Reflections on Rene Varela...

I was never a real fan and considered the runoff election that put him in office a choice between the lesser of two evils.  Having just moved to town a few years ago, I never was certain of Rene's loyalty to Lake Worth and this skepticism turned out to be well-founded .  I am always suspicious of people that arrive in a new situation and think they have it all figured out.  Rene liked to leave you with the belief that if only he had been here earlier, our problems wouldn't be as bad and some wouldn't exist at all.  Somehow he alone had the keys to unlock the mysteries of Lake Worth.  He projected a "I know more than you" mentality that I am sure springs from his veterinarian training and degree.  Many doctors and engineers seem to suffer this "God Complex."  Actually, I am sure they don't personally suffer, but the people that have to deal with them surely do.

While he talked a good game initially, I found him uncomfortable with the role of being a public official.  He seemed more comfortable around his "dais-mates" and relied on their opinions more than the great majority of the people he represented.  We saw public comment more and more restricted during Rene's tenure as Mayor.  He was consistently "out played" by Commissioner Jennings when she was on the dais.  In fact, in the few months before she left the dais, Jennings essentially ran much of the meeting and at times seemed to be the de facto Mayor anyway.  He also did a lot to make Commissioner Maxwell's positions marginalized and painted him as somehow "not with the program" when that couldn't have been farther from the truth.  He never grabbed hold of the importance of social media and saw bloggers as the enemy.  He talked about the importance of transparency but the city's actions were  more opaque than transparent.

Even with all that as a background, I still thought that he would finish his term.  Many people thought that he was going to resign early and many thought that he would wait until after May 15th - leaving the Commission in a position to appoint someone of their choosing.  I guess I projected my values of the importance of public service and commitment and thinking that other people in such a position would share the same feeling.  Tuesday I was proven wrong - as others were - and really was shocked that someone would leave that position in what I believe was a cowardly way.

Rene thinks he did us a favor by allowing us the ability to choose his successor through an election.  I can understand that, but there is an alternative viewpoint that is worth looking at.  There are a lot of negatives about the special election including the cost, the unusual group of people that would come out for a June or July election, the difficulty of raising money for two or three or four elections almost back-to-back, etc.  Imagine a scenario where the winning Mayor in the special election does so by only a few percentage points.  Don't you think that would be a major motivating factor for the losing candidate/side in a November election when the turn out would be larger and more predictable?  How effective is this "interim' Mayor going to be in the four months he or she is in office?  I don't think this temporary position carries much of the cachet of incumbency.  This new Mayor will land smack dab in the middle of budget season too.

Now imagine that Rene waited until next week to resign.  The "Best Commission Ever" would be in a position to put who they wanted in the center seat.  I can't think of a better rallying cry for over-reaching their authority - over-playing their hand - and the majority is then swamped in the regular November election.  A person appointed to the Mayoral position would always suffer from an asterisk behind their name - they had not been elected.  I thought it seemed as though some Commissioners were protesting a little too much about the prospect of a special election on Tuesday night.  I started smelling a rat.

And, true to his character, Rene consulted with no one - as far as I know - about the implications of either alternative.

Regardless, we are headed for a special election and I don't necessarily think Rene did us much of a favor in making sure that was so.  It also broadcast to the world that Lake Worth is politically unstable - news to no one, I know, but this early departure did a lot to reinforce that perception.