In case you’re wondering where I’ve been, I spent the last two weeks traveling around Ireland and the United Kingdom.  I can say with all certainty that there’s no place like home.  For starters, we don’t have rolling hills and castles.  Secondly, the people over there are amazingly and genuinely nice, which was a refreshing change from the rudeness I encounter almost daily here in South Florida, especially on I-95.  If there was any animosity toward Americans over there, I certainly didn’t encounter any.  Then again, I did not venture into Paris this time, which is probably where the word “rude” was coined somewhere around the sixteenth century.  Maybe even before that.  The Irish and the British don’t appear to hate us.  If they do, you’d never know it.  There is no need for a Civility Ordinance in the UK because people are naturally civilized.  Shockingly so.

It’s good to see that here at home things are still the same.  Non-resident Lucie Tondreau is still presiding over the North Miami City Council, the outcome of Kevin Burns’ lawsuit notwithstanding, and the ladies of the North Miami Beach council have kept their claws sharpened. Some of them on the mayor’s face.  Meow!  Yeah, it’s good to be back.

In my absence, the Council hired a new City Manager by the name of Ana Garcia, formerly of the Village of Biscayne Park.  I have not met Ms. Garcia and know very little about her so I’ll have to reserve my comments and opinions for the time being.  I did, however, do a bit of research about her, and what I’ve discovered so far is very positive.

Most telling is a blog from Biscayne Park called the Village Voice.  A column from February 12th of this year described a meeting that took place where the Village Commissioners attempted to discuss the renewal of Ms. Garcia’s contract.  I could have been reading a commentary from one of our own city council meetings.  Regardless of how big or small a municipality is, with all the clashing personalities on any given council, it’s a freaking miracle anything gets accomplished.  The Biscayne Park blogger’s description of the discussion that night was right out of the NMB playbook, to wit:

“There’s general agreement that she is extremely hard-working, very devoted to us, smart, and she has accomplished great things for us.  And now, it was time to reconsider her contract.  She’s never had more than a one-year contract, and other than one “bonus” (she’s been with us for almost 3 1/2 years), she’s never had a raise.  She wants one, and a contract for more than a year at a time, and some other minor concessions.  And here’s where things got sticky.

There was a certain amount of resistance to doing much more than we’re doing for her.  She wanted a 10% raise, Roxy  Ross thought 9% sounded better to her, Barbara Watts liked 8% better, Bryan Cooper could maybe consider 3%, and Noah Jacobs didn’t really commit.  It sounded like his preference was 0.  Bob Anderson was agreeable to something in the 8-9% range, and when Roxy offered to “split the difference” with Barbara, the two or them and Bob agreed to 8.5%.

Now none of this was about anything, since the numbers were irrational and not connected to anything, except that they were niggling departures from Ana’s 10% request, but the discussion led to a deeper consideration of what the Village is about…

What happened last night was not much about Ana.  It was about the Commissioners, who elevated their own senses about what percent felt like the right number to them.  “I couldn’t vote for…” was heard from some, though the numbers were meaningless.  There was essentially no attempt to consult the budget before deciding what we could afford.  And Ana’s notation that we had enough money, and she had saved us enough money, to provide for everything she requested, was ignored completely.  It wasn’t the point.  The personal posturing, the bluster from Commissioners, was the point.”

Personal posturing?  Bluster?  Gee, that sure does sound familiar!

I just had to watch the 41 some odd minutes of our last council meeting on July 16, 2013 to check out if Ms. Garcia fared any better as she begins her thankless job of running our Now More Beautiful city.  It’s good to see that some things never change.

As an aside, one of the bright spots of the meeting was the presentation by North Miami Beach’s new HR Director, Rose Amberson, who in my unprofessional opinion, is one of the most professional employees ever hired in the history of our city.  Ms. Amberson appears to be extremely intelligent, highly focused, well spoken, and totally on the ball.  Let’s see how long she lasts before she’s gets disgusted and hits the road.  Odds, anyone?

On to the City Manager contract discussions. At 1:22:06, Phyllis Smith does her thing.  In full campaign mode, Phyllis went on an angry diatribe as the keeper of the gates and protector of the masses against the hiring of a city manager from a Village (even though she was already hired) and paying her the proposed salary.  She was adamant that Ana Garcia did not possess the qualifications or have the experience needed to run our city.  Considering that I think my dog, Sullivan, could run this city better than the present management (Note to Phyllis:  We are not Coral Gables.), I tend to disagree with her that Ms. Garcia lacks the qualifications.  However, that’s not the point.

Here’s the thing.  Most of the time, as much as I hate to admit it, I actually agree with Phyllis’ decisions.  As a rule, Phyllis is fiscally conservative and I also admire the fact that she can be a real ball buster, especially when I think she’s busting the right balls.  I also appreciated the fact that she threw her full support behind Beth Spiegel in the last election, despite the fact that she and Beth have provided much entertainment in the past with their cat fights on the dais.  Knowing Phyllis to be a very shrewd politician, a good part of that support was given in the hopes that Beth will reciprocate in 2015 when it will be Phyllis’ turn to defend her seat.  But, hey, I can’t blame her for that.  It’s not personal, it’s politics.

Still, a line from the Village Voice blog kept coming to mind while listening to Phyllis’ rant, which read, “So the process was somewhat tortured, and it may remain to be seen how effective we were at building stability into our Village.  The good news is that Ana is in fact so devoted, to us and to joining the battle against those who challenge her, that she might stay here after all, even though we foolishly and meaninglessly nickeled and dimed her.  The real fact, overlooked by Cooper, Jacobs, and Watts, is that Ana has saved us a good deal more than she’s cost us.  We should have been much more grateful.”

It’s good to know that “tortured processes” are more often than not the way municipalities make decisions.  We also could stand to be more grateful that we do have dissension on our city council, or we’d be no better than North Miami under former mayor Andre Pierre’s administration where his hand picked majority of three were able to jam legislation through via consent agendas of which there was no actual consent by the council at large.  In government, discord is not necessarily a bad thing.

That being said, as much as I’d love to smack Phyllis yet again, and I don’t necessarily agree or disagree with her at this point yet, for the first time in memory she did not mangle her words.  Folks, you got to give her credit for that.

The mayor, however, did gently slap her when he reminded her that the process she complained about was voted on unanimously by the council at the last meeting.  Assuming that’s correct since I didn’t watch the previous meeting, either, I concur that Phyllis tends to have convenient memory lapses.  Mayor Vallejo also reminded her that this city paid approximately the same salary to a former “brand new” city manager by the name of Kelvin Baker.  And, we all know how well that worked out.  Although Phyllis claims to have voted against Baker’s salary, according to the minutes of the meeting held August 12, 2008, Baker’s $200,000.00 salary was approved by six out of seven council members, former councilman Jay Chernoff being the only dissenting vote.  Maybe Phyllis should have read those minutes before she doth protest too much.

Moving right along.

Council woman Marlen Martell then took the floor and slammed Phyllis for Kelvin Baker’s reign of terror from 2008 through 2010, who was hired with absolutely zero experience as a city manager, for whom Phyllis did vote despite her second protestation to the contrary.  Marlen made the most sense by stating that what our city lacks is leadership.  The last real leader we had in the city manager’s office was Keven Klopp, and since he was unceremoniously dumped by our very own Village Idiot EX-mayor Myron Rosner, the city has been floundering.  Whether or not Ana Garcia is that leader remains to be seen.  But, as Marlen stated, we need to move this city forward.  Ms. Garcia just may be that impetus we need right now.

In closing, the mayor reminded the council that Ms. Garcia has already been hired and that this discussion should be limited to contract negotiations.  Council woman Barbara Kramer brought up the fact that Ms. Garcia has never been fired.  From any job.  That in itself is remarkable.  Ms. Spiegel doesn’t believe that Ms. Garcia has enough experience to run this city and stated she wouldn’t vote for the proposed salary package no matter what.  Ms. Smith concurred.  (Ahhh, I surely miss those cat fights between Beth and Phyllis, which would have been infinitely more entertaining.)  Phyllis still thinks that current city manager Roslyn Weisblum has “served us well.”  I disagree, but I don’t get to vote on it, either.  She hammered home her point using a New York taxi driver as an analogy.  WTF?  Phyllis will, after all, be Phyllis.

Ms. Garcia briefly addressed the council at hour 1:45:35, and in less than a New York minute I was blown away by her professionalism and positive demeanor.  Not having ever seen or heard from her up to this point, I must say I am impressed – especially by her willingness to rise to challenges.  In NMB, she will be challenged.  Judging by her comments, and if my intuition serves me correctly, she just might be The One.

In the end, Ana Garcia’s contract was approved by a 4-2 vote, with Spiegel and Smith voting in the negative.  (Frantzie was mysteriously absent from this meeting, as he has been recently from other council meetings, pension meetings, executive sessions and CRA meetings – a precise attendance record I am hard pressed from receiving from the Clerk despite my numerous public records requests.)

A reader’s comment on the Village Voice article stated, “The feeling I walked away with – a pervasive one – is the amount of ill-will and self-centeredness that erupts during these meetings, especially among the Commissioners, who hold the reins to the tenor of a meeting’s success or demise. It seems the larger picture often gets lost or diluted against a backdrop of the Commissioners’ own posturing and preening.”

While the North Miami Beach city council’s “posturing and preening” makes for good blogs, it was refreshing to see that such was kept to a minimum at our last council meeting.  That will leave me plenty of time to concentrate on the skin crawling creepiness of L’il Frantzie P.  Yeah, I’m working on that.

That being said, I’d like to extend a very warm welcome to our new City Manager Ana Garcia.  With the addition of both her and Rose Amberson to the ranks, our North Miami Beach’s class level has just risen to new heights.  There may be hope for us yet.

Yes, it is good to be back!

Stephanie Kienzle

“Spreading the Wealth”