4-1

There were several votes like that at the Commission meeting last night.  And Roxy Ross was on the very short end of each of them.  I don't think Roxy was having a good time of it, either.  It's not fun being on the short end of 4-1 votes, even when you're right, which Roxy was, each time.

There's an odd phrase to describe being happy about something.  The phrase is "like a pig in shit."  Everyone likes to be happy, but it would be hard to imagine finding it pleasing to be wallowing in shit.  I'm not sure even a pig would like that.  But that's what the four dominant Commissioners were doing, and they didn't seem to recognize for what it was that they were swimming in the stuff.

Harvey Bilt is our newest Commissioner, and he showed himself to be the fourth Tracy Truppman bobble-head doll.  I calculate he's the fourth, because I'm considering Tracy herself to be a Tracy Truppman bobble-head doll.  As someone in the audience last night said, maybe there should be a rule that new Commissioners are not allowed to speak.  They just have to listen.  And learn.  And if that meant that four of them were still silent, and only Roxy Ross was allowed to speak, we'd be far ahead by now.

The four very clearly have no idea what they're doing, or where they're trying to go.  Mostly, they just lurch around like Keystone Kops, unable to form any sort of meaning.  They have conversations that don't need to be had (clearly for no purpose than to hear themselves talk and fall in love with their own reflections), and last night, they specialized in trying to re-invent the wheel, on many occasions.  One discussion was about our new interim Manager, and whether the Commission should empower him to hurry up and hire a new Police Chief, or alternatively it should direct him to delay this hiring.  The "Commission" clearly had not the slightest understanding that Krishan Manners is the (interim) MANAGER.  He wasn't hired to be a secretary, or Tracy's assistant.  (I know, Tracy thinks everyone is hired to be her assistant.  I'd say she'll get over it, but she never has, and now, we've created a monster who will never, ever understand that she's not the center of the universe.)  He's the (interim) Manager.  That means he's the Manager.  And he has all of the responsibilities and prerogatives of the Manager.  Because he is the Manager.  The right to hire a new Police Chief, any time, and any way in the world he wants to do it, is not something the Commission can bestow on him or withhold from him.  And Krishan was graceful enough not to remind them of that fact.

It was both amusing and tragic to watch the four as they circled around the necessity to make decisions.  Jenny and Harvey should be more than familiar with the task, both of them having served on the Code Compliance Board.  But both of them, and Tracy, and the caricature that is Will Tudor, were every bit the deer in the headlights when they had to confront real issues, and conclude something.  I guess Harvey had an inkling that it would be like this, and that's why he ran like hell when I proposed a Meet the Candidates exercise in which he would have to have Commission-like discussions, and form Commission-like conclusions.  The four couldn't begin to do it.  They sputtered, and talked around, and possibly wet their pants.  They wanted delay, "workshops," and anything that would get them out of the hot seat.  But the hot seat is precisely what they asked for when they ran, and not one of the four could handle it.

They hid behind the concept of trying to get their neighbors to make decisions for them.  Tracy, for one, had the dodge that given enough "workshops," for example, "everyone" would agree about driveways, or whatever else.  News flash for ya, Tracy: "everyone" will never agree about anything.  The best you can hope for, if you want to hide from the responsibility to make decisions, is to identify and satisfy some sort of majority of your neighbors.  You can tell yourself that if you can find a majority, then they must be right.  Or at least that it's that many fewer people who will be mad at you.

Jenny Johnson-Sardella had an idea like that, too.  Somewhere in the discussion of choosing a new Manager from the meager list of mostly unimpressive applicants, Jenny said we "want to get it right."  News flash for you, too, Jenny: we already did.  We started out with about 57 applicants last summer, and very many people, including your neighbors, worked very hard to find the right Manager.  It was fine, until Tracy and you and the other bobble-head doll made Sharon Ragoonan's life miserable, and ran her out of here.  Do you know what consensus of how many people you overthrew to create the problem you now think you're going to solve?  And you three (now with a fourth, for extra padding, and to make yourselves imagine that might must, of course, make right) ran on an offer to "listen to [your] neighbors?"  Well, if you were listening, you were demonstrating a breathtaking failure to hear them.

The Agenda last night was actually very short.  It wasn't easy for the bobble-heads to torture it into a 3 3/4 hour meeting.  But that's what they did, bungling around, observing themselves talk and posture, and trying desperately not to make decisions that would 1) maybe be unpopular, and 2) screw up anything else.

Never Assume

I was not able to attend the overflow meeting last Friday, March 10.  I will be at the continuation overflow meeting on Wednesday, March 15.  For someone who promised to shorten meetings, Tracy Truppman seems to make them essentially endless.  In any case, I have begun listening to the recording of that 2 1/2 hour long March 10th slog.  And I found something important in the 40+ minutes of public comment at the top of the meeting.

Several speakers who were in support of the Truppman regime, and even some who weren't necessarily Truppman hounds, not only urged patience with Tracy, and confidence in her, but they also relied on a theory: that elected officials all want the best for their constituencies.  It was presented as a reason not even to criticize the regime, at this early phase.  I had to admit that that's quite an assumption to make.

Frankly, I don't think anyone, or certainly not most people, make assumptions like that.  And the more heated the campaigns, the less blind confidence people have in the commitments of the opposing side.  Just to take a highly visible example, I would say a very large proportion of conservatives did not assume that Hillary Clinton wanted what was best for the country, or even what she thought was best for the country.  And I would say almost no liberals assumed Donald Trump wanted what was best for the country.  Almost no one was agreeing to disagree, on the theory that we're all honest brokers at heart.

Not only do people tend not to make that assumption about "the other side," but it's not rare that people turn out to be right to be skeptical.  So why should we here in BP make the assumption that any elected official wants what's best for the Village, or even probably does?  There are various reasons to want to hold elected office, and not at all all of them are based in honesty, real concern for the whole constituency, or anything like altruism.

Noah Jacobs, for example, pointed out to the audience that no one would want to be a BP Commissioner for the money.  Money could certainly motivate some people in some places to want elected office, but I agree with Noah that the money is so meager here that it's very highly unlikely that it's the money that's of interest to office-holders.  But... some of our Commissioners have seemed to want every fiscal benefit they could lay their hands on-- some of them have seemed to nickle and dime the Village-- while at the same time, these Commissioners have not wanted to part with any of their money to donate to the Village.  For example, the Village has acquired three public sculptures, and it was three different Commissions that approved these acquisitions.  Some of the Commissioners were the same from one Commission to another, so it wasn't 15 different Commissioners who voted in favor.  And an uncommon Commissioner was opposed.  So maybe 10 different Commissioners voted for the Village to accept the gift of public sculpture.  And each of these sculptures was provided by a relatively small group of Village residents, who pooled money to buy the pieces of art.  But of the maybe 10 different Commissioners who approved these gifts, maybe only four of those Commissioners, or their families, donated.  So the other approximately six Commissioners may not have "made" a lot of money being Commissioners, but they sure didn't give anything back.  (There were several Commissioners I couldn't persuade to give $20 a year to the Foundation!)  Looking just at Noah's case, he received the high Village stipend: $4000 per year for two years.  And he voted in favor of the Village's receiving one of those sculptures.  So did he donate back $500 to contribute to that purchase?  $100?  $50?  $20?  $10?  Nope, not a cent.  Was Noah wrong, even about himself?  Was he in fact in it for the money?  Only Noah could know that.

And money isn't the only thing, apart from actual interest in the constituency, that would motivate someone to want elected office.  Some people like the power.  Or some sense of acclaim, or specialness.  As if it appealed to their personal narcissism.  Some might be padding resumes.  For example, there have been plenty of Commissioners who have served the Village on the Commission, but not on the volunteer Boards.  And most won't attend Commission meetings, either before they became Commissioners, or after they're not Commissioners any more.  It's as if if the meeting wasn't about them, or they didn't have ultimate power, then there's nothing to interest them even in being there.

So no, I wouldn't make the assumption that people who are Commissioners must, necessarily, obviously, automatically, want the best for the Village.  I wouldn't assume that at all.  And anyone who might criticize me for not making that assumption is seriously kidding him- or herself.  Or being disingenuous.  Or not paying much attention.

We can take as a perfect example the matter at hand.  The issue, before anyone tries to shift attention away from it, is the departure of our most recent Manager, and whether Tracy was being honorable or dishonorable about it.  Tracy has made a show of expressing concern over the Village's fiscal situation, and she tries to portray to us her conclusion that Sharon was either irresponsible or dishonest in addressing it.  What Tracy is trying to act out is what is supposed to look like her efforts, based on what she would like us to believe is her wanting the best for the Village.  That's the assumption.  It's the one speakers referenced when they asked that we not criticize Tracy, or when they themselves criticized those of us who did criticize Tracy.

The problem is that what Tracy tried to portray to us wasn't true.  Tracy did not find that Sharon did this, that, or the other thing, which Tracy then determined was faulty.  Tracy was out to get Sharon from the start.  Or just before the start.  Tracy was warning us that Sharon would make a poor Manager before we hired Sharon.  It was when Sharon was one of three finalists that Tracy was calling the then Commissioners (of which I was one), telling us what a mistake it would be to hire Sharon, and that Tracy's preference was someone who had already been dropped from consideration.  Tracy wasn't being fair or careful or protective of the Village when she laid into Sharon, from the moment Tracy took office.  Tracy does not in any way deserve that we should make the positive and politically correct assumption about people in elected office.  Not even close.  And if Tracy did not own and control two other Commissioners, Sharon, and the rest of us, would have ignored her foolish and undermining campaign.  It meant nothing, and would have been seen for what it was, except Tracy has stooges.  And we can't make the nice assumption about them, either.  Because they're not careful or decent or respectful.  They're simply dutiful, and their duty is to Tracy.  Not to the rest of us.

In fact, the reason we can't simply assume that Tracy and her pets have the Village's best interests at heart is that they don't make that assumption about us.  They didn't care about Sharon, they didn't care about the deliberations of the Commission that hired Sharon, and they didn't care about the deep well of positive sentiment of all their neighbors who very much favored Sharon.  I'm on record at the time, and I'll repeat here, that my first choice for the Manager position was not Sharon.  It was Mark Kutney.  But I liked Sharon very much, and when I could hear how Village resident after Village resident extolled the desirability to them of having Sharon as our Manager, I agreed to vote for her.  And it didn't matter if I didn't.  David Coviello, Roxy Ross, and Bob Anderson all preferred Sharon.  So Sharon was our choice, 3-2 or 4-1.  But she was the overwhelming choice of our neighbors in the Commission room audience.

So I heard it.  A number of our neighbors pleaded for the feel-good assumption about Tracy.  And they said it as if it should be the assumption about all elected officials.  It never is, and it isn't in this case.  And Tracy doesn't for an instant deserve that assumption.

If anyone has anything to say about my opinions, the comment opportunity of this blog is the place to say it.  Be honorable, and have courage, if you disagree with me.  Don't run behind my back, accusing me of  "cyber-bullying."  Is all editorializing, or reporting of news, "cyber-bullying?"  I'm stating what I observe and what I think.  You're welcome to do the same.  If you think I'm wrong, say so.  Publicly.  Here.  Have the courage of your convictions.  I do.  And whatever exposure or consequence anyone fears in stating his or her opinion is identical to the exposure and possible consequence I accept in presenting myself here.

You Can Put Your Party Shoes Away.

Oy, what a silly odyssey.  No one planned a Meet the Candidates event for this election, so I planned one.  I had in mind to make it different and more interesting (and illustrative) than the ones we typically do.  It was more unstructured, and it involved actual unrestricted conversations among the candidates.  The conversations were to be about various issues that have been or could be the stuff of Commission Agendas.  Instead of hearing what candidates A, B, and C would say about how they would think through one vague, hypothetical, and overgeneralized issue or another, I wanted them to have the actual conversations, exactly as they would if they were Commissioners.

Here are the Agenda topics I planned:

1)  Annexation.

As you know, our biggest problem is our finances.  Last year, the County Commission refused to hear our application for annexation of an area to our east, just over the track.  We have just gotten word that the reason they wouldn't consider our application is that they thought we were "cherry-picking," and not solving enough of the County's problem with unincorporated areas.  We have been informed that they could look much more favorably on an application from us, if we agree to annex the area we requested last year, and two residential blocks south of there, too, as well as a commitment to continue to annex gradually over the years, until we reach 108th Street.  Do we want to re-apply?

2)  Feral cats.

Residents continue to complain about the populations of feral cats in various parts of the Village.  They want something done.

3)  "Public" Art in BP.

Some residents of the Village appear to be art lovers.  They so much like art that they display it on their front lawns.  Some of these displays are quite conspicuous.  Other BP residents, however, do not appreciate this kind of imposition, and a few of them have lodged complaints.  Our Code is an "inclusive" one, meaning that anything not explicitly included in the Code is not permitted.  Public display of private art is not cited in the Code, and the offended neighbors want these private installations removed.  They consider them Code violations.  The Code Compliance officer is not sure whether this is the proper interpretation of the Code.  Neither is the Code Compliance Board.  They are all now turning to the Commission.

4)  Outsourcing.

The Commission has been receiving what seems like a flood of e-mails.  Some neighbors are complaining about WastePro, and they want you to end the contract, and revive a sanitation program run by the Village, as it was before we outsourced.  Other neighbors (about as many) are preoccupied with Village finances, and they want to outsource more Village functions.  They are aware of a lapse in leadership in the Recreation Department, and of the recent resignation of the Manager, and they consider this to be a perfect time for the Village to outsource many or most of its management functions.

For what it's worth, question 1 was Chuck Ross' idea, question 2 was Barbara Kiers' idea, question 3 was my idea, and question 4 was Roxy Ross' idea.  I was waiting for ideas from a few other people.

I asked the Commission for permission to hold this event in the log cabin, and to excuse me from paying for premises rental (as all Commissions give such permission and excuse such rental for this event) on Tuesday, March 7.  By the end of that day, all three candidates had agreed to the MTC plan for March 16, and the Commission had approved it.  And that's when things began to fall apart.  Or when some candidates began to get very cold feet.

First, it was Harvey Bilt, who wouldn't participate if I was the moderator (which was absolutely the plan).  I could never get Harvey to tell me what problem he was imagining, but I think, as best I could tell, that he thought I was somehow going to ambush him or fool him.  The most specific he would get was to say he objected to my authoring the questions.

Then, it was Dan Samaria, who told me he wouldn't participate unless the questions came from the audience, and told someone else he was worried about what Harvey was worried about.  I should say that I have never been unsupportive of either of them, and I offered, and delivered, help to Dan when he ran against me last fall, and to both of them regarding using this blog to publicize themselves, and appeal to their neighbors.  Harvey even took me up on the latter in 2013, when we opposed each other.  But now, both were in terrified mode and could not participate in any event that involved me.

Mac Kennedy was game from the outset.

I had a lot of back and forth with the three of them (not much with Mac, though) in the past week.  I couldn't get Harvey or Dan to flinch from their refusals to participate, and I decided their participation was vastly more important than was my fully controlling the event.  So I reached out to three people to moderate.  Drew Dillworth and Richard Ederr couldn't, and John Hornbuckle could.  So there it was.  And I made two other modifications to the original plan.  One was that I sought questions from neighbors other than myself (although I had reached out in advance anyway), and the other was that I gave the candidates the questions in advance.  And I told them that only one of the four was mine.  The only concession I would not make was to turn the event from a conversation among mock Commissioners into the stilted system we always use, where each candidate in turn has the same number of minutes to respond to the same questions.  It was essential to me that we try a different system.  It was to be an experiment.  It was to be fun.

But no, no matter what I did, I could not assuage Harvey.  As it turns out, I couldn't assuage Dan, either.  I took away every complaint, concern, or element of paranoia they had, except one, and they would not budge from their terror of this event.  And I have to say, I was very provocative with them.  I told them, and so did Mac, that it was wrong of them to try to control this event, and to try to minimize discomfort for themselves.   The thing they were afraid of is precisely the characterization of being a Commissioner.  Mac told them to "man up," and to "grow a pair," and I supported the challenge.  But no, they were not going to waver at all.

So Mac dropped out of the race altogether.  He wanted no part of such behavior.  I couldn't blame him.  I told him so.  I told him that the most he could accomplish was to be part of a 3-2 minority in which Tracy Truppman and her puppets would simply steamroll him and Roxy Ross.  So what was the point?  No one would listen to him anyway.  And it's not that I agree with every leaning Mac has or position he takes.  It's just that I think he's open-minded, reasonable, fair, and has the interests of the Village at heart.  If he's coming from the right place, I would trust his conclusions, even if I don't agree with all of them.

Does it make any difference whether Dan wins, or Harvey does?  No, not at all.  It seems to make a difference to Tracy, though.  She's been out campaigning with Harvey.  What does she want with him, though?  Is she afraid she's losing complete control over Jenny and/or Will?  Maybe.  I don't know the content of all the colluding that's very clearly going on among the three of them outside of Commission meetings, and I haven't seen the faintest suggestion of independence from either of them in meetings, but maybe Tracy knows what she's doing, or at least what she has to worry about.

So don't bother to come to the Meet the Candidates event on Thursday evening.  There's no event to attend.  But I'm told (not by our fearless candidates) that they're having their own event on Sunday.  I don't know the place or time.  But it doesn't matter.  I'm not voting anyway.  We're getting a new Commissioner on 3/28.  It'll either be Dan or Harvey.  You decide which one it is, if it matters to you more than it matters to me.

Not Junk Mail

I owe an apology for last night.  I lost control of myself, and I said things I should not have said.   And I do apologize.

The audience gallery of the log cabin Commission room was SRO.  It was pretty clear what the crowd was about: item 12.a, the Manager's evaluation.  We've been talking about and anticipating it for at least a month, and last night was to be the night.  ("...to be...?")

At the outset of the meeting, Tracy Truppman announced that she had just that day received from Sharon Ragoonan Sharon's resignation, effective yesterday.  The room was in admitted "shock," even including Roxy Ross and David Coviello, so they said.  Everyone had come hoping either to ward off Tracy's final killing of the beast she had been wounding, or to egg Tracy on.  It was all over the neighborhood, and on Nextdoor.  People who didn't come to meetings came to that one.  And there was suddenly a breathtaking deflation in the room.  Sharon was gone.  She had left.  It was over.

Many residents asked Tracy why Sharon left, and Tracy insisted, repeatedly, that she didn't know.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella and Will Tudor didn't know, either, but they were fully composed.  They didn't even want to venture guesses as to why Sharon left, because, they both said, it would not be fair to Sharon to talk about her in her absence, when she couldn't defend herself (from what?).  And we wouldn't want to utter on the record things that might lead to the Village's being sued by Sharon.

But if Sharon told Tracy that she was resigning, didn't she say why?  Didn't Tracy even ask?  The stories we were given sounded like no.  Sharon didn't tell, and Tracy didn't ask.  Not curious?  Evidently not.

So, very many of us were left with empty speeches we intended to deliver either in support of Sharon or to express dissatisfaction.  And then, it was time for public comment.  Tracy offered.  No one flinched.  I hadn't been sure if there was anything I would have wanted to say, and my plan was to wait until near the end, to see if there was anything left to say.  But with precious instants of dead air after Tracy's offer for public comment, I decided I should arise.  I would hold a place, while others gathered themselves and their thoughts.

I really didn't know what to say.  I have been furious with Tracy for quite some time, watched her undermine and dismantle Village administration, and torment Sharon.  I like Sharon.  We all do.  She hadn't told me she was leaving, and the whole thing was very sudden.  Funny enough, when Tracy was in a more aggressive form of assault on Sharon, a few weeks ago, Sharon told me she was thinking of simply leaving early every day.  Like what was the point of trying, if Tracy (et. al.-- it doesn't work, unless there's an et. al.) was gunning for her and grinding her down?  But I told Sharon to keep doing the job she was doing.  If Tracy and her posse want Sharon's scalp, make them work for it.  Don't hand it to them.  So she soldiered on.  Until yesterday.  If something happened yesterday, I don't know what it was.  And Tracy isn't talking.

So there I stood, looking at Tracy, filled with anger and frustration, and loss.  And I directed my comments to Tracy.  I reminded her of her lack of involvement with the Village, except when she had her pearls of genius to unload on us.  And her bizarre application for the Manager's job last year.  And how she hounded Sharon, until Sharon couldn't take it any more.  And I told Tracy what adjectives about her occurred to me.  I told her I found her predatory, corrosive, nasty, dishonest, self-involved, full of herself, disgraceful, and disgusting.  I just lost it.  The people who don't like you will always criticize you.  But when your friends tell you you "went too far," and you sort of knew it anyway, well, there isn't much else to say.  Except I'm sorry.  And I am.

Much of the rest of the meeting involved trying to clean up the mess that was just made, and trying to anticipate its future consequences, of which there are several, at least.

And then, there was 12.b.  Roxy Ross had been receiving lots of e-mails from Tracy.  The whole Commission had.  They were rants and screeds about whatever crusade (against Sharon) was occupying Tracy, and she sent them not only to Sharon, but also to all the other Commissioners.  Roxy had an idea that this kind of spilling was a Sunshine violation.  And in the end, it was determined, even by Tracy, that this kind of indiscretion was not a good idea, and not "best practice," but it was not technically a Sunshine violation.  And that's true.  It was not, in itself, a violation.

The Sunshine Law says that members of Boards in Florida cannot discuss Board business except in appropriately arranged meetings.  The meetings have to be announced in advance, open to the public, and minutes have to be kept.  And the definition of a discussion is technical and specific.  It is the mutual sharing of information pertinent to matters on which the Board will vote, or matters which have a reasonable likelihood to come up for a vote.  So if Tracy says something to another Board member (Commissioner), but the other Commissioner doesn't reply, then there was no mutual sharing, and a conversation did not occur.  It was made clear that each of Tracy's e-rants opened with a caveat for the recipient not to reply.

So Roxy was wrong.  There was no Sunshine violation.  But Roxy asked the wrong question.  The question was not whether this sharing was a Sunshine violation, but rather, what was Tracy's goal in sharing at all.  What was Tracy's purpose in informing her Commission colleagues over which coals she was then raking Sharon?  Discussions like that, among Commission colleagues, where real and mutual conversations can occur, is what Commission meetings are for.  So what was Tracy doing?  That was the question.

And there are three possible answers.  First, it's possible that Tracy is in fact completely full of herself, totally uncontained, and cannot do, say, write, or think anything, unless the whole world has to know about it.  Even if it's inappropriate and unnecessary.  That's the least terrible possibility.  The next, somewhat more terrible possibility is that Tracy was using these distributions to telegraph to her colleagues what she was thinking and doing, so they would be ready to back her up later, when there was an actual meeting.  They would know whence she was coming, so they could prepare themselves to agree and support.

And then, there's the most terrible possibility, Sunshine-wise.  That possibility is that the circulation was superfluous, and intended to create e-camouflage.  The possibility is that Tracy and some of her colleagues were already actively colluding, in exactly the way the Sunshine Law proscribes, and the e-mails were intended to create what could later be presented as the basis for how Tracy's colleagues knew what was in Tracy's mind.  You don't have to admit you met privately to discuss something you weren't supposed to discuss, if you can say that only one person communicated, and only one way, and to everyone.

Why Tracy sends out e-mail so unnecessarily and inappropriately?  Who knows?  Like why Sharon abruptly quit, having a good relationship with two Commissioners, and no great difficulty on record with two others?  Who knows?

A Different Kind of Meet the Candidates Event.

The election to fill David Coviello's seat is on Tuesday, March 28.  There are three BP residents running for this seat.  They are, in order of declaring candidacy, Dan Samaria, Harvey Bilt, and Mac Kennedy.

Typically, in advance of Commission elections, we hold a Meet the Candidates event.  The event has, over the years, been sponsored by one or another group.  This year, perhaps in the commotion preceding the special election, no one planned a MTC event.  So I planned one.  It will occur at the log cabin on Thursday, March 16, at 6:30 PM.

Traditionally, we have structured the event so that candidates are asked a question, with each in turn giving his or her response to that question.  Then, on to the next question.  Questions are composed by the sponsoring group, and they often include some questions submitted by audience members the night of the event.

In my experience, both as an observer and a participant, the questions have an over-generalized and stilted quality to them, and responses are often a series of platitudes, frequently repeated by each of the various candidates.  I decided this time to structure the exercise or demonstration differently.

What I will do is compose a few scenarios.  Each one will describe a typical Village problem which the Commission will confront.  Commission candidates, instead of giving isolated, and timed, answers to the problems will take the roles of Commissioners.  They will be a Commission of three.  They will discuss the scenarios, looking either to form a consensus about a solution, or to make clear what are their differences of opinion or approach.  In these discussions, exactly like the discussions that occur among Commissioners, candidates will take whatever time they need, say as much or as little as they like, and show how they can in some sense work together to conclude a decision about each scenario.  Working together might mean coming to consensus, or agreeing to disagree, or finding a new solution.  We shall see.

So come to the event next week.  Find out what Commissioner Samaria, Commissioner Bilt, and Commissioner Kennedy look like.

I Will Not Say This Again. All Right, Just One More Time. Maybe.

Tonight, we had a CrimeWatch/Coffee with a Cop meeting.  The meeting was run by Chuck Ross, our CrimeWatch Chair, and others appearing included five of our officers.  Also, Nicole from the County CrimeWatch was there to provide part of the presentation.

Much of the meeting was a review.  Questions were asked, and tips were given.  We went over again the importance of calling 911, if anything looks at all suspicious.  Or concerning.  Or unexpected.  We as residents do not have to figure out whether a call should go to 911, or to Non-emergency.  911 will triage that, after we call.  And they're quick.  And they keep calls recorded.  And everyone in enforcement wants it that way.  So call 911.  Nick Wollschlager says he would rather go on 1000 cold calls than miss the one that was hot.

It was Nicole from County CrimeWatch who said it first.  Brad Kern belabored it.  Way too many crime events and unwelcome entries occur, because doors are not locked.  Doors are not locked.  Car doors.  House doors.  Left unlocked.  To this day.  And tempting items are sometimes left in clear view.

We never even talked about traffic control, except for the mention of speeding, mostly on 6th and on Griffing.  Under our new Management, we're stepping up ticket-writing.  But we make very little money on tickets written.  Most of the benefit of it is the message it sends, or, as Roy Camara and others put it, the education it provides.  Roy says you can educate a lot more people by turning on the blue flashing lights for all traffic, or even just for speeders, than you can by stopping one person, and writing them a ticket.

So, not that it's ever been mentioned before, but PLEASE LOCK YOUR DOORS.


PS: We also talked about a wall along the tracks.  Reason #2 that we don't have one is that it's unclear on whose property it would be.  Reason #3 is that some BP residents along the track don't want a wall (for who knows what reason.  Maybe they like the noise and the trespassers.).  Reason #1, according to Bob Anderson, is the cost.  Bob says there was a time some years ago when that cost was estimated at $1M.  No one got an estimate today.  But if it was $1M, that's about $900 per home in BP, once.  Or, if someone doesn't have $900, it's less than $50 per year for 20 years.  That amount of money substantially reduces train noise and intrusion from mischief-makers.

Oh, Please, No. Not Another "Love Fest."

What's with Sharon Ragoonan?  She has to tell us about her love and devotion for her boyfriend?  He's in Afghanistan long term, and they visit each other quarterly.  "Quarterly?!"  That's a relationship?  And she says she's deeply devoted to him.  What's with this girl?

And then, she comes on like she's about as deeply devoted to us.  Come on, Sharon.  Get a life, will you, girl?  She's going away to visit Troy, who's probably the luckiest man on earth, on Thursday, so how does she use Tuesday and the run-up to it?  Creating a presentation for us.  She wanted to update us.  This is what she can think of to do with her spare time (of which she doesn't have any) before she goes away.

And she made sure we wouldn't forget the presentation.  She put together an 11 page (really 10, and three lines) document of all she wants us to know.  There's a review of how she got where she is with us, what's accomplished and in progress with each of our/her departments, what her further goals are, and a summary of where we are with our fiscal reports: the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs), the productions of which are behind two years.  It's not her fault, and she let us know that, but she's working on them, and she has target dates for completion.  And if it's supposed to assuage our anxiety about it, we're not being penalized.

The woman is loaded with enthusiasm.  Dressed to kill, too.  I don't know if I'd like to be Troy, or if it would kill me.  But Sharon didn't hold anything back in her presentation to us last night.  She tried to confine herself to an hour and a half, but it didn't completely work.  She whipped up about as much enthusiasm from us as she had for us.  Almost everyone there was grateful.  The chronic, inveterate malcontents, of course not.  The rest of us, yes, very much.  And lots of us were there, too.  SRO.

Tianna Shepard alluded to it, and Art Gonzalez called it what it was.  Two of the current sitting Commissioners-- Roxy Ross and David Coviello-- were there, as were all the other Commissioners who hired Sharon (Bob Anderson, Barbara Watts, and I).  The fact of the matter is that when I got the e-notice of this meeting, I contacted Sharon.  I asked her if the meeting was her idea, or was she pressed to do it.  It was her idea.  She wanted us all in the loop.  So she sent e-mails to all of the current Commissioners, asking them to sponsor the meeting.  Roxy Ross told me she responded to the e-mail, agreeing to sponsor it.  I don't know how or if David Coviello responded (but he was there).  The meeting was not sponsored by the Commission, so the rest of the math isn't hard to do.

Well, fine.  Sharon seems to love us (second most in the world, it seems), and those of us who were there at the very least very much appreciated her and her devotion.

Sharon is working very hard for us.  She's dealt with disarray, tasks left undone, and some instability in Village staffing.  This doesn't seem like a good time for sabotaging her or failing to be supportive and encouraging.  Unless, of course, further disruption and undermining are the goal.  Not in evidence last night.   There were just some very conspicuous absences.  What a damn shame.

Yet Another Correction, of Sorts. Maybe Just Clarification.

On February 12, I summarized parts of the Commission meeting from earlier that week.  I talked about two items discussed by the Commission.  One of those items had to do with a variance request.  Last night, eight days after the post publication, I got a call from the Village resident who applied for the variance.

The resident called, because his wife/family were upset by the post, and because he had heard from other Village residents and even people who do not live here (but who had somehow read the post) to the effect that my comments about his variance matter, and about him, had implications for his "reputation."  He and I had a long discussion (I didn't keep track, but it seems to me we were on the phone together about an hour), the seeming upshot of which was that he would like me to offer his side of the story.  It wasn't quite clear whether he wanted me to "correct" myself in any sense.  But he did think I was sort of wrong about some things.  At least, he thought there were things I didn't know, and that what I said subtly distorted what he considered to be the full reality.

I offered this neighbor the opportunity, as I always do, to write his own post: the other "he said."  But he told me that because of his involvement in media, he couldn't do that.  He, or his wife, or his friends, wanted something said, and he wanted me to say it.  I asked him, by the way, if he wanted me to avoid using his name, as I did in the original post.  He was slightly equivocal, but ultimately, yes, he wanted me to continue to avoid it.

I made a number of kinds of comments about this situation, and about our neighbor.  I said that he was an attorney, or at least that he was a member of the Florida Bar.  He thought the qualification was somehow dismissive or minimizing, and he wanted me to know that he is most certainly a law school graduate, that he is indeed a member of the Florida Bar, and that he has done formal legal work.  He does pro bono work for someone now.  In fact, he told me, his specific media work now is in investigative journalism, and he is either much aided by his legal training and experience, or he couldn't do the media job without it.

But the reason I quoted him as having said he was a member of the Florida Bar was that the mention of it seemed almost gratuitous, and coming at the time and under the circumstances it did, I thought it had the subtle implication of a threat.  Our neighbor said he meant no such thing, and he dismissed the idea that anyone would have thought so.  I told him I was merely an audience member, with nothing at stake, and I thought it sounded that way.

Second, I alluded to his background in the US armed services.  I'm not sure what was his issue about my mention of it, but he wanted me to know that he flew fighter planes.  If there was any impression on anyone's part that I was not respectful of his service record, he wanted me to know that it is very fully legitimate and advanced.  Twenty years, I think he said.

The matter of his "genetics" was a very interesting discussion between us.  His first comment to me was that his genetics had nothing to do with the variance issue, and it was unclear to him or anyone who approached him about it why I would even bother to mention it.  I hope our neighbor won't mind my revealing that he is 58 years old.  I suggested that in 58 years, he must have experienced many times that his genetics were held against him.  He agreed without hesitation or equivocation.  When I suggested that it could also be that his genetics may at times have accrued to his benefit (I mentioned "white guilt" and other similar dynamics), he bristled.  He insisted that he, and his family before him, have worked very hard for everything they've gotten, and he seemed to react as if I was accusing him of getting undue benefits, just because of his race.  Which, of course, in the matter of this variance, I was.  I told him that given my experience on P&Z, and my time on the Commission, I felt quite sure that taken only on its merits, the variance would never have been approved.

This led to our discussion of the variance.  Our neighbor, in discussing with me his legal training, told me he had provided a brief as part of his argument.  He asked me if I had seen the brief.  No, I had not.  He sort of scolded me for having come to conclusions without having investigated the entire record, and he told me he was sure I would be much more careful in evaluating a psychiatric case.  But, since I had not, in fact, seen his brief, and he offered it as the record of the unique circumstance which should properly have legitimized his application, I asked him to review with me what was the unique circumstance.  A longer conversation boiled down to the traffic-- vehicular and foot-- in the Village, and especially on Griffing, and especially on lower Griffing.  He says his neighbors agree with him.

Which, of course, is what I said originally.  And furthermore, although I did not discuss this with our neighbor, I personally don't object to fences and walls in BP.  Whether property owners want them for security, privacy, or just appearance, it's fine with me.  But I don't make the rules.  We have rules, they're in the Codes, and fences and walls are not allowed in front yards.  Our neighbor already had a wall (he told me it was already there when he moved in 13 years ago), and he wanted to extend it a foot higher.  It would be OK with me, but it's not allowed by our Code.  And the fact that our neighbor doesn't like what feels to him like threatening traffic is not a unique feature of his property.  He's got a lot of company.  If he wishes we would change our Code to allow front yard fences and walls, so do I.

So, we had a very nice talk.  Let there be no mistake: our neighbor is a fully trained and Bar-admitted attorney.  He has a noteworthy military background.  He's black, but it has never felt like an advantage to him.  And he won his case about the wall extension.  It's just that I disagree.  And I have my own way of thinking through it, and trying to make sense of a conclusion that was contrary to what the Codes say it should have been.

Our neighbor called originally suggesting he and I needed to sit down and have a cup of coffee together.  In exploring with him what we needed to discuss, it seemed to me our coffee date shouldn't wait until next week, which was the next time he and I were both available for 7:45 PM coffee.  We had our conversation last night.  But he said he'd still like to meet, and I would, too.  So I suggested either that we have our coffee next week, or that he and his wife come over, and I'd cook them dinner.  He says he'll ask her.

Correction. And I Would Have Lost a Bet, Too.

In a recent post, when I was discussing a variance request before the Commission, I said Roxy Ross made the motion to approve the request.  Roxy didn't remember it that way.  She didn't remember who made the motion, although she thought it might have been David Coviello, but she insisted it had not been she.

I checked with Maria Camara.  Roxy was right.  She did not make the motion.  David did.  And Will seconded it.  But as Roxy confirmed, she did vote for the motion, and there is no dispute that the vote was 5-0.

Sorry, Rox.  I misremembered.  What do I owe you?

Why Such a Hard-On Over the Manager's Authority?

Tracy Truppman has been showing the Village an escalating, almost frantic, campaign.  She focuses, she distorts, she seems bent on cornering, for a kill.  She seems increasingly clearly to want Sharon Ragoonan out.  As best anyone can tell at this point, this is Tracy's private war.

It's been only a very short time since the new Commission and the new Mayor have taken over, and there seems to be a direction.  In various respects, that direction has been to commandeer various of the responsibilities and prerogatives of the Manager.  And most of this seems to be Tracy Truppman's agenda.  The question is, what's all this about, and why is Tracy so intent on invading the Charter-granted space of the Manager?

To remind, the Manager's authority and responsibility were devised by a Charter Review Committee back in 2005.  That proposal was immediately ratified by the then Commission, and a general vote of the Village residents by referendum later that year confirmed the arrangement.  Subsequently, three years ago, another Charter Review Committee, stimulated, funny enough, by the then preceding Commission, which also resented the powers of the Manager (among other things), took a look, and they couldn't find one thing to recommend changing.  For what it's worth, one of our new Commissioners, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, was a member of that Committee.  As an aside, Tracy Truppman, who has never been one bit shy about letting everyone know what she thought about everything, never questioned the authority of the Manager.  So we're back to our question: why does she so adamantly question it now?

Last year, our Manager resigned, and we had to find a new one.  We posted the opening in the usual way, and we got between 50 and 60 applications.  The first step, since we advertised requirements for application, was for the Village Clerk to go through those applications, and remove the ones that did not meet the minimum criteria.  There was no issue as to what qualities or assets the applicants had.  That would be for another level of discrimination.  This was simply whether the applicant had the minimal background requirements we said we demanded.

For who knows what reasons, and despite equivocation as to whether she would or she wouldn't, Tracy Truppman applied for this job.  She was in no way qualified, and half the time, she either said she wouldn't really apply, or she didn't really want the job, but apply she did.  And very predictably, she was eliminated instantly.  Never mind the gross lapse in judgment to think she was worthy of consideration, despite not being remotely qualified, or offering to be the Manager of a municipality in which she lived.  No, she simply did not in any way deserve consideration, because she has no relevant training or experience.  But still...

It's also worth noting something about how Tracy deals with people.  From time to time, Commissioners (and others, I'm told) would get calls from Tracy.  The calls would always start with "I need five minutes of your time."  This meant that with some work on the part of the recipient of the call, it might be possible to end the call in about 30 minutes.  You had to fight Tracy a bit to get her to let you go, but it could be done.  The content of the call was some confidential consideration that was always said to have been supported by some source Tracy was not at liberty to reveal, and the recipient of the call was not allowed to tell anyone about the call.  It typically didn't take long to learn that Tracy had made the same call, with the same content, under the same strictures of secrecy, to various other people.

Back to the matter of the Manager.  The Committee to recommend semi-finalists gave the Commission its choices, which was late summer or early fall of 2016, and I was on the Commission. I had no intention of running for re-election, but I had to participate in choosing a new Manager.  So I made public statements-- from this blog and in a Commission meeting-- to say that I would welcome the involvement of anyone planning to run for Commission, or even thinking about it.  I knew Dan Samaria was planning to run, and no one else had yet offered him- or herself, but I figured someone must be thinking about it.  I wanted any Village residents who would be Commissioners, and who would work particularly closely with the new Manager, to have as much say as possible as to who that person would be.  I promised to share any information I got, and offer Commission aspirants extra weight in choosing the finalists, and the ultimate choice.  No one came forward to take me up on this offer.

Once the three finalists were chosen, I got the Tracy call.  She thought the person we chose would be a poor choice, and she thought one of the other candidates-- one who had already been eliminated-- would be the best choice.  And she said this for what turned out to be a very funny reason.  Well, when I say funny...  Being the provocateur he can sometimes be, Chuck Ross had told Tracy that one of the candidates had a background as an engineer, as does Tracy.   So Tracy decided the engineer would be best.  I told Tracy that the person she said she preferred was no longer in the running, and I had no way, even if I agreed with her (which I didn't), to resurrect his application.

So Tracy got elected to the Commission, and she allowed herself to be chosen as Mayor.  And without any experience on the Commission, or on any major Village Board, or any experience as a Mayor, Tracy decided the Manager had too much power, and she, Tracy, and whoever else was on the Commission, and Commissions to come, should snatch away some of that power.

As I view it, Tracy is jealous and resentful.  She's mad that Sharon Ragoonan got what she, Tracy, the pretender, wanted, and like a bigger kid, she wants to grab some of it away for herself.  She makes more or less clear she's mad at Heidi Siegel and the last Commission, thinking all of them either failed or behaved badly.  And even though Tracy is part of a new majority, and we have a new Manager, Tracy wants to punish Sharon and the minority of the current Commission for what she can't take out on Heidi and the majority of the old Commission.

But if part of Tracy's alleged reasoning is that Heidi had too much power, so Sharon should have less, the other part of her alleged reasoning is that the prior Commission failed proper oversight.  If taking power away from the Manager cures the problem of managers with too much power, how does transferring more power to the Commission address the problem of incompetent Commissions?   And further, if Tracy's answer to misguided Managers is to remove some of their authority, through what she likes to call "checks and balances" (you can never go wrong with patriotic slogans), what would be her answer to misguided Commissioners, of which we have had more than a few?  Should the voters only provisionally elect Commissioners, with those leanings needing approval from some higher power, as the Manager should only provisionally hire, subject to the Commission's approval?