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?

Hits and Misses. Well, No Hits This Time.

Two issues stand out from last Wednesday's Commission meeting.  One was a variance request, and the other was portrayals of horror over the 2016 audit that is thus far incomplete.

The variance issue was typical of those that come before the Commission.  Homeowners wanted something, they asked Planning and Zoning to approve it, P&Z refused to approve whatever it was, and the homeowners appealed the denial to the Commission.  That's the way they're all structured.

To be eligible for a variance, homeowners have to show four things, which boil down to two things.  They have to show that the requested action is in some way necessary for the proper use, advantage, and enjoyment of the property, and they have to show that whatever they want to do won't compromise their neighbors, and that their neighbors don't mind.  In this case, P&Z considered the matter, and they concluded that none of the four requirements was met.

Also in this case, a few things are worth mentioning.  The homeowner is in some respects a public celebrity.  He is a television newscaster.  A few years ago, when the then Commission honored some Village residents for military service, this resident, who had been in service earlier in this life, gave what amounted to keynote comments.  He is also, as he found a way to mention in his argument last Wednesday, an attorney (or at least he went to law school and was admitted to the Florida Bar).  He's forceful in presenting whatever he wants to present.  And for what it might also be worth, he's black.

P&Z's "case" was presented by its representative, Dan Schneiger.  According to Dan, the application was not felt to have met any of the four required criteria, so P&Z unanimously denied the request.  In addition (as is not uncommon in these disputes), P&Z disagreed with some of the applicant's assertions of the state of the wall in question, and whether, as the applicant claimed, even a seven year old child could easily walk over the four foot wall.  P&Z's conclusion was that if anyone could scale the wall, it was because dirt had been mounded up on the street side of the wall.  But even at that...

The other part of the assertion of necessity for this wall (actually, it was only an extra one foot vertical extension of the wall that was requested) was that the applicant was concerned about crime.  He cited wider-spread concerns on the parts of some Village residents that crime here was increasing.  And it should be recalled that the applicant has what is perhaps more visibility, being a kind of celebrity, than might other Village residents.

Finally, the application included letters from several nearby neighbors who said they had no problem with the applicant's increasing the height of the wall.

So this was the stand-off that led to presentation of the matter at the Commission meeting.  Commissioners clearly did not know how to proceed with this application.  In my personal opinion, they did not want to frustrate someone with the kind of community (County, TV viewership) visibility enjoyed by the applicant, and I believe they did not want to make a decision that could possibly be interpreted as racist.  So first, it was David Coviello who said he had no problem with the application, and then, it was Roxy Ross who offered a motion to approve the application.  The vote was 5-0 to approve it.  And this is against a vote of 5-0 on the part of P&Z to deny it.

In my opinion, the Commission was completely wrong to have approved this application.  P&Z (the trusted and relied-upon neighbors who devote their time, trouble, energy, and discretion to studying these matters) unanimously denied the application.  Although it seems they were wrong to conclude that the proposed work would compromise the applicant's direct neighbors (they said the application did not meet any of the requirements), the applicant very clearly did not meet any of the other three requirements.  And applications for variances must meet all four requirements.  To the extent that the applicant cited a concern about crime, even though his property was no different than anyone else's, this argument should allow all BP property owners to have walls, as high as they think would protect them.  This decision was a failure of confidence in P&Z, and a failure of leadership toward the whole neighborhood.

The second noteworthy issue from this meeting was concern about last year's audit, still not completed.  It was almost exclusively Tracy Truppman who was critical.  In fact, she was nearly searing.  She criticized the Finance Director, the former Manager, the current Manager, and the immediate past Commission (two of whose members are now her colleagues) for failure to materialize this audit.  Tracy did not offer any speculation as to how so many people all made the same failure.  She also did not propose anything new as to how to get this audit completed faster than the current Manager is already attempting to do it.

But really, completing the audit didn't seem to be Tracy's main goal.  She seemed mostly just to want to complain, to invent consequences, and to blame.  Tracy, and Will Tudor, who continues to struggle to find a place and a meaning for himself on the Commission, since there really isn't one, wanted to suggest that other fiscal decisions could now not be made, because, in their imaginations, we have no idea what is the state of our finances, and whether the Village's books can collapse under the weight of imagined fines and other punishments for a late audit, the results of which are not known.

Roxy Ross tried to point out that the Village's finances (within the context of their overpowering limitations) are actually in pretty good shape.  We have about half a million dollars more in the bank now than we did at this time last year.  But Tracy wasn't listening.  This was not the narrative that interested her.  It wasn't one she could use.  So she perseverated on her expressed dire concern.

This concern seems to have something in common with others of Tracy's concerns.  It's enough to fret and fuss and catastrophize about, but not enough to do anything about.  Other than, of course, to wait a little longer until the matter concludes itself, which is what it is doing.  It still seems that concluding things in an adaptive way is not what Tracy wants.  All she really seems to want is to demonize someone.  It does little good to demonize a former Manager who no longer works here, or a Police Chief who no longer works here, or a Commission majority she succeeded in displacing-- oh-oh, now what?  Tracy seems to be gunning for the current Manager.

"I Like Hearing Myself Talk. It Is One of My Greatest Pleasures." Oscar Wilde

Tonight, we sat through the overflow agenda from last week's Commission meeting.  Tracy Truppman had stopped the meeting after about 3 1/4 hours, because there were other items she wanted to discuss, and she felt they needed adequate time.  And she should have known how much time they would have needed, since almost all of them were her issues.  Tonight, she apologized for having had to schedule this extra meeting, and she blamed the necessity on the variance exploration from last week.  Yeah, that's where the fault lies.

I'll tell you now that tonight's overflow took three hours.  As someone in the audience pointed out, that was 6 1/4 hours to do one meeting.  And that's under the guidance of a Mayor who's showing us how to streamline meetings, to keep them short.

Here was the overflow agenda:

13.c  Discussion of the hiring of reserve police officers.  Johnson-Sardella.  This consumed some time, at the end of which, we learned that it is the Manager and the Police Chief who determine how many officers, including reserves, we need, and they have not in any way inhibited or failed to consider applicants.  We had 21 last year, and of those, we hired two.  We wanted quality, not just quantity.  So this item actually didn't need to come up at the meeting tonight.  It was already attended to.  Had the sponsor of the item discussed it with the Manager first, she would have discovered there was nothing to discuss.

13.d  Discussion on Police Department: Shift in policy to address overtime expenditures, proactive policing, increased enforcement, and visibility.  Truppman.   We learned in public comment at the beginning of the meeting that changes have already been made, under the appropriate direction of the Manager and Police Chief.  This was the Manager's purview (as was pointed out about several topics tonight), and it did not require formal discussion from the Commission.  As above, had the sponsor of this item discussed it first with the Manager, she would have learned that the discussion was not necessary.  There was a good deal of it, though.  Tick, tick, tick.

13.e  Setting Policy for Job Requirements for Chief of Police.  Truppman.  It was never clear what this item was supposed to be about, but what became very clear was that the Manager was already managing the hiring very well, and this discussion did not need to take place.  What it needed was for the sponsor to discuss it with the Manager, before placing it on the Commission agenda.

13.f    Discussion on Log Cabin fire suppression and detection/alarm system status and fire alarm system in the Village Hall.  Truppman.  This was probably the lengthiest discussion of the evening.  Tracy Truppman was having a devil of a time trying to decide what she wanted to accomplish.  Apart, of course, from her central aim, which was to use lots of engineering terms.  She kept saying she only wanted to "look forward," but she could not for a given whole minute refrain from raking one or another person over the coals.  If it wasn't the former Manager, then it was the building inspector, or the contractor, or the prior Commission.  But mainly, she was more than content to channel Oscar Wilde.  And at various points on the long, long course of this meeting, she sort of (sort of) apologized for "monopolizing" the meeting, as if she would have had it any other way.  She could see it, but she couldn't stop it/herself.  But back to the tragedy of the log cabin and the Village Hall, Tracy repeatedly pointed out how endangered occupants of these two buildings were, because no one inspected them properly!!  The Village resident sitting next to me leaned over and pointed out how much more expeditious it would have been if Tracy had simply had this discussion with the Manager a month or two ago, and the problem would have been resolved by now.  Thus saving building occupants from the danger under which Tracy saw them as laboring.  Sure, sure the problem would have been solved, but then Tracy would not have been able to hold court before her subjects, and been able to show how perspicacious she is.  And she very much made sure we all knew.  Most of her comments were made to the microphone, while Tracy gazed out among the audience.  This discussion wasn't about safety.  It was for show.  The Tracy Truppman Show, starring Tracy...Truppman.

13.g  Discussion on the amendments to the Charter corresponding with a special election timelines (sic).  Truppman.  Tracy surprised me here.  So many of her neighbors spoke against her attempted "power grab" that she actually retrenched on this one.  But she still wants someone to have more control over the hirings of "all Village employees."  She did, however, agree to hold meetings, and even perhaps seat a newest Charter Review Committee.  (If these descriptions give the impression that Tracy spoke as if she thought all decision-making was up to her, she did.)  And it took Tracy way too long even to relent on the effort to force this through.

13.h  Resolution [to have a special election to replace David Coviello].  With more experience, Tracy will learn that matters like this one don't require discussion.  They are obvious, and they are very quickly passed.

And that's where three hours went tonight.  Had Tracy been at all moderate, and had she had any real sense of proportion, this agenda would have been accomplished in an hour or less last week.  But I'm sure the Village Attorney isn't complaining that Tracy took two more hours than were remotely necessary.

OK, I Surrender. Thank "God."

"The Tracy Truppman Show, Starring Tracy...Truppman" is better than "The Noah Jacobs Show, Starring Noah...Jacobs."  It's less crazy, less raging (although still with moments of the hostess' bitterness), and more goal-directed.  It lasts just as long, or perhaps longer (because it had to be adjourned, to be continued some other day), and somehow manages not to get quite enough done.  And it has that same focus on the central character.  At one point, Tracy apologized for "monopolizing."  So she perceived it.  She just couldn't stop herself.

Admittedly, it was an ambitious agenda, and part of it took a deservedly long time.  There was a complicated variance issue that involved various and ranging and contradictory testimony which resulted in more questions than answers.  The end result, although fair, was unsatisfying, because it left the petitioner very unhappy.  But within this matter we could see how parts of this new Commission might coalesce.  And it was interesting to observe.

No one would say the matter wasn't complicated.  It very much was.  And it involved neighbors who were accusing each other of various forms of misbehavior.  The question came down to whom to believe: never a happy place to be.  But there was a convenient way out for the Commission.  It could decide, as it did, that the petitioner had an argument that could not be supported, because the old records were gone, so he could not prove his case.  The decision therefore went against him.  This was a bit of a technicality, or a cop-out, but it allowed the matter to be settled.  But it was a very difficult conclusion at which to arrive.

When it came time to make a motion-- to support the petition for the variance, or to deny it-- none of the Commissioners said anything for what seemed like many seconds.  My own thought was that this required finesse and intelligence, and that if either Roxy Ross or David Coviello made any motion at all, the other three would agree to it, since they didn't know what they were doing.  But Roxy and David reserved input, letting the others figure out what to do.  It was finally Jenny Johnson-Sardella who made the motion, and she relied entirely on comments Roxy had made, and avenues of inquiry Roxy had pursued in her exploration of the matter.  Jenny's motion was seconded, and it was passed 4-1.  The outlier was Will Tudor, who throughout the meeting made repeatedly clear that he had no idea what was going on, or what his tenure was about.  On this occasion, he said he could not vote in favor of the motion (although it had to be explained to him what a no vote or a yes vote on this motion to deny implied), because the matter was too unclear.  Yes, that's exactly right, Will.  That's the job for which you applied.  I know you're only there to stop someone from making you have a driveway on your property, but in the meantime, there are lots and lots of other tasks.  And they're all yours.

Then, there was the matter of the police.   We're in a bit of trouble.  The Chief is gone, and our detective has resigned.  We're down manpower.  And we have no Chief.  Sharon Ragoonan said she was refused by two people before Nick Wollschlager grudgingly agreed to be the acting Chief.  Sharon was very happy, and relieved, that Nick agreed, and the matter at hand last night was how to compensate Nick.  He's still doing his old Corporal's job, the new Chief's job, he's totally enthusiastic and effective (and very well-liked among the rest of our force), and he's somehow available for consultation 24/7.  He represents what Sharon described as substantial "intangibles" to the neighborhood.  So Sharon calculated that we should continue to give him his regular salary, and supplement it by $5000 per month.

Tracy agreed that Nick does a wonderful job and is a wonderful asset to the Village.  And she felt a raise was more than appropriate.  She did not, however, think an extra $5000 per month was reasonable.  She was concerned about the budget, and she just felt an extra $5000 per month was, well, just too much more than Nick was already making.  She thought maybe like $2500 more, or $2000 more, would be the right amount.  She described Sharon's suggestion of $5000 more per month as "irrational."

Sharon's calculation that Nick would be doing two jobs, and was available for X number of hours per week, was reality-based, and therefore rational.  Her introduction of "intangibles" would be considered at least semi-rational, coming from someone who understands about the influence of good workers and good leaders in a work environment.  What was completely irrational was Tracy's personal, idiosyncratic sense that $5000 per month seemed to her like a lot of money, and that some other arbitrary figure, like $2500, or $2000, seemed somehow better.

So the argument continued, until everyone who wanted to speak had spoken, and a vote had to be taken.  The vote was unanimous to give Nick the $5000 per month raise.  Amazingly, inexplicably, and very irrationally, Tracy voted against every argument she herself made in opposition to the amount of the raise.

Somewhere, in one of the discussions, Tracy relinquished the floor to allow Roxy to speak.  Roxy said something, and Tracy cut her off, accusing her of being out of line.  Roxy pointed out to Tracy that she was only speaking, because Tracy had recognized her and allowed her to speak.  Before the meeting began, while we were all waiting outside, I got to talking to someone who had had a conversation with Bryan Cooper, about Cooper's Commission tenure.  The person asked Cooper why he didn't resign, as he seemed to have no role on the Commission, and didn't seem to want to be there.  Cooper told him that his mission on the Commission was to give Roxy Ross the hardest time he (and Steve Bernard, and later Noah Jacobs) possibly could.  In the last meeting of our new Commission, Roxy suggested a standard civility Resolution.  Tracy, Jenny, and Will joined together to defeat this completely normal and friendly Resolution.  It seems they've been handed a baton.

A lot didn't get done last night.  Tracy had had enough by before 10:30.  Roxy and Sharon persuaded her to take up just two more important and timely matters.  One of them was producing a list of priorities for our lobbyist, who needs to know what funding to try to get from the State legislature.  The Commission worked up a list of maybe eight wish list items, and Sharon suggested the lobbyist would do better with a list of maybe two items.  Tracy decided to ask those of her neighbors who remained at that hour, instead of having the Commissioners decide.  Tracy pointed out more than once that she's new at this.  And how.

An important matter that didn't get discussed, and that stimulated several or many public comments early in the meeting, was Tracy's suggestion that Commissioners, including the new ones, should have ultimate authority to hire new department heads.  This is the responsibility of the Manager, as established by a Charter Review Committee in 2005, confirmed by the Commission that year, reconfirmed by the Village residents at large through referendum, reconfirmed again by a Charter Review Committee in 2015, and reconfirmed by the then Commission that year.  Tracy, who has had no meaningful involvement with Village functioning, no meaningful involvement with the Village Administration, and is newly on the Commission, decided that the Manager should not have the sole authority to hire new department heads, but that the Charter should be changed to position Commissioners to have overarching powers here.  And Tracy would like to start now, just as we are hiring a new police Chief, and a new Recreation Director.  Tracy sees this is so urgent that she is not interested in the scrutiny and contemplation of yet another Charter Review Committee, and she doesn't want to wait for a proper electorate.  She wants it sneaked in at the special election to replace David Coviello, who is resigning his Commission seat at the end of March.  Tracy wants to rely on the smallest possible voter turnout, ASAP, and she's not interested in workshops.  More of us spoke against this kind of what Mac Kennedy properly called a "power grab" than those who favored it.  The matter was a casualty of the long variance discussion and poor clock management, and it will be considered at the make-up meeting, to complete last night's agenda, on January 19.  7:00.  Log Cabin.

Thinking back on this meeting, it seems to have been the new Commission's salvation that Roxy Ross and David Coviello are still on it, and that Sharon Ragoonan has assertiveness and a very level head.  "Thank 'God'" they were there.  And Jenny Johnson-Sardella showed some promise as well.

The Big Picture

I sent the following e-mail to the Commissioners on 1/6/17.

Commissioners,

Some of you know the history of the current Charter provisions, and some of you may not.  In consideration of item 13.c in the upcoming Agenda, that history may bear some recalling.

Until 2005, the Village's functions were overseen by its Commissioners.  These people were, municipal management-wise, lay people.  Sometimes, they did a better job than at other times, but none of them were experts in the tasks at hand.

In 2005, the then Charter Review Committee concluded that the Village should have professional management, and it forwarded that consensus to the then Commission.  That Commission agreed (I'm not sure if it was unanimous), and it further submitted the concept to the Village residents at large, as such a change was a Charter change, and could not be ratified without a referendum.  The concept of changing from lay management to professional management was adopted by the Village residents voting that year.  So three groups of people-- the Charter Review Committee, the Commission, and the residents at large-- all agreed that professional management would be better than lay management.  And to demonstrate their commitment to this change, the then Commissioners also agreed to decrease their stipends from the Village.  There was nothing uncertain or tentative about this repeatedly confirmed change.

We have had three professional managers before the current one.  The first one was terrible, did nothing for us, and was a desperation choice, since we did not know how to choose a manager.  The second manager did substantial and very important things for the Village.  Her tenure with us ended for two reasons.  One was that the then Commission, the majority of which had no agenda, no direction, and no relevant experience, did the only thing they could have done: they rode the manager, and refused every attempt she made to help them function.  The other reason she left was that in the midst of this, the manager, who had already begun "looking," got a very advantageous offer from another municipality.  The third manager also did some very good things for the Village-- she will long be remembered for the successes she oversaw-- but her personality-based issues got in the way, and she made a couple of very bad mistakes.  She resigned under heavy criticism, some of which was scapegoating.

We now have a new manager.  Three of you had no role in choosing her, although you very much could have.  I, for one, made a public offer that anyone who was considering running for Commission, which each of you was then, could contact me early in the process, and I would have gone out of my way to include you and take into consideration your views.  None of the three of you accepted my offer.  One of you did contact me very late in the process-- when it was too late-- to tell me that the manager we finally did hire was, in this person's opinion, a poor choice, and that the best choice would have been someone who had already been eliminated.

You are now, as suggested by item 13.c, considering undermining the prerogatives of the manager, and imposing yourselves as arbiters of the manager's choices.  This kind of suggestion goes in the opposite direction of what a past Charter Review Committee, and a past Commission, and a consensus of your neighbors, wanted.  You may want to give that very careful reconsideration, before you go against everyone.

And part of your expressed theory is that some subsequent Charter Review Committee (a Charter Re-Review Committee) made a recommendation to the then Commission, which was the immediate preceding Commission, in 2015.  If you will examine that Charter Re-Review Committee's recommendation (included in the backup), it was that no change in the Charter was recommended.  So you're going against two Charter Review Committees, two Commissions, and the consensus of your neighbors.  I don't know if it's your math that's funky, or your philosophizing.

We have a system.  It works.  It doesn't please everyone, any more than anything pleases everyone.  None of you is expert in municipal management, and you frankly have no business imposing yourselves on the manager or the process and structure that have been created.  And even if each of you happened to be retired, or even active, municipal managers in other municipalities, what you are proposing is a Charter change.  It remains in effect even into the very distant future, when you are no longer Commissioners.

The Commission has a role in BP, and it's an important role.  That role is not demeaning professional managers, and having them come to you like school children for your approval.  Professional managers know vastly more than you do about how to manage municipalities.  Don't get yourselves so confused and disoriented that you forget that.

On your agenda for the upcoming Commission meeting, you have a couple of items that reflect the impressions of some of your neighbors, and perhaps of you yourselves, that it seems as if police visibility has decreased, or that crime has increased.  Telling that to the manager, who will review it with the police chief, is your job.  Imposing yourselves as determiners of who is hired as police chief, or how many reserve officers the Village should have, is not your job.

You talk about saving money, and you itemize a couple of areas of possible savings.  What you propose is meaningless.  (Let alone that it's really not your call.)  If you could save a couple thousand dollars, or a couple tens of thousands of dollars, this does nothing to solve the Village's real fiscal problems, and it does not even provide a meaningful basis upon which to try to lower taxes (also irrational, given our fiscal situation-- nice demagoguery, though).

Big picture.  That's your job.

Fred 

PS: I see that part of your theory as to why we could manage the manager differently than we do is that some other municipalities do it differently.  Yes, I'm sure some do.  And some probably don't.  But if you want to be like other municipalities, how hard did you try to get the Commissions, and your neighbors, to back annexation, so we would have a commercial component, as your models do?  Except, of course, Golden Beach.  We can't be on the ocean, as they are, but what are you proposing to do to create for us the look, order, and value that allows Golden Beach properties to have such a high assessed value that they don't need a commercial component?  Can I assume that the first thing you'll want to do is get cars off the swales, and tidily onto driveways on the property?  And will you be encouraging the Code Review Committee to offer you a plan for high class landscaping on private properties, as well, of course, as in our medians?

If you're going to talk the talk, then walk the walk.

I received the following reply the next day from Jenny Johnson-Sardella

Fred,

Thank you for your email and advice. 

Regards,

No other replies were received.