11/04/2018
Dear Friends, Family & Neighbors,
I resigned from the Coconut Grove Village Council on Monday night. It was not an easy decision to make and I still wonder if it was the right decision, but after a month of deliberating, it seemed like the best thing to do. My reasons are outlined below as well as a list of the items I have accomplished in the last six months. I felt it was important to offer an explanation, especially to those of you who supported me through my campaign.
Why did I resign?
In the end I was simply beyond frustrated that for everything that I proposed, big or small, that would make the council more accessible to the public, more professional, and work more efficiently, I had to fight tooth and nail. I’m all for a battle, and I not afraid of hard work (as you will see below, I have put in a lot of work and accomplished a lot in a very short period of time) but it’s no secret that certain individuals on the Council have been against me since the beginning, and there is only so much one can take before you realize certain things will not change until the dynamic of the Council changes.
I was putting in 15-20 hours a week, which is a lot for a volunteer position, and found my efforts to be draining on my life, my business, and my family without the results that would warrant so much work. At the end of the day, I realized it was simply not worth it at this time of my life. I don’t do anything half-in, if something needs to be changed, I believe it should be changed, especially when there isn’t a lot of bureaucracy and can be done quickly. Although the Council said it wanted change, I see that it prefers the status quo a bit more and believes it has time on its hands. Perhaps that is the main reason why it wasn’t a good fit.
I considered simply paring down my efforts and work to a minimum; however, I have no interest in just having the Council be a resume builder for myself, keeping things at status quo, and denying others the opportunity to work on the Council.
In the end, after a lot of deliberation, I decided it was best for me to step down after accomplishing quite a lot and helping get the Council on a better track. I wish I could have stayed longer to help implement the procedures the Council needs that would prevent a lot of the issues it currently has, but even though everyone agreed they were necessary, it’s been six months with very little progress.
The Council needs to vote more on things, debate more issues, and present more viewpoints to the community (as the issues confronting Coconut Grove are multi-faceted and produce winners and losers) – this is what I fought for basically every day.
On a positive note, below are all the things I was able to accomplish since being elected in November. I have accomplished everything I campaigned for and then some – so really, this has been a very efficient use of six months. I wish the Council the best of luck going forward.
What did I accomplish in the time I was on the Council?
I introduced the idea and implemented the live-streaming of every meeting for free via Facebook.
I built the following website in December as the previous website was not functioning and had not been updated in months (and the current webmaster had said he would not be building a new one, but merely upgrading the old one). After several months of asking the Council to use it, even if temporarily, we had the old site up until the current webmaster created a new site (much of which was taken from mine). Mine was not used by the Council nor was there a vote even though mine was created four months prior and we now had two websites that we could choose from and I had at least asked that I be able to present mine to the Council or community and have a vote. (https://coconutgrovevillagecouncil.squarespace.com/)
I suggested we put out regular notices for our meetings, as well as upload the minutes, and agendas on Nextdoor, Facebook and through email blasts. (Something I campaigned for.) This is now being done sometimes.
I got the Council’s email list turned back over to the Council. It had been in private hands for upwards of five months and its existence was not known until I began to create one for the Council from scratch.
I scanned over ~1,000 hard documents and combined and organized them with another ~2,500 documents so that all Council documents were in one place and easily accessible to both the Council and the public.
I created all of our forms for our resolutions, agendas, minutes and committee reports.
I tried to implement the idea (Council Member Larissa Ozols may have come up with the idea originally while we were working on a resolution) of having each committee or interested member research and create reports on each subject in order for the public to have access to a condensed document(s) with relevant information and see how the Council was considering issues before votes.
I co-wrote with Rachel Cardello the report supporting the County’s plan for the new playhouse.
I wrote a report and plan on how we can improve our communications with the public and therefore represent the whole community rather than just those who are already engaged, as well as allow for the say of the whole Council on what and how we communicate with the community.
I engaged with the BID to have more coordination between them and the Council as well as secured advertisement for our meetings to their +19k followers on Facebook.
I wrote a report on the proposed expansion of the OMNI CRA.
I wrote numerous resolutions, most of which I did not have the opportunity to propose. The somewhat finished ones I turned over to Rachel Cardello to propose at her discretion.
I created and distributed all of the agendas.
I researched the FL statutes to discover that we would not need to get D&O insurance, as our actions are protected by law. This expense was going to eat up nearly 50% of our total money on hand this year alone.
I created a GoFundMe page to try and simplify how the Council raises money. This was not implemented in anything other than it was part of the website I designed.
I started to revise the bylaws along with the other members of the bylaws committee, including implementing election guidelines and rewriting our conflict of interest rules in order to head off future conflicts and problems.
I studied the NCD, Playhouse, and CRA issues extensively as I was not very familiar with them before being on the Council. I committed completely to filling in any gaps in my knowledge.
I spent my own money advertising our meetings via Facebook.
Please note. This list is not meant to be boastful, but to demonstrate that I did not just do nothing and then get bored and leave or that I was pushed out for being unproductive. It pains me to walk away but I am proud of the amount/quality of work and change I have produced in such a short period of time. My reason for leaving is that I did not feel that continuing to work on the Council would be positive for myself or my family.
What now?
Thank you to everyone who supported me – I am not happy about having to do this but I don’t think I had much choice. I ran to make a difference, and I did as much as I could – the pushback was simply getting to be too much. I enjoyed listening to everyone in the community and working with many of you – and I fully intend to stay involved in the community going forward and even more so, without having to be censored and my arms tied as much. Stay tuned!
