The Appearance of Impropriety

It was Mac Kennedy who used this phrase repeatedly during his public comments.  In Mac's opinion, many things the Commission and the Village management did failed in that way, as Mac put it, to pass the smell test.  Tonight's meeting was a glaring example of what Mac was trying to describe.

Tracy "Big Mama" Truppman said she was in a hurry, because the agenda was so "packed."  It wasn't, and we weren't, but Tracy was working hard at something.  Her maneuverings began with choosing members for two of the Boards.  There were two odd things about this supposed discussion.  One was Tracy's derailing of the discussion before it started, and choosing instead to talk about whether we even need some of the other Boards.  Evidently, Tracy is setting the Commission up to end Boards.  What this had to do with filling the Boards on the agenda tonight was a mystery.  Except that it was part of Tracy's overall scheme of reconstructing the Village the way she wants it.  But since Tracy has no more use for the Boards than she has for anyone else who lives in Biscayne Park, it probably made its own kind of sense.  She might as well telegraph her plan starting now.  The other oddity was the 4-1 Commission vote to remove Dan Keys from his very long perch atop the Parks and Parkways Board.  I assume it was Dan Samaria who wasn't given the message that we're axing Keys, but it was very clear the other four knew it in advance.  Not a word was said about the Board or its functioning, except Mac Kennedy's public comment expressing gratitude for some of P&P's recent projects, but four Commissioners were on the very same wavelength about Dan Keys.  And those same four Commissioners were fine with the other already sitting P&P members.  They didn't want to reconstitute P&P wholesale.  It was just Dan Keys.

We went on to talk about an attorney for the Village.  Once again, the Commissioners were prepared, and mostly in line (well, the girls were).  Everything pointed to how wonderful Grey Robinson is, even though they no longer have the one attorney who was the reason four of five Commissioners (minus Big Mama) wanted to hire them, and how inferior Fox Rothchild probably is, even though they now do have the one attorney who was the reason we initially hired Grey Robinson, and apparently, a number of other recent defectors from Grey to Fox.  And the Commissioners pretended it was somehow out of their hands, because we hadn't hired John Herrin personally; we had hired Grey Robinson, for whom he was working.  So naturally, since our commitment was to Grey, we had to stay with them.  Except the Commission also let slip the reminder that Grey offered us the clear choice either to stay with them, stay with John Herrin, now at Fox Rothchild, or get counsel from anyone else we wanted.  But the girls mostly don't tell you what they really want, or why they really want it.  Except for a huge one of Betsy Wise's feet she jammed down her own throat.  Betsy reasoned it this way: Roxy Ross made a public comment that was critical of some things the current Commission is doing, so Roxy is an adversary to the Commission; Roxy and John Herrin have known each other for a long time, and even worked together; Betsy couldn't quite get John to say he had spoken to Roxy in the last six months, but she clearly wanted to leave that impression; according to Betsy, a Village resident who is not a Commissioner spoke to John about something unspecified; for all anyone knows, this could have been Roxy.  Therefore, Roxy is an enemy of the people, and John is in league with her, so he should not be hired.  (And it was either Betsy or Big Mama who wrongly said the Village attorney works for the Commission.  No, he or she works for the Village.)  No one brought tomatoes to throw at Betsy for this twisted, paranoid, and nonsensical reasoning, but she sure heard the verbal protest.  Will Tudor apologized to Roxy for the implication, and Betsy interrupted, to make sure it was clear that Will wasn't speaking for her.  A number of terms to describe Betsy were uttered.  She's a viciously nasty person.  And not honest.

Then, it was onto a variance request.  Suffice it to say that Tracy was actually the only Commissioner who understood the issues, and was disposed to grant the variance.  The rest of them were bumbling and had no idea how to think about the problem.  They thought it would buy them time if they approved one of the requested structures, and delayed on the other.  It was Roxy Ross who pointed out that the advertising for the hearing had been faulty, since it listed the hearing as taking place on March 5, but that was the day the three girls all didn't feel like going to a Commission meeting, so the matter was postponed.  Except no one else knew the matter was postponed.  And although the majority of the current Commission would point out that no one else but them matters, there's still the annoying issue of the law.  So the hearing is now postponed until the May meeting.

Perhaps the biggest joke/scam of the meeting was mobile phones.  On the one hand, there was a discussion as to the possible advisability of having Commissioners use Village-provided mobile phones for Village business.  On the other hand, it appears that in advance of this discussion, the phones have already been purchased.  Hmm.  But here was the biggest joke and scam.  The commonest expressed theory as to why it would be a great idea, and a real convenience, for Commissioners to have Village-provided mobile phones was that it would ensure "transparency."  It turns out there are several current, and thus far unfulfilled, records requests to see whom Commissioners have been calling and texting.  Part of the effort not to comply is telling those who make these requests that it will cost them hundreds or even many thousands of dollars to get the records.  Clearly, Commissioners are trying desperately to hide information about their communications, and they have the Village manager running fierce interference for them.  But the question is, on what basis should anyone assume that Commissioners will make all business communications from their business phones only (and won't either cheat or even make a mistake), and how would this be enforced?  What was proffered as ensuring transparency is actually the greatest possible cover for opacity.

In that vein, the Commissioners were asked many questions during public comment.  Not one of those questions was ever answered, either by any of the Commissioners or by the manager.  This is truly government at its very worst.

I Hate When That Happens.

We were supposed to have a Commission meeting this past Tuesday.  It was March 5, the first Tuesday of the month.  But the meeting was postponed for two weeks, until March 19.

The boys were around and ready to go, but the girls, well...  All three of them, apparently, couldn't make it.  At this point, it's a little loose as to what the excuse was, but I'm told it had something to do with an allegation that they-- the three of them-- weren't around this week.  Freakin' nasty coincidence.  I guess.

And it's odd, because Mama was at Village Hall all day, as usual.  And Jenny's car appeared at her house at 6:30 PM, presumably after work, and disappeared the next morning, as if she went back to work.  Betsy's car was in front of her house the whole time.

So it's pretty hard to cling to any idea that they somehow weren't around.  The clearly were.  They just didn't want to attend a meeting that night.  None of them did.  And assuming the absence of a Sunshine violation, it was just a dumb coincidence that none of them felt like having a meeting in advance of the same night.

You might be moved to wonder what it was about that meeting that they were each trying to avoid.  And because they all managed to avoid the same meeting, days in advance, no agenda was published.  I can't even look at a proposed agenda and guess what set the girls off.  Something, that's for sure.  And independently, unless they laugh their heads off every time anyone utters the words "Sunshine Law."  They don't seem to bother to clue the boys in any more.  But really, who cares about the boys?  It's 3-2 anyway.  Good girls.

Well, I guess we'll see what shenanigans they pull on the 19th, and if whatever mischief they make contains any clues as to what they wanted to dodge this week.

Helluva Village government we have here.  But we put this nonsense up there.  The joke's on us.

Svetlana and the Delancey Five. Two Free Tickets.

I just heard Svetlana and one of her bands a couple of weeks ago.  I didn't realize I already had tickets to see them (again) on Saturday, March 23.  I don't need to hear them again so soon.

The show is at South Miami-Dade Cultural Arts Center (SMDCAC), in the "Black Box" cabaret room.  This is the best venue there is.  My tickets are at a table abutting the stage.  It's as intimate and fun as possible.

The only thing some people will consider a downside is that SMDCAC is about 28 miles from here, if you take the straight line down I-95 and US1.  But it's well worth the trip.  The address is 10950 SW 211 St in Cutler Bay.  During the season, I'm there more or less every week, and sometimes more than once a week.

The entertainment is always a pleasure.  The people who work there are as friendly and welcoming as humanly possible.  The parking is free.

If you want to hear Svetlana and her guys, let me know, and you can have my tickets.  But don't take them unless you're really going to go.  If no one wants them, I'll turn them back in, and the cost of them will go on my account for next time I want to buy tickets for something.


PS: Svetlana sings mostly jazz and popular standards.  It's a nice selection of material.

BP (Lack of) Code Enforcement

Call me crazy, but last week's report from our village manager screamed out BP's inability to use Code to make this place better. Consider this:

Currently, there are eight violations that merit Administrative Citatioins, ie "immediate fine, no warnings, no notices, etc. ... pay up, buddy, and consider not doing that again or we'll keep taking your money." They include things like having your trash cans curbside at the wrong time, not putting the cans away, not cutting your grass, parking on your lawn, feeding hoards of wormy cats ... the real bare-bones minimal standards for a non-primitive society, let alone a tiny village with a HUGE tax rate.

Last week, of the many code violations noted, 28 fell into the categories that merit admin citations ... yet only 1 admin citation was issued. I'm no mathematician, but the calculator on my iPhone tells me that 1 of 28 is just 3.6% ... and that's a fail in anyone's book. Rather than start a never-ending cycle of courtesy notices etc that don't enact change, why not hit those 28 properties with fines and let them learn and not do that one again?

Why can't this village enforce code? Why such an epic failure of leadership on the most rudimentary things? I'm not talking about elevating us into a Coral Gables or Miami Shores ... just keeping us from falling into the abyss that is Unincorporated M-D or our neighbor, NoMi. Just meet the MINIMAL standards ... and when folks can't/won't comply, teach them the one way that everyone understands: taking their money. Funny how paying one fine teaches folks to comply to something they ignore otherwise.

I Wonder if That Was a Mutiny.

We had a very strange special Commission gathering tonight.  It had something to do with our attorney.  Here's how this came about.

Our attorney, John Herrin, reportedly told our manager, Krishan Manners, that he, John Herrin, would be leaving his firm soon.  This was maybe in the past two weeks.  But no one was supposed to say anything about it, and John wanted to wait until he told his firm that he was leaving to join another firm.  Apparently, that happened some time late last week, because on Friday, we received a letter from John's firm saying John was no longer with them, and we could choose to stay with the firm, and be represented by someone other than John, be represented by John at his new firm, or find another attorney altogether.  It was Krishan Manners who received this letter.  On Sunday (two days ago), tonight's special meeting was scheduled, and the purpose was to talk about our attorney situation, supposing that we have one.  It was never made clear by anyone why this special meeting had to be so precipitously soon (tonight).  And not only was a meeting called to talk about our (imagined?) attorney situation, but three resumes of firms were attached as backup, and they were the same resumes as the finalists from last year, when we hired John and his firm.  So it was made to appear that we were finding a new attorney.  But since our attorney didn't resign from representing us, and the firm of which he was a part when we hired him/them was still willing to provide regular legal counsel, we weren't without an attorney.  So why were we looking for one?  To recapitulate, why was it being made to look like we didn't have an attorney, and what was the rush to choose a new one?  All of us who delivered public comments posed those questions.  And the other thing we all addressed was the peculiar set-up involving preconclusions about any of this, a compilation of resumes, with no introductory discussion, and, as Mac Kennedy astutely observed, the fact that five Commissioners who supposedly had next to no information were there, and none of them looked at all perplexed.  It might have been Roxy Ross who uttered the "Sunshine" reference.

For Chuck Ross and me, there was one other concern.  Roxy Ross recalled that the vote to hire John Herrin and his firm had been 4-1 of the then Commission.  The one who didn't choose John was Tracy Truppman.  It has also been observed that on two known occasions, John has disagreed with Tracy about one thing or another.  One of those failures to heel was followed by Tracy's giving John a tongue lashing outside.  Tracy Truppman does not brook people disagreeing with her.  There's typically some form of hell to pay for an act like that.  So the additional question was whether Tracy was gunning for John, whom she had not chosen at the outset, and who had the nerve to disagree with her about something, in the same way, but for different reasons, that she was gunning for Sharon Ragoonan, whom she assassinated as a Village employee.  Tracy does that.  As best we can tell, there's a list of them now.

But the bottom line was that we felt that the whole scheme of tonight's meeting was ill-conceived, in part because no one knew or understood much of anything (which wouldn't matter to Tracy, if all she wants is to punish/replace John for disagreeing with her), and one of the reasons no one knew anything is that no one asked.  For example, as became clear as this meeting slogged on, no one knew about John's new firm, or what his old firm was prepared to do for us, and John had either not been told about this meeting, or had been told about it, and been told he was not welcome to attend.

It was an interesting, if painful, 40 minutes.  Almost all of the Commission, even including Betsy Wise and Jenny Johnson-Sardella, actually came to understand the disadvantage at which they had been placed.  And as much as Tracy tried unwaveringly to steer everyone's comments to some conclusion, which Tracy tried to put in their mouths, that we should find a new firm (any firm in the world that, let's say, doesn't include John Herrin), they actually resisted.  The leader in this resistance was Will Tudor.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella repeatedly "concurred" (her all time favorite word) with Will.  And Betsy Wise resisted the herding Tracy was trying to do, too.  So did Dan Samaria.

What the Commission finally decided was that it didn't have enough information, and that they should slow this process down.  Which is of course precisely what all of us tried to tell them.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella even mentioned having recognized the wisdom of some comment Barbara Kuhl made.  Obviously, these Commissioners are not allowed to say they were persuaded by anything Roxy Ross said or I said, and that's OK.  As long as they get it, it's not important whom they recognize for having helped them see straight.  Roxy had other insights and caveats, too, but Tracy refused to let her speak.  Ah, good old Tracy.  Raging and limited to the end.

Yes, it was a gross waste of 40 minutes, but it was interesting to watch what looked like actual independence and something like clear thinking.  It could be just a one off situation.  We may be back to Village government brain death very soon.  Or maybe not.  Can Tracy punish all four of them, without the cooperation of at least two of them?  It depends how she does it, or what she's got on them.

Ignorance is Bliss. And So, Apparently, is Being a "Mean Girl."

Last night's Commission meeting was fundamentally nasty.  I'm talking about the part that wasn't idiotic and revealing of lack of knowledge and perspective on the parts of Commissioners.

Public Comment started it off, with Linda Dillon's reading a nice, Linda Dillon-style, version of the riot act to the Commission.  Linda's idea was that it's traditional, and correct, that non-Commissioner Village residents feel free to speak their minds at Commission meetings, and further, that if the Commission expected to be treated with some sort of respect by their neighbors, they owed their neighbors the same courtesy.  I made a different version of the same point.  Later in the meeting, Dan Samaria introduced a New Business item to say the same thing, and to propose formalizing it.  Dan's idea, to which I'll return later, was that the Commission should commit itself to being respectful of non-Commissioner Village residents and to each other.  Right.

Betsy Wise started off the discussion part of the meeting, with some aimless and ultimately pointless rambling about something that was supposed to be connected to CITT funds.  This is money that's available to us, but because of the way the Village is laid out, and considering our (lack of) need, it's almost impossible to make the intended use of the money.  Some years, we don't.  And that's really OK, because it really doesn't apply to us.  It's almost as if someone offered us the opportunity to put a toll booth on the part of the interstate that runs through Biscayne Park.  So Betsy gave herself a nice opportunity to listen to herself talk, but it didn't go anywhere.

The next item was Betsy's, too, and she was eager to let us know some of the things she learned at the Florida League of Cities' Institute for Elected Municipal Officials' forum.  But first, Betsy decided she might owe us an apology.  She mentioned the possibility that she might have been a little bit sharp, or maybe defensive, or possibly even something like aggressive in her short time so far on the Commission, but she instantly segued into blaming us for it.  You see, Betsy explained, she considers herself to have been put through a "bruising campaign," and she now looks back on it all and thinks maybe we hurt her so much that she might have, you know, lashed out a little bit.  But she's sorry, and it's all our fault anyway.  But "bruising campaign?"  What "bruising campaign?"  The one where she manipulated and dissembled, and dodged Meet the Candidates fora, where hard questions might have been asked of her?  The "bruising campaign" where she and her little posse beat up mercilessly on Jared Susi?  That "bruising campaign?"  Wow, Bets, I'm so sorry.  What we all put you through.

But Betsy did pick up one really great idea from her FLOC IEMO experience.  Betsy, who had never attended any BP Commission meetings, and clearly knew absolutely nothing about the Village, its government, and how it functions, hit on the idea that there's something about the FPL Franchise Agreement, and we should, I don't know, do something about it or something.  Betsy carefully reviewed this matter, and during her little show-and-tell for us, she showed us that she now understands that the Franchise Agreement is essentially a tax (boo), but we need the money (yay), but how do we know FPL aren't stiffing us (boo), so we should audit them (yay), which Betsy understands us never to have done (ooh, we're so irresponsible).  Oh, no, Bets, you detected a shaking head from the back of the room.  And OH, NO(!), it's the mean girl of all mean girls, the meanest girl alive, the evil Antichrist, Roxy Ross.  And what is that bad, bad Roxy Ross trying to tell you?  That we did audit FPL to be sure we're getting what we're supposed to be getting?  Oh.  Well, um, when was that?  2011?  Nope, too far in the past.  We should do it again.  Yay for Betsy Wise (they sure don't call her Wise for nothing) who saved the day and the Village.

And next was the report from the Public Safety Advisory Board.  This one was interesting, and I have to introduce it by stepping back a bit.  It was earlier in the meeting, when the Consent Agenda was being considered, that Dan Samaria took issue with the minutes of the first meeting of the new Commission.  Dan had nominated some person who wasn't Tracy Truppman, and therefore either doesn't count or maybe doesn't even exist, to be Mayor.  But one of Tracy's dutiful stooges nominated Tracy, and we could ignore whatever was Dan's blather.  But Dan-- good old Dan-- had an idea that it should at least be part of the minutes that he had nominated this other supposed person.  No, Tracy slammed Dan, these are "action minutes," and they only have to include, let's say, pulling this out of our...hats, motions that succeed.  Dan didn't see it that way.  He thought every motion should be mentioned.  And it was at this point that Krishan Manners, whom I almost invariably try to support, chimed in to suggest to Dan, in Krishan's best sarcastic and grossly obnoxious voice, that perhaps Dan would like to propose to set aside money for plenary transcribing of the contents of meetings.  Who knew Krishan Manners could be a "mean girl," too?  He was way out of line with that crack.  But back to the Public Safety Advisory Board, they were supposed to present their list of recommendations.  Except their Chair didn't bother to come to the meeting.  In fact, only one of their members, Mike Redman, came to the meeting.  Krishan asked Mike if Mike would like to present the recommendations, or would he like Krishan to do it.  Mike said he'd not like to bother, either, so Krishan presented it.  What he actually did was show a slide.  It was all very well orchestrated, as was everything else in this meeting (except the contributions of Dan Samaria, who is apparently more of a mongrel, and not the product of obedience schooling, as were the girls; Will Tudor wasn't at this meeting).  There was a suggestion-- I don't remember whose-- just to accept the whole list.  Betsy Wise wasn't so sure, and she complained that it was all too much and too messy, and she wanted it prioritized into bite-sized projects.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella preferred this approach, too.  So they prattled about this for a while, then agreed to accept the whole list.  Jenny Johnson-Sardella had a great idea, though.  Jenny, who has minimal history of involvement with the Village and its functioning, and does not bother to research matters, thought maybe we should lower the speed limits.  Jenny is blissfully unaware of our past traffic study that showed that it would do no good to lower the speed limit, or the fact that we did it anyway, and she does not understand that the problem is people who speed, not a speed limit that does not support safe driving.

Our fearless group agreed to purchase a new vehicle for the Code officer.

The matter of the police's need for new radios had been removed from the Agenda, but now, it was being talked about anyway.  Well, talking about it was being talked about.  Should we talk about it?  We talked a lot about that.  Finally, we discussed it so much that we decided we should talk about it, so it got back on the Agenda.  How it ever got off the Agenda was never made clear.  The police need new radios.  And they're not cheap.  $29K for a case of 10.  For a purchase that big, our Charter requires us to get three competing bids.  But we really want them, and we don't want to wait.  Chief Luis Cabrera and Commander Nick Wollschlager put the hard sell on us.  Here's how dire this is: the Chief no longer has a radio.  He had to give his to another officer.  Same for the Commander.  And with hurricane season coming (in five months)...  Well, you can do that math for yourselves.  One of our nosy Commissioners asked how many radios short we are.  We didn't get an answer.  And no one asked how long the normally required process takes.  No, we were in a hurry to figure out how to circumvent the requirement to get bids.  Our Village Attorney got the message, and he helped the Commission figure out how to explain their way out of the bidding process.  It was Trump and his "emergency" wall all over again.  Anyone who didn't leave to listen to the State of the Union didn't miss anything.  So yeah, yeah, we're getting our radios.  Probably any day now.  Unless we already got them.

Dan Samaria wanted to talk again about the driveway Ordinance.  And he wanted special testimony from Gary Kuhl.  Gary was supposed to be representing the ideas of the Code Review Committee, and he told us that the 2015 agreed Ordinance was almost perfect, until the then Commission made changes.  Gary said this in the presence of Code Review Committee members who were there, but didn't speak, and in the absence of other Code Review Committee members who had strong feelings, sometimes not the same as Gary's.  It was a nonsensical discussion that ended with a decision to look again at the Ordinance.  And someone on the Commission suggested we revert back to that 2015 proposed Ordinance, and maybe make any necessary changes.  Oh, no, isn't that the kind of thinking that got the prior Commission in so much hot water with Gary Kuhl?

And then, Dan Samaria wanted to talk again about this decorum matter.  Dan had some sort of proposal he got from Linda Dillon.  I assume it was what she said at the outset.  The gist of it was an agreement of mutual respect and decorum.  That's what Linda suggested.  It's what I suggested.  It's what Dan was now suggesting.  Tracy did not, shall we say, embrace it.  What she had was more like an allergic reaction.  The tension was relieved when Tracy's lieutenant, Betsy, rescued Tracy by making a motion that the "current" decorum resolution be ratified.  Tracy looked carefully at Betsy.  "The 'current' one?"  "Yes," Betsy reassured, "the current one."  So Betsy and the two other mean girls quickly ratified the resolution they liked.  That's the one where they don't have to show respect to anyone, and everyone else has to grovel, sit, show a paw, or whatever else it amuses (and protects) Tracy to demand.

At that point, the Andersons, the Kuhls, the Rosses, and I left.  Others had left already.

Today's Scam

I got an automated phone call this morning, purporting to be from FPL.  The recording said my electricity would be cut off in 30 minutes, because I didn't pay my bill.  I was to call 800-450-5735 to resolve this.  It didn't sound hopeful, though.  It sounded like I was going to lose my power.  So, I called the number.  (I later checked, and it was from this same number that I got the initial automated call.)

When I called, the response was also automated, and it sounded like FPL.  "To pay your bill, press 1," etc.  I asked for a representative.  The woman confirmed what the original message said, and it still didn't sound like there was anything I could do about this in what was now less than a half an hour.  She asked for my phone number, which I gave her.  She said "Is this Alfred Jonas?"  Yes, it was.  She then confirmed my address as 1175 NE 125th St in North Miami.  This is very strange, because that's the building where my office is, and I don't have an account with FPL there.  I pay rent to the building, and they have an account with FPL.  So I told her that was not my address.  She then came back with my home address, where I do have an FPL account.  I confirmed.  I assume, by the way, that this kind of information is available online through a "reverse phone book," starting with a phone number.

I then reviewed with her what she ("FPL") said was going on, and why it didn't make any sense.  She/they said I didn't pay my bill, but I never pay a bill with FPL.  They have my banking information, they send me an e-mail telling me my bill for the month, and they take the money themselves.  The woman then said they had changed their servers, or something, and accounts had to be verified.  She said I had received three mailed notices to confirm my banking, and I hadn't responded to any of them.  I told her I never received anything.  She said maybe the post office wasn't delivering all of my mail.  I told her I get mail every day, and there's no reason for them to withhold anything.

Further, she said I hadn't paid in November, December, or January.  I pointed out this didn't make sense, because if I hadn't paid in November, or if FPL had been unable to access my bank account, my December bill would have been for two months.  It wasn't.  Either she offered, or I requested, to speak to her supervisor.  In the meantime, tick, tick, tick on my 30 supposedly remaining minutes of electric power.

The supervisor was some guy.  I started to review the problem, and I happened to mention that this sounded a bit scammy.  (So far, it involved an 800 number, an official-sounding recording, and two people.  So, I wasn't 100% sure.)  As soon as I said "scammy," he said that if I thought this was a scam, I would have to talk to the main office in Juno Beach.  In person.  Well, that wasn't going to happen, so I continued to explain what was presented to me, and why it didn't make sense.  At some point, the call disconnected.

I felt reasonably sure this was a scam, evidenced in part by the fact that I still had electricity.  So I went to my online banking, and I could see that the expected withdrawals from FPL had in fact happened.  So, this was very clearly a scam.  I then called the real FPL (888 number, not 800), told them about it, and they told me it was already under investigation, because they've already gotten lots of calls.

So, just be aware.  Scams get increasingly sophisticated, and it wouldn't have taken long for me just to "confirm" the details of my bank account, and access to it.  There was enough sketchy to prevent me from giving any information, but it was made very easy and straightforward.

Oh, Dan...

There was supposed to be a "workshop" tonight regarding driveways and swales.  The Commission agreed to it, and the scheduled date was today.  Dan Samaria called me earlier today to tell me Krishan Manners called him to say the workshop was cancelled.  Dan said that Krishan said the reason for the cancellation was that Krishan did not finish putting together a draft Ordinance, which was supposed to be the topic of conversation for the workshop.  It wasn't clear to me whether Krishan told Dan that he, Krishan, was cancelling the workshop, or that Tracy Truppman cancelled it, because "Krishan" didn't complete his task.  But it was cancelled, and Dan was very displeased.  He said he had spoken to the Andersons and the Kuhls, and they, too, were displeased.  No one seemed to think this cancellation was right, or properly done.  I didn't think so, either, and I advised Dan to do what he was planning to do, which was to hold a gathering anyway.  Specifically, I suggested he tell Krishan to inform the other Commissioners that the cancellation was faulty, and that the meeting should be reinstated.  At that point, Dan said someone else was calling him, and he'd get back to me.  Right.

So, I decided to attend Dan's protest meeting.  Unfortunately, it was a standard Dan Samaria gathering, which mostly highlighted Dan letting us know he and we had been wronged, and he was doing the right thing, and was "listening to the residents."  This meant encouraging whoever was in attendance to go through the proposed Ordinance, and say what they thought, which I guess will be Dan's insights when the make-up "workshop" occurs, next Thursday (January 24).

Those in attendance were Janey Anderson, Gary and Barbara Kuhl, Ernesto Oliva(?), Jorge Marinoni, Brian McNoldy, Dan Keys, Art Gonzalez, Jared Susi, and someone whose name I don't know, but who says he's lived here 25 years, and still wants a gate to keep out unwelcome people, illustrated tonight by a black male who might have been up to no good, but who knocked on the door.  And, recording, was Milt Hunter.  I hope I didn't miss anyone.  Chuck Ross stopped by briefly, but today being Rox's birthday, the two of them were able to think of something better to do with their evening than being at this gathering.  Happy Birthday, Rox.

Well, the meeting soon enough devolved into the space where meetings like this go.  Gary Kuhl got annoyed that others were off track, and Dan Keys, who knows everything about everything, told us everything about everything, and had to disqualify and dismiss anything anyone else said.  It was the old Dan Keys show, starring...Dan...Keys.  The other Dan, the Samaria one, just sat back and listened, presumably complimenting himself for having stimulated this lively, if deadly, discussion.  Which was really more like a drone than a discussion.  You can fall asleep in the presence of Dan Keys.  Or you can get smolderingly annoyed.  Unless you get up and leave, which is what I did.

I Miscalculated. I Didn't Go. I'm Sorry.

I was going to go to the Commission meeting last night.  But I was exhausted.  I would have gone anyway.  But I looked at the agenda, saw there was nothing on it, and decided not to bother.

How could I have known that Tracy Truppman would get all tyrannical, and not let either of the Rosses have a proper word during Public Comment?  How could I have guessed she would start overtalking Chuck when he was less than a minute into his comment?  How could I have imagined Betsy Wise would introduce some nonsense at the last minute, then "bitch-slap" other residents who had actual content of their own?

So I missed the whole thing, however long it might have taken.  (My other theory was that there wasn't a half hour's worth of content on the agenda anyway, which means yeah, Tracy Truppman will consume two hours or more with it, but I wouldn't miss anything substantive by staying home.)  I'll try to watch the video of the meeting.  I'll blog it.  Or, even better, you can blog it.  Let me know you were there, and that you want to report what happened, and how you understood it, and it's all yours.

Is It True What They Say About Lemmings?

I wasn't sure what to call this post.  My first thought was "The Brains of the Operation," which turns out to be Dan Samaria.  But that title seemed like too much of a punchline.  Then, I thought of "Reality Bites," which I think I used in the past, or maybe something like "It's a Bit More Complicated Than it First Seems."  But the latter was too dry and academic.  So I decided on the title about lemmings.  I think it appropriately describes last night's special Commission adventure.

The reason for last night's meeting was to discuss the legislative agenda for the Village to communicate to our lobbyist.  The state has money to give out to municipalities, and it's the job of the municipalities to ask for it.  And the request, now cutely and ungrammatically referred to as an "ask," has to be for a specific purpose or project.  So the alleged purpose of last night's meeting was for the whole Commission to arrive at some sort of consensus about what to request.

BP Commissions always have this kind of meeting for the purpose of organizing this kind of list of priorities.  Well, BP Commissions always did have this kind of meeting, until the reign of Tracy Truppman.  In December of 2017, Tracy unilaterally (the only way she knows how to do anything) compiled a list of Village requests, which she had the manager submit to the lobbyist.  She was caught doing this, scolded for it, did her usual defensive and blaming-everyone-else dance, had her stooges vote to retroactively approve what she wrongly did, which they did without having familiarized themselves with what she did, and did it again in April of this year.  Much of this was the subject of reminders and complaints from the audience last night.  Tracy did not, of course, respond to any of this.

Tracy started out by noting that each Commissioner had submitted his and her own lists of priorities, and she noted that one priority-- the poor condition of the roads-- was shared by everyone.  So she proposed to request some wavering number of millions of dollars from the state for road resurfacing.  It seems to me the high number was 70-something million dollars, and the low number might have been around $55M.  Whatever it was, everyone very quickly realized it was ridiculous.  But that wasn't the problem.  The problem, as it increasingly came into focus and couldn't be ignored, was that there were reasons the roads were falling apart, and, as Dan Samaria, the brains of the Commission, pointed out, it wouldn't do any good simply to resurface roads that were being actively and inexorably eroded from below.  It would be, as Dan starkly, but correctly, put it, "wasted money."

Attention was then grudgingly paid to the real causes of the problem, which were summarized as a rising water table, old and leaking water pipes which we don't control, and the fact that most of the Village (Tracy wrongly said the whole Village) is on a septic tank system, not sewer pipes.  The discussion then got increasingly vague, sketchy and meaningless, including concepts like separating ourselves from the water system that is owned by North Miami (we can't afford the pipes, and we'd still be receiving water from CNM anyway), and paying some sort of attention to our drainage problem.  There was also some fantastical, if fleeting, talk about converting ourselves to sewage pipes instead of septic tanks.  Several tens of thousands of dollars per house?  That conversation ended quickly.  The further problem, especially for Tracy, was that this left us where we were with the last Commission, which is terrifying to Tracy, who continues to try to make a career out of demonizing the past Commission, and attempting to portray herself as the Mama in shining armor who's going to right all the wrongs she fantasizes she inherited.  So this conversation fizzled out, with the new Public Works Manager resolving to explore all of these matters further.  How this insight didn't precede and possibly obviate the need for this discussion is a bit mysterious.  It appears that Tracy, Jenny, and Will, who pat themselves on the backs (well, Tracy does, and the other two just let their heads bobble) for having hired a Public Works Manager, never actually spoke to him about this problem.  The whole thing had a bit of a Three Stooges or Keystone Kops quality to it, and it was onto another windmill.  The lemmings had all followed each other over some cliff.

The next favorite ambition had to do either with improvements at the recreation center, or getting a generator for Village Hall.  This conversation, too, was jerky and somewhat incoherent, and for me, it was no longer worth the time to listen.

I'm told there was one other idea floated, and for which someone thinks we would need extra funding.  Betsy Wise wants to open a school in Biscayne Park.  Maybe she can get funding from Donald Trump, who can open the Biscayne Park campus of Trump University.  Yeah, that's who we are.