Patrick Fiore | South Dade Matters

May 21, 2013

PB: Welcome Aboard the Village of Palmetto Bay

SDM watched in amazement the Village Council meeting last night as the Shores at Palmetto Bay, LLC lawsuit came to rest on a three to two vote with the remaining Amigas in the minority.

In fact, it was Marathon Man Tim Schaffer who held firm and voted to dispose of the lawsuit after facing the most petty nonsense from the usual village gadflies.

The arguments against settling the lawsuit at their well-rehearsed core amount to the following: “The developer should not have sued the village. Instead, he should have re-applied after he received a site-specific charter. We get nothing out of this settlement.”

Let’s just be real for a minute and dispose of the lie that “a site-specific” charter is required by the code:

Sec. 9-53. – Required information.

All public charter school facilities shall submit the following information to the village’s department of community development for review by the department and for consideration at a public hearing:

(a) Written information:

(14) A copy of the charter approved by the Miami-Dade County Public School Board.

According to the village attorney at the original hearing, the applicant satisfied all the criteria to hear the application. Mayor Stanczyk wanted to halt the application so she manufactured the alleged violation of the village code. Stanczyk’s hyper-political actions caused the lawsuit because she was forcing Shores – against the advice of her legal counsel – to follow a procedure that state law prohibits.

More importantly, does any rational, breathing person believe the village would have approved the Shores application had the developer merely re-applied and not sued? Of course not. The gadflies fail to mention that their plan all along was to wage a war of attrition against Shores. See Palmetto Bay Chutzpa Award dated March 26, 2013:

Mr. Templer also made sure to point out that he didn’t want to see soccer fields at Palmetto Bay park and that the existing green space should be maintained, which inspired his chutzpa: Templer said that to add more ball fields with lights, the village could go ahead and purchase 5 acres to the west of the park!

SDM Codebreaker: There are two five-acre tracts to the west of Palmetto Bay park and both are in private hands. One is owned by Miami Children’s Hospital and the other is owned by Palmetto Bay’s second-most-famous litigant-partner, Shores at Palmetto Bay. The Shores property was set to be developed into a charter school and commercial complex until Mayor Stanczyk and her cronies decided to kill off the project without a proper hearing. Thus, Mr. Templer is echoing a nutty idea – pushed originally by super-gadfly Marsha Matson – where Palmetto Bay shuts down the Shores project and then buys the property at a hefty discount.

Mr. Templer, who also happens to be the spouse of a sitting council member, testified last night against the settlement, which given his ulterior motive seems perfectly logical to SDM. What surprised SDM was when Templer began berating the applicant for having the temerity to sue the village. Mayor Stanczyk reined Templer in, but she didn’t apply the decorum rule to him:

All speakers must address their remarks to the mayor, speak in a dignified and courteous manner, and avoid admonishing individual members of the public, council and representatives of the village. Should a member of the audience become unruly or behave in an improper manner that is prejudicial to the dignified conduct of the meeting, the mayor shall have the power to require the person to leave the meeting and to be accompanied, if necessary, by a police officer. In the event the audience becomes unruly the mayor may either recess or adjourn the meeting. (Emphasis added by SDM.)

To paraphrase Pirates of the Caribbean, the decorum statement is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Village of Palmetto Bay!

At the end of the day, the village elders (Dubois, Fiore, and Schaffer) overruled the Amigas, terminated the Shores litigation, and gave tax payers a break on future legal bills. SDM Says thank you for your leadership.

SDM Says to the Amigas Stanczyk and Lindsay: shame on you! Your re-election hopes should not be more important than what’s good for the village. Perhaps it’s time for the serious people in this village to make you walk the plank, figuratively speaking of course.

6 comments

April 3, 2013

PB: Steppin’ Out with the Tres Hermanos

Ok, so SDM had some very formative years during the musical 1980s. One SDM favorite came to mind while watching the Palmetto Bay Village Council meeting on Monday, April 1st when her honor Mayor Shelley Stanczyk got up and walked out before adjourning the council meeting:

We’re – so tired of all the darkness in our lives

With no more angry words to say can come alive

Get into a car and drive to the other side.

Steppin’ Out, Joe Jackson (1982)

Now the only question for Ms. Stanczyk is where is the other side? In fact, it looked to SDM like the Marathon Man, Tim Schaffer, got into his red truck and drove from the Three Amigos to join the Tres Hermanos along with Vice Mayor John Dubois and Councilman Patrick Fiore.

SDM couldn’t help but notice that the Tres Hermanos coalition – i.e., the private property owners’ rights coalition – joined together to push for some major changes to the badly named “Neighborhood Protection Ordinance.” (In fact, SDM’s first suggestion is to delete this silly name – mark that one down.)

Then, the Tres Hermanos appeared to unite on creating a financial advisory board – though SDM can’t be sure if that idea passed or not. SDM Wonders: Why would the Mayor support having an education committee over which the village has absolutely no jurisdiction but oppose a finance committee that is looking at village finances? Chalk that up to an SDM head scratcher.

The big move – and the one that shot the Mayor from her chair as if she just noticed a meter maid standing over her car – was when the Tres Hermanos joined together to (gasp) put a village contract out to bid!

SDM Wonders: So this is what upsets you Mme. Mayor? Bidding out public contracts?

SDM reads Schaffer’s move from the Three Amigos to the Tres Hermanos with cautious optimism. Perhaps Palmetto Bay’s newest elected official – after gaining a glimpse behind the curtain – sees that the Mayor (figuratively) wears no clothes.

Then again, perhaps this is merely a tactical move by Mr. Schaffer to maintain his independence. Either way, what a breath of fresh air! Bravo and kudos.

The only real lowlight of the night was when Mr. Dubois caved in and withdrew his item on releasing the Palmer shade session transcripts. The Village Attorney changed her previous stance that all the Palmer litigation was “intertwined” to a new formulation that SDM has a hard time describing.

Her idea – as our tiny little brains understand it – is that because Palmer has amended its pending complaint to include certain acts by council members or others involved in the concluded litigation, then those acts somehow render the now-decided Palmer case as not concluded for purposes of the public records act.

In other words, because someone involved in the concluded litigation is now implicated in the pending legislation, the shade sessions will contain facts or data that will hurt the Village’s ability to defend itself going forward. (SDM Says: Bunk. There is no such exception to the public records act.)

Nonetheless, based on this legal advice, Mr. Dubois withdrew his item. (Next time Mr. Dubois, when you are confronted with changed facts, defer your item so that you don’t have to reintroduce it. Then you can do some homework and if the attorney is right, then you can withdraw it later.)

Of course, the Mayor couldn’t resist putting in her warped two cents again. Both the Mayor and Councilwoman Lindsay analogized the village’s withholding of public records to an individual not disclosing her communications with her attorney.

Newsflash: The Village of Palmetto Bay is not a person. It is a municipal corporation governed by distinct laws. Other sections of state law applies to for profit and non profit corporations and individuals. (SDM has discussed the public records act ad nauseum so we won’t do so again here.)

SDM Says: The Village Attorney may very well be putting the council members at risk of violating the law, which could cause them to be removed from office….maybe they should get a second opinion.

11 comments

March 21, 2013

PB Council to Village People: We Will Never Learn!

SDM is going to force our fat and lazy staff to watch the Palmetto Bay COW tape from Monday as a form of mass punishment just because we had to watch part of it.

SDM can still hear the droning…and not the kind that drops a bomb on SDM at the Starbucks at 144th street.

There were so many moments that shocked us here that we are going to draw out the COW report for a couple of merciless blogs just so our kind readers can feel the pain along with us.

Here at SDM, we are not rocket surgeons…we just have internet access and curious minds. So, last night when Village Attorney Eve Boutsis opined that Councilman Fiore could reconsider the vote that she screwed up with clearly wrong legal advice (see PB: March 4 Council Meeting Quick Bites and PB: Roberts Rules Guest Post by Vice Mayor John Dubois for scintillating commentary and analysis of the controversy), SDM began to wonder if this new batch of legal advice was correct. Guess what? It wasn’t.

To understand how the council functions, one must look at two sources that create their rules of order. First is the village’s charter and code. Second is Robert’s Rules of Order, which the code identifies as the council’s procedural guidebook (see Sec. 2-48(j).)

The village code contains this provision:

Reconsideration. An action of the village council not determined pursuant to a quasi-judicial hearing may be reconsidered only at the same meeting at which the action was taken or at the next regular meeting of the council. Emphasis added. Sec. 2-48(g).

Dear readers, you see that the sentence emphasized above says you may reconsider either at that same meeting or at the next one, right?

Robert’s Rules of Order says the following: No question can be twice reconsidered unless it was materially amended after its first reconsideration. (Art. VI, Sec. 36.)

SDM went to the tape of the March 4 meeting to see exactly what happened and whether the Village Attorney followed the law. You can watch the meeting here starting at approximately 2:01:50 through 2:21:00.

The nuttiness begins with Councilman Fiore moving to adopt the Coral Reef Park Master Plan with an amendment requiring the manager to provide financial reports. Dubois seconded the motion. (Four votes are needed to amend a parks master plan.)

The council bounced the motion around for a while and eventually Fiore and Dubois voted no, killing it. That’s when the Village Attorney interrupted the proceedings to wrongly proclaim that Fiore was barred from voting against the motion he made.

To make matters worse, the attorney suggested to Fiore that he might want to reconsider the prior vote, presumably as a mechanism to keep the master plan out of the trash can. Fiore moved to reconsider and it passed. Then, Fiore moved the master plan again but with another amendment to add protections for churches and schools.

Mayor Stanczyk asked the attorney if the new amendment would have any binding effect and was told “it would have no effect.” (2:16:23) Vice Mayor Dubois expanded the amendment to say that churches and schools would be given the same treatment the amended master plan gave to Coral Reef Park (i.e., that churches and schools would not have to apply for a site plan amendment to replace their lights, etc.).

Again, the village attorney opined that the Dubois amendment, like the Fiore amendment, would have no effect because the only way schools and churches can effect changes to their site plan is by adoption of an ordinance of the council.

To summarize, the master plan item was reconsidered at the March 4 meeting and then it was amended in a way that did not change it materially. (How can an amendment be material if it would have no effect?)

When we apply the rules to these facts, we learn that the motion cannot be reconsidered in April, which is precisely the opposite of what the village attorney advised Councilman Fiore he could do.

SDM Says: Fortunately for the village attorney, SDM’s obsession with this compound malpractice is meaningless since Mr. Fiore caved-in to pressure from the audience and let the matter drop.

(SDM Wonders: How long will it take for Fiore to claim a great victory for adding meaningless words to the motion? Hmmm…)

Unfortunately for the Village People, our leaders don’t appear willing to learn their own procedural rules; instead, they choose to rely upon increasingly questionable procedural recommendations of their hired help.

18 comments

March 7, 2013

PB: Shady Village Council Fights Transparency

Shade Session Transcripts Should Be Released to the Public Now

Florida law is very clear on when the transcripts of village shade session must be released:

The transcript shall be made part of the public record upon conclusion of the litigation. § 286.011, Fla. Stat.

But in Palmetto Bay, the land of transparency when convenient, there are many ways to interpret the law to avoid disclosure to the public:

1. The six different lawsuits are “intertwined” according to Village Attorney Eve Boutsis.

This despite the fact that the legislature did not provide for withholding public records based on such an undefined concept. Nor has Palmetto Bay adopted a policy stating that it will withhold from the public certain records of lawsuits when the actions are hypothetically “intertwined.”

Boutsis stated clearly that the Attorney General “punted” on whether “intertwined” lawsuits is an exception to the law that states shades session transcripts for concluded litigation “shall be made part of the public record.” (In fact, the letter from the A.G., to which SDM linked in yesterday’s post PB: Roberts Rules Guest Post by Vice Mayor John Dubois, does not address intertwined lawsuits.)

SDM Says: Given that the statute is mandatory – note the use of the word “shall” – the conservative reading of the statute is that the transcripts must be released. Any attorneys out there want to opine on this question?

2. Mayor Stanczyk argued that the village “can’t extract one thing,” presumably meaning that the council debated settling all the lawsuits together so there is no way to separate the discussions on the concluded and pending lawsuits.

The village would have to argue in court that the legislature’s use of the word “shall” permits an exception when the council is entertaining a global settlement of multiple lawsuits with the same party on the same facts. Of the arguments made at the Monday meeting, this one is most technically intriguing.

SDM Says: The problem with the Mayor’s argument is that courts have already solved this problem; they regularly require redaction. Therefore, under The Stanczyk Exception, the clerk should make a good faith effort to release the transcripts with any comments related to pending litigation redacted from the document. To argue that every comment or statement made during the shade sessions is privileged under the statute strains credulity.

3. Mayor Stanczyk proffered another rationale for withholding public records when she articulated what SDM calls the “Little Village Exception” to the Public Records Act.

Though both the county and Palmetto Bay are governed by the same statutory provisions, Stanczyk argues that the village should hide records from taxpayers because the county is a “mighty beast” and Palmetto Bay is just a little (backward and mismanaged) municipality. [Okay, SDM added something there. ]

SDM Says: This is just more nonsense and the Village Attorney has a duty to advise the Mayor that there is no exception to the Public Records Act based on a municipality’s size or wealth.

The bottom line is really a question of public policy: should the taxpayers be granted access to their government’s official deliberations once the litigation is concluded? Three of Palmetto Bay’s elected officials – Mayor Shelley Stanczyk, Councilwoman Joan Lindsay and Councilman Tim Schaeffer (The Three Amigos live!) – voted to keep the facts from the people who elected them.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Palmetto Bay Officials also Withhold Their Laws from the Public

SDM went on municode.com while researching this post. The village directs the public to Municode to review the village’s code of ordinances, including the charter. Would you be surprised if SDM told you that the village has not updated Municode since June 4, 2012?

SDM Says: The Village of Palmetto Bay and its leaders pay lip service to transparency and anyone who continues to believe their assertions to the contrary is ignoring the plain facts and some serious incompetence.

4 comments

March 6, 2013

PB: Roberts Rules Guest Post by Vice Mayor John Dubois

Below is a verbatim message posted as a comment to yesterday’s post PB: March 4 Council Meeting Quick Bites. SDM replies after Mr. Dubois’s comment.

SDM, You seem to spend a great deal of time reviewing and researching issues brought up at our council meetings and I applaud you for all the work you do. Below was my next day reaction to the RR controversy. It was not researched, rather, it was what I believed to be a common sense interpretation of the outcome of the sequence of events relating to the vote on the Coral Reef Park Master Plan. I am not an attorney, so, it may very well be incorrect but I would be interested in hearing your opinion as well as opinions from your readers that consider themselves subject matter experts.
————————————–
We need to be careful not to follow one mistake with another.

To recap last night’s sequence of events;

Roberts Rules are procedural, Council Votes are legally binding.
The vote was cast 3-2 on item 11a – the master plan mod for CR Park.
Since a super majority of 4 out of 5 were required to pass this, it failed.

Whether the council person [Fiore] who made the motion spoke against the item in violation of Robert’s rules is irrelevant.
If that did happen, the chair could have stopped it as it was procedurally incorrect, however, she did not and the vote was legally binding and the master plan approval failed.
Therefore, subsequent actions based on Councilman Fiore’s incorrectly modified Nay vote by the City Attorney are legally null and void.

I Don’t think there is anything to discuss except the staff should figure out how to notify the residents of PB that the master plan vote for CR Park failed last night.

Thank You

John DuBois

SDM Reply

First, thanks for commenting Mr. Vice Mayor, especially since SDM wasn’t very nice to you in the main post.

Second, SDM is not sure exactly where the matter stands either.

Clearly, the village attorney is under a moral obligation at the very least (she may very well be under an ethical duty, too) to find a way to correct her error. If she fails to do so, can we as residents be sure the Coral Reef Park Master Plan was adopted legally and is therefore binding on the council?

And what about her other opinions? For example, SDM has not watched the meeting’s discussion on whether the village is required to release the transcripts of the shade sessions related to the Palmer litigation. However, according to the Miami Herald story on the meeting, Boutsis said “that while the appellate court has ruled on one case, the records cannot be released because they are intertwined with another Palmer Trinity case that is still open.”

SDM found a copy of the Florida Attorney General’s opinion letter to Ms. Boutsis where she asked questions related to this issue. The letter is somewhat dense, but the initial paragraphs make clear that Ms. Boutsis did not ask whether the statutory requirement of releasing transcripts at the conclusion of the litigation extended to other cases involving the same litigants.

SDM Says: Ms. Boutsis appears to be trying to break new legal ground by arguing that the village may withhold the shade session transcripts from the public because the phrase “ conclusion of the litigation” (a term that is defined in section 286.011, Florida Statutes) applies to multiple lawsuits, rather than to each lawsuit individually.

SDM Recommends In addition to asking Ms. Boutsis to explain her opinion on the Robert’s Rules of Order issue, you may want to ask her to explain in writing her statement regarding the shade session transcripts, which SDM sees as resting on a very shaky legal foundation.

2 comments

March 5, 2013

PB: March 4 Council Meeting Quick Bites

Robert’s Rules of Order Controversy

During last night’s dysfunctional meeting, Village Attorney Eve Boutsis claimed that Councilman Fiore improperly voted against his own motion. Because of this parliamentary ruling, the site plan vote that had lost, was reconsidered and eventually passed.

SDM, as our readers know, is something of a skeptic so we investigated Robert’s Rules and found the following reference related to voting on one’s own motion: “The maker of a motion, though he can vote against it, cannot speak against his own motion.” (Article VII, Section 42, Debate.)

5:00 PM Update: SDM confirmed a couple things since posting this information earlier today. First, Village Attorney did in fact mistakenly opine that Robert’s Rules of Order prohibits a member from voting against his or her own motion. Second, Robert’s Rules does in fact permit the maker of a motion to vote against his or her motion. Third, based on SDM’s reading of the village council’s procedures ordinance together with Robert’s Rules, the vote cannot be reconsidered at the next council meeting. Fourth, in the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, somebody’s got some splainin’ to do.

SDM Wonders: If the village attorney – in her role as parliamentarian – gives a legally binding opinion on the rules that turns out to be wrong, what is the remedy?

SDM Says: Perhaps Palmetto Bay operates under a different version of Robert’s Rules than the one SDM Googled. If so, the village attorney should cite the authority upon which she relied or repair the damage done.

Dysfunction on Display

One of SDM’s regular readers likes to post every few months the following: “Fiore for Mayor!” Well, after last night’s display, SDM cannot see how Mr. Fiore could stand for the post. He is just not coherent enough to lead this village.

Specifically, Fiore offered an amendment to the Palmetto Bay parks master plan amendment to the effect that the skate park should be retained in the plan and that the proposed soccer fields should be moved to Coral Reef Park. The problem was that the Coral Reef plan had already been decided in a previous vote.

When he was advised of the conundrum, Fiore appeared truly flummoxed and lost. SDM watched this event live and couldn’t help but squirm watching the meltdown.

Generally, SDM likes the way Fiore votes and the way that he stands up against Mayor Shelley’s perpetual nonsense. But last night, Fiore proved he can’t play ball at even Palmetto Bay’s single A level.

Learning Curve Continues

Vice Mayor John Dubois is bold, but not prepared and perhaps he learned last night that he must be both to succeed.

SDM believes it was during the Palmetto Bay Park item that Dubois’s had his moment of incomprehensibility. He attempted to amend the motion to state (SDM is paraphrasing from memory here) that whatever the council was permitting the village to do at the park, village private schools and churches are allowed to do the same.

SDM understands the sentiment, but the format was completely wrong. The council was adopting a site plan and a zoning change for each of these specific properties. Attaching the private schools and churches provision did nothing substantively or legally, as village staff advised.

Councilwoman Lindsay kindly explained the Vice Mayor’s error (she deserves kudos for doing so because her frustration with the inanity of the moment was shared by SDM), but Mr. Dubois just kept on keeping on.

Running a local government serious business and demands the kind of preparation one would make to run one’s business or do one’s day job. Mr. Dubois and Mr. Fiore clearly had not prepared themselves for the meeting and came off looking ridiculous. It’s not enough to vote right, gentlemen.

SDM Says: How very, very disappointing.

Comical Council

SDM’s general observation of last night’s meeting is that the council is tying itself up in knots over minutiae. Prior councils have created a Rubik’s Cube process for managing areas where the public gathers and our elected officials can’t seem to work their way through the thicket they created.

Perhaps this council needs time to gel into a working body, but boy is it tough to watch them stumble through meetings leaderless.

SDM was reminded on the nineteenth century German statesman Otto Von Bismarck who is credited with first observing that “laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.”

SDM Says: No matter how painful it is to watch, we must supervise the ingredients stuffed into the casings of our laws so that the resulting sausages do not make us sick.

9 comments

February 5, 2013

PB: The Circus is in Town

SDM watched a lot, but not all, of last night’s village council meeting and all we can ask is…was there a carnival barker standing outside the chamber? Step right up and don’t be shy, because you will not believe your eyes!

SDM’s inescapable conclusion is that these folks really don’t like each other much, and we are speaking specifically of Mayor Stanczyk and Vice Mayor Dubois, though Mr. Fiore had a moment of outrage that rivals those of the other two.

SDM Aside: When will the folks managing the chamber toss out the audience members who continue to shout at the officials on the dais? Yes, we can hear you, you obnoxious person(s), even out there in TV and internet land. You are as much to blame for the circus atmosphere as the folks on the dais.

But it wasn’t all invective. In fact, our ever reliable Mayor Malaprop provided the audience with a Norm Crosby moment that SDM will cherish forevermore.

For those of you who did not grow up in the days of the Ed Sullivan Show, Norm Crosby is probably a mystery. Crosby was a comedian who relied upon malaprops – words that sound like they belong in a sentence, but whose meaning is totally out-of-place – to break up the audience.

For example, at a roast of Barry Goldwater, Crosby remarked that it was up to the American people to ensure that President Johnson’s “War on Puberty” will succeed: “If you don’t pitch in and do your part and we in Washington don’t pitch in and do our part, then pretty soon we won’t have a part to pitch in.” Crosby also liked to say that he drank “decapitated” coffee.

In true Crosby fashion, Mayor Stanczyk – during her comments supporting run-off elections – stated that participation in runoffs was “sacrilegious” when she probably meant “sacrosanct.” (The words are near antonyms, which is no small feat.)

The only difference between Crosby and Stanczyk is that the audience laughs upon hearing the former and cringes upon hearing the latter.

+++

Perhaps the most heated exchanges – there were many to choose from – came at the end of the meeting when Mr. Dubois’s plan to fire the village attorney was taken up.

After a long, rambling introduction of his item – containing both legitimate points of concern alongside petty annoyances – Mayor Stanczyk mounted her high horse and lit into Dubois. SDM can’t recall the precise words (there were so many strung together), but it would have been quicker to merely call Dubois a liar and a cheat. Dubois’s rejoinder was that Stanczyk was out of her mind.

Now, SDM understands Mr. Dubois’s sentiment, but this gripping interaction was truly shameful and an embarrassment to both parties.

For Mr. Dubois, the clear problem is that he is like a wobbling colt just beginning to understand the nature of his environment and how his legs work. He desperately needs to develop a tactful manner…that’s as tactfully as SDM can put it. SDM is sure Mr. Dubois will learn but it is painful to watch.

For Mayor Stanczyk the status quo ante prevails just as it always has done: she just cannot act at the same time as both chairperson in charge of a meeting and commentator on all things. In addition to her misstatements, she just doesn’t run a sound meeting and her abuse of the chairperson’s prerogatives is growing tiresome.

As to the substance of the issue, the village attorney’s ostensible supporters did her enormous damage last night.

When a leader becomes weakened in parliamentary forms of governance, a vote of confidence is often taken. SDM’s intelligent and insightful readers will see the contradiction in such an act immediately. Wouldn’t a weakened leader just be further weakened by proving that she couldn’t avoid a vote of confidence in the first place? The answer, of course is yes, a vote of confidence – especially one that is narrowly carried – can signal the death knell for a leader and it did so here.

After a long and circuitous discussion, Mayor Stanczyk called the question on the amended item. According to the motion, the item would be deferred to the next meeting and a discussion of the village attorney’s billing practices would take place at the intervening COW meeting. Stanczyk and Lindsay voted no. Fiore, Dubois and self-described swing vote Schaffer joined together to pass it.

The result is the worst possible outcome for the village attorney. She must prepare for, and sit through, another uncomfortable grilling at the COW and again at the next council meeting in March. In the meantime, the council’s direction to her is as muddled as is her future with Palmetto Bay.

At the nadir of the mud fight, Councilwoman Lindsay called on her colleagues to behave like adults. SDM concurs with the sentiment though unfortunately none appeared.

No adult with experience or concern amended the motion to put the legal contract out to bid, which would have terminated the inquiry one way or the other. At least then the village attorney would be spared the unprofessional character assassination and the concomitant inept defense to which she was subjected last night.

SDM Says to Mr. Dubois: It’s not too late. Bring a proposal to the COW that will put the legal services contract out to bid. The item should include a proposed contract and – if you are ambitious – a policies and procedures manual for the village attorney. End the free form nonsense and follow a customary procedure or continue to behave like your nemesis. The choice is yours.

33 comments

February 4, 2013

PB Agenda Quick Bites: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

EDC Getting Some Love

SDM was glad to see that the village will be sponsoring the Economic Development Council’s golf tournament, which is a major component of the annual EDC’s funding. For those not familiar with the EDC, it is the only economic development organization dedicated to our area and it is where local businesses go to learn about opening their doors here.

Palmetto Bay is right to participate in the fundraiser and should consider doing more.

Karyn Cunningham Staying Involve

Former Vice Mayor Candidate Karyn Cunningham looks to be appointed to the village’s educational compact committee, which is good for all of us. Ms. Cunningham deserves the opportunity to remain involved in village politics so that we may see her run again. SDM was favorably impressed by her campaign and is glad to see that she is willing to donate her time to village causes.

Tying Auto Insurance to Property Insurance is a Bad Idea

Councilman Fiore has included on the agenda an item urging the legislature to require any company writing auto insurance to also write property insurance. What Mr. Fiore may not know is that this experiment in exercising regulatory muscle was tried and failed in New Jersey.

New Jersey residents faced increasing auto insurance rates because many companies chose to exit the market rather than expose their businesses to the complexities and risks associated with the property insurance market.

Before the village council assents to Mr. Fiore’s idea, they should spend some time researching the issue to see if it will serve the purpose intended.

Other Bad Ideas in the Legislative Package

Supporting the school district’s legislative package in toto. This is not a bad idea in the sense that assisting the school district is a bad idea; rather, this is a bad idea because SDM would bet a campaign contribution that none of the council has read the district’s legislative package. Our school district is a political body just like all the others and they deserve scrutiny and not blind assent.

Supporting expansion of early voting sites and hours. SDM has only one question: Who will pay for this? It’s as if our elected officials have no interest in digging into these questions when they push for new ways to spend our money. Do we even know if this will actually work?

Opposing legislation that restricts or eliminates municipal revenues generated through communications services taxes and by local business taxes. SDM’s readers are a wise and intellectual bunch. Do you understand what this item means?

SDM Codebreaker: We will be sending our village lobbyist to Tallahassee to support these taxes being imposed upon our businesses! We are paying our taxes so that the Mayor can go and keep us paying other taxes. Doesn’t this make you feel good about your government?

The First Fix to the Broken NPO: Give the Village Special Treatment

Item 12C is an ordinance that grants village parks – including Wedding Central at Thalatta Estate – special dispensation. If the ordinance passes, village parks will be permitted to violate the supposedly sacrosanct maximum decibels as written into the NPO.

You see, the village just figured out that children playing in the parks may be occasionally loud enough to violate the village’s noise pollution standards so – of course – Mayor Stanczyk and Councilwoman Lindsay have decided to exempt themselves.

But what about children playing at churches and private schools? Well, their joyous laughter will continue to be squashed by the village because Councilwoman Lindsay wants her peculiar version of peace and quiet.

SDM Wonders: Do Councilwoman Lindsay and Mayor Stanczyk believe that the folks living near Palmetto Bay’s parks have rights inferior to those living near Palmer Trinity School?

SDM Says: In a hyper-regulatory environment like we have in our little village, residents face a choice: silence all the children or silence none. SDM supports the latter.

2 comments

January 21, 2013

PB: COW Meeting – Finally, SDM Writes a Report

Okay, SDM has been slacking off lately. SDM admits it, but has a valid excuse.

The COW meeting on January 16th was boring. In fact, SDM would go so far as to say that we as taxpayers are fortunate there will not be a Committee of the Whole in February because nothing seems to be accomplished at these meetings. Nevertheless, SDM knows this blog’s readers are a demanding bunch, so here are some lowlights:

Election Date Indecision

Councilman Fiore added an item to the agenda that represents a significant cost to village taxpayers. Namely, when the village should hold its elections.

SDM’s intelligent readers will recall that last cycle, the village’s primary election was held on the general election day during the first week of November. The runoff was held a few weeks later after Veteran’s day and right after Thanksgiving, virtually ensuring a low turnout – at least low for our community.

Of course, while our local ballot was clogged with nonsense, no one thought to propose a charter amendment that would schedule Palmetto Bay’s primary election to coincide with the county primary election. Why should we save a couple hundred thousand dollars just so our general election can be held at the same time everyone else votes?

SDM Codebreaker: Like most things in politics, there are good reasons to hold a runoff election when most people are thoroughly sick of campaigns. Regular people put away their voting brains after the Presidential or gubernatorial election is over and go on with their lives. Only the obsessed go out and vote at the end of November – the nutty people like SDM. The politicians like to have the nutty people vote because those hard core voters are easy to identify, which makes pandering to them so much easier. Thus, even your sainted Palmetto Bay pols prefer to face a runoff in late November, even if doing so costs the village and the county more money.

SDM Says: Hold the village primary in September and the runoff in November so we can save some money and get on with our lives, for crying out loud.

Robert’s Rules of Disorder

They say life imitates art. Well, SDM Says: politics imitates life.

You know how everyone reads all those books about creating personal budgets and then they just go about their lives without ever adopting or following a budget?

Well, your government does the same thing with its rules of procedure, also known as Robert’s Rules of Order.

Apparently, observing this conundrum caused Councilman Schaffer to ask an eminently reasonable question, which SDM paraphrases this way: Why does the council say that it follows Robert’s Rules of Order when in fact it does no such thing?

The good councilman went on to wonder whether the council follows any rule other than the Rule of Shelley – meaning whatever the whim of the Mayor might be on any given day or at any given moment.

Oh, the innocence…

SDM Codebreaker: The Marathon Man has stumbled across one of the great truths about government, which is that government really follows the whims of its leaders. Following Robert’s Rules is a pain in the butt and doing so would get in the way of the freight train politics the Three Amigos worship.

SDM Says: Don’t waste your time trying to fix the rules of order, Mr. Schaffer. You were elected to speak and to lead and if you let the Mayor have her way, you will sit mute for the next four years. Follow SDM’s Rules of Order: Speak loudly first and ask forgiveness later.

Electric Cars are like a One Iron

Yes, our newest amigo says so. Go to the tape if you think SDM is full of crap.

According to Mr.Schaffer, buying an electric Volt car is like having a one iron in your golf bag. Do not ask SDM to explain this analogy, SDM cannot help you out. Watch the meeting and comment below if you can decipher what the heck he is saying.

The important thing to note here is that the village appears to be thinking before it runs off willy nilly to purchase the latest in green gadgets – super expensive electric cars. This despite village staff’s intense belief that purchasing or leasing Chevy Volts will end up saving money. Well, SDM has conceived a compromise.

SDM Says: Let’s put this theory to a real test. Pick a staffer who supports the Volt purchase and make that person responsible for this project. If the Volt saves the village money after some reasonable term (maybe 5 years), give that staffer a cash bonus equal to half the savings. If the Volt ends up costing the village during that time, the staffer’s salary will be cut by half the village’s loss.

SDM Wonders: Will our intrepid staff be willing to put their money where their mouth is?

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December 3, 2012

PB: Council Meeting Quick Bites

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.