No.

Last Friday, July 9, one of our neighbors wrote to me privately.  The title of the e-mail was "Were You at Tuesday's Meeting?"

The content was "I think Dan Samaria is becoming increasingly addle-brained.   It's just painful to watch and listen to.  Not that he ever had much in the way of cognitive skills, but it's getting worse.  As long as the majority of voters in this city(sic*) stay uninformed and/or treat electing someone to the commission as the equivalent of a participation trophy in little league, we are so screwed."

*Municipalities in Florida can be either cities, towns, or villages.  Biscayne Park has chosen to call itself a Village.  We are either a village or a municipality.  We are not a city.

I responded as follows: "You answered your own question.  Did I listen to Tuesday's meeting?  'It's just [too] painful to watch and listen to.'  And it's not just Dan.  It's also Ginny and Judi, and I'm disappointed in Art's minimal participation.  Mac is great, but he can in no way contain himself."

To which our neighbor replied: "Agree on all counts."

We've had good Commissions and not as good ones.  But we crashed badly at the end of 2016, and we have not recovered.  If some of us thought Ginny O'Halpin would help us get back on an adaptive path, we were wrong.  And if we thought Dan Samaria would somehow find a way to stay on the adaptive path onto which he had stumbled, and was being propped up, we were wrong about that, too.

And we've had the same problem with managers.  We stumbled at first with Frank Spence, but it was an honest mistake, and we had to figure ourselves out, in terms of turning over functioning and a good deal of decision-making to a manager.  But then, we had three excellent managers in Ana Garcia, Heidi Siegel, and Sharon Ragoonan.  And we gave it all up for meaninglessness and mediocrity.  If we thought Mario Diaz would get us back on track, we guessed wrong again.

I always regretted, or complained, that Village residents who had been Commissioners stopped attending Commission meetings once the meetings were no longer about themselves.  And at this point, I myself have stopped bothering.  I was faithful through the Truppman et al years, and at the beginning of the next phase, but the whole thing has become too frustrating, too infuriating, and too tragic, and I've just quit tuning in.  Would I go if I could go in person?  I don't know.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  The stalwart of all stalwarts was Dan Keys, and he's quit going, too.  Although I think he quit because he was no longer a member, and Don, of the P&P Board.  Bob (and Janey) Anderson also used to come after Bob retired from wanting to continue to be a Commissioner.  As far as I know, they still watch virtually.  So maybe Bob will take the torch from Keys.  But whoever is there to observe is doing no more than watching a train wreck happen.

The person who wrote to me said it seemed as if voting for someone to be on the Commission was like giving them the empty prize that otherwise represents a "participation trophy in little league."  Yeah, that's one way to put it.  And in its way, it's not wrong.  But I think it misses the point.  The point is that some kids really like little league, and either they're good at it, or they're not.  Other kids are bored, or they want to do what their friends are doing, or their parents urge them to play.  Others maybe just want that participation trophy.   And that's our problem.  That last thing.  We've had way too many Commissioners, especially lately, and now, who don't want anything.  At least they don't want anything that has anything to do with the Village.  What they want is that participation trophy.  So they can pat themselves on the back.

I've seen it elsewhere around here, too.  There are some people who join boards like high school students who want to go to good colleges join clubs: it pads their resumes, and makes them appear more than they are.  Do you want to know what they do once they get appointed to a board?  Nothing.  That was never the intent.  I know of one new board member who, after one meeting, which was attended "virtually," decided that s/he should be the vice president of that board.

We do have some neighbors who talk as if they wanted something (for the Village).  Some of them join boards.  And they criticize the successions of Commissions and Commissioners.  But the ones I have in mind steadfastly refuse to run for Commission.  Claiming to know the right answer to everything, and wallowing in criticism of everyone else, is easy.  Being at the place where the buck stops?  Um, apparently not.  I know people who bitterly criticized the Commissioners who preceded me, and they supported me in my first campaign.  Then, once I became a Commissioner, they criticized me exactly as they had criticized my predecessors, and they advocated for the Truppman wrecking crew.  Then, they criticized the Truppman squad, just as they had criticized me, and just as they had criticized my predecessors.  But never, not once, will these people themselves show us all how it's done correctly.

So, no, I did not tune into last week's Commission meeting.  If you did, I hope your life is empty enough that it didn't seem to you to be a waste of your valuable time.