Community Meeting Tuesday March 22, 2011

Next Tuesday night, the mayor is convening what will probably be the first in a series of community discussions about getting North Bay Village back on track, and we need to. There's a lot broken. The agenda is attached and the first item is the most interesting.

It talks about the commission procedures and is an attempt to restore sanity to our meetings. The meetings are broken. The meetings continue to be dominated by the loudest ranters, they do not allow citizens to discuss fluidly and calmly the issues facing the city. The simple procedures of speaking are out of whack, with people not respecting decorum and it seems we can't get through a month without a special commission meeting, so we might as well go back to the way it was when Dr. Vogel was mayor and have two per month.

I hope the RFP process comes up. We have to professionalize that. The Waste Management deal was done so badly and unprofessionally that it never should have passed. In a city, county and region fraught with mismanagement and corruption, the commission need to clearly lay out procedures that will guide the city manager in how open processes work.

My suggestion is that for each RFP to be evaluated, an ad hoc group comprising one elected official, city staff as deemed necessary and at least one citizen chosen by the commission do the evaluation.

So far, the commission has not been particularly amenable to any changes. The twins, Vice Commissioner Lim-Kreps, have made tentative statements of disapproval but I hope they will see their way to allowing the adults to make the necessary changes. I am truly hopeful that Dr. Vogel will support the effort to fix the broken processes. Commissioner Rodriguez seems to be pretty open to doing things right. So maybe we'll get it right this time.

Here's the agenda. 3-22-2011 City Commission Workshop

Kevin Vericker
March 18, 2011