Every Month Has a Second Tuesday Except January

Eddie Lim and Wendy Duvall scheduled their vacations to run over the second Tuesday of January 2014, the one day of the month they are required to report for their jobs.   Jorge Gonzalez cannot attend for reasons.   And none can seem to find a single other date in January to do the job they sought and are paid for  

So there will be no commission meeting this month.  There may not be board meetings either. There is nothing published on our village calendar.  (And the Bookmobile stopped coming this year.) 

Here's the calendar as of today January 3, 2014:

I think three of the commission members have just given up.  Commissioners Lim and Gonzalez barely speak at the meetings, let alone offer any guidance, and Wendy Duvall does not show up.   Most decisions are made by the cabal of our unelected Mayor Kreps, the voices in her head, the voices in the shadow government of praise singers - those commercial contractors and over paid,  underperforming managers who play her so masterfully.    

Mayor Kreps has done everything she can to disenfranchise the community and reward those obsequious favor seekers.  The commission meetings long ago degenerated into Mayor Kreps making surly nonsensical remarks to and about Commissioner Chervony while the two commissioners present merely look on with expressions of embarassed disgust at her antics.  I understand them not showing up but I blame them for not taking a stand.  

Mayor Kreps should resign in 2014.  The job is clearly beyond her capabilities and it's embarrassing to watch her alienate her peers like this.  

Kevin Vericker

January 3, 2014

Last Post of 2013

An Empty Creche

Happy New Year 2014!  

Update from 12/30 Post:  I received an email from Village Manager Frank Rollason in which he explains:

1. There is a massive crime wave in North Bay Village and the baby Jesus has been kidnapped not once but twice.  Police reports have been made but finding the culprit is not likely since while North Bay Village has an enviably low crime rate, we rank in the bottom third of M-D municipalities in solving those crimes that do happen.  A third Jesus has been installed and as of this morning is still in place.
   
   
2. The lights on Hispanola Ave were out because the lighting contractor the village chose did not account for the possibility of rain which is not rare in South Florida.  They were back on last night and there is hope they might last through the New Year.  

So you see, it's really nobody's lack of oversight, just stuff.  

12/30 Post Below:

This seems as good a place as any to leave the old year behind.  Yes, once again, North Bay Village has managed to screw it up.  Our Holiday Creche, which cost $4,500, is a scene of the Holy Family, the Three Kings and some livestock staring at a blank space.   

The Holiday Lights which cost $35,000 - or the same amount as funding the PAL - did not make it through December 26 when Hispanola Ave. went dark.  

It's kind of a neat metaphor for how our city is being run.  The key figures missing in action and it's just too much trouble for our mayor to keep her lights on.   

As Mr. Rollason and Mrs. Kreps enter the final year of their respective tenures, we can expect to see more darkness and disorder in 2014.   But let's keep plugging forward - they won't be here that much longer and North Bay Village has a great chance at the end of 2014 to fix this.  Let's look forward to it.  

Happy New Year to most of you,  

Kevin Vericker

December 30, 2013

North Bay Village Holiday Social Notes

Bermello Ajamil & Partners are holding a lavish Holiday party to which they have thoughtfully invited our commission and village staff.   I understand several have accepted and one in particular is very pleased about the open bar.  She finds it relaxing after a hard day of being positive.   

In any event, it has everything nothing to do with Bermello Ajamil & Partners angling for the village hall contract and nothing everything to do with spreading holiday cheer.  

Speaking of holiday cheer, after forgetting twice how a budget is passed, the village manager forgot to include the Holiday Party in the final budget.  Really, he did.  So the mayor went to Blu, the people constructing the new apartment complex on Harbor Island and they agreed to sponsor the party, held on December 7.   Very nice of  them and not at all related to the variance they got to start work early and finish late on the  construction which Harbor Island residents have enjoyed this last month.   

Although I was unable to attend as I was feeling entirely too well that day to watch the mayor play Santa, I understand that it was a lovely event for the sad kids of North Bay Village and for at least a few hours let them forget that they live in a place where two thirds of the kids have no access to any recreational or social programs.   And look at the pretty lights at the entrance to Harbor and North Bay Islands that were funded instead of the PAL.  So well done, Ms. Mayor Claus.  

Then there was the Miami Youth Symphony concert on Saturday December 14.  Although the mayor has not yet reported on the event, and only she can since apparently she was one of only two people there, I'm sure it was very nice.  

I for one want to say that it's very mean of the village manager to have described the event as "Pretty sad."   

I am glad that the manager reached out to the commission and the community for ideas on how to "better connect with the community."  

Here's an idea to better connect with the community.  Involve the community.  All of it.  Not just the voices inside one person's head or the people who make money from the village, but even ones you might not agree with.   They often turn out to be your best allies.  

So that sums up this week's Holiday News from North Bay Village.   

Kevin Vericker

December 18, 2013

After A Month... I'm Back

It has been nearly a month since I last posted and I feel like I owe an explanation.  Here's the simple truth, I've been feeling discouraged.   Sometimes when I am the object of craziness, I walk away and that's what I've done.  Let me explain.  

After two years on the only board the mayor and commission had not managed to disassemble, I made a strategic mistake.  I questioned the wisdom of an off the books, cash only, day care program run by the PTA at Treasure Island Elementary and paid directly to the PTA president.  In the meantime, the principal of TIES used an opportunity to demean both the city and the Arts4Learning program who had donated three art pieces to the school at the PTA's request in order to assert her "authority."  

As I tried to work through the issue, our self appointed mayor and her extra-legally hired village manager used the opportunity to demand that I resign.   Now it's not fair, and I am outsize proud that in spite of the mayor's opposition, the YSEB was able to shepherd through the IB program, and continued to call attention to the village's deliberate inattention to services for the majority of the village's youth, but no one said community activism is fair.  

Favorite quote from her honor the mayor, "Your blog is very negative.  What example does that set to the children of North Bay Village?"  Note to fifth graders reading my blog - go practice your number sets and stop reading political blogs!   

After that discussion, I decided that I would accede to what was presented to me as a demand from the TIES principal and resign.  I hate to quit but it's impossible to work with people like the mayor, the village manager and others of bad intention.   Interestingly, I saw the  mayor a few weeks later at a social function and as is her norm at such events with an open bar, she was all cheerful.  Positive, I guess, fueled by Stoli.  

Anyway, it has become increasingly clear to me that the village is simply run by the voices in the mayor's head, insistent voices telling her that disagreement is insult and that being mayor of all the residents, not just the ones who put her in office without an election, is mortal danger.   It suits those who pander to her and only give her good news but it has had material damage to the village. 

After two full years of eliminating the boards for citizen advice, when the commission was finally embarrassed enough to reinstate them but deliberately kept anyone off the boards who questioned the mayor's voices.  

Our streets are filthy, our projects dead, the crisis at Shuckers mismanaged, we have occasional show events instead of substantial services, our sewers are literally rotting underneath our houses and we have paid all our reserves to move village hall again, in severance packages to people the mayor no longer finds "positive", and our police are so discouraged they are calling in sick in record numbers.  A personal peeve of mine is that the village spent nearly $35,000 in "emergency" funds for holiday lights at Harbor Island and North Bay Islands, nearly the exact amount it would have taken to fund PAL for our kids.   Priorities.  

  

To pay for all of these errors, the mayor led the charge to raise our taxes 15% and our utilities 16% while refusing to attach basic performance measures to the money spent.   This is how a once vibrant city becomes a ghetto village and we are well down that road.   

The only glimmer of hope that I see for our village is that surely in 2014, the mayor and crew who have mismanaged our money and our village so badly will not be re-elected.  

I want to get back to writing about North Bay Village.  I love it here - it's an eccentric, neighborly and attractive place and I have never regretted moving here but I need to figure out what this blog can accomplish.  So I'm sorry for the silence and will keep trying to bring the voices that other people can hear to our civic discourse.  For right now, I guess I'm back.  

Kevin Vericker

December 14, 2013

Feline Fights and the Cat-tastrophe on Treasure Island

For once I feel like I have a totally impartial perspective on an emotionally charged North Bay Village issue.  I am indifferent to cats.  I don't love them, I don't hate them.  Now this doesn't make me a bad person, there are many other things that do, but maybe I have just the right perspective.  

Here's the story.  From time to time on the Facebook group, North Bay Village Residents Speak, discussions erupt over what to do about the overpopulation of cats on Treasure Island.  These discussions quickly divide into "Cats are pests." and "Cats need to be cared for."  

The situation is that some residents and apparently a non-resident put food and water out for neighborhood cats.  It's important to know that many of these same people also spend their own time and money to have cats neutered and for their medical care.   The cat feeders are not only caring but generous in their concern for the cats.  And on the plus side for the cats, we are the only island in Biscayne Bay without a significant rat and mouse problem, so score.  

On the other hand, the population of unclaimed cats has continued to grow and like those other South Florida pests, the Kardashians,  they are a nuisance.  The food in the street also feeds other animals and attracts insects, particularly mosquitoes, and these pose a health hazard.  There have been nights when we are awoken by cats screaming.  Two years ago, I found a mother cat and a litter of kittens living in my attic.  Uninvited, they had found a small opening to the roof and set up an apartment there.  I had to crawl around the attic in July to evict them.   I'm seriously allergic to cats so I talked a neighbor into driving them to the Miami-Dade Animal Shelter.  

Back to the Facebook discussion, it was proposed by one poster that the residents form a group to deal with the problem.  Others want the cat carers (well I don't what the right description is) stopped.   

The problem here is classic of a disengaged government.   No one is arguing that there is no cat problem on Treasure Island.   The discussion is what to do about it.  For years, NBV had an Animal Control Board who advised on policy, provided removal services for strays, and who I know personally paid for spaying and health care.   Under our mayor and her many village managers, this fell by the wayside.  And now it's out of control.  

An informal organization will not cut it.  I think the residents have to be clear that the village must support and find a solution to this problem that reduces the nuisance and treats the animals correctly.  The village should restore the Animal Control Board and give it specific direction to find an acceptable community approach to this problem.  This should not be dividing us;  it should be uniting us.  

But given our mayor's dislike of residents, I can't see her championing this.  Still, pushing the commission is the way to go for the moment.  

Kevin Vericker

November 18, 2013

The Commission Meeting Last Tuesday

The commission and the village lived down to all expectations again last Tuesday.  Following the third try to get it right, there was a "special" commission meeting to meet the basic legal requirements of passing a budget, a full month and 12 days late.   

Village Manager Frank Rollason, whose posterior had been repeatedly bussed by our commissioners for his fine work on the budget - raise taxes 15% - is unfamiliar with laws and things.  Since the village did not seek the assistance of a competent administrator, it's anyone's guess if we got it right this time.  

The Village Police Chief had bright and shiny comments for the commissioners.  Since the commissioners upset easily, he didn't tell them about how just last weekend a whole shift called in sick and the overtime budget is already blown.  Very considerate of him to not worry them like that.  Don't tell the Mayor, okay?  She doesn't like bad news.  

The Village Attorney quit.  It turns out that when the Village decides to renege on the contracted payments, people don't want to work for you.   It was a shame, as Village Manager Frank Rollason tried really hard to resolve the issue by sarcastically criticizing the law firm in his monthly report but he failed at that.  Still it may have been what distracted him from doing his job on the budget.  Or maybe not.  Maybe he just doesn't know how to do a budget.  

What else?  Well, Mayor Kreps got lost in the agenda earlier than usual but fortunately Frank Rollason was there to scold her.  The Mayor was a little cranky because she and the commission had specifically asked to get the web page done and Village Manager Frank Rollason didn't do it because he's in charge now.  Rollason got firm with Mayor Kreps and let her know that it will be done when it's done.   

I left after about two and a half hours.  I'm no fan of Mayor Kreps but watching her get kicked around by the Village Manager is no fun.  

Kevin Vericker

November 15, 2013

Klown Kar Government

There is a Special Commission Meeting on November 12 at 7 PM.  Not that all of our commission meetings are not special, but this is an Extra Special Commission Meeting because (excuse me whilst I shout)

FOR THE THIRD TIME, THE VILLAGE MANAGER MANAGED TO SCREW UP THE

 PROCESS OF PASSING THE BUDGET AND WE ARE IN VIOLATION OF STATE LAW.  

Okay, back to normal.  Here's what happened.  

The Commission Chair, Her Lady of Lightness and Positivity, Connie Leon-Kreps, positively forgot to chair the second hearing on the debt millage rates.  

The Village Manager, a straight talking, rootin tootin son of a gun, Frank Rollason, has been too involved in matters that are by law none of his business to pay attention to the state laws governing the adoption of a budget and never managed to set up the correct series of meetings and notices.  Apparently, he's never done it before.  

Add into the mix a group of disenfranchised commissioners, and discouraged village employees, and nobody looked to see if North Bay Village had complied with state laws on the budget.  My favorite quote from the state letter on this tragicomedy is "[these violations] tend to misinform taxpayers."   That was the point.  

So NBV is having the fourth meeting, hoping to get it right this time.  
But let's look on the bright side, as our mayor frequently snarls...

That's it, she never actually provides a bright side.  

The only bright side I can see  is that the mayor is in her last year of shedding whatever it is she sheds all over the place, and I don't think Rollason will make it into next year, so maybe next time?  

Kevin Vericker
November 8, 2013