I Know What You're Asking Yourselves: Who Am I to Talk?

I've lived here 19 years.  I was a Commissioner.  Once.  And I would have had only a two year term, except we piggybacked ourselves onto the general election, so each of us got one extra year to synchronize us.  My three year term ended at the end of 2016, and I failed to get elected in two more attempts.  None of this is anything to write home about, at least not in itself, two dimensionally.  And if you accuse me of having stopped bothering to attend or monitor meetings, I won't argue with you.  You're right.

During those three measly years, we extensively renovated the log cabin, built the Administration building, did a tree-trimming project, and did some smaller projects which, to be honest, depended on the amazing good will and good heart of Roxy Ross.  We tried to step up the driveway and swale Ordinance, but we couldn't come to agreement.  We hired Sharon Ragoonan to replace Heidi Siegel.  We outsourced sanitation, because keeping it as an in-house program was an increasing mess and excessively expensive, even though we paid our employees less than poverty wage.  And we were careful to choose -- insistent upon -- an outsource contractor that would promise to hire every one of our guys at more than we were paying them.  Not one of them was interested.  Hmm.

And we have had a succession of awful, useless, and destructive Commissions since I left office.  We've had bad mayor after bad mayor, Commissioners who had neither agenda nor interest, a series of terrible managers, and no Commission since the one of which I was a member has accomplished anything of any value to the Village.  (David Raymond will say we've gotten some of the drainage system cleaned, and I'm not sure he's entirely wrong about that, but we have no long term plan to keep them clean.  So we still get flooding, even if it's less in front of David's and Amy's house.)

We cared.  We wanted something.  We wanted a better Village.  And that was the point: it was about the Village, not about us.  In the eight years since I stopped being a Commissioner, and David Coviello moved away, and Roxy and Chuck Ross moved away, none of that has been true.  Between the angry power-grabbers and the me, me, me shows, the Village has gained nothing.

In my time and before, we used to begin every new Commission (every two years) with a "visioning retreat."  Not any more.  No one has vision, and no one wants to make any attempt to find common ground among Commissioners.

I regret that you don't want more.  House prices, and therefore property taxes, have gone up, and we have more to work with.  You/we could have a better Village.  This is our home.  It's where we live.  And rear our children.  And die at some point.  Unless you move away first.  But really, you could have more, a better neighborhood, and a better life.  You would just have to give a shit.  And it seems hardly anyone does.

Go take a walk.  Look at all those medians.  Really?  That's good enough for you?