The Commission Meeting Feb 10 2015 - Wasting Time

North Bay Village Commission Chambers

I don't know what's worse - when the North Bay Village Commission does something or does nothing.  The North Bay Village Commission has stalled.  It's dead in the water and the commission meetings are so not useful that I wonder why anyone, including the dais, show up.  Maybe my previous criticism of the mayor missing three meetings last year (out of 12) and the erratic attendance of the Treasure Island Commissioner were misplaced.     

The February meeting agenda was nothing but a series of small technical changes covered under the consent agenda, with only one (1) piece of legislation on the floor and even that got screwed up.  First the one piece of legislation.  

Sponsored by Commissioner Chervony, this ordinance prohibits the village from using or contracting for services that serve food in polystyrene containers - the styrofoam that never breaks down.  It was supposed to be a second reading but it turns out the first reading was not valid.  There was no disagreement on the subject and it passed unanimously.  In fact the Herald covered this in a well typed article by their local news gatherer, an article that makes no mention of the fact that the administration could not even manage a single ordinance correctly.   

Look, the styrofoam ban is good and I hope the first step of us getting more responsible here.  But it does not include penalties and during the discussion, the village manager was already talking about leeway.   

The rest of the meeting was a showcase of whining incompetence and excuses.  The Village Manager went through an extensive list of issues that he's looking at, explained how hard things like scheduling bulk garbage pickup are, that if the property owner with the garbage pile in front says, "Hey, not mine.  I don't know who left it there." then what can the village do?  Not a single accomplishment or closed issue was mentioned.  

The Police Chief got up to explain that yeah, really soon, there might be action on complaints of burglary at the Kennedy House and that his department is working really hard on this.  This was in response to concerns from residents that the police are not working on the problem at all. 

In the one thing the commissioners had to do, appoint members to two boards, Vice Mayor Jorge Pablo Gonzalez thought it would be good if the commissioners had the chance to interview potential members.  Well, they did.  That's what the meeting was for but not one of the applicants showed up.  So instead of saying, "Let's have a session to interview applicants and establish board goals." the commissioners just picked a bunch of names randomly and filled boards to which they will never listen.  

Finally, the Mayor.  She's is melting down.  During Good & Welfare, as the residents from the Kennedy House addressed their government and asked for help, she was ticking and twitching hard to pointedly ignore the speakers and their requests.  Seriously, she was contorting her neck to avoid any eye contact.  

Mayor Kreps had two items on the agenda - an award to the passport auditors in gratitude for them giving us an award (No, I did not make that up.)  and then a special presentation to the Leukemia Society recognizing their work, she completely forgot the second piece and had to be herded back.  

Not a surprise since her own contribution to the agenda was a resolution recognizing February 4 2015 as World (anti) Cancer Day.  The few rational people left pointed out that since the meeting was February 10, they could not reasonably do proclaim February 4 2015 anything but over and so they substituted a nice plaque instead.  

In a nasty little move, she pulled a routine item from the consent agenda supporting green space because Richard Chervony sponsored it and said she couldn't vote for it without permission from Sally Heyman.  Nonsense of course but she has to punish.  Then she didn't know the form for pulling items from the agenda EVEN THOUGH THE FORM IS PRINTED ON THE AGENDA ITSELF and she has been on the commission for eons. 

The Mayor is the Chair.  Yet she loses control of the agenda earlier and earlier each meeting. I make no secret that I have always found Mayor Kreps feckless and of limited intellect.   But watching her overwhelmed on the dais, avoiding conversation and eye contact with anyone, not able to follow a simple agenda,  spouting nonsense answers ("I have to check with Sally Heyman before I vote." "Some people told me that Facebook can block people so we can't have a Facebook page") and her sniping at the other commissioners, makes me worry for her sanity.  Maybe a month off for her would be a good idea.  

Kevin Vericker

February 13, 2015

Mark Your Calendars - Sometime and Somewhere on February 21 there will be the 2nd Annual Parking Workshop

Details will be announced as soon as somebody figures out how to use a calendar and post the information in Village Hall. 

It's an important date.  It will be 359 days since the last time the subject was discussed with the public, (2/27/2014).  

Speaking of dates, January 27, 2015 is the day that the Commission finally got it - parking is a problem on Harbor Island.  The catalyst was two variances, both deferred until after February, where the applicants were asking for parking variances on Harbor Island.  

It started with Chateau at 7939 West Drive.  This is a 60 year old building which has long had the spaces in front of the building for the residents but with the advent of BLU now MODA, they lost most of the spots and now there's nowhere to park.  They were proposing a variance to allow tandem parking in front of the building.  

The proposal has a number of issues - the handicapped space is probably in the wrong spot, it kills the sidewalk, does not have a clear plan to deal with conflict and moving cars - so the commission decided to postpone action until after the parking workshop.  

Across the street, at 7940 West Drive, the developer was asking for a variance to dedicate 20% of the parking to compact cars, then let it be known that once they got it, they intended to use the variance to reduce the overall parking availability to the original number now with smaller spaces.   It was a confusing and seemingly dishonest move and the commission did not vote on it.  

So now we wait for the Parking Workshop.  It does not bode well.  

In the last 359 days, the Village Manager has not managed to find out if the village can use the land next to the Shell station for temporary parking.  The Village Manager also does not know if the new projects can be obliged to provide parking to other residents.  The Village Manager has not been able to negotiate a solution between the 7904 Building and their self inflicted parking problem.  But hey, there will be a meeting, so it's up to us to propose solutions.  The Village Manager will then carefully study them and get back to the commission (and us) sometime. 

No word on whether or not the event will be catered. 

Kevin Vericker

January 28, 2015

New Year, Old Commission

The first commission meeting of 2015 took place Tuesday night and while it was mostly a routine agenda with no real action, there were several important topics discussed. 

Treasure Island Elementary School - For four years TIES has been on the decline.  It went down a grade year by year on the FCAT rankings and its most recent grade was "D", a short step above failure.  

The village has been funding the International Baccalaureate program for the second year in a row and there is a lot of concern that the school itself has become unstable and looks like it's on the path towards failure.  The village commission have refused to address this issue publicly and in fact had no plans to discuss the academic performance as of last month.  Still, after they were pushed into the discussion, the new principal, Dahlia Villar, spoke at the meeting on Tuesday.  

It was impressive.  Her presentation was short and to the point.  Ms. Villar discussed the new tutoring programs in place, the enhanced support for the teachers, the district monitoring of student progress and the variety of measures that are being used.  She alluded to the upcoming shift in how schools are ranked under Florida standards and made no promises but the impression was clear that the turnaround, the real one, is on the road to recovery. 

She mentioned in passing a very telling performance indicator - teacher absenteeism is down drastically from October when she  took over.   In October as many as 15 teachers were out "sick" on a given day to 1 this month.   This matters.  Unhappy employees have more illness and use more sick time and this is a clear indication that the school is on the right track.  

I wish she had been more detailed in her presentation but I have to say, Ms. Villar is clear, to the point and shows the confidence of competence.  These were all lacking previously and I am more comfortable that our school will recover under her leadership.  

Harbor Island Parking - Last February, the village held a workshop on the Harbor Island Parking situation.  The take away was that the village administration did not have the facts or stats and a further workshop was promised.  It's still promised a year later.  Village Manager Frank Rollason said it will take place sometime in February.  Let's wait and see.  

The Village Bus - according to the Village Manager, the bus now connects to the Miami Beach Trolley system.  He said that the information was on the village website but as of today it is not.  Mr. Rollason often claims credit for what has not been done.  

Bus Map as of January 15, 2015.  No mention of the Trolley Connection

The Tot Lot - while money continues to pour into the bay at Paul Vogel Park, the Tot Lot on Treasure Island has deteriorated to the state it is in today.  Mr. Rollason says it will be renovated by the end of the fiscal year.  Let's see.  

The Boards - There are only two boards currently in North Bay Village - Community Enhancement and Planning & Zoning.  The chair of the Community Enhancement Board spoke about the frustration of not even knowing if the commission had heard their recommendations, let alone  plans to act on them.  This is absolutely true and the direct result of the Mayor's venal hatred of disagreement.  Lip service was paid to listening in the future.  

There was also a final vote on Mr. Gonzalez's project to create an advisory board to address the needs of residents with disabilities.  It will go forward without a clear mission, without the mayor's support and without known participants.  

Finally, the issue of why people don't apply to boards was brought up.  Nobody mentioned that since the village manager does not seek information and the mayor and commissioners ignore or actively attack board members who take their positions seriously so the commissioners continue to scratch their heads and wonder what went wrong.  

The Baywalk - The private developers on the Causeway want to take over the planning for the Baywalk.  The commission voted unanimously to let this happen.  In fact in today's Herald, Jorge Gonzalez is quoted as saying, 

“I think it is a generous offer,” Vice Mayor Jorge Gonzalez said. “All we are doing right now is investigating. I don’t see any downside.”

Since Comrade Gonzalez is also President at the 360 where he summarily shut down legally required public access against the law, was also quoted in regards to the illegal shutdown, saying in the Herald: 

"At this point, I don’t really have solutions."

We can assume that Comrade Gonzalez is completely clueless about how public access should work.  

Facebook - There is a group on Facebook called "North Bay Village Residents Speak" and it gives a space for residents to discuss things about the village.  It does not pretend to be an information outlet.  In full disclosure, I run that group.  Residents bring up issues there regularly.  

Since the Village has no social media presence, the meetings themselves are televised but without sound and there is no printed media, it is often the only place to find out what is going on.   Among other successes, this month without any formal requests, the group raised over $500 for the care of an injured cat, discussed the parking issues and possible solutions for Harbor Island, worried about the abrupt closure of the Food trucks on Pelican Island, discussed the school issues, and shared a good deal of information about cultural events including a local Optimist Club essay contest.  

I have long recommended that the village create a social media page on Facebook to improve communications with the residents.   Mayor Kreps and her consort Vice Mayor Gonzalez hate this.  

The Mayor heard from "people" that sometimes "people are blocked on Facebook" so it's no good.  If "people" told her that, she does not have the  right information.  I have only blocked two people for bullying and trolling.  I am never sure if she is simply dumb or if she is dishonest.  Perhaps both.  

Regarding Gonzalez, however, I am sure.  I did block him finally after several warnings.  Gonzalez was bullying local residents, posting while blocking comments from others, and using the site to troll.  If he had simply allowed comment on his postings, he would still be on there today but he would not.  So he's out.  Mr. Gonzalez is an authoritarian bully and he's not welcome on any page I host.  His style of bombast is more welcome in Cuba or North Korea than on an American site. 

Still he is on the commission.  I know that he, the mayor, the village manager and most of the administration regularly read the group.  It would take them a half hour to set up a group more to their liking but their liking is to keep the residents in the dark.  Nothing threatens a poor government worse than an informed citizenry.  I intend to keep informing them.  

So that's your first month wrap up.  Tune in for further information and join the conversation at "North Bay Village Residents Speak". 

Kevin Vericker

January 15, 2015

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things In North Bay Village

Remember last year?  2014?  We had the Food Trucks once per month and the Farmers Market each week, both of which were pretty nice.  We liked them.  

We also didn't have Shuckers for most of the year, which stunk because we all like Shuckers a lot.   

So when Shuckers re-opened, we were all pretty happy.  Now we had Shuckers, Food Trucks and a Farmers Market.   Starting to look like a real place here.  But that was too much.  We are not allowed to have three nice things simultaneously. 

We stood by Shuckers but when they opened, they said "Nah-hah" to allowing the  Farmers Market and the Food Trucks on an adjacent lot.  Now there's an argument that gathering people in one spot is good for a restaurant and an even better argument that since the community and city supported the heck out of Shuckers, they could return the favor by allowing their overflow parking to be used one Wednesday per month for the popular Food Trucks and Saturday mornings for the Farmers Markets.  But they didn't and the village manager said, "Well, that's that.  Only one nice thing at a time for you."  

The Food Trucks packed up their covered wagons and moved west to Pelican Island, beyond the grip of our failed local government and created a new popular event on the Causeway.  Problem solved, right?  Nope.  It's North Bay Village adjacent and that means North Bay Village Crazy™ spreads.

Someone complained to our mayor that somehow this event hurted their business on Wednesday nights and our mayor whose best attribute is that once bought she stays bought went to the county on her own to get the food trucks shut down.  Or maybe it was just another voice in her honor's head.  And the county, who have not yet learned that our mayor's has barely a passing acquaintance with reality and the voices in her head cannot always be heard by others, shut down the Food Trucks temporarily while trying to figure out what radio frequency our mayor is tuned to. 

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After several meetings and email exchanges, in which nobody knew what the hell anybody was talking about, it was agreed that the Food Trucks could continue to operate outside North Bay Village Crazy™ three out of every four Wednesdays.  Why this schedule is not known but apparently it had something to do with calming down one of Mayor Kreps personalities.  So we got a 3/4 solution.  

Isn't it fun having a lunatic for a mayor?  

Kevin Vericker
Jan 10, 2015