Oh, No!!

It's August 18.  People who want to run for election to be BP Commissioners can now explore, or even declare themselves for, candidacy.  The election, if you've forgotten, is on the general election day, which is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  This year, that's November 8.

The three seats that expire this coming November are Ginny O'Halpin's, Dan Samaria's, and Judi Hamelburg's.  It's too soon to be relieved, but Ginny O'Halpin has not declared candidacy.  Dan Samaria and Judi Hamelburg have, though.  If it's hard to imagine (re-)electing Dan and Judi, it shouldn't take too much of a search of the memory banks to recall at least equally stupid mistakes we Village voters have made.  It would certainly be an omission to forget that we elected Dan and Judi once, too.  Sometimes, nothing is beneath us.

Two other Village residents have also declared candidacy already.  And some others have "taken [informational/registration] packets," but not declared candidacies.  One person who is listed as having opened a campaign account, which is an essential part of declaring candidacy, is Luigi/Louis/Louie/"Hot Dog King" DiRaimondo.  Luigi, or whatever he likes to be called, does not have a specific platform, and my one more or less direct experience of him, which was watching him make a public comment at a Commission meeting, was slightly worse than eating glass, and nails, and consuming poison, and getting beaten up in an alley.  Luigi comes across as part dimwit and part vile person.  

Someone named Mario Carrozzi has reportedly declared candidacy (but not opened a campaign account).  Mario was identified by another Village resident as an interested and capable person.  But Mario has never chosen to involve himself in any Village functions, apart from asking questions and making comments to the person who told me about him, so I give him no weight as a meaningful Commission candidate.  (Although no weight is better than proven destructive losers.)  We've already had our fill of people who start from nowhere, and decide they should start at the top, and I have never once been impressed.

William Abreu reportedly took a packet.  This would be William's second time running, and the first one didn't make any more sense than does this one.  William has no meaningful connection to the Village and its functioning and government, apart from the fact that he lives here.  He does not participate, and he contributes nothing.  But in whatever orbit he's in, this somehow means he should want to be on the Commission.  My unforgettable story about William was from the last time I ran.  I knocked on almost every door in the Village (not Tracy Truppman's, and those of certain other people), and when I knocked on a door on 115th St, a young woman answered.  I introduced myself, and told her about the election, my candidacy, and the other people running.  Oddly, she seemed to know William Abreu, and as we got talking, I put two and two together, and asked if William was her husband.  He was/is.  So I finished explaining whatever I wanted to explain, including that I, as a Village resident, would be disinclined to entrust the Commission to someone who had never in any way been involved.  (And she claimed she and William and their family had lived in the Village for a different number of years than William claimed.  I think one said three, and the other said four.)  At any rate, it was some time after that that William said, possibly on NextDoor, that he had been present for this conversation, and hiding in an adjacent room, eavesdropping.  Why he didn't introduce himself, or his wife didn't say he was home, was a total mystery.  But William continues, in my opinion, not remotely to be Commission material.  If he grows up, and becomes active in the Village, I'll reassess.

I'm also told that some other people, possibly as many as four other people, might also want to try to get elected to the Commission.  This is one of those reports that is going to be very incomplete and unspecified for the moment, because it relies on very incomplete information given to me.  As the information becomes more complete, I will most certainly share it.

What is wrong with us?!  We leave Mac Kennedy, who is the only current Commissioner who wants anything for the Village, as a minority of one, and we content ourselves with dead weight and people whose most beloved objects in life are mirrors.  The best Commissioners we've ever had either won't run again or no longer live in the Village.  We reward their devotion and efforts with disdain.

We really ought not to continue to mess this up.  This is our Village.  It is our home.  It is the home of our neighbors and friends.  We, and our Village, and our home, and our neighbors and friends, deserve better than what we've been producing.  And if this is the best we can do, we should at least have enough introspection to be ashamed of ourselves.