Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson

March 20, 2008

Commissioner Cindi Hutchinson

101 North Andrews Avenue

Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301

Commissioner Hutchinson,

First, let me congratulate the city for having a heavily French accented person answering the Commission phone. Who dares to say that we are Francophobic?

I was reading this month’s copy of Las Olas Community news with increasing trepidation.

There was a story about drowning polar bears. It was written by somebody whose business is selling solar panels. The more solar panels we have the fewer polar bears will drown is the only reasonable inference I can draw from that story. No conflict of interest there, right?

Then I read a story about an exercise method called Pilates. Considering that this is Holy Week – and I hope I haven’t offended any Islamic sensitivities by so saying – I wonder if the advanced stages of the program involve carrying a cross.

The there was a story about a Broward County Commissioner who strongly favors a county resolution that “strongly discourages” a property owner from enjoying the fruits of his labor with regards to his property. Machiavelli told us that ‘the wish of the Prince has the force of law”. Funny, but I thought we had come some distance from the gilded age of the Medicis. Alas, one more disappointment in life. I imagine it would be pearls before swine if I were to suggest that the role of an law making body is to either pass laws of repeal them. Resolutions “strongly discouraging” or, perhaps worse, “strongly encouraging” a particular course of action are just another example of the “rhetorical incontinence” that befoul the political atmosphere. Dante has a special circle reserved for those who won’t take a stand whether they are in public life or private.

By the time I got to your article on surviving the property tax amendment I was prepared for the worst. I’ll say this about you. You delivered the worst. In the process you show why blondes don’t do well on Jeopardy.

Putting us “near the top of the chart[s]”, those charts being Moody’s and Standard & Poor, is like being almost a virgin. The difference between the top of the chart and “near the top of the chart” can be, over the 30 year life of a bond issue, be hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s what the real world calls real money.

I ‘m glad you said that you weren’t “putting a happy face on the situation”. I am not really sure what the “situation” is but I think I can guess. Employment at any government entity, be it Federal, state, county, or municipal involves the mutual “willing suspension of disbelief” involving the laws that govern gravity. What goes up must never come down. Ever.

Napoleon would execute 3 soldiers chosen at random before a battle for cowardice. He said “it encouraged the others”.

Delta Airlines has 60,000 employees. It told 30,000 of them this week not to buy any green bananas.

I read today that the population of Broward County has gone down. I know that the school enrollment in Broward County has been declining for 4 years.

It would be tough to put a happy face on that situation but somebody is laughing out loud. In fact, somebody is probably wetting their pants.

Has any budget in Broward County gone down in the last 4 years?

I am too old to ask that question seriously but it’s fun to think about it.

PS – 2 things:

Do you, in your heart of hearts, believe that “new developments” on Sistrunk Boulevard will work? Why not give the job of answering the City Commission’s phones to somebody who is from Sistrunk Boulevard rather than Bordeaux or Quebec?