance any more, even if you could remember, the hard drive from your old CPU, but you kept it, so you could transfer the contents to your new CPU, which you did, but now you have the old hard drive lying around, and any other stuff like that that's lying around, looking unsightly, and clogging up your living space.

You think you're still hanging on to that stuff for what reason?  Come on, it's over.  You've moved on.

And do you know what Thursday, April 22, 2021, is?  Earth Day!  Get in the spirit.  If you're pretty sure they don't really recycle the stuff you put in the green bin that's supposed to be blue, and you're faintly skeptical about what will happen to the electronics you put in the containers at the recreation center, just superimpose your best optimism.  And be glad that crap will be out of your house.  You have enough other stuff, and you actually use some of it.

The containers will be dropped off some time on Friday, and they'll be retrieved some time on Monday.  You don't need an attendant, or someone to sort this stuff for you.  You can come any time of the day Saturday or Sunday, and just dump it off yourself.  You'll feel better after you clear it out.

(If you were going to auction it on eBay for a lot of money, you would have done that a long time ago.  Really, it's just clutter.  I promise.)

TIME-SENSITIVE BP UPDATE

Hello, neighbors, as you jump into a new week in our “Oasis in the Heart of Miami.” I’m writing to make sure you’re aware of a critically important virtual resident workshop this Thursday, April 22, 6p. The outcome of this workshop will impact our village for generations, and this week is your LAST CHANCE to share your opinions. Engage now or forever hold your peace on this topic, because the door will be shut permanently in the coming weeks.

 

I’m talking about the proposed major development of 6^th Ave. for the eight blocks where it passes through BP, from 121 St. southward to 113^th St. (No other street is part of this project, so please don’t share opinions now about what you think should happen on Griffing Blvd., a county road, or our interior village-owned streets, none of which have anything to do with this topic.) The Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT) is proposing a major redesign of that stretch of 6^thAve. using its own money, but not to include replacing the road itself or changing it in any way (to add lanes, new bike lanes, etc.). FDOT wants to install 6ft.-wide sidewalks down both sides that extend fully 10ft. from the edge of the road into the green spaces when accounting for 4ft. of grass between the road and sidewalk. That will require the removal of a significant amount of existing landscaping and adding about 20,000 square feet of concrete in our bird sanctuary. (That’s my rough calculation, as FDOT doesn’t provide that number.) No additional trees or landscaping are included, and no barrier is planned to protect pedestrians on that sidewalk, which will be adjacent to our busiest road with the highest speed limit before you consider our ongoing speeding issue.

 

Additionally, FDOT wants to add more drains on 6^thAve., which we need, and also change out our current quaint street lights with commercial-grade lights like you see in other communities. If you aren’t clear what “regular” street lights look like, drive over the bridge towards Miami Shores and look at the street lights in front of the funeral home. That’s the light fixture (style, height, brightness) that FDOT is promising to install down the entire length of our 6^thAve. in front of the 50 homes there—more of those lights, actually—unless BP coughs up $384,000 for a more attractive option. (I don’t make unilateral decisions about how we spend our money, but I can’t imagine the day that this village will be in the position to spend that kind of cash on lights with our roads and drains in their present condition and no plan to convert this village from septic to sewers.)

 

If you haven’t been following this topic for the past year, it pretty much snuck up and bit us on the butt.The prior administration and select elected officials had been working with FDOT without notifying the rest of the commission or the community, and FDOT had been actively working with them on the project without having been given official direction by the commission. In our form of government, the commission speaks as a group in writing on such matters, not through select commissioners and staff behind the backs of the rest of us. The commission in which I served last fall pressed “pause” on the project until we could fully understand the implications and include residents in the conversation. We conducted one public workshop several months ago to see the project for the first time, and since then our outside planners have been consulting with FDOT and staff about what’s best for the village. The “pause” has now ended, and that’s why this Thursday is so important.

 

This Thursday, April 22, at 6p, our planners will update the community on the project, and the commission will listen to resident input. This is YOUR workshop, not the commission’s. We will be in listen mode as you tell us what you think. Then, at an upcoming commission meeting (possibly as early as May 4), the commission will make its final decision and deliver it to FDOT. Based on what the commission decides, the project will move forward with a two-year completion window. At that point, there’s no turning back and any changes to our village will be permanent.

 

Clearly, this is big stuff. Hence, this post on Fred’s blog today and an email I sent last night on a Sunday evening.

 

To be clear, BP does have the option of declining the project altogether, but FDOT has previously reported that we can pick and choose elements of the project that suit us and we could also request that money for one element be diverted to others (for example: sidewalk money to lighting upgrades).  This Thursday, our planners will tell us the final options from which the village must select and if FDOT’s offer has changed. (I suspect it has.) The commission needs to hear from you if you care about this project and how it will impact the village—good, bad or indifferent. If you don’t care, then you can ignore this message and the workshop. But given the implications, I hope to hear from many of you prior and to see you at the virtual meeting.

 

To be blunt, if you don’t speak out now, your opinions later won’t mean anything.

 

Feel free to reply to this email with your opinions, to share them with your other four elected commissioners, and to request that your email be read into public record if you can’t attend the virtual meeting this Thursday. Your best option of engaging is to attend, which is as simple as a click on your laptop, tablet or phone. I’ve included some important links below that make this all easy.

 

Thanks for hearing my plea that you engage in this critically important project. I want to hear all sides and all angles before I become one of the five people who will make choices that will impact our “oasis” for generations. I care enormously about this project, and I hope you do, too.

 

Link to Thursday’s workshop agenda, which includes instructions to attend by Zoom and to speak during public comment:

https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/index.asp?SEC=A482E78D-C7CA-4E86-BD0D-AA20BD7CDAEB&DE=05CCA2DF-0113-4726-B25B-911680EB295E&Type=B_EV

 

Link to the FDOT video of the first workshop, which includes the presentation (jump to the start at 5:00):

https://youtu.be/4w2Srn-jRz8

 

Link to the static FDOT presentation without having to watch the video:

https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/vertical/sites/%7BD1E17BCD-1E01-4F7D-84CD-7CACF5F8DDEE%7D/uploads/Public_Meeting_Presentation_443986_SR_915_NE_6_Avenue_from_NE_113_Street_to_NE_121_Street_Final.pdf

 

Link to email addresses for all five elected officials of BP: NEVER CROSS-COMMUNICATE BETWEEN ELECTED OFFICIALS, PLEASE.

https://www.biscayneparkfl.gov/index.asp?SEC=4516B002-1F29-4888-ADCE-C9AF6D27752C&Type=B_LIST

 

Stay positive. Test negative. Cheers to BP2021!

 

Mac

MacDonald Kennedy

Commissioner, Village of Biscayne Park

Cell 305.213.5139

 

Last Night: How Low Things Go, and Have Gotten, in a Different Way

Last night, there was a meeting of the BP Foundation.  We have two new members, neither of whom could be present on site, and I am now the alternate.  But since it was our first meeting with new members, I participated.

We sort of reviewed some things, and used our time to establish connections among us, and begin to develop a rhythm for future functioning.  One of the particular projects we discussed is a brick walkway to our newly and very expensively renovated log cabin.

As that renovation was under way, the Foundation (of which I was not then a part) decided to "sell" bricks which would be placed as the walkway/entrance to the building.  This proposal was presented to the then Commission (of which I was a part), and the then Commission gratefully approved it.  The bricks would of course be violently overpriced, considering what brick pavers actually cost, like if you get them from The Home Depot, and the overage would be the fundraising part of the project.  It would allow the Foundation to make money to use on some other project.  The project was established, the Commission agreed to it, and some bricks were soon enough sold.  All lights were green.  Until Tracy Truppman, et al, took office, at which point the whole project crashed.

Two excuses were given for the suspension of this project.  One was that someone had the idea that a brick path might not be historical enough for a building that had gotten a tremendous amount of state funding based on its designation as a historical site (built in the '30s, as one of very many WPA projects), and the other was that the Parks and Parkways Board suddenly decided that this was not the look they favored.  (If the entrance walkway that's there now, which is made of something like straw, dead leaves, and dirt, is their idea of preferable, then they need their heads examined.)  But none of that mattered, because the Commission already approved the Foundation's proposal of the brick path.

But in my opinion, none of that was what torpedoed this project.  It was the dominatrix, who must have seen the list of people who paid for bricks, and how much they paid, and who must have noticed that I, the antichrist, paid half of what was collected.  As of today, there are eight brick purchasers.  Six of them paid $100 each for one inscribed regular size brick paver.  (Sally Heyman, who is our County Commissioner, and who doesn't live in BP, was one of those people.)  One person paid for two $100 pavers.  I paid $900 for four of the large pavers (they're $225 each).  And that, I feel completely sure, is what got that project canceled, or perhaps suspended.  The Foundation has reminded Big Mama's boy about this project, and they have reminded the managers since then about it.  But Big Mama was nothing but vengeful and destructive, and her successors (the majority of them) are completely disinterested in...anything.  And so have been the managers since Sharon Ragoonan.  Until... maybe... we'll see... now.  I am now tasked with reminding our new manager about this project, to get it moving.  And I have a strategy.  I'm going to tell him the idea for the project was hatched, the then Commission agreed, bricks have been sold, and we want this brick placement to begin NOW.  And if it doesn't begin now, then I want my money back.  The fact is that one couple who spent $100 for an inscribed paver don't even live in BP any more.  They moved.  And of the four pavers I bought, one was inscribed with some language about gratitude to the Rosses.  They don't live here any more, either.  There's some old saying about getting off a pot, but I don't remember what it is.  There's another one about closing a barn door, but I don't remember that one, either.

As the meeting ended, someone said something about "seeing you tomorrow."  That's today.  Today?  What's going on today?  So when I got home, I checked the Village calendar, and there is, in fact, a special Commission meeting today.  It's about one thing: a variance request.  I'm busy tonight, and I'm not tuning in to any Village meeting, but I read through the documentation about this meeting.  I'll spare you the details, but for me, the variance request is slightly infuriating.  So I decided to give my opinion, and the reasons for it, to the Commission.  But the only way it made any sense to address the e-mail I sent was to Mac Kennedy and Art Gonzalez.  The other three, who are the majority, couldn't care less about anything, certainly including the opinion and reasoning of someone like me, and it wasn't worth it even to pretend to try to communicate with them.

I'm not sure if we can work our way out of what we did to ourselves at the end of 2016.  Even efforts we think we have reason to think will be successful (the continued presence of Dan Samaria, and electing Ginny O'Halpin) backfire.  But we should want to try.  We live here, and it does, or should, make a difference to us whether this is a nice place or a dump.

How Dumb Does Dumbing Down Go?

I don't know what Mr Diraimondo's first name is.  He uses Luigi, Louis, and Louie.  I don't know the correct spelling of his last name.  Having learned some Italian years ago, I would have thought Di Raimondo, or at least DiRaimondo.  But he spells it Diraimondo.  I already know he can't read and he can't write, so maybe he can't spell, either.  Even his own name.

Whatever his name is has had a very bad effect on discourse around here.  I'm told he's been thrown off Nextdoor.  I can guess what for, because he's been horribly badly behaved in comments to this blog, and I thought I had an agreement with him that he would leave the blog alone, too.  I agreed not to mention him (that's what he wanted), and he agreed not to make any comments (that's what I wanted).  But he didn't keep his end of the agreement.  Maybe he's not honest, either.

Anyway, I wrote a short post that was sort of about this week's Commission meeting, and I said that Mac Kennedy reads this blog, and he would add or correct, if he was so inclined.  Well, I just got a text message from Mac this morning saying that he would indeed have commented, but he doesn't want the blowback from Mr Diraimondo.  And Mac specified that that blowback would consist of "a never-ending firestorm of inane replies and e-mails," including "five to 10 e-mails to every employee and elected official in the Village as soon as [Mac posts] something."

And I know for a fact that Mac is exactly right.  Not only do the posts I publish stimulate from Mr Diraimondo an uncontrolled succession of comments that usually have nothing at all to do with the topic of the post ("inane," just as Mac said), but I, too, also get private rants and ramblings from Mr Diraimondo, and there is commonly an additional and unexplained extension of the circulation to the kinds of people Mac referenced.

What makes all of this a bit more bizarre than it already is (it couldn't get much more bizarre) is that Mr Diraimondo is at this point more or less the only person who comments to blog posts.  Either everyone else has coincidentally lost interest, or they're all as disgusted, and given up, as is Mac.  And I don't even know Mr Diraimondo.  I remember his name from when I was campaigning last fall, so I know I was at his house, but I don't remember him personally.  I think he lives with one of his daughters, so maybe it was she who answered the door.  And he's not on my new post announcement circulation.  So I don't even know how he knows when there's a new post.  (I never knew how David Hernandez knew there was a new post, either -- and he knew instantly -- so maybe there's some other mechanism of alerting to new posts to this blog, and I just don't know about it.)

Anyway, it's gotten about as dumb as it's going to get.  The next thing that will happen, once I conclude that I'm only talking to myself (and Mr Diraimondo), is that I'll just end the blog.  If this isn't stimulating, and maybe fun, for all of us, then it has no purpose.

PS: There's no mechanism to block people from commenting here.  Normally, I would say I wouldn't block anyone, even if I could.  But at this point, it's very possible, and maybe likely, that I'd block Mr Diraimondo.  He's sort of a disease.  I got vaccinated against the coronavirus, and I might well make us all immune, or insensitive, to Mr Diraimondo.

Publix

Man, is Publix in the news!  And it's all about Ron DeSantis, coronavirus vaccines, and a 60 Minutes spot.

"Full disclosure:" I have been a deeply devoted Publix customer for years.  I love Publix, and I particularly love the store nearest to me, which is on NE 6th Avenue between 128th and 129th Streets.  Sometimes, I bought specialty items from Marky's, sometimes, I shopped at Laurenzo's, and more recently, I shopped at a produce, etc, store called Fruteria La Hacienda on W Dixie at about 171st St.  But mostly, it was Publix.  And that Publix.

Eventually, I discovered what to me was a problem about Publix.  They sell some store-cooked chickens, which are either whole chickens, pieces of fried chicken, or chicken wings.  And they're delicious.  But each box has a time on it.  I was told by more than one person that if the cooked chicken isn't sold by the time stamped, it is thrown in the garbage.  It isn't given away to a willing customer, or given to homeless people or a food bank.  It becomes garbage.  Well, I can't have that.  My theory is that the only thing worse than tormenting an animal to get its meat is tormenting an animal to get its meat, then throwing the meat away.  I've bought boxes of chicken I didn't intend, or particularly want, to buy, so I could eat it instead of having it thrown away.  I wrote to Publix about this policy (it's a corporate policy, not a store policy).  I told them how horrible this was, and that the least they could do is gradually lower the price, as the garbage hour approaches, to make it more likely that someone would benefit from the torture and death of these animals, and get themselves some nutrition.  I got a call back from the manager of my favorite Publix, and he asked me to come by to talk to him.  He's a very nice guy.  He explained that if they lowered the price, people would just wait for the lower prices, and he further explained/complained that the idea was to sell the cooked food before bacteria grew on it, which might make someone sick, which would lead them to complain to/about Publix, and anyway, people are always complaining and scamming, bringing in foods they claim are no good, even after they've eaten the whole package of food.  They want their money back, and Publix gives it to them.  This was very unsatisfying for me, and it made me less sympathetic to everyone, including Publix, but it didn't stop me from shopping there as my primary source of groceries.

But here's what did.  I read an article on my homepage (msn, which often seems to me a bit right-leaning, or at least the people who answer the poll questions are) about how one of the Publix heirs personally gave most of the money for Donald Trump's January 6 party/massacre, and Publix Corporation gave Ron DeSantis $100K toward his re-election.  And seemingly thereafter, Publix was awarded a contract from the state of Florida to provide coronavirus vaccines.  So I wrote again to Publix, and I told them I wasn't shopping there any more.  They're using my money to support a candidate of whom I don't approve, and who I believe is damaging the citizens of Florida, including me.

Well, the heiress can do what she wants with her own money, but I do not approve of Publix backing one of the stupidest politicians I have ever encountered.  And he's not just generally stupid; he's been stupid in his handling of the coronavirus pandemic (I will assume he knows it's a pandemic).

What happened next was that 60 Minutes did an expose of this matter, and they linked Publix's donation to DeSantis to the state contract Publix got.  And 60 Minutes got a lot of flak for that expose.  They were said to have been wrong, careless, and biased.  DeSantis' defense (not given on 60 Minutes, because he reportedly expected to be treated unfairly if he agreed to appear there) was that it was the state of Florida Department of Emergency Management that decided to use Publix as a provider for vaccinations, and that the head of that department was Jared Moskowitz, who is said to be a Democrat.

So now, everyone except DeSantis, Moskowitz, and Publix has egg on their faces.  Except...  We're still left wondering why Publix would give $100K to gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis (why would a grocery store chain that has employees to pay and maybe stockholders to please give money to any political candidate?), and whether there's any connection between that donation and the contract Publix got.  Moskowitz says NO!  Coincidence, then?

Within two blocks of my favorite Publix there is a CVS and a Walgreens.  Some drug stores are open 24 hours a day (not those two).  No grocery stores are open 24 hours a day.  So why Publix?

"You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Rolling Stones song, right?  The next line is "But if you try some time, you might find, you get what you need."

No, I couldn't bear tonight's meeting.  Ginny O'Halpin announced at the outset that the meeting would last until 11:00, because two Commissioners would have to leave then.  So Ginny expected the meeting to drag on as long as it could.  I'm sure she was right.  Endless, and no doubt aimless, as always.  The only possible exception was going to be Mac Kennedy's initiative about land usage, which is euphemism for his wish to avoid "McMansions," whatever "McMansions" are.

So, back to the Stones' song.  It's certainly true that you don't always get what you want.  This, of course, assumes you want something.  The current majority of our Commission don't want anything.  As for whether or not you get what you need, according to the Stones, this depends on whether or not you try some time.  Effort from the majority of this Commission also seems to be in short supply.

So this meeting was going to be about lots of empty chatter.  As I said, the only possible reprieve depended on Mac Kennedy.  But nothing Mac accomplishes has any meaning without some support from the coasters.  Not The Coasters.  That was a great novelty doo wop style group that specialized in Lieber and Stoller songs.  I'm talking about Ginny O'Halpin, Dan Samaria, and Judi Hamelburg.  Those are the disinterested coasters who form an inert majority of the BP Commission.

Anyway, my friend Frank knocked on my door, and I spoke to him instead of listening to things that cause brain death.

I wanted something from this meeting, though.  And I had mixed feelings about it.  I applied to be on the Foundation, and the last I knew, I was the only applicant.  But there were two open seats.  So I figured I'd get appointed, and there would still be one open seat.  But nope.  Two energetic and relatively newer BP residents applied after I did.  They were Jill Grucan and Jonathan Groth (the JG twins).  I found this out because Mac called me to talk to me about the Foundation, to tell me that he learned that not only was I a member in the past, but I was the president of it, and to tell me I was his first choice to get back on it.  (Mac was under the impression that the Foundation's best accomplishments occurred when I was the president, but they weren't.  They were when Steve Taylor was the president, and Victor Romano and two other people and I were on it.  That was at the beginning of the Foundation, and we had a great group.)  And I wanted to get back on the Foundation, because I would get a chance to work with Rafael Ciordia, whom I want to know better.  But when Mac then told me about the JG twins, I told him I wanted him to choose them, because they'll be great members, and they might well have other ambitions (which I don't), and just leave me off.  Mac said he'd propose that I be an alternate.  I said OK.  So I lose my chance to work with Rafael, and Jorge Marinoni, but the Foundation gets significantly strengthened.  That's what the Village needs.

Mac reads this blog.  If he wants to add any discussion, to let readers know what else happened, he's more than welcome to do it.

PS: Mario Diaz continues to impress.  I still miss Ana Garcia and Heidi Siegel, and I was very excited about having Sharon Ragoonan as our manager, but Mario is great.

Don't You Hate Regulations? Or Do You? Or Are You Still Trying to Decide?

It's become practically fashionable these days to rail against regulations.  Today, on my homepage and on the radio, I heard about two crusades against them.

The first one, from my homepage, was against the pressure to get vaccinated against the coronavirus.  Are these people even more pervasive "antivaxxers?"  Maybe.  The article didn't say.  It did, however, say that "the opposition is rooted in a mix of religious faith and a longstanding wariness of mainstream science, and it is fueled by a broader cultural distrust of institutions and gravitation to online conspiracy theories."  The article began with pictures of protestors with signs seeming to equate vaccination with tyranny.  Actually, the title of the article, which brought in another element, was "White Evangelical Resistance is Obstacle in Vaccination Effort."  Oy.  "White evangelicals" think the coronavirus vaccine is an affront to their religious (or racist?) prerogatives?  "Somebody," as Matt Damon's character in "Dogma" said, "needs to take a nap."

Among people quoted in this article was Lauri Armstrong, "a bible-believing nutritionist outside of Dallas."  Ms Armstrong claimed to believe that "God designed the body to heal itself, if given the right nutrients [oh, so in addition to believing there's such a thing as 'god,' it would also be a good idea if people hired Ms Armstrong]" and "it would be God's will if [Ms Armstrong] is here, or if [she is] not here."

The article went on, and on and on, but you get the point.

The second treatment of this problem came from a radio report about various municipalities, and Pinecrest happened to be featured.  The issue this time was zoning, and whether local municipal governments should have the power to regulate what kinds of businesses and activities exist in any given neighborhood or section of a municipality.  This theme wasn't religious, but the thrust was the same: no one should tell anyone else what to do, with their bodies (oops) or with their properties.

And you know... The glaring fact of the matter is that it happens to be one sector of society vastly more than any other that articulates these kinds of sentiments.  It just does.  I'll call them what they call themselves: conservatives.  And they have a whole laundry list of crusades in their effort to conserve whatever it is they supposedly want to conserve.

Setting aside the huge oops, in terms of their crusade to prevent other people from telling them what to do with their bodies, they settle in a few other recurring places.  And some of these places contain the same very creepy hypocrisies as do the ones just alluded to.  For example, they claim to love law and order.  They don't like murderous marauding.  But at the same time, they love guns in civilian hands.  I mean, come on...  It doesn't take a rocket scientist, as they say...

And, you know, the whole bit about fiscal responsibility...  There's no one as fiscally irresponsible as American Reps/cons.  They spend what they don't have, they refuse to raise the money they want to spend, and they're notorious in the past 40 years for giving this country increasing and ultimately massive deficits.  (I know what you're thinking: what about Obama?  Obama's problem, and mistake, and, in my opinion, miscalculation, was that he didn't raise taxes as his predecessor should have.  The GWB administration is the first government in the history of civilization that went to war, and lowered taxes.  Nobody does that.  It can't be done.  You'll create a...deficit.  And Obama should have corrected that.)

But I want to come back to this fixation they sometimes have on following rules.  (That's what they call it when they're willing to do it.  Or at least when they're willing to demand other people do it.)  This turns out to be one of their many dilemmas, or hypocrisies.  They insist that rules be followed, but they rail against the setting of rules.

Take those "white evangelical" protestors.  It wouldn't be hard to imagine, or assume, that they're part of the Rep/con movement, whatever it's about.  So, generally, when it doesn't apply to them, they favor following rules.  The question is, when they're out driving, and it's quiet, with very little traffic, and they encounter a STOP sign, or a red light, and they can clearly see no one is coming, do they stop?  And if they're distracted, and don't notice the sign or the light, or don't come to that "complete stop" that's required, and they see the cruiser with the flashing lights, and maybe a quick suggestion of a siren, behind them, do they pull over?  Do they give the person whose "blue life matters" -- the person who demands "license and registration" -- as much lip and resistance as they do to the government that doesn't want them to get sick and die, or make someone else sick and dead, when someone else wants to see their proof of vaccination?  It would be interesting to ask them. 

Big Fish in a Small Pond. And BP Managers.

I've heard this argument before.  More than once.  On the surface of it, it's a sensible-sounding argument.  The most respected (by me) person who made this argument is Kelly Mallette.  The argument is that BP, for example, cannot have a good enough manager unless we pay much more than we do.  If we hire managers on the cheap, the argument goes, then they won't be good, and they'll fail us, and we'll probably have to fire them.  Because they're not good.  Because you get what you pay for.  Or they'll quit, because we don't pay them enough to work here.   As I said, on the surface of it, it's a sensible-sounding argument.  And it would make even more sense if it was true.

Yup, we pay low, or very low, on the manager compensation scale.  But if it was true that we pay so low that no manager in his or her right mind would work here, then no one of any quality, and certainly not of respectable credentials, would apply for the job.  But they do.  Lots of them do.  Some of them have been full managers elsewhere, and they want to settle in south Florida.  Some like the idea of managing our small community, and they want to coast.  Some have put in enough years somewhere else that they're getting what's a nice enough pension, and they now want what they think will be an easier job, so they can further pad their incomes.  But that group do apply.

Another group who apply, and the ones with whom we've had great experience, are the ones who've been in municipal service, but never before been full managers.  We're a critically important resume boost for them.  We're their ticket to a bigger and higher paying job elsewhere, once they show what they can do.  So they're hungry.  They're hungry for the resume boost, but they're also hungry to impress.  They want to do a great job here, so the better-endowed later employer will see how valuable, and immensely capable, they are.   That group begin employment with us, and their clocks are already running.  They figure it will take them X number of years to show how terrific they are, at which point they'll either get courted by someone else, or they'll start the search for the bigger money job.

But here's the problem.  First of all, as I said, it's not true that we don't offer enough to attract applicants, and managers who will sign employment contracts with us.  Second, we have fired only one manager for not doing a good job, and the glaring reason he didn't do a good job is that the Commission that controlled him didn't want him to do a good job.  It was the next Commission that fired him.  And he was paid higher than our usual scale, too.  And third, no manager has ever left us simply because a better paying job became available.  The closest we ever came to something that looked like that was Ana Garcia's departure for twice the money in CNMB.  But the then Commission majority had given her such a hard time, and blocked so much of what she tried to do, that it would be unfair simply to explain her departure as based on a bigger pay check a few miles up the road.  Was she going to leave at some point anyway, for more money elsewhere?  Was Heidi Siegel?  Was Sharon Ragoonan?  Will Mario Diaz?  Of course.  But they weren't unhappy and resentful to be managing here.  They weren't grudging about their work, because we disrespected them by not paying enough.  And more important -- and the purpose of this post -- they would all have left anyway, even if we had paid double what we do.  We have a problem we don't address.

I know this is going to sound like harping, and perhaps in a way it is, but the horribly conspicuous caricature was Tracy Truppman.  Tracy, on the basis of no credentials and no relevant experience, applied for the job of manager of BP.  That's the municipality where Tracy lives (still, as far as I know).  If Tracy's application, and ambition, were the craziest joke anyone could concoct, Tracy is not at all the only person who's way ahead of herself in the thinking-she-knows-the-right-answer-and-how-to-actualize-it department.  We've had, and still have, a number of BP residents who think they know better than anyone, and who think that what they think they know is of definitive, or dispositive, validity.  They don't listen to anyone else, because they don't think they have to.  What could anyone else tell them that they don't already know even better?  What opinion could anyone else have that is any match for their superior knowledge and experience?  Tracy, for example, hired Krishan Manners because Krishan didn't know how to manage a municipality, and had no ambition to take the relevant courses to begin to find out, and wouldn't stand in the way of Tracy's doing what she had already decided some years before she could do.  And that's our problem.  It could be Tracy, or Steve Bernard, or Bryan Cooper, or Noah Jacobs, or any of a number of other people who think that the ability to form an opinion, or simply to vote, is the same thing as knowing what you're talking, or thinking, about, and better than anyone else.  And that whatever opinion you form must prevail over others'.

These are people who either chose to live in BP because it's a small pond in which they could fancy themselves big fish, or who came to realize there was a vacuum they could easily enough fill, that would provide for them the same result.  So people like that find their little seats of power -- their little pseudo-fiefdoms -- and no one can back them down.  (Well, some of us eventually could, but it was a lot of work, and a lot of damage happened before we finally got rid of them.)

And that's what was going to run managers out of here no matter how much we paid them.  Unless the theory is that managers are more or less like prostitutes, and if you pay them enough, they'll tolerate, and surrender, anything.  And pretend to be pleased about it.

A big enough fish will eat anything.

There's a Big Difference.

In "pop psych," one of the suggestions is to excuse the faults of one's parents, and the proposed basis for doing so is the knowledge, or assumption, that "they did the best they could."  This, of course, is nonsense in that no one ever does the best they can.  Not only can everyone always do better, but much of what people do is based on what they know or think they know at the time, what they decide to do, or, to be charitable, what they think they should do.  Everyone makes decisions, and those decisions are not always right.  They're not always the "best" decisions that could have been made.  Those decisions are made on the bases of lots of variables.

So I never expect that anyone does the best they can.  All I ask is that people intend to do the best they can.  I forgive wrong guesses, or fair assumptions that don't turn out the way they were expected to turn out.  I forgive efforts that could have been greater, but either other pressures, or what wasn't perceived at the time as a need for greater effort, resulted in an imperfect outcome.  No problem.  You wanted a good outcome, and you did what you reasonably thought would lead to one?  It didn't work out?  OK.  Thanks for trying.

On the radio tonight, I heard a story about the attempts to control the coronavirus.  The doctors/scientists/epidemiologists of the world are struggling with increasing outbreaks in some places, such as Brazil.  The questions are about masks, distancing, and quarantine, strengthened by increasingly prevalent vaccination, and undercut by frustration, boredom, skepticism, resentment of being restricted, and a felt need to keep functioning of various kinds active.  As one online article put it, "the virus...has kept the entire planet toggling between hope and dread for the past 14 months."  And the people who are not either nuts or completely derailed by denial are doing the best they can to recommend measures that are mostly safe, but also respectful of people's needs to have means to survive, while they're presumably surviving a pandemic.  The "right answer?"  It sometimes depends whom you ask.  And when you ask them.

But the big difference is still between people who are genuinely trying to do the best they can, and intend to, and people who aren't, and don't.  The latter includes people who are stupid, and people who are too self-centered to care about anyone or anything else.

All of this got me thinking back over the past decade and a half, that I've witnessed, of BP decision-makers.  I'm talking here mostly about the Commissions, but also about the managers.  The latter make lots of decisions, but they make them on the basis of where the Commissions want to see the Village go, and how, and if, they want to see it evolve.  At the very best, Commissions and managers work together to come to agreement as to what will best help the Village, and what is the best mechanism to get it to whatever is the better place.  And there's that difference again.

Have the Commissions, and the managers, wanted the best for the Village, or haven't they?  Did they, or didn't they, intend for positive developments and outcomes?  If they have, and if they did, they might have made the right choices.  They might have interpreted correctly.  They might have guessed right.  They probably got things to happen, and those things might (well) have been good for the Village.

If they didn't want the best for the Village, and their intention was not for positive developments and outcomes, it is more or less guaranteed that nothing good happened, and that anything that happened was bad.  And again, what leads down this sad path is people who either aren't very intelligent, or people who are simply too preoccupied with themselves.

Next year in November, three terms are ending.  They are the terms of Ginny O'Halpin, Dan Samaria, and Judi Hamelburg.  I have not the slightest idea if any of these three will run again.  If they do, think very carefully before you vote.