So, the Village Wants Our Help. They Want to Know What We Think.

I think I've counted three e-blasts from the Village, asking us about our priorities, and our "vision" for the Village.  Each e-blast has been signed by Mario Diaz, who doesn't even work here any more.

If you're relatively new to the Village, you don't know what the problem is.  So, I'll tell you.  There are sort of two of them.  First, not so long ago, candidates for Commissioner campaigned.  They knew the Village well enough to know in what ways it worked well, and in what ways it didn't, and they had their own platforms, which they elaborated to you, when they campaigned, which included knocking on your door, and talking to you, or at least personally leaving for you a copy of their campaign flyer.  They didn't rely, as if they were blank slates, on finding out what was your vision.  They told you what was their vision.  It was on the basis of that, and whatever else you took into account, that you voted for them.  Or didn't.

Now, it appears to be backwards.  They somehow, on the basis of who knows what, get elected, and they then want you to tell them what they ought to do, or ought to want to do.  If it was that mindless, we could elect absolutely anyone, and then try to nudge them to meaning and effectiveness.  Frankly, it appears that that's what we've been doing for the past few years.  It's dramatically inefficient, and unreliable, which is why we are where we are.

Second, until 2016, new Commissions would have a sort of retreat at the beginning of the new Commission.  The purpose of that retreat was for the Commissioners/Commission we already elected to get to know each other better, and establish a vision to which they could ideally all ascribe.  We used to call those retreats, perhaps not very creatively, "visioning sessions."  Gone, as of 2016, as was any sense of "vision" beyond first just having power and control (over nothing), and now, just being satisfied somehow to have won an election, whatever the winner took that to mean, and filling a seat.

And now, the Keystone Kops, with the imprimatur of a manager who doesn't even work here any more, want us to tell them what their vision should be?  Or should have been?  That was their primary job -- having and communicating a vision -- and they can't do it.  They kind of need to resign.