Oh, Good. I'm Getting Back My Last $100.

The Foundation had big plans.  The Village had big plans.  We did a huge renovation of the log cabin, and we built an administration building.  Very big stuff.

And then, the Foundation had the idea of selling brick pavers, to be arrayed in the east entrance path to the log cabin, as a fundraiser.  You know what I'm talking about.  You've seen exactly this in many places.  They have loads of them around the Arsht Center, which has special "historic" designation, because the architects preserved a corner of the old Sears Building that was on the site.  It's a great idea.  It provides a better walking surface than some others, and it raises money.  Not to be too indelicate here, but most people would call an idea like this a "no-brainer."  Because it, you know, doesn't really take any brains to come up with a plan like this.  It's obvious.  It's simple.  Or, you could call it a "win-win" scheme.  The Village wins, and the people who buy the brick pavers win.  No one loses.  This is in part because there's nothing to lose.

And then came the catastrophe that was the Commission election at the end of 2016.  The brick paver scheme crashed, and so did most other Village functioning.  We exchanged someone who would likely have been a great manager for a terrible one.  And then, things...deteriorated.  It's hard to imagine they could have gotten worse, but they did.  Not only did we suffer increasing consequences from our shockingly horrible judgment at the voting booth at the end of 2016, but we never corrected our disastrous course.  It's true we temporarily elected Roxy Ross to finish some loser's term, after that person (mercifully) jumped ship, but Roxy was still in a minority.  Later than that, we elected Mac Kennedy, but he's an army of one, so that isn't going anywhere, either.  And we have been entirely unwavering about engaging one useless manager after another.  We have one now.  Look, I made a mistake.  I flinched.  My understanding of things at the time led me to protect Milt Hunter at the expense of Heidi Siegel.  I was wrong.  The only consolation for me, and for Heidi Siegel, is that the Commissioners elected at the end of 2016 would have made up some excuse to replace her anyway.  And the last time we had to hire a manager, I reached out to Heidi.  I apologized for my mistake.  I asked her if she would be willing to apply for the job.  She wouldn't touch us with a 10-foot pole. I don't blame her.

So, back to the pavers.  The plan died.  It has never been revived.  The current (mis)manager, Mario Diaz, has come up with some collection of excuses not to move forward.  I had paid $900 for a group of pavers.  To pressure Mario, as if he could care less, I told him that if he did not move this forward, I was taking my money back.  But since he couldn't care less, he did nothing but ignore the matter, so I took back $800 of the $900.

Now, I'm told that some group of disinterested people who have no agenda, don't want anything, and have no vision or sense of esthetics (including the Parks and Parkways Board), have decided that etched pavers, providing a stable walking surface that is not dead leaves and dirt, and are light-colored and easily visible (which the dark-colored dead leaves and dirt are not), and which would generate a nice piece of income for the Village, are a bad idea, and those people, with Mario Diaz's enthusiastic support, have decided we're not going to have a beautiful and income-generating path.  The whole plan, the whole vision, is dead.  So now, I get back my last $100.

It's very hard for me to find a way to agree with Bryan Cooper and Noah Jacobs, that we're a two-bit pseudomunicipality that doesn't deserve to exist independently, but I've about run out of arguments to counter them.  The good news is that I can buy something with $100 I thought was in my rear view mirror.