Our Fearless Budgeteers.

Tonight was the second/follow-up budget workshop.  It started with Ginny O'Halpin's proposal (it sounded impulsive and without foundation, as do most of Ginny's contributions) to raise the police chief's salary.  There was mention of a collection of previous salary increases given by David Hernandez.  Which was preceded by salary increases inexplicably given by Tracy Truppman.  Mac Kennedy calculated that the total of the recent and proposed raises for the chief would come to about 21%.

And this is on the basis of nothing, except a separate theory of expectable 5% raises for all Village employees.  The only other theory as to why the police chief should get an exceptional raise is that he's doing part of the manager's job, by taking charge of the Code compliance department.  (Yes, the immediately preceding interim manager also got an inordinately high salary.  This was presumably on the basis of his doing two jobs -- public works director and interim manager -- except it's not entirely clear he was doing either job, at least not well, and he jumped ship with zero notice.  Between recent former Commissioners and the recent interim manager, jumping ship with no notice is becoming a thing around here.)

We also did not change the rate at which we tax ourselves, sticking to a millage that is not rational, because it is not attached to an unchanging property value.  Nor is it connected to Village expenses.  Property values not uncommonly increase, but sometimes, they don't.  Sometimes, they decrease.  Costs more or less always increase.  It's like walking into a restaurant and proposing to spend on your meal 10% of however much money you have in your wallet, without knowing how much you have in your wallet, or how much the meals cost.

The underlying theory, of course, is that all of this has been taken into account by whoever put together the budget, which would normally be the manager.  But we haven't had competent management in BP since early in 2017.  So who knows who put this together.  From the presentation, it sounded like it was our finance director, Paul Winkeljohn.  He's the person we just rejected to be our interim manager.  We need him to be our manager, but we don't want him to be our manager.  Well, a majority of our Commission, or whoever does their thinking for them, doesn't want Paul to be our manager.  We did keep talking about the decisions our next fully credentialed and vetted manager would do, except "we've" worked hard not to have a fully credentialed and vetted manager.  So "we" (the Commission) are struggling to make the decisions a manager should be making, like whether or not we should have an assistant to the clerk, which we might need a lot less if we had a competent and efficient clerk.  But we got our clerk the same way we got our last permanent manager, which was from a mayor who didn't want anyone to be competent, because she wanted mindless underlings.

Another of Ginny's half-cocked and preconceived ideas was apparently her conclusion that we stop funding our lobbyist.  We've had this conversation before, and it seemed that everyone agreed to continue to hire Dave Caserta.  But apparently, someone told Ginny that we didn't really agree.  Ginny called upon her Commission colleagues to agree with her.  She telegraphed her "thinking" that we probably won't be getting state or federal (this has nothing to do with federal) money anyway, for reasons Ginny didn't specify.  Dan Samaria quickly picked up Ginny's message, and he parroted it.  "Unless I'm wrong," Dan qualified.  Well, that covers all the bases.  But Ginny's effort fell apart anyway, because 1) Will Tudor didn't agree, and 2) we have an ongoing contract with Dave Caserta, and it extends for two more years.  Apparently, someone misinformed Ginny.

The other problem with which our Commission struggled is the fact that they have no overriding vision.  Until the siege of Tracy Truppman, BP Commissions had "visioning sessions" at the beginning of each new Commission.  The idea was to form overall themes, or ambitions, for how each Commission would like to handle governing the Village.  A Commission could devote itself to cutting taxes, or improving the recreation facility, or whatever it wanted to do.  This kind of aim makes a lot of difference when the Commissioners have to confront a proposed budget, which either will or won't advance the Commission's vision.  Or, to approach it the other way around, whoever makes the budget can create one with a view toward whatever the Commission intended.  Which no one knows if the Commission never articulates or even forms intentions.  We're left with comments like some tonight, where one or another Commissioner might mention lowering taxes.  And another Commissioner might talk about taking proper care of Village employees.

Feeling around in the dark.  When there are no objects to feel.

Mac Kennedy introduced the small gesture of the Commission's no longer getting a stipend.  Dan Samaria argued that being a Commissioner was to him like a job.  I hope he gets paid a lot more for his day job than he gets from the Village.  Roxy Ross suggested a kind of compromise, where perhaps the Village will reimburse Commissioners for their municipal representative educational activities instead of paying them a stipend.  Ginny snapped back that in his 20 years, Bob Anderson never proposed to eliminate his stipend.  And Roxy Ross didn't propose to eliminate hers.  Ginny was wrong on both counts.  Bob was in fact part of Commissions that lowered their stipends.  The last time was in 2006.  And Roxy just proposed to handle the availability of Village fiscal support for Commissioners as reimbursement, only on condition that Commissioners actually take advantage of learning activities.

It's too bad a three hour meeting feels efficient.  But by comparison...  And with heavy guidance from Paul Winkeljohn, Roxy Ross, Mac Kennedy, and Chuck Ross.

The Road Continues Just as Long and Just as Winding.

Problems were widespread tonight.  They began with the interim manager and whoever else put together the agenda, and established the meeting times.  The first of two meetings was to start at 6:30.  The agenda, aside from inexplicably starting a few minutes late, calling the role, listening to Dan Samaria perform his version of a military/patriotic pledge of allegiance, and trying to figure out why no one could understand Mac Kennedy, included public comment (Ginny kept looking for more), four resolutions, old business (the insignificant matter of searching for an attorney), and various reports.  And then, we added more old business (WastePro, the amicus brief, FDOT, and supposed manager recruitment).  The amount of time allotted for this agenda, which took 3 1/4 hours, was 30 minutes.  Dan Samaria said about one item that this was the first time he was ever able to look at a document, and understand it.  Dan didn't say what he did to help himself this time.  Dan offered another insight for consideration tonight.  Dan was, you know, reading Business Insider today, as he presumably does every day (Business Insider describes itself as a "fast-growing business site with deep financial, media, tech, and other industry verticals" -- certainly sounds like Dan's kind of concern; I assume most one-man exterminators follow Business Insider), and he ran across an article about a suit from a former attorney with Fox Rothchild against the firm, about some unspecified issue that had nothing to do with Fox Rothchild's representation of the Village.  Dan never explained why he thought this was important for the Village to know, but it ate more time.

Regarding the brief discussion of the manager search (22 applicants so far), it is worth noting that neither Ginny O'Halpin nor Will Tudor has any idea what it's like when the Village has a good manager.  Dan Samaria is adrift, but he tends to cling on to Ginny and Will.  So the decision may well be made by people who don't know what they're looking for, or how to find it, and who don't listen to people who know much better and have a purposeful and adaptive focus.  Then, we have the problem of Roseann Prado, Village clerk and interim Village manager, who "feel[s] uncomfortable" seeing if applicants have the minimum requirements that the Commission sets.  Roseann gave no insight as to why she would feel uncomfortable determining if an applicant has a college degree, speaks English, has worked in municipal services for at least five years, or whatever minimum requirements we would set.

FDOT has stopped the 6th Avenue/SR 915 project for now, awaiting consensus from us.  It's been a while since anyone here bothered asking us for consensuses, so it was nice to know we generally matter.

We're pursuing things with WastePro.

The second meeting was scheduled to start at 7:00.  Maybe on some planet, but not this one.  This was the second budget workshop.  This particular group of Commissioners -- at least a majority of them -- couldn't get through this in three months, let alone a couple of hours.  The reason is that they have no idea what they're doing, or what any of this is about.  So this meeting began at 9:55, and lasted until...

During the break, our finance director, Paul Winkeljohn, said that we shouldn't attempt more than a cursory overview at this time of day, because "budget meetings that start at 10:00 don't get much of use done."  By 10:30, I agreed Paul was right.  It's hard to maintain attention for that many hours, especially without the benefit of backup.

As an aside, it was frankly remarkable listening to Paul Winkeljohn present material.  He's clearly knowledgeable, efficient, and goal-oriented.  It continues to be a complete mystery how the majority of the current Commission chose Roseann Prado for interim manager, instead of choosing Paul.  It reminded me exactly of the line about "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory." 

I Was Right. Sort Of. Up to a Point. Under Present Conditions.

Some of us have been talking about a possible 6th Avenue...adjustment.  That adjustment can include a few things.  Sixth Avenue is a state road, and it's state road 915.  No change of any kind can be made without the state's full backing, and it is only the state that can perform any work done.  I think maybe the one exception is watering the plants in the median.  We can do that.  But we can't choose, acquire, or install any plants.  Or do anything else at all.  Although we did do one thing several years ago.  It was back in Ana Garcia's time, and she exchanged some old and deteriorating benches for new, modern, and nice ones.  One or two of the new benches are on 6th Avenue.  I don't know if she had to ask the state for permission to do this, or if she just did it.

Anyway, some of our neighbors who live on 6th Avenue had their own ideas about what adjustments they would like.  One preference they communicated, as if they were a unified and possibly even unanimous group, was that they would like 6th Avenue to be a two-lane road, instead of a four-lane road, in BP.  Sixth Avenue (SR 915) is a 5.6 mile road, running from 186th St to about 88th St, and all of it is consistently four lanes (two lanes in each direction).  Some of our neighbors would like about 1/2 mile of that 5.6 mile road -- the 1/2 mile that runs through BP -- to be reduced to two lanes.

Essentially all of our neighbors' concern was what could be summarized as what they experience as a traffic hazard.  It is noteworthy that several years ago (maybe about 2007), the Village lowered the speed limit, which was 30 MPH on all Village roads, to 25 MPH.  That reduction took effect on every road in BP, except 6th Avenue/SR 915.  The state would not allow a reduction in the speed limit on that piece of that road from 30, which it is for the whole 5.6 miles, to 25, for the 1/2 mile in BP.  We asked.  The answer was no.

A couple of weeks or so ago, there was a virtual workshop with state planners regarding the state's plan.  And for a brief recapitulation of what this is all about, as the story goes, it was Harvey Bilt, when he was on the Commission, who took it upon himself to approach the state to request "improvements" to 6th Avenue in BP.  "Improvements" considered included sidewalks, better lighting, and better drainage.  It's a bit bizarre to imagine that Harvey would have reached out entirely independently (since Tracy Truppman was the wholly autocratic dictator of the Village then), and based on no Commission discussion, the state agreed to do an expensive study simply on the strength of one person's/Commissioner's request.  But that's the story we're told, and presumably asked to believe.

Well, as the story further goes, the state did in fact do a study, and it agreed to install sidewalks and improve lighting.  And improve drainage.  Since this was all secretive, it's not possible to know how much of this Harvey/Tracy requested, and how much was the state's idea.  The study reportedly cost the state of Florida $580K.  Right.  I don't get it, either.  At the virtual workshop, we were told a few things.  The state agreed to install sidewalks, although they learned there was essentially no foot traffic.  And they agreed to a certain level of lighting improvement, but they were willing to make an even better improvement, if we would pay the $400K difference.  And they would improve drainage.  Or, we had two options.  One was to decline part of the offer, and ask that the money the state was prepared to spend be used on some other part of the offer.  For example, we could decide we didn't need the sidewalks after all, but we would like the Cadillac-level lighting instead.  So we could get no sidewalks, but best lighting, and not have to spend our own $400K.  The other option was to ask the state to cancel the project altogether.

During this virtual workshop, a few BP residents introduced a request the state never offered, and that was to reduce the caliber of the road (from four lanes to two).  I very distinctly heard the state people repeatedly say that this was out of the question.  And I reiterated that recollection in public comment during the Commission meeting two days ago.  Two of our neighbors, one of whom lives on 6th Avenue, and who was the informal spokesman of the 6th Avenue group, very directly disagreed with me, and said the state did not say that reducing from four lanes to two was out of the question.  The moderator of the workshop also virtually attended our Commission meeting, and spoke, but he never corrected me.  Another of the state people did say something about possibly reconsidering the proposal, if we wanted a reduction in the number of lanes.

So today, I called the moderator.  He had repeatedly invited anyone with questions to call him.  I recapitulated what the issue was, what I very clearly remembered, and what some of our neighbors understood to have been the state's flexibility.  He told me that I was right -- that the state said that in accordance with the study already done, there is no possibility that lane reductions can happen.  The opportunity, though, is that we can request a new study, which will take a few years to get done, and as a result of that study, it is possible the state might be willing to reduce the number of lanes.  Or maybe they won't be willing to do that.  It depends on the study, and on how consistent the state wants to be about the caliber of that particular state road.

The Long and Winding...Tortuous...Meandering...Aimless...Um...The August 4 Commission Meeting

Let me say that there was, in fact, an agenda.  I'm probably in denial, but some people knew better than I did.  Some people said this would be a long meeting.  The agenda didn't suggest that this would happen.  But it did.

For example, the first topic that got a good deal of discussion was Ginny O'Halpin's (or whoever controls Ginny) suggestion that we run meetings according to Robert's Rules of Order.  We sort of already do, and it's the mayor's decision anyway, and this required no discussion.  But it got way too much, followed by a vote.  Dan Samaria clarified and expanded that not only does he think we should use Robert's Rules, but we should even use Robert's Rules of Order.  And then, things got worse.

The entire Consent Agenda was pulled, because every item was wrong.  The Village clerk, who is now the interim manager, cannot properly do the job of Village clerk.

A number of Village residents commented on the first Resolution, which was about the 6th Avenue redesign.  Everyone agreed, even though residents said they disagreed with each other.  Everyone favored some improvement, and everyone wanted further exploration, mostly by workshop.  Will Tudor, who participated in this discussion, at one point said we needed resident workshops.  But he couldn't stop himself from having the Commission discussion everyone agreed we were not ready to have.  Will made one other interesting comment.  He agreed that this process had been mishandled from the start, and was not discussed among residents at large, or by the Commission.  You could almost forget that Will was there, and was part of the Commission that did not ask for public discussion, and enabled the "rogue" Commissioners who started this up without anyone's consent.  Will was then inexplicably ultimately the only "no" vote to delay, seeking more input.  That ended the first two hours.

Then...there was a discussion about whether or not the interim manager can hire and fire people.  This matter was not on the agenda.  What was most interesting is that Dan Samaria and Will Tudor, both of whom were firm that the interim manager should not have the power to hire and fire, also stood in the way of the Village's finding a proper permanent manager.  So these two Commissioners worked to handicap the Village with a manager who was not vetted, did not have the proper qualifications, could not even satisfactorily do her original job, and was not allowed to exercise the duties of the manager.  If Dan and Will could possibly have found more ways to sabotage the Village, it's not clear what they would have been.

And then, they voted, not on the issue they discussed, but on the issue that was on the agenda.  Which had already been agreed to at the last meeting.

The matter of whether or not to pay police officers a 1% increase for duties related to the coronavirus, apart from the fact that it was never defined, was made for people who love to listen to themselves talk.  For 30 minutes.  Without a vote, because no one could actually make any sense of it.  It was delayed.  (Wasn't there a movie about "The Gang That Couldn't Do Anything?"  Or something like that.)

Commissioners then offered their choices for committee members to choose a new manager.  Ginny impulsively appointed Milt Hunter.  No surprise there.  Milt appointed himself.  Mac Kennedy appointed someone unknown to most of us, Roxy Ross appointed Dan Keys, and Dan Samaria appointed Linda Dillon.  Will Tudor didn't get around to picking anyone, but he blamed his neighbors for running meetings that were allegedly intolerable to the people he claims he approached, and who he claims declined.  And that ended the third hour.

As valuable as Mac Kennedy is as a Commissioner, it took him way too long to explain why we should continue ZOOM access to Commission meetings.  And to imagine the caveats.  Listening to Dan Samaria and Ginny O'Halpin talking like computer experts was a bit disorienting.  As Mac correctly pointed out, "this is pretty easy stuff; let's move on."  Which they finally ran out of excuses not to do.

Dan Samaria introduced an item that he intended to focus and shorten meetings.  It's too bad it took so much time to discuss, and was apparently never intended to be resolved.  As Roxy Ross concluded, it was a complete waste of 25 minutes.

Village attorney John Herin arranged a settlement with Tracy Truppman's lawyers, Rebecca Rodriguez and Gray Robinson.  The final payment will be less than 50% of what was billed.  End of hour four.

John found a number of other things to present in his attorney's report.  Tick, tick, tick.  Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.  None of it had a clear endpoint.

The rest of the crumbs used up the half hour extension.  And that extension, plus the other four hours, used me up.

Some Say You Get What You Pay For.

Two of our neighbors, in unconnected conversations with me (and one of them made the initial assertion during public comment in a Commission meeting), said the same thing: we can't expect a quality manager for the amount we pay.  One of our neighbors cited as proof that we have had "five managers/interim managers...in just [the past] five years."  Well, that was a manipulation in that five years ago, our manager was Heidi Siegel.  When she resigned, we briefly had Maria Camara as interim manager, followed promptly by Sharon Ragoonan.  So that's three, and it's because Heidi had lost the support of a majority of the Commission, which had nothing to do with the amount of compensation.  A short interim stint was necessary, and it was properly followed by Sharon, who would be our manager today if it were not for Tracy Truppman.  Tracy pushed Sharon out, and then hired Krishan Manners, who was hired because he would not be a good manager, and he was properly dismissed once Tracy was gone.  So none of this was a reflection of what we pay managers.  In fact, Sharon took a considerable salary reduction from her prior job to be our manager.  And Krishan was handed an unexplained bonus (of our money) by Tracy.

I'm not saying we don't pay low on the scale of municipal managers.  We do.  We're a tiny municipality with very limited resources, and we don't pay much for anything.  If anyone wants to argue that we have no business being an independent municipality, then that's a separate argument.  And it's been made, most prominently in the past several years by then Commissioner Bryan Cooper.  But since we haven't agreed with Bryan that we should fold up, and donate ourselves to the County, North Miami, or, according to the quirks of Bryan's fantasy life, Miami Shores, then we still have to do the best we can with what we have.  One of the things we do is find a way to get what we want, like a manager, without paying top dollar.  Or even the common going rate.

We haven't had professional management for very long.  Say what you want about the wisdom, or lack of it, of our way of managing ourselves, but before 2006, each department was "managed" by a Commissioner, who did not necessarily know anything about managing anything.  They were elected, because they charmed their neighbors, not because they were in any sense vetted to have proper managerial qualifications.  Or even abilities.  Is this why Ana Garcia's first task was to lop off large amounts of fat from our public works department, and why the log cabin had to be extensively, and expensively, renovated after many decades of deterioration due to being ignored?  Is it why our version of in-house sanitation services -- apart from recycling, which we had already outsourced to MSV -- included underpaying workers, who were inexplicably devoted to working for us, and ownership of three garbage trucks, one or two of which didn't work, and all of which leaked pools of foul-smelling domestic excrement in the streets?  More than likely so.

We needed professional help, and we all realized it.  A Charter Review Committee recommended that we transition to professional management, the then Commission endorsed the suggestion, and this Charter change was approved by Village voters in 2005.  Our first "search" began promptly.

Since we never before had a manager, and we frankly didn't know the first thing about how to work with one, or even how to find one, someone, presumably on the then Commission, made some calls.  Merritt Stierheim recommended his old friend, Frank Spence, who was then retired, as someone who could get us started.  Frank was never going to do any more than get us started.  Not only was he retired, but he lived up in Palm Beach County, he was busy looking after his very elderly and infirm mother, and he was waiting for her to die, so he could go join his ex-wife and his children in the Pacific northwest.  But he agreed to help us get things going.  I don't know whether it was Frank or someone else (Commissioners, possibly) who chose a salary number.  But we swallowed hard, and agreed to pay it.

Frank wasn't here long, as he promised he wouldn't be, and when he resigned, then Village clerk Maria Camara stepped into the interim responsibility while we found someone else.  We chose whatever qualifications we thought would be about right, and we offered about the same salary we paid Frank.  That was good enough for Ana Garcia, and a number of other applicants.  Ana impressed us all, and we hired her.

Now, about that salary.  We knew it was low.  We weren't kidding ourselves.  It attracted Frank Spence to do us a favor, and that favor would be short term.  Our expectation after Frank was that we would get either someone just coming out of municipal manager school, and needing a first job, or someone with good skills, but who had never before been a full municipal manager.  Their first such job would be with us, and we would be a stepping stone for them.  If we chose properly, we would get a talented person with something to prove, and they would get an important resume entry.  Which they would then parlay into a higher paying job.  They'd stay with us for X number of years.  And setting aside the nonsense Ana put up with from Steve Bernard, Bryan Cooper, Noah Jacobs, and Barbara Watts, which might have been reason enough to leave BP, that's exactly what happened.  Ana took a job paying twice as much just up the road in CNMB.  She helped us a lot when she was here, and her having been here helped her.

So then, it was back to Maria Camara briefly, and onto Heidi Siegel.  Now, it's critically important to restate that we advertised for this position.  We advertised what the job was, what credentials we wanted, and what the salary offer was.  And we got plenty of responses, a good number of them from very impressive-looking applicants.  We worked to reduce the number of applicants to three finalists, and we worked harder to choose one of the three.  Heidi was just like Ana, in that she had worked in various levels of municipal management for a good amount of time, but she had never been a full municipal manager.  That designation is important on a CV.  It's "worth money" to get a job that results in that title.  The person who takes a job like that is trying to go places.  They want that job, and they want to do well there.  Heidi said to us in a public interview of finalists, in response to a direct question on the matter, that she expected to be here for "five or six years."  She knew what Ana knew, and what many applicants like that knew.  This wasn't a forever job.  But it was a good job, and it was a great opportunity.  And we knew that, too.

Heidi was very unfairly blamed for various problems -- mostly cost overruns -- involved with the log cabin renovation and the administration building construction.  She wasn't wrong.  David Coviello, Roxy Ross, and I stood by her through what some Commission meeting attendees experienced as an attempted lynching.  But Heidi lost the devotion of one of us over something unrelated, and when she realized that, she resigned.  So up stepped Maria Camara again.

And again, we advertised, just as we always had.  We said what we wanted, and what we would pay.  And we had lots of applicants.  Sharon Ragoonan was just like Ana and Heidi, in that she'd had loads of great experience, but she'd never been a full manager before.  She took a pay cut to get that opportunity with us.  Had Tracy Truppman not ruined our system, we would have continued along the road to success.  It's not every municipality's style of success, but it's been very successful for us.

So, back to our two neighbors who said we don't pay enough.  One of them quoted a suggestion that we should be paying over twice what we pay.  There are various reasons we can't do that, at least not without a very considerable increase in the level at which we tax ourselves (an increase to which we have persistently been unwilling to commit, for any purposes at all), but this neighbor privately offered me a different scheme.  "A good manager will bring in more than enough money from grants and other leveraged sources to compensate for what we pay them, plus!"  This proposal places the imagined highly paid manager in a position to spend some proportion of his or her time looking for support for his or her own salary.  I'm reminded of the Congresspeople who spend shocking amounts of time on the phone, looking for donors for their next campaign.  This, instead of doing what the voters pay them to do.  A version of this scheme happened at an organization on whose board I sit.  Except it was the other way around.  The founder of the organization got a grant that would specifically pay for a certain kind of help, and the helper engaged was a public relations and fund-raising person.  It's been recent, and we're all under the burden of the coronavirus, and the organization cannot function normally anyway, because it's a performing arts organization, but this new employee has done nothing (yet) that the founder hadn't already been doing.  It's just that he doesn't cost the organization anything, because the grant pays him.  So the point is, I'm not sure this idea from our neighbor is a useful one for us.  And this neighbor is using as a model the neighbor's experience with vastly larger and more complex organizations than is BP.

The other neighbor took a different view of the situation: "I am really disappointed in the state of things in BP, and I have been for a long time...I feel that the promise of professional management that was made to the voters who upheld the Charter change so many years ago has been broken.  We really have not had professional management in quite some time.  I don't think we'll get it, either...Not with the salary we pay."  This is a curious statement, particularly with the reference to our not having had professional management "in quite some time."  This suggests that in our neighbor's memory and experience of it, there was a time that the neighbor felt we did have professional management.  At least so that it satisfied this neighbor.  The neighbor did not specify which of our professional managers was considered satisfactory.  Also, there's the final reference to salary.  But since we've paid essentially the same salary to all of our managers, then salary was apparently not the determining factor to who was considered satisfactory.  We've paid the most to our worst managers (Krishan Manners and David Hernandez).  We have some flexibility.

The theory, then, from at least two of our neighbors, is that we can't have good management unless we pay much more than we do.  But it's not true.  Not only is the theory wrong, but it's not even our actual experience.  We've had very good management (Ana, Heidi, and at least the promise of Sharon).  And lots of choice.  It's just that we can't expect anyone to stay for decades.  We trade longevity, or perhaps, as some might look at it, stability, for much lower cost.  But the same neighbor who said a higher paid manager could scare up his own salary also complained that without that kind of basis for stability, we would continue to suffer burnout, among all of our staff.  Except we never have.  No one has ever left here because of burnout, unless Ana Garcia secretly did.  But that was our fault for mistreating her, not because we didn't pay her enough.  We do fine, when we have adaptive Commissions.  For the past three and a half years, we've had breathtakingly maladaptive Commissions.  We still do, but that can change.  In November.

"The Devil You Know is Better Than the Devil You Don't."

Elections are essentially a version of what people call a "zero sum game."  A vote for one person is a vote not given to his or her opponent.  A vote for implies a vote against, and voting has the simultaneous result of creating both.  Someone's victory means someone else's loss.

Sometimes, voters are very clear about whom, and what, they want.  They may not have to think for one second about the vote they want to make.  It's as if one candidate was for them all good, and the other all bad.  And if the preferred candidate has any imperfections, or the candidate not preferred has any remotely redeeming qualities, it doesn't matter.  The imperfections of one and the slightly redeeming qualities of the other are extremely minor overall in the eyes of the voter.  The preference is stark, and overpowering.  Sometimes.

But sometimes, the consideration is not as stark.  Sometimes, each candidate has noteworthy captivating qualities, and each has noteworthy flaws.  It can be hard to decide.  Or at other times, both candidates seem very flawed, and the voter will "hold [his/her] nose, and vote for..."

In 2016, we had the following situation: The incumbent (I), whom a number of voters no longer favored, was running for re-election.  Also running were Tracy Truppman, Jenny Johnson-Sardella, Will Tudor, and Dan Samaria.  The incumbent, to the extent that a number of us no longer favored him, was the devil we knew.  And he was such a devil to some of us that we chose the devils we didn't know instead.  If we knew anything about Dan Samaria, because he's around and active, then we chose the devils about whom we knew the very least.

This is certainly a strategy, as long as voters "know what they don't know."  And sometimes, these strategies work out well.  The problem after 2016 was that voters, including some of those who very actively promoted the unknown devils, soon enough figured out what they somehow had managed not to know at the outset.  And they weren't happy about it.  A number of them were very vocal, and publicly so, about how disappointed they were in the new devils.  They went so far as to say they made a mistake, and they regretted the confidence they had and the support they gave.

But they never said if in retrospect, they would conclude that the devil they knew would have been better than the devils they hadn't known.  And this is important.  On the one hand, they might say that the devil they knew was so terrible that it didn't matter who replaced him, or how bad and disappointing those people turned out to be.  In effect, the voters might say that they were in a no win situation, that they were somehow victims of inadequate choice (even though they themselves could have been choices, if they had chosen to run), that as bad as the devils they didn't know turned out to be, they were better than the known devil, and that they were comparatively innocent.

On the other hand, they might look back on 2016, realize they made a mistake, and try to figure out how they made the mistake.  They might wonder what they overlooked, and if there were any clues, or even advice given to them, that they ignored.  If they think they made a mistake, then by definition (the definition of a "mistake"), they would not like to make it again.  And they might have an opportunity either to make another mistake, or avoid one, in about three months from now.

I have no idea who is going to run for Commission on November 3.  Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria will not, because they will be half way through active terms.  Their seats are not available for voters' consideration unless either or both of them resign.  I strongly suspect -- because she publicly said so -- that Roxy Ross is not running for re-election.  She has given no indication that she might change her mind.  Mac Kennedy might or might not run for re-election.  He hasn't said, and I don't know.  Frankly, I hope he does.  But as far as I know, this is undecided.  I have no idea what Will Tudor is doing on the Commission, especially now that his original patrons have quit, and I don't know what he was ever doing on the Commission.  He has contributed nothing, and his only apparent accomplishment is personal, and has nothing to do with the Village: he has stalled off having to follow the Village's Codes.  Because I have no idea what Will is doing on the Commission, or what he was ever doing there, but he ran twice, then I have no idea if he plans to run again.  I hope not, because the Village of Biscayne Park Commission exists to benefit the Village of Biscayne Park, not to benefit Will Tudor, but I really don't know.

I have heard other very weird rumblings, but they are not public, and I have not heard them from the subjects of them.  Another person who comes to mind is Rafael Ciordia, whom the voters rejected as an unknown possible devil.  But they had other choices then, and their other choices were Ginny O'Halpin and Mac Kennedy, both of whom won.  To the extent that Rafael's handicap included that he was not known, he has done nothing to remedy that deficiency.  I advised him, during his campaign and after he lost, to join a board, and create a Village profile for himself, but he did not take my advice.  So, for the same reason he ran before, he might run again.  He remains an unknown devil.  But if only three people run, and he's one of them, then he'll win.

We have to be very careful whom we elect, especially now.  We have created for ourselves very substantial problems because of the decision we made in 2016, and it turns out the decision we made several months ago hasn't helped us.  We've gone from self-focused, autocratic, and vengeful to incompetent.  We seem to reject anyone who would get us going in a better direction.  Unless it would be fair to say that we did not realize Ginny was incompetent, and that Dan would lose his adaptive focus.  And it might be fair to say that.  Hey, we're entitled to guess wrong.  As long as we try to have as much information as is possible for us to get, then we're doing the best we can.

So, let's wish ourselves luck in November, with whoever comes forward to run, and, as the sergeant from Hill Street Blues used to say, "let's be careful out there."

Ah, Art... This Is Why It's Sometimes Hard To Do More Than Connect Dots.

Art,

Early Monday morning, I sent e-mails to Ginny O'Halpin and Dan Samaria.  I titled each one "I Have a Question."

Ginny,

When you proposed to elevate Roseann to interim manager, your theory was that it is the normal protocol here to elevate the Village clerk whenever we need an interim manager.

But when we were ready to consider replacing Krishan as manager, you said you had taken it upon yourself to approach David Hernandez, who was at the time the director of public works, and who was not the Village clerk, to act as interim manager.

So, very recently, you said you think it's our protocol to elevate the Village clerk, but just a few months ago, you apparently had no idea of such a theory, and from then until very, very recently, you stood very firmly behind David, and refused either to question his performance, or begin the process of replacing him with a properly vetted manager.

My question to you is where you got the idea, apparently all of a sudden, that our protocol is to elevate the Village clerk to interim manager, when you apparently never before thought this, and consistently stood behind your original choice, which you now say you think was wrong?  Did someone tell you this (that the protocol is to elevate the Village clerk)?  Who told it to you?  What inquiry did you do to confirm if it was true?  Is there someone on whom you rely for "institutional knowledge" about the Village, since you were never particularly actively involved (you don't come to Commission meetings. etc)?  Who is that?

Fred

And...

Dan,

It is well known among some of us -- and we appreciate it, and congratulate you for it -- that you relied somewhat heavily on certain long time Village residents for insight, guidance, and "institutional knowledge" during your first two years on the Commission.  And I will tell you as an aside that this reliance of yours resulted in very many excellent contributions on your part.

The people on whom you relied most heavily were the Rosses and the Andersons.

But in recent months, you have stopped consulting any of them.  (As an aside, the quality of your contributions has deteriorated dramatically.)

My question is, since you felt a need to consult with a collection of people (Rosses and Andersons, at least) before, and you don't consult with them now, is there someone else with whom you now consult?  Is there someone else on whom you rely for perspective and knowledge?  Who is that person, or those people?

Fred

It's now been a whole day, and I haven't gotten a response of any kind from either Ginny or Dan.  The questions I asked are very easy and straightforward, and neither Ginny nor Dan would have to think hard, or ask anyone else, to know the answers.  You and I have read enough news articles to know there are some people who decline to answer questions from journalists, for example.  In a different kind of setting, there are the people who "take the 5th [Amendment]."  And everyone has a pretty clear sense of what this kind of evasiveness means.

I would much prefer that everyone who knows something say what they know.  And they have their reasons for not doing so.  I would like it if the people who told me what I reported would come forward and say they know it, and how they know it.  But I don't out people if they say they don't want to be outed.  As one of the newspapers under attack for producing "fake news" said, sources are anonymous to the reader, but they're not anonymous to the person who wrote the article.  I do the best I can to check for consistency, and I don't say things on the strength of one potentially unreliable report.

If you still want to dismiss what I say as just a collection of dots I have tortured to connect, you can.

Chief Cook (Will Not Wash Bottles)

This is coming into increasingly clear focus.  More people than I thought appear to know about it.

The Village is currently being run by Milt Hunter.  Milt's mechanism is that he has seduced Ginny O'Halpin, whom he encouraged to run for Commission, and Dan Samaria, whose main advisors used to be the Rosses and the Andersons, to imagine that he's a knowledgeable authority, and to do whatever he says.  Ginny never had any other source of mentoring, and Dan has disengaged from the people who were really knowledgeable, and who really cared.  I don't know if Milt has also seduced Will, or if Will's easy, because he couldn't care less anyway, and he's still under Tracy Truppman's "Roxy Ross is a criminal" thrall, so he just goes along.  But that's how Milt does it.

He gets the Commission to vote any way he wants them to, and from what I've heard at Commission meetings, it appears he doesn't explain to them his reasoning.  Either that, or Ginny and Dan don't understand, or they don't remember.  They just remember what Milt told them to do.  And they do it.  If Milt tells them to elevate and retain David Hernandez, and keep him in an interim position indefinitely, that's what happens.  If David quits, and Milt tells them to substitute Roseann Prado, she's in.

The question anyone might ask is why Milt does this.  And there are few reasons.  First, Milt has always believed, and communicated, that he considers himself a genius who is the only one who knows the real right way to do things.  Have you ever seen his blog?  Every post ends with his little slogan: "Standing Watch."  Like he thinks he's the National Guard, or some kind of savior or something.  I know what you're thinking: am I talking about Milt, or about Tracy Truppman?  It turns out it doesn't matter.  It's the same pathology.  That's probably why Milt, who worked so hard to get Tracy elected, wound up enraged at her.  He was jealous, and resentful.  She had the power he wanted.  Ginny and Dan do what Milt tells them.  Tracy didn't.  I guess she wasn't grateful and beholden to Milt for the help he gave her to get her elected.  He probably thinks he got scammed.  The result is slightly different, though, because Milt only doesn't know what he's doing.  With Tracy, there was an added component of vengeance and destructiveness.  In any event, one person I know summed Milt up this way: "Milt hates anyone who doesn't genuflect at his altar; anyone who doesn't follow the gospel according to Milt."  It's probably just a coincidence that it sounds so religious.

But it goes further.  Milt's crusade is not only to create the Village According to Milt Hunter.  It's also to exact revenge on a couple of people.  It used to be just one: Roxy Ross.  Why does Milt hate Roxy Ross?  Who knows?  I would consider the possibility that Milt knows, but he might not.  I can't imagine he would hate Roxy because she's vastly smarter than he is, and she genuinely cares, and she commits and takes responsibility.  Oh.  I answered my own question sort of thing.  Now, it's also Mac Kennedy, because Mac is functional and goal-directed, he's smart, he's ambitious for the Village, he's hard-working, and he's capable.  And perhaps worst of all, Mac disagrees with what Milt tells his puppets to do.  So maybe I'm not entirely right about Milt.  Maybe there is a small component of vengeance in him, too.

Coming back the pathetic comedy of David Hernandez and now Roseann Prado, it turns out there's a method to this madness.  The goal, as I understand it, is to stretch out the search for a permanent manager until after November, because Roxy Ross won't be a Commissioner any more after November.  The idea is that Milt doesn't want Roxy to have anything to say about a new manager, and no influence over the process.  But really, Milt doesn't have to worry.  His two stooges, and Will Tudor, who's along for the ride, just outvote Roxy, and Mac, anyway.  It's true there was a slip-up, though.  Somehow, the search process began this past week.  There was agreement to post an ad.  Interim manager Roseann, of course, got some things wrong, but these errors were picked up by the Commissioners who were paying attention (no, not Ginny, Dan, or Will), so it's possible the ad will be correct.  And if it is, we'll get some applicants.  Although Roseann is very busy with her three jobs, so she might forget to call publications, to get the ad placed.  But just as with the attempt to hire a permanent Village attorney, Dan Samaria might once again claim there aren't enough applicants, and we should wait longer, like until November.  At least he'll do that if Milt orders him to.  So Milt might get his wish anyway.

It's a weird thing about some people.  In BP, it could be Steve Bernard, or Noah Jacobs, or Tracy Truppman, or Milt Hunter.  But some people are just willing to create a lot of misery and actual destruction, just to be in charge of something, or to draw attention to themselves, or to spite someone.  And we pay for it.

The Adults in the Room

We had two meetings beginning late Thursday afternoon.  The first was supposed to last 1/2 hour, and its purpose was to hire Paul Winkeljohn, who is our finance director, as our interim manager.

The three new amigos couldn't bring themselves to agree to pay Paul the minimum that he already said was required by his employer, and they couldn't agree to allow him to hire and fire Village employees, which is of course an important part of the manager's job.

Paul already said the stated salary was the requirement.  It was foolish to try to haggle.  Besides, the haggling was nonsensical.  It did not take into account any actual consideration about anything.  Dan Samaria thought $1000 a week would be appropriate for a "part time manager," (as if there was any such thing as a part time manager), and Will Tudor thought $1800 a week felt right to him, whatever an amount of money feeling right to Will meant.  It was already established that the former interim manager made more than Paul's company required -- and the amigos had agreed to it, although they clearly had no idea what they had agreed to.  Also, the numbers fantasized by the amigos were not connected to the budget...or to anything.  They were just empty numbers.  Although Ginny O'Halpin eventually slipped, and revealed her strategy: she still wants to hire Village clerk Roseann Prado, who appears to have no relevant skills, and who is said already to require the back-up of the police chief, (so Ginny supported any proposal Paul Winkeljohn's company would not accept).  So even the person who suggested her -- Ginny O'Halpin -- knows Roseann can't do this job.

Which led to some discussion as to whether it would make more sense if the police chief became the interim manager.  This would require the police chief to resign from being the police chief, so he could be the interim manager instead.  He said he's not going to do it, because he has more than enough to do as the police chief, who is also trying to manage the code function, and deal with the coronavirus.

Roseann then chimed in, and she made a very interesting comment.  She said she's already been doing the job of the manager, and she only complained that she's not been recognized for it.  She then clarified that she was doing the job of manager both while David Hernandez was the interim manager, and while Krishan Manners was manager.  This revelation was frankly a real head-scratcher.  Roxy Ross then asked Roseann what were her relevant credentials, and Roseann deflected, saying she doesn't want the job of manager, but was only offering to help out temporarily.

One of the bases of Will Tudor's resistance to hiring Paul Winkeljohn, and giving him the natural and essential power to hire and fire was that the position for which Paul was applying was only interim.  Will didn't "feel comfortable" (again) giving that much power to an interim manager.  In fact, when the matter was brought to light, Will acknowledged that David Hernandez had hired and fired people, and now Will claims he didn't approve.  This is a bit hard to believe since Will was one of the people who refused to find a permanent manager to take over for the interim David, and he never made one complaint about anything David did.

After 75 minutes of this horribly mangled and tortured, and completely nonsensical, 30 minute meeting, I had my next appointment (with someone who actually wanted something), and I had to leave the meeting.  The three amigos didn't listen to Paul Winkeljohn, they seemed unable to think intelligently through any of the issues, and they outvoted Roxy Ross and Mac Kennedy.  There were more children than adults in this room, and they had the run of things.

The next meeting, which promised to be as pathetic as the first one, was about the upcoming taxation rate.  The proposed millage is still 9.7, as it has been for years, despite that the millage in itself has no meaning, and I have no idea who prepared this budget.  It's unimaginable to me it was David Hernandez.  Maybe Roseann Prado will say it was one of the managerial tasks she undertook for the various headless chickens.  Or maybe the amigos simply carried over last year's budget to this year, since they have no idea how to consider a budget.  And I wouldn't even try to guess how long this meeting lasted.

The Gift That Keeps on Taking.

The trauma of Truppman just won't quit.  This afternoon and evening, there was a "virtual" presentation and feedback session regarding plans for 6th Avenue.  FDOT was approached by some Commissioners and the Village manager in 2018, and they were asked to add sidewalks and other renovations to this avenue.  I doubt anyone needs me to do the arithmetic that calculates who were the Commissioners and the manager in 2018.  There was only one Commissioner and no manager during that year.  It was all Tracy Truppman.  One Village resident referred indirectly to Tracy, and used the word "rogue."

FDOT got on the case, in whatever is their way of considering renovations, and they have now submitted a proposal.  The proposal is to add sidewalks, create drainage, and add lighting.  The Village can choose to upgrade the lighting, and if that decision was made, the Village would pay the difference.  That difference was estimated to be about $400K.

In the meantime, various Village residents, especially residents who live on 6th Avenue, came up with their own plan.  They want to reduce 6th Avenue from four lanes to two, and add a bike lane.

FDOT made clear that none of this was going to happen.  What they didn't elaborate was that NE 6th Avenue is a state road -- it's SR 915 -- and it extends for 5.6 miles, from 186th St in North Miami Beach to about 88th St in Miami, where it merges with Biscayne Boulevard.  SR 915 is consistently a four lane road, and no one is going to convert it to a two lane road for the half mile in question.

But before I discuss this matter further, it's important to note not only that there are various practical reasons not to make the proposed and imagined changes, but more importantly, this whole scheme was hatched by one person: Tracy Truppman.  Tracy and almost all of her stooges have resigned, the so-called "manager" has been fired, and his replacement has also resigned.  The reason for all of this is that Village residents mutinied against a Commission and management that was grossly autocratic, and completely detached from what anyone in the Village wanted, as evidenced by things like secretly approaching FDOT (no open Commission discussion, and no workshops) to renovate 6th Avenue.  Without the tyranny of Tracy Truppman, which we rejected and overthrew, there is no 6th Avenue renovation scheme.

Probably no one ever had any idea about anything, and at least some people didn't like it.  A group of 6th Avenue Village residents formed, and they almost all loved the idea that the state wasn't offering (reducing from four lanes to two, widening the two remaining lanes, and adding a bike lane).  What became clear was they all bought properties on 6th Avenue, but they don't like living on 6th Avenue.  Too much traffic, too much speeding, too many accidents, not enough lighting,.  So, why did they buy...?   Well, we're not going to answer that question.  I'm reminded, though, of some mischief former Village resident Steve Bernard made several years back.  When some Village residents who lived very near the public works yard complained about their neighbor (the Village's public works facility, and the broken down garbage trucks, and whatever else), Steve dismissed their complaints saying they knew that facility was there when they bought their properties, and there was no reason they should be complaining.  But it wasn't long after that that Steve, who lived directly across the street from the basketball courts at the park, started complaining about the activity at the courts, wanted the baskets removed, and wanted a cul-de-sac built in front of his house, to end traffic (except his own).  And now, the people who bought properties on 6th Avenue want 6th Avenue reconstructed, so it isn't the same kind of street.  They want it to function like our interior streets, even though they didn't buy properties on those interior streets, and they likely paid less per sq ft for the properties they did buy, because they were on a busy street.  Which they now don't want to be a busy street any more.  Like the people who bought properties very close to the public works facility didn't want the public works facility to be like it was, and Steve Bernard bought a property next to the park and basketball court, which he no longer wanted to be the basketball court.  Where were all these insights when decisions were made about which property to buy?

The fact, as the state representatives made clear, is that the state is not going to change the character of SR 915 for the half mile that it runs through BP.  They're not going to reduce the number of lanes, widen those lanes, add crossing relief, narrow or widen the medians (both were suggested this afternoon/evening) or anything that changes the character of that piece of that road, or the experience of driving on it.  Nor should they.  It's a uniform state road for its 5.6 mile existence.  When we lowered the speed limit from 30 to 25 in the Village, that reduction applied to every street, except SR 915.  The limit there is still 30, and the only thing that changes that, which occurs in North Miami, is a school district, which results in a reduction to 15 mph for certain hours on school days.  There's traffic control on SR 915, at whatever points the state thinks it's needed.  They know what the accident pattern is.

There are many people who, when they want to buy a home for themselves, are very deliberate and insistent on not buying a home on a busy street.  And they won't have any trouble explaining why.  They'd rather pay more to be on a quiet street.  Or even more to be on a cul-de-sac.  Or even more than that to live in a gated community.  These are the choices we all make.  And people who decide they made the wrong choice move.

Nancy Davis, a 6th Avenue resident, told a shocking story.  On two occasions, a car has driven onto her property, and on one of those occasions, the car drove into the structure of her house.  From across the street!  And crossed a median!  No sidewalks or bike paths are going to stop that.  All they'll do is provide room for pedestrians and bicyclists who will get killed.

We live in a funky municipality.  It doesn't have all the bells and whistles other municipalities have.  There are almost no sidewalks, and the lighting is bad.  The streets are narrow.  The houses are somewhat close together.  That's why we pay less than the same property would cost in Miami Shores.  We can't remake SR 915.  It is what it is.  We can patrol it, and give out speeding tickets.  And we do.

If you have an opinion on this matter, feel free to call the moderator of today's session.  (He invited contact.)  His name is Rodolfo Roman, and his phone number is 786-519-7160.  He told this to us a few times.  And his e-mail address is roman@iscprgroup.com.  But he's not going to change anything.  It seemed that the flexibility was that if we wanted, for example, better lighting, but no sidewalks, we could have the state spend the money on the better lights, and not spend on sidewalks.  Or, one of the state people said, in response to a question, if we decide we don't want them to do anything, they won't.  I will say that with conditions changing, it does seem like a good idea to improve drainage, which was part of what the state was offering to do.