PB: Council Meeting Quick Bites
by SDM
New Village Council Members
Tonight’s village council meeting will see two new faces sworn-in: John Dubois as Vice Mayor and Tim E. Schaffer as Councilman.
It’s not clear how the village’s political landscape will change given that Mayor Shelley Stacnzyk is joined at the hip with Councilwoman Joan Lindsay. These two dragged former Vice Mayor Brian Pariser into a series of difficult votes on controversial subjects. SDM believes Mr. Pariser was retired from office precisely because he failed to distinguish himself from Stanczyk and Lindsay.
On the other side sits Patrick Fiore (who is making noises about running against Stanczyk in two years). Dubois benefited from Fiore’s support in the past election, though Fiore couldn’t pull his candidate Jim Araiza across the finish line. Therefore, Palmetto Bay’s second new face is the unknown Schaffer. (SDM calls him Marathon Man because of his fuel purchasing habits.)
So what exactly can residents expect from this new council? SDM suspects Mr. Fiore and Mr. Dubois will work in tandem and that Stanczyk and Lindsay will stay in their camp. This will leave Schaffer to either join the Amigos, to stand independently, or to join the Fiore-Dubois group. Schaffer owes his election to the Stanczyk-Lindsay operation so early money says he will step directly into Brian Pariser’s empty loafers.
SDM Says: If Schaffer becomes the third Amigo, nothing much will change in Palmetto Bay. Property owners will be under the gun of the crazies that support Stanczyk and Lindsay and village government will continue on its intrusive, hyper-regulatory course. If the Marathon Man breaks from the Amigos, residents might see a more reasonable government…and Schaffer will grow a target on his back from the SOPs and CCOCI folks.
Decorum Rising
In addition to swearing-in the new members, the village council will take up the crucial issue of reading the decorum statement before each meeting starts. If adopted, the decorum statement will be read as the second order of business, right before the Mayor starts handing out her proclamations and honors every local sports team that wins anything.
SDM Wonders: The decorum statement is pretty straightforward but it is incomplete because it is not addressed to the council itself. From SDM’s perspective, most of the indecorous behavior at village meetings comes from the dais and from the spouses of those on the dais sitting in the back of the chamber. Let’s hope the council listens to the decorum statement and applies it to themselves.
Misapplying the First Amendment
The minutes of the November 5, 2012 council meeting (Item 12A) contains an interesting misapplication of this provision of the U.S. Constitution: ”Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
Village Attorney Eve Boutsis’ was asked a question about the village’s sponsorship ordinance:
Councilman Tendrich noted that on page 4 of 9, line 36, to state that an illegal business would be prohibited from advertising seems obvious. He asked about churches that volunteer in Palmetto Bay.
Attorney Boutsis explained that this is a matter of separation of church and state. (Emphasis added by SDM.)
SDM Wonders: How would a church’s purchase of a sponsorship of a village event “establish a religion” or “prohibit the exercise” of a religion? Of course, it wouldn’t and Ms. Boutsis should know this. In fact, SDM would argue that by singling out churches, the village is actually preemptively prohibiting speech based on content, which is a constitutional no-no.
SDM Says: Most village churches by now have zero interest in supporting the village’s events, but Palmetto Bay leaders cannot say with a straight face that they support local churches while at the same time they limit their freedom of speech.
Tonight’s meeting will be very interesting. I believe the new members are a huge improvement for our village. As far a councilman Fiore, I sure hope he runs for mayor in 2014. He’s great.
The night belongs to the newly electeds: John and Tim. Each gets sworn in and past experience says that one or both will make a short speech. There is no argument against the fact that tonight is their night. However, the money is one the prediction that blabbermouth Stanczyk will take up the time with her pontificating and speaking out of turn, trying to both steal the spotlight from one or both as well as clearly politicizing tonight for her reelection campaign or setting up her defense to the recall movement.
Advice to the Mayor, sit back and let the two new council members have their night. This is not your night. Everyone knows that 2 incumbents lost their seats due to you. Move your ongoing attempts to rewrite history to another night.
The meeting got off to a bang tonight when I served a lawsuit on Warren Lovely and Jerry Templer on behalf of Jim Araiza, alleging defamation, libel, defamation by implication, conspiracy to commit same, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, arising from the scurrilous emails they and others were blasting around the village during the run off calling Jim a felon. Someone filmed them being served. They looked like they got kicked in the testicles. Something they deserve.
Also named in the suit is Betty Pegram and the owner(s) of pbchecksthefacts.org. Apparently, whoever owns the site, and we will find them, didn’t check their facts too well before spewing even more hate-filled libel about Araiza being a felon. Oooops! Something you cannot do, unless it’s true, without violating the rights of another. Which, of course, in Jim’s case it is not. More to come. . .
Re your commentary, “Misapplying the First Amendment,” I believe that the ban against churches providing sponsorship was stricken from the proposed ordinance. The council was concerned that applying this restriction to churches might prevent support from churches such as Christ Fellowship from providing in-kind services at activities like the annual village picnic, during which CF has served food and provided bands for entertainment. The village has, appropriately, given credit to the church for this support in programs.
You are correct sir, though the faulty analysis by the village attorney still bothers SDM.
Here’s what else bothers SDM: To check your point, SDM went back to the minutes, which are loaded onto the website. Then, SDM wanted to figure out how the new provision reads after deleting the term “religious.”
Guess what? Municode has not been updated so the new language is not available there. More galling, however, is that none of the old agenda packets are uploaded to the website. The village clerk despite numerous requests on this blog has never consented to allowing the public easy access to these documents by hosting them on the website AND she fails to keep Municode updated.
How is a resident, visitor or business supposed to know these rules when they are not published ANYWHERE?
When the United States was born, government was not inentded to have a hand in business. Businesses would be free to act in their own best interests without government involvement. The basic role of government in business would be as a referee only. Government’s role would include:Protecting business propertyEnforcing business contractsSettling business disagreementsSetting and collect taxesPalmetto Bay – it is NOT your role to go into the wedding business!