"I've Got...Two Tickets to [South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center]"

I have two tickets for a show on Saturday night, September 28, at 8:00.  The performer is a performance poet named Shane Koyczan.  He calls himself a "Spoken Word Artist."  Here's an example of what he does: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXcnZ2VgksU.   And here's a TED talk he gave: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1iS1MqUy4

Why am I telling you this?  Because something came up, and it will make it unfavorable for me to attend this performance on Saturday, September 28.

I paid $25 each for the tickets.  If you'd like to go, and you're willing to reimburse me for the tickets, that's great.  If you're willing to go, but you can't or don't want to pay me for the tickets, you can have them.  I just don't want them to go to waste.

Let me know.  Obviously, the sooner, the better.

fredjonasmd@gmail.com
305-891-5030

Solar System Update

I got my FPL bill today.  It's for $31.66.  My September bill last year was $119.14.  It appears that I saved about $88 this month.  I had solar power during the day every day this month, and I did not have solar power last year.

This is somewhat unreliable, because bills on corresponding months from one year to the next are never the same anyway.  My bill last month, which included one week of solar power during the day, was $98.05.  The corresponding month last year, the bill was $134.68.  The July 18 bill this year was $107.40, and the July bill last year was $149.10.  This year's June bill was $122.36, and last year's was $131.81.  So I was already using less electric power monthly this year than last, and I don't know the reason.  I don't think I did anything different this year, although it looks like I must have.  One difference is a new central AC unit I got, which was in July last year.  It's possible that it resulted in a decrease in my electric power usage, if it was much more efficient.  I usually turn on my central AC in about May.  This past May, my bill was $85.20.  The May bill from last year was $111.72.  So, I saved myself about $26 without the solar panels.  My June savings was about $9.  The July savings was about $42.  It's hard to make sense of savings, except to say my current bill, in a very hot month, is really low compared to last year's bill for the same month.

So, the question is, about how much are these solar panels worth to me on an average monthly basis.  For the moment, I have one month to use as an example-- imperfect as that example is-- and the suggestion is that it could be around $88.  I said before that after I get my tax credit, the panels will have cost me about $13K.  If I saved an average of $88 every month, it would take me about 148 months to get back the money I spent for the panels.  That's almost 13 years.  The warranty for almost all of the components of the system is 10-12 years, with one component warranted for 25 years.  The expected degradation of performance is about 0.6% per year.  So, by the end of the 13 years it will take for me to get my money back, the panels will be about 8-9% less efficient.  It might, then, take me more like 14 years to get my money back, unless the panels stop working after the warranty period.

In the meantime, I get the intangible benefit of knowing I'm using less of the non-renewable sources of electric power.  That would please some people to know, and other people wouldn't care.  In my case, it pleases me to know it.

There are two other things worth mentioning about solar panels at my house.  One has to do with my car.  It's purely electric, and when I plug it in, it uses much more electricity than does everything else in the house.  On days I plug it in, which I do during the day, it uses all the solar power I make, and significantly more.  This usage lasts for about 4-5 hours, until the car's batteries are full, at which time it doesn't draw electric power any more.  If not for my car, my electric bill this month would be about $10.  It's a tricky business to know when to plug in the car.  If I plug it in during the day, I'm using (free) solar power as part of the electric source.  This is good.  But electric power I buy from FPL is more expensive during the day than it is at night, so the power I'm buying during the day, which is only part of what I need to replenish the batteries, costs more per kWh than electric power I would buy from FPL at night, of which I would need to buy more, because I don't get the solar boost at night.  I haven't figured out how to calculate which is a better deal.  I'm working on it.

The second feature of solar power is that if the power goes out during the day, I still have power, at least for about 7-8 hours.  And it's enough to run everything in the house, except powering the car.  I can run the AC, the refrigerator, lights, the computer, whatever I need to run in the kitchen, and do laundry.  But only during the day.  I have no power at all from late afternoon to about 10:00 AM when the power is out.

That's my solar system update.  I still say solar panels on Village buildings would be a great idea, if we weren't diverting so much money to the attorney.

Dumbing Down Doesn't Get Much Dumber Than This

Today, Gary Kuhl resigned from the Code Compliance Board.  He cited various problems related to lack of current Commission and administrative support of the Board.

Among other things, Gary complained about "the Code Officer's history of repeatedly failing to provide the board with backup material in a timely manner, cancelling meetings at the last minute, [and] bringing items to the board that were literally months past their compliance date."

And he pointed out that the Commissioners who want to replace the Board with a magistrate have never even attended a Code Compliance Board meeting.  How do they know what they want?  How do they know what they don't want?

As a frame of reference, Gary pointed out further that the Board's record is "unblemished," in that no Board decisions have been appealed to the Courts.

I don't know if Gary was just being diplomatic about it, but he said it was the manager who recommended replacing the Board with a magistrate, and he interpreted a "total lack of respect, professionalism, and integrity" that was "made worse by the Commission supporting [the manager's] recommendation."  As I said, Gary knows BP well enough to know who makes "recommendations," and who "supports" whom.

It's a tricky business when neighbors pass judgment on other neighbors, and when fiscal fines are involved.  Gary himself in a recent Commission meeting talked about concerns about "partiality," or the appearance of it, with an arrangement like that.  And I agree with him.  We went through that when we had a Code officer who was a Village resident, and there was a feeling that not all residents were treated the same, and impartially, by the Code officer.  Even if that wasn't true, people worried about it, and thought they sensed it.  There's no need for concerns like that.  And I don't know if anyone ever felt that way about the Code Compliance Board.  If no one appealed a Code Compliance Board decision, as they could have, then it's unlikely they did feel unfairly treated.  But that kind of dynamic could be a legitimate reason to want to have a Code Compliance decider who has no basis for partiality.  And that's the problem with this decision at this time.

The fact is that everything in Village government and management right now is personal, and personalized, and partial.  The Commission has been grossly patent about treating Village residents differently from one another, based on the personal likings and dislikings of the Commission (really just the mayor).  And the "proposal" (apparently already under way) is for the Village government (really just the mayor) to select a magistrate, with no input from anyone else, and that magistrate will be specifically beholden to the mayor for his or her gig.  And it's not a low-paying gig, either.  It couldn't really get any more personal, or partial, than that.  The mayor now has at least two Commission colleagues who are her stooges (whatever that's about), a manager who is her dutiful stooge, an attorney who is her stooge, and a Code officer who is her stooge.  She will now add to that a Code compliance decider.

And the mayor is so unashamed about this power grab that even though many Village residents complain publicly about it, she doesn't stop.  She doesn't even pause or slow down.

This is the opposite of representative government.  It is a minor fiefdom.  With decisions made by someone who is incapable of making them, and supported by people even less capable, and frankly uninterested.

Poor Judith Gersten

Judith Gersten told us she's lived in BP for 26 years.  And she's seen lots of Commissions come and go.  Some were mediocre, and some were bad.  And none of them did a thing for BP.  Until now.

Judith says the present Commission has done lots of great stuff for BP.  And they're the only ones who ever did.  She didn't specify what this Commission has done, but she was so authoritative about it-- and 26 years is more than long enough to know-- that you just knew she had to be right.

But the thing that really irked Judith was that little and insignificant knot of people who just get up and criticize this wonderful Commission.  Judith made very clear that these whining and angry people most definitely do not represent the residents, and certainly not the voters, of BP.  These people just have bad attitude.  And anyway, what do they know?

Frankly, I suspect Judith might have been talking about people like Mac Kennedy, who's only lived in BP for maybe, what, 4-5 years?  What does Mac Kennedy know about the history of BP and its governments?  You know, Judith made the point that she's not one bit concerned about stuff like bills from attorneys.  "You should be," Mac pointed out.  Judith diplomatically ignored Mac.

Hey, Judith could have been talking about me.  I've only been here for 14 years.  That's just about half as long as Judith has.  Judith has much more perspective than I do.  OK, I myself was a Commissioner, and Judith wasn't, and I was on Planning and Zoning, and the Code review committee, and the Foundation.  But she's been here so much longer, and seen so much more, that I really have to concede to Judith's greater history.

I bet Judith was talking about Chuck and Roxy Ross.  They've only lived here, what, let's see, maybe about 30 years or so.  Why, that's not much longer than Judith has lived here.  And fine, Roxy was a Commissioner for nine years, and Mayor for two, but Judith has been paying attention.  Judith has watched from a distance, and not been distracted by getting all caught up in things, as Roxy has.  And what's the big deal about Chuck?  Is he supposed to get points for being the CrimeWatch chairman for maybe 8-10 years?  Says who?

And who else complains really?  No one.  Well, when I say no one, sure, the Kuhls complain.  But they haven't been here more than maybe, oh, I don't know, 35 years?  All right, fine, so they've seen a bit more than has Judith.  And yeah, Gary Kuhl has been on Code Compliance for years, and is the chairperson.  And he was on the Code review committee for several years.  And Barbara's been on Parks and Parkways for who knows how many years.  And both of them attend Commission meetings, Barbara without fail.  But they're probably just, I don't know, jealous.  Yeah, that's it, they're jealous.  Neither of them has ever been on the Commission.  They just complain about the fine people who are, because they're jealous.

So that's it for the critics.  I mean except for the Andersons.  When did they move in here?  I'd say not more than, oh, 35-40 years ago.  And what do they know about Commissions?  What, because Bob was a Commissioner for 20 years, that means he can tell a good one from all the bad ones?  He was never on a good one.  He sure didn't pick up how good this one is.  Why, it wasn't more than a month ago that Bob was publicly announcing that he had supported this Commission, but they had been a huge disappointment, and he didn't approve of them any more.

And there you have it.  No one else criticizes.  Yeah, OK, so what if Linda Dillon, who never has a bad word, or much of a word at all, to say about anyone, criticizes the only Commission Judith says ever did anything for the Village.  Linda hasn't been on 115th St more than maybe 40 years.  Or so.  It sounds like a lot of time here, but it's somewhat less than twice as long as Judith has been here.  And if you think Linda has seen it all, because she never, ever misses a Commission meeting (Judith more or less never, ever attends Commission meetings), and she's been on Code Compliance for years, you're...hey, you might be right about Linda.

Anyway, Judith told us what's what tonight.  This Commission is the real deal.  They accomplish things, and no other Commission ever has.  And just tonight, for example, we saw what this Commission has accomplished.  We had a presentation from our long time lobbyist, Dave Caserta, and our state Senator, Jason Pizzo, and they told us what they've done, and what they're still working on for the Village.  No, no, that had nothing to do with this Commission, but this Commission expressed appreciation for the accomplishments.  Hey, if you thank someone for doing something, that's just as if you had done it yourself.

And our finance director, Paul Winklejohn, made a presentation.  He let us know how under control are our finances.  Sure, a nod to Roxy Ross, and Chuck Ross, for giving him some vital heads ups, but the person to whom he says he speaks "every day" is Tracy Truppman.  Wait, Tracy calls him "every day?"  That's what he said.  Tracy tried to shut him up, as if there was some problem with her talking to him, taking his time, for which he bills us, every day.

Tracy doesn't like things like this distracting from her real accomplishments.  So, when Dan Samaria had an agenda item to talk about those massive and uncontrolled legal bills, Tracy did what you might expect her to do, to reduce the unnecessary distractions: she tried to get this agenda item pulled.  Hey, no need to be looking into this.  And anyway, if we're questioning legal bills, then we can't do it in front of our attorney (for some reason).  And if we should have an attorney, but we can't look into legal bills in front of the attorney, then it appears we really can't look into legal bills at all.  Like the one Roxy Ross mentioned, for about $4000, representing over 20 hours, IN ONE DAY!  And four of the hours were billed by...our attorney...when she attended a Commission meeting to make a presentation to see if she could get hired.  She billed us for four hours, to attend a meeting that was her job interview.  And two of her associates came with her, and each one billed us separately for the same meeting.  Who can question this?  Well, it appears no one can.  And Judith Gersten is just perfectly fine with that.  And funny enough-- crazy enough-- Judith is...an attorney!  I guess she's an attorney first, and a BP resident and taxpayer second.  What a waste of 26 years.

There was very little on the agenda tonight.  In the old days-- the Mayor John Hornbuckle days-- a meeting like this would have been worth two hours or less.  Tonight, it was around four hours.  And it included accomplishments like Betsy Wise supposedly reporting on her April "branding workshop," but trying to explain why she wasn't actually going to report on it at all.  And arguing over how much we should pay a magistrate we can't hire anyway, because this highly functional Commission never changed the Code to allow for hiring a magistrate.  So that was an empty waste.

Yeah, I guess Judith thought she had a point to make.  She intended to have one.  It just really wasn't clear what it was.  What we witnessed was people who can't get enough of listening to themselves talk, and part of the ongoing collection of distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies.  Sometimes, it takes a good deal of care, deliberation, and patience to accomplish nothing.  It did tonight.

It Appears the Commission and Village Administration Have Painted Themselves Into a Corner.

Last week, many of us received from the Village manager an e-blast.  The communication informed recipients that there were several board openings, and it asked recipients if they were interested in serving on a board.  Or, to put it slightly more directly and perhaps forcefully, it asked Village residents to apply to be on boards.  The boards-- the Village; we-- need the help.

Personally, I have been on a few boards since I moved here in 2005.  I started on Planning and Zoning, because then new Commissioner Kelly Mallette needed to make an appointment, and she asked me to be on that board.  That was in part how I got to know Kelly, whom I like very much, and it was my pleasure to participate.  As an outgrowth of being on P&Z, I also wound up on the Code Review committee.  Participation there was similarly my pleasure.  After a few years, the BP Foundation was formed, and I moved to that group.  Eventually, I resigned from the Foundation, because I ran for Commission, on which I served for three years.

When my Commission term ended, I was not on any board.  At some point, I applied again, and I was willing to be on any board, although I was thinking either the Foundation again, or maybe Parks and Parkways, would be a good place for me.

But in the meantime, I had run afoul of Tracy Truppman.  Well, you don't run afoul of Tracy Truppman without paying a price for it, and part of the price I paid was that Tracy would not permit me to be on any Village board.  (As a technical matter, Tracy cannot single-handedly prevent anyone from being on a board.  She needs confederates on the Commission for that.  She has them.  The mechanism Tracy and her confederates use is that if someone like me applies to be on any board at all, Tracy and her confederates/stooges/bobbleheads/whatever go lean on some other Village resident to apply for the same board-- I think it was maybe last year that she got these competing applications to happen on Sunday, April 1, which is pretty comical-- and Tracy and the kids just choose the other applicants.)

So, as I said, one of the boards for which I applied was the Foundation.  Tracy scared up Laura Graves and David Goehl, so she could keep me off that board.  David rarely or perhaps never attended meetings, Laura was very helpful, but now, Laura wants to be on P&Z instead.  If you're asking yourself why Laura, who appeared to have been committed and helpful on the Foundation, would want to be on P&Z instead, it's a good question.  I do know that Laura is a realtor, and P&Z have a lot to say about what construction and renovation plans are approved.  Does that create an opportunity for conflict of interest for a realtor?  I guess it could.  If it did, it wouldn't be the first time in recent years.

So, Tracy's two shills have run their courses, and Tracy is now back looking for applicants.  Or "Krishan" is.  But Tracy still has the same problem she always has.  There are people who would be happy to serve on boards, but Tracy won't allow it.  Tracy has created a problem about which she is now complaining.

And the funny thing about it is that what Tracy thinks she's accomplishing-- she thinks she's punishing or frustrating someone-- is actually the opposite of the reality.  People want to be on boards, because they feel a commitment to the Village, or almost as if they owe the Village and its residents something.  Unless you can find a way to derive personal and selfish benefit from something like conflict of interest, or you just like some sense of "power," being on a board is a task.  It's a kind of burden.  You have to attend meetings, and do research, and maintain diplomacy and deference for other people, even if you disapprove of them.  I mean Tracy doesn't do that, but normal people do.

I don't think there's any way to help Tracy.  She's completely out of control, and she lashes out at her neighbors and undermines the functioning of the Village.  She doesn't have to do that, but it's who she is.  And whatever this is about, she really does have mindless or fearful confederates.  Tracy and her stooges/bobbleheads prevent the Village from functioning, because Tracy thinks this is somehow all about her.  And her antipathies.  And her wars and crusades.  And she seems to think she's harming someone like me by telling me my life is easier, because I have fewer commitments.  It's pretty sad.

If You Can't Stand the Heat...

I wasn't sure what to call this post.  I was thinking about "Tracy to Village: 'Go F**k Yourself,'" but Tracy recoiled at Mac Kennedy's reference to getting a "kick in the ass," so I figured that F**k would not be acceptable, and I searched for a different title.  I was thinking about Tracy's sudden interruption of the meeting with a 10-minute recess, because one of her neighbors asked her a question she wasn't prepared to answer, and I  decided "If You Can't Stand the Heat..." was a good enough alternative.  Tracy immediately exited the room, and attached her ear to her mobile phone, so it was clear that the recess must be pretty serious, and the title about the hot kitchen was likely a propos.

The purpose of today's special Commission meeting was actually very straightforward.  We had to agree to a contract for hurricane clean-up services, and since the RFP didn't go out until this past April, and there was only one company that offered to fulfill it, then there was really no decision to make.  We had no choice, and we had to agree to the one applicant.  The questions from several Village residents, as to why it took two years to put out the RFP, went unanswered.  The Village manager made a couple of snide and obnoxious cracks at two Commissioners who tried to inquire further about this, but the fact was that there was really nothing to discuss, this being a Friday afternoon after business hours, and a hurricane is expected by Monday.  In fact, no questions got serious and respectful answers.  This was a patent scam, and we were at every kind of disadvantage.

No one was happy about this meeting.  Even Tracy Truppman, who scurried out during the recess, seemed very stressed.  Krishan Manners and Rebecca Rodriguez did whatever cleaning up they could find to do, but the mess remained there.  It was just further evidence of the pervasive mismanagement this Village has suffered for the past 2 1/2 years.

I left when Tracy left.  It was clear there was nothing else to discuss.  Chuck Ross still wanted to talk about the failed project known as communication between the administration and Village residents, but that never got addressed, either.

I'm trying to remember who said they might be considering running for Commission next year.  Oh, yeah, H Weitz.  Good.  He's a good guy, and if he runs, he's got my vote.

Government at its Worst

I'm what you would call a left wing person.  By that, I mean a number of things, including that I recognize the value of government, and that it acts in the public interest to do things that should be done and that the private sector won't do.

But I certainly know right wing people, and I understand why they see it differently than I do.  Of course, to support their view, they generally have to dismiss whatever government does that's of value, and focus only on the problems-- and there most certainly are problems-- created by government.  Generally speaking, right wingers blame government for being inefficient, taking money it doesn't spend in the public interest, imposing regulations and restrictions that are much more onerous than they are valuable, and functioning essentially as a force for its own purposes.  They view government as self-sustaining, and disconnected from the interests of the public, who are supposedly the constituents of the government.  I don't entirely disagree with right wingers, but I think they fail to credit government when it does good, and they exaggerate what government does bad.

We have a problem here in Biscayne Park, and we've had this problem for over 2 1/2 years.  We now have a government that has worked concertedly to disconnect itself from its constituents, marginalizing them as much as possible.  Our government has come to exist for its own purposes, which appear to rest mainly on arrogating power and control to itself, and excluding as much as possible anyone who is not part of the government, and especially anyone who criticizes the government.  Our government corrupts all the functions of public administration, in part rendering itself a weapon to punish complainers, or even people those who govern simply don't like.

Yesterday, I received an expose of our government's corruption of what is normally the Village's legal representation.  The document was long.  It was 81 pages.  There were two main offerings in this communication.  One was a list of all legal contacts between Biscayne Park residents (the vast majority from Commissioners) and administrative staff, and the Village's legal representation, and the other was a synthesis of what were interpreted as problems with the seeking of legal input, and the use of that input, and the value of that input.

There were a few interpretations of (complaints about) this bill.  There was the concern about double and triple billing (the fact that the Village has been billed for the simultaneous services of two or three attorneys, when we were told at the outset of this contract that we would be billed only for one attorney at a time).  There was also note of vague descriptions of services, like that calls and conference calls focused on "various legal matters."  There were entries like that, although they were not most common.  And of course ("the proof of the pudding...," as they say) that too often, the results of this consulting was wrong legal advice.  But for me, there were broader issues.

The most glaring revelation was the breathtaking extent of contact between Villagers (the vast majority of it was Tracy Truppman and Krishan Manners) and the Village's legal representation.  It is beyond unprecendented.  For example, it has been common for probably many years now that the Village budget includes about $75K per year for legal services.  That comes out to about $6500 per month.  Last year, our long time Village attorney stopped representing us, and we had to find someone else.  The new attorney intended to charge us about the same amount, but his charges appear to be roughly between about $5400 and $10,000 per month.  But Tracy Truppman didn't like this attorney, apparently because he disagreed with her about two legal matters, and she found someone else.  In contrast to monthly bills of $6500, or $5400-$10K (curiously, Tracy's new girls somehow charged us an additional $8000 the same month their predecessor charged us $10K), the bill for last month (July, 2019) was about $21,000.  The bill for June, 2019, was about $12,600.

And way too many of the contacts were between the lawyers and Tracy Truppman.  That doesn't happen, and it isn't supposed to happen, in a normal government that relies centrally on a manager.  It has certainly never happened before, not in Biscayne Park.  We've had professional management since 2006, and we relied on Commissioners before that.  But no one ever relied like this on such frequent (sometimes, it almost seemed constant) contact with the Village attorney.  And we never had bills like this.

It would be entirely fair to note that during the past couple of years, we have had a special legal problem, and that has been our attempt to get reimbursement from FEMA for the costs of clean-up after hurricane Irma.  And we can set aside whether or not we would have had this problem, if Tracy Truppman had not single-handedly commandeered the project, and botched it.  The fact is, we needed extra legal help, and that fact is reflected in the bills.  But that's not what the entries say were the topics of consultation.  In fact, apart from the glaring problem of massive legal billing, the other glaring problem is that no one knows what were the topics of consultation.  Even to the extent that they are often enough summarized, in terms of subject, neither Tracy, Krishan, nor the attorney ever presented to the Village a discussion of what information and insights were sought, and what was learned.  For this much money, yeah, I want to know.

Take, for example, a succession of entries on June 4 and 5 of this year, and starting on the 3rd, and bleeding over into the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th.  There are 47 separate entries for this one week.  The attorney for all but seven of these entries was Rebecca Rodriguez, who is supposed to be our lead attorney.  Entries represented as little as 1/10 of an hour, and as much as 4.1 hours.  And that 4.1 hour entry is interesting.  It occurred on June 4, and it was the entry for being present at the regular Commission meeting.  No one could argue with that, unless they wanted to argue with a 4.1 hour Commission meeting at which typically nothing of substance gets accomplished.  But let's assume we're not arguing about that.  What's odd is that that same day, there were 1.7 hours spent on "Several communications with [unspecified] outside counsel" regarding a few matters, 0.3 hours paying "attention to proposed agenda items," a half hour "telephone conference [with?]" regarding another agenda item, and 3.9 hours for "continued preparation for June regular Commission meeting."  That's 10.5 hours in one day, and at least nine of them were all about one Commission meeting.  At $225 per hour, that's at least $2025 spent on one day for one meeting.  And the lead-up to this meeting, on June 3, included entries like 3.1 hours spent in "in-person meeting with Village Mayor regarding various pending Village legal matters and preparation for upcoming Village proceedings."  What "upcoming Village proceedings?"  The meeting the next day, for which another 9-10.5 hours would be billed?  And then, there was the debriefing for this meeting, which consumed up to another 4.6 hours the day after the meeting.  The largest entry on June 5 was 2.2 hours with an attorney other than Rebecca Rodriguez, and which was a "telephone conference with Mayor Truppman regarding Commission meeting recap" and a few other topics.

Entries from June 6 were interesting for a few reasons.  One was that they seem only part of the ongoing pattern of seemingly continuous consultation between people in BP and the firm who are supposed to be the Village's (not Tracy Truppman's) attorneys.  Another was a "call with Police Chief regarding various ongoing Village legal matters."  Really?  The Police Chief doesn't discuss these matters with the Manager, who then calls the Village attorney?  And then, there's the matter of the ongoing battle the current Commission is waging against Biscayne Park residents.  2.1 hours were spent by Rebecca Rodriguez doing "Research and drafting of request to Attorney General's office for advisory legal opinion as to Commission authority for taking a vote of no confidence to initiate removal of current mayor; e-mails to/from Vice Mayor D. Samaria regarding same."  This is not the only example of Tracy Truppman's using what is supposed to be the Village's attorney for her own protection.  And they're not all about Dan Samaria, either.  Tracy has identified her enemies, and the attorneys know who they are.  And they work, on our nickel, to protect Tracy from...us.

The bill for April, by the way, was about $14K, and the bill for March was about $15.5K.  But the April bill also included extra charges for the FEMA appeal, so the total really came to about $23.3K for that month.

As I said, it's a long document, and I could go on about it, citing example after example.  But that wasn't my point.  My point was that if we think of the complaints right wingers have of government, and if we imagine a government that is a caricature of what right wingers don't like-- the worst nightmare any right winger could have of government; a nightmare so bad that even left wingers would be aghast at it-- that is what now sits at the Biscayne Park Commission desk.  And it sits at the center of that desk, in the mayor's seat.  We have a government that does absolutely nothing in the public interest, that squanders what for this municipality is a scarce fiscal resource, that is insular, and acts only in its own interest, and that uses its power to attack the populace, which the government sees as its enemy.  This is the populace that had enough confidence in this government to elect it, and that pays these people.  And this is what we get.

Barbara Kuhl and I Have an Idea.

Barbara and I were talking this morning about my new solar panels.  (Can I call this electric power-generating arrangement my solar system?)  I pointed out how remarkably money-saving Andrew Olis said was the solar system on the next block, and my July 20-August 20 FPL bill that I got by e-mail this morning very strongly suggests that my solar system, too, will be very money-saving.  I lowered my 7/20 to 8/20 bill about $34 from last year to this year, and I only had the panels for the last week of this past month.  On the other hand, my 6/20 to 7/20 bill this year was about $40 lower than last year, and I don't know why.  So I'm really waiting for the 8/20 to 9/20 bill to come next month.

Anyway, Barbara pointed out the obvious, which has been mentioned before, and which is that the Village should have its own solar system.  The two most obvious municipal structures, because they have good-size roofs, and not much, or any, tree cover, are the recreation building and the administration building.  The Village could save a ton of money with extensive systems on those two buildings.

But solar panel systems aren't free.  They're not even cheap.  Although...I was just reminded recently that I will get a 30% tax credit (not a deduction, where an amount of money is subtracted from my taxable income, but a credit, where an amount of money is subtracted from the tax I would otherwise have to pay) for what I spent for my solar system.  So I might even have to reconsider my statement that solar panel systems aren't cheap.  Maybe they sort of are, considering that they wind up not costing that much, after the tax credit is factored in, and they very considerably lower the electric bill.  But of course, the question still remained: where would the Village get the money for solar panels?

Barbara suggested that we already have a small surplus, and maybe that would help.  David Hernandez came along while Barbara and I were talking, and he, too, wondered where a few dollars could be scared up.  But I was thinking about something else.

I assume (desperately hope) you know the Arlo Guthrie song, "Alice's Restaurant."  If you don't know it, and you don't have youtube (which of course you do), you're welcome to come over any time, as often as you like, and I'll play it for you.  It is one of the greatest songs ever written.  But don't be in a hurry, because it's 18 minutes long.  I have this song in two places.  One is an Arlo Guthrie CD.  The other is on a casette tape I got for supporting one of the public radio stations (I no longer remember whether it was the one in Miami, or one of the two in Boston).  Arlo Guthrie was in town giving an interview, and he played his famous song.  But in the public radio studio version, he added a joke.  He was talking way back then about the Nixon tapes, and the fact that something had been erased.  He said the erasure had removed 18 minutes of something, and he took the liberty to wonder what Nixon might have been listening to, that accounted for 18 minutes, and that he didn't want anyone else to know about.  It was a very good joke.

But here's the thing.  My little solar system happened to cost $18K.  It will be 30% less than that when I get my tax credit on my 2019 taxes.  Do you have any idea what we are currently and highly atypically spending for Tracy Truppman to get constant legal attention from her girl, Rebecca Rodriguez, and Rebecca's lawyer girlfriends?  You wouldn't guess around $18K, per month, would you?  Our normal legal expense, when we have normal Commissioners, is about $7K per month.

Let me know if you want to come by to listen to "Alice's Restaurant."  And let me know if you want to hear the regular studio version on CD, or you want me to try to locate the casette tape with the funny joke about the lost 18 minutes.

Cool! I'm Solar!

The final completion of my project was this week, on Monday, although it started late last year.

I went to a meeting of the local solar power cooperative a couple of years ago, and it all seemed like a good idea.  But I sort of wasn't ready enough, and I didn't feel like spending the money, so I just waited.  Last year, I saw a sign for Goldin Solar in the yard of Mike and Melanie Oliva.  I think I bumped into Mike not long after, and we talked about his project.  He was very pleased.  So, I called Goldin, got my consultation (sales pitch), and decided to go ahead.  I chose, over the conflicting advice of Goldin, to get some panels in front of my house (the north-facing roof, which gets most of the direct sunlight in the summer, when I most need the power), and most of them on the south- and east-facing parts of the roof.  The Goldin people say that in the northern hemisphere, the sun is south of us more hours of the year than it is north of us, so panels in this hemisphere should all and always be south-facing.  I get it, but my reasoning was different.  Also, they say that during the winter, even though I don't need as much power, I'll be collecting more hours of the day with south-facing panels, and FPL will pay me for the power I put into the grid.  True, but they pay less for electric power than they charge for it, so if I can get it directly when I need it, it helps me more financially by reducing my summer bills, than if I just remember I banked something in the winter.

Anyway, we eventually began, or tried to begin, my project.  And there were delays.  Some of them were caused by Goldin Solar, which had some turnover in project managers, and some were caused by our dear Village of Biscayne Park, which has a Commission and administration that wreaks whatever vengeance it finds available on people who criticize the current Commission.  These acts of vengeance can take the form of something like forgetting to put my variance application on the Commission agenda.  But I eventually got through all that.  I was assigned a new project manager, who was in satisfactorily close touch, and the Commission made the mistake of relying on an attorney-- soon dispatched-- who said the Village could not stop me from having north/street-facing panels.

Eventually, the brackets that attach to the roof, and that hold the solar panels, were installed, then inspected, and after that, the panels were installed.  They were eventually inspected, too.  The final act was for FPL to change my meter to one that reads both usage and production(!), and then for Goldin to flick the switch.  I think all that happened on Tuesday.  (Today is Friday.)

Ta-Da!  My "dashboard" says I got about 25kWh of solar power on Wednesday, and about 29kWh on Thursday.  My usage was about 30kWh on Wednesday, and about 36kWh on Thursday.  And keep in mind that I collect solar power only during daylight hours, but I use electricity all day and all night (especially AC).  So, when I'm collecting, I'm collecting more than I'm using.  My FPL chart shows that surplus during those middle of the day hours.  I'm feeding the grid then.  Obviously, I'm very eager to see what my next bill will look like compared to the same month last year.

In today's mail, I got a very nice hand-written "thank you" card from the Goldin Solar project manager.  You're doing the right thing...smaller carbon footprint...we'll monitor your system periodically...we hope you'll be pleased...blah, blah, blah.  Very nice.  For what it's worth, my project manager ended up being Yesenia Adams.  Very nice woman.

At the end of the thank you note was a little kicker for me.  "We have a promotional program available to customers in which we offer a commission for any referrals that materialize into a contract."  I did mention the Olivas when I called Goldin Solar, so maybe they got a commission.  But here's the thing.  I don't know what the commission is, and I'm not in this for that.  So, if you contact Goldin Solar, and you decide to get solar panels, you and I will tell them to apply my commission to your bill.  It depends entirely on how many panels you want, but I'll tell you that I got 20 panels, and my project cost me about $18K.  It wasn't cheap.  But I already agreed to it, I already paid it, and I don't expect the price of what I already did to go down.  I paid $18K, and if no one I know gets panels from Goldin Solar, I will always have paid $18K.  So, if there's a discount available, you should get the discount.  I'll tell Yesenia Adams to see to it.

"Why's Everybody Always Pickin' on Me?"

For me, it started with Krishan Manners.  I had heard that the WiFi in the log cabin and recreation center has been disabled by the Village.  So I asked Krishan about this.  He explained that it was a "security" measure.  It seems, according to Krishan, that some people have been going around to various municipalities, somehow signing onto WiFi networks, and introducing viruses, and making other mischief.  No, it hasn't allegedly happened here, but our Village administration has had to take steps.  I suggested that Krishan tell me the now secured password (the other password for guests was secure, too), and I'll sign myself in, and I'll never tell anyone the password.  No, Krishan said, this wouldn't be secure enough, either.  "They" could get in through my phone.  I'm not a techie, but I asked my friend, Chuck Ross, about it, and it didn't make sense to him, either.  He said there could be a private network, to which none of us (except everyone who works for the Village) would have access, and a more open guest network, to which people would still need passwords.  And this would be good enough.  Krishan told me I was "out of line" to complain, and to interpret this as just another in the lengthening line of measures the Village and its Commission have been taking to shut down and shut out non-Commissioner residents.  I suggested that Krishan and attorney Rebecca Rodriguez, who was listening intently, were both accomplices, and stooges of Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman.  Krishan disagreed.  He also chastised me, saying he had always been respectful of me.  I told him that in return, I was the last person he finally found a way to alienate.  I stuck by him as long as I could.

Then, the meeting started.  Dan Samaria wanted to delete the second reading of the budget Ordinance, because important information was missing.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella said it would be a bad idea to delay, because we could simply continue the discussion once the information was available, and Big Mama agreed.  It was later in the meeting that Jenny wanted to delay discussion of something else, because we didn't have the full information about it.  Under the new regime, where non-Commissioner Village residents are boxed out as much as possible, it was not possible to ask Jenny when a discussion should happen, regardless of missing information, and when it should be delayed, because of missing information.

Ah, public comment.  Suffice it to say that everyone who commented was disgusted in one way or another.  I have no idea why Big Mama takes notes of the comments, since she ignores them, and the unhappy neighbors who make them, anyway.  Maybe it's her way of keeping herself awake.  If that's what it is, it would be better if she didn't take notes.

Big Mama and her Will Tudor are into lofty ambitions.  They want to address areas of perceived vulnerability, like "risk management," and Will's later goal, enthusiastically shared by Big Mama, to address the imperfections and "voids," as Big Mama called them, in our Charter.  After over 2 1/2 years, they have still failed to finish a driveway and swale Ordinance, or actually accomplish anything else, but they're looking at a much bigger picture than that.

Dan Samaria got his best opportunity to date to address the mysteriously cancelled meeting of March 5.  This was the aborted meeting where Dan and Will, and Jenny told us in April that she was included, too, were told there would be no meeting, because there wasn't a quorum.  Except the three of them were a quorum, but no one revealed that to them.  Well, Dan just had the hardest time formulating the essential questions: 1) who was Jenny's unnamed person who told her the meeting was cancelled, and 2) why did that person tell the three of them something that wasn't true.  But Dan stuck with it, and he stumbled around long enough to get the questions out.  1) Jenny couldn't bring herself to name the actual name, but she said that the only person who gives her information about things like that is the manager.  So, that was the answer.  It was Krishan Manners who lied to her, and to Dan and Will.  It was at least as hard work for Dan to put together the other question: 2) Krishan claimed that there is an investigation going on about this matter (that's true; there is), and he therefore would not be able to reveal why he told three people something that wasn't true.  And that was as far as we got.

During public comment, Mac Kennedy made an exquisitely cryptic reference to someone who has applied to be on a Board, but who should really be closely investigated through public records, including court records!  He said he couldn't name names, because his partner, Dan Schneiger, really didn't want him being so explicitly outspoken.  Mac suggested Commissioners investigate carefully before they place a potentially highly problematic person on a Board.  Who knows if Jenny Johnson-Sardella had any idea what Mac was talking about.  But she decided approving new Board members might be premature, under the circumstances of Mac's non-revelation.  Big Mama, though, reassured her girl, Jenny, that she, Big Mama, had certainly done all the homework she needed to do, and she had no further questions.  There was nothing more she needed to know.  She was ready to vote.  But J-J-J-Jenny and the Boys got cold enough feet to agree to defer this matter to the next Commission meeting.  In the meantime, Mac told me he would send all the Commissioners e-mails that would reveal what he thought they needed to know.  Well, what all of them except Big Mama needed to know.  Big Mama doesn't need to know anything.

One of the complaints made and repeated in public comment was about our current legal advisors.  Specifically, people complained about the exorbitant fees charged by our new team, and about the almost uniformly wrong advice we've been getting from Big Mama's new girl, Rebecca Rodriguez.  There were suggestions that Rebecca was incompetent, that we were overpaying, and that we should get new counsel.  Eventually, it got to be Rebecca's turn to defend herself.  But even before she did, it was frankly noteworthy how little reaction Rebecca produced, in the face of being accused and demeaned as she was.  Anyone who expected her to flinch, or to be uncomfortable in her chair, or to cry, or to leave the room in embarrassment, was disappointed.  And Rebecca's defense was to ignore most of the complaint (most especially the part about all the wrong advice, that was specifically cited by those complaining), and to resummarize her resume.  One entry she thought was worth our attention was her inclusion in some group of Florida lawyers.  She presented this as evidence of her having been noted as a lawyer of credit and accomplishment.  It turns out that the group of which Rebecca was a part had about 50 lawyers in it, and being included in a group like that is about as impressive as someone in banking or finance having the title "vice president."  They all do.  The janitor is the Vice President of Environmental Maintenance.  But the skew for the Village, and for the neighbors complaining, was that they think Rebecca is hired to be the Village attorney.   She's not.  She's hired to run interference and offer protection for Big Mama.  And she reacted as if she felt unfairly picked on.

Big Mama, too, complained about being picked on.  She accused Dan Samaria of picking on her, and falsely accusing her of various things.  She accused me, and Chuck Ross, of the same thing.  She seemed to think it was all so unfair, and unjust, and distinctly undeserved.  Big Mama hasn't done anything wrong, and nothing of which she's been accused.  We know that, because she told us so.

And to show what a dutiful person she is, she agreed that the Commission should more closely examine things like the exorbitant legal bills she's created.  Her first gambit, last month, was just to ask for more money to give her Rebecca.  But this month, under heavy pressure from her neighbors, she admitted maybe the Commission should look harder at the expenses.  Although it's unclear there's anything to find, since every area of expenditure was explained away.  In fact, Big Mama's Rebecca girl said, she has comped the Village some legal time.  She just decided that the bill was so high--she's paying close attention, and she's compassionate, that one--that she would just go without charging us for some things.  And sure enough, when the bill was closely examined, there were 185 hours of legal time, and Rebecca didn't charge us for three of them.  I hope anyone who complained, about Rebecca or about Big Mama, feels suitably humbled by the generosity of this gesture.

And that's how we spent over four hours.  Which accomplished nothing.  But which will appear on Rebecca's next bill.