Last night's Commission Meeting - Discussion on Community Relations Board

This quote from Thomas Paine seems appropriate to describe what went on during the meeting last night - and it was painful to listen too, as well.  In the wake of the presentation made by panagioti tsolkas at the last Commission meeting, Commissioner Maxwell asked that an item be placed on the agenda to discuss the scope and purpose of the Community Relations Board (CRB).  The item was essentially the only one on the agenda that required action as the agenda had been cleared of any real business items due to the meeting's proximity to next Tuesday's election.  A big thank you to Susan Stanton from the incumbents, to be sure.

After all sorts of feel good, self-congratulatory and self-promoting presentations placed on the agenda, Commissioner Maxwell made the case for revising the scope of the CRB to make sure that it would not involve itself in investigations of PBSO activities as he believed that violated state statutes.  You would have thought he was speaking a language that our multi-lingual Commission didn't understand.  They questioned the statute and they questioned why they didn't have back-up material in advance.  When Commissioner Maxwell brought up the e-mail penned by panagioti, Mayor Waterman questioned whether it was a personal e-mail and then said that we shouldn't be going through people's personal e-mails.  Huh?  Maxwell pointed out that it was signed by him and included the fact that he was chair of the Lake Worth Community Relations Board.  He also pointed out that it was Golden, Mulvehill and McVoy that voted to put him on the board, over another qualified candidate and that maybe that was the wrong decision.  He put forward two different motions to amend the ordinance that created the CRB in order to prevent it from going after PBSO, but both failed for a lack of a second.

Then discussion faded into the land of the bizarre as Mulvehill brought up other communities that have CRBs and how they are used in other communities.  She hadn't seen the e-mail and didn't have time to read it then, complained about not having the material in advance but did think a workshop with the CRB was a good idea.  Golden liked the workshop idea and completely ignored the e-mail or the declaration that panagioti was an anarchist.  She wistfully recalled how Manchester, Vermont had a similar ordinance (where she came from 20 years ago - only if she could go back now!) and how it was just a good thing to have.  McVoy lectured on how it's o.k. to have someone on the board with these sorts of views and compared it to hiring a computer hacker to investigate hacking crimes - since they were experts in that anyway and knew how criminals think.  I started thinking that would be like having criminals sit on a parole board.  He thought it was o.k. as long as everyone on the board didn't think that way.

They all thought that it was important to talk with other members of the CRB to get their opinions.  I thought why?  They are the ones that appointed a radical activist to a board that really is in a position to sit in impartial judgement of sensitive situations.  To appoint someone like this to a board of this type is just wrong.  John Pickett, during public comment on the item, said it very succinctly: It is o.k. to admit that you made a mistake.  Others thought the same way and were worried that this meant another round of questioning the PBSO contract - of course the brilliant minds on the dais knew that was political poison to admit so they heaped praises on the PBSO and on and on and on.

In the end, they agreed, with Maxwell dissenting, to have a work session with the CRB, PBSO and others that might help them amend the language that the CRB operates under.

I keep thinking about the political blind spot they have regarding panagioti - read his manifesto again.  You will see how many of his principles are really the operative decision-making direction of the majority of this Commission.  Scary is too mild a word.  However, it is interesting to note how panagioti mentions mainstream "Burt Arronson Democrats" and seems to be referring to Rachel Waterman as being part of this group and being an unknown quantity.  He seems to pine for the Tom Ramiccio days when they knew who the enemy was.  Perhaps evidence of a cleavage in the cabal?