Saturday, September 7, 2013

The Survivalist

This is an old post.  I wrote it back in March, but I never published it, since I wasn't sure I could be bothered.  But Bryan Cooper has been relentless in his continuing accusations of us in BP, and his quixotic campaigns elsewhere, and he has now attracted the attention of Stephanie Kienzle, who does a blog in NMB.  The blog address is www.VotersOpinion.com, and the relevant post is called "OMG!  There Really Is a Village Idiot!"



Bryan Cooper has been on the Biscayne Park Commission for almost four years.  In that time, he has articulated a number of positions, about various things, and in so doing, he has given us a profile of what his approach, and his leanings, look like.

If there's one thing notable about Bryan, it's that he's hard to please, and he doesn't bestow his trust lightly.  The fact is, he's almost never pleased, and he doesn't trust much of anyone or anything.

Bryan doesn't trust government.  He seems to consider it inefficient, abusive, and a waster of money.  He views it as antithetical to the interests of the public, sometimes even the enemy of the people.   A favorite governmental villain for Bryan was the former Village Manager.  And of course, Bryan generally doesn't trust his colleagues, with uncommon exception.  He seems cordial, and occasionally partially deferential, to one, and he has remained sycophantically devoted to a prior colleague.  There is one other colleague he is able to treat with something other than disdain, but since he finds himself telling her what to do and how to vote, it's not clear he trusts her, either.  He doesn't trust the Village Clerk, Finance officers, attorneys, or Code enforcers.  He thinks one Code enforcer was literally gunning for Village residents.  Yes, literally.  He thinks she carried a gun, which she used to intimidate residents.  "Enforcer," indeed.

And the best defense being a good offense, Bryan himself has resorted to a sustained attack of threats and intimidation.  Once, when he was doing battle with the Village Manager, and the Village as a whole, Bryan demanded an independent investigation of the Manager.  When the conclusions of the investigator, whom Bryan had approved, were not what he expected and wanted, Bryan declared the investigator corrupt: he didn't trust his own agreed investigator, either.  And to further his campaign against the Village Manager in that instance, Bryan communicated relentlessly with an administrative person at a County office, threatening to go over her head to jeopardize her job, or report her through a complaint to the media, if she didn't tell him what he wanted to hear.

Bryan also doesn't trust private enterprise.  He seems to view it as mistreating and taking advantage of the public.  Whether it's FPL or the organization (Bryan insisted on knowing whether this organization was "private") that is offering to help homeowners do "green" improvements, Bryan sees only self-serving mischief.

Bryan doesn't trust the residents of the Park.  He seems to view some of us as conniving, and the rest of us as stupid.  He has voted to hold elections when most of us don't vote, and he says most of us don't deserve to vote.  "I don't want them voting," was the statement he made, although he turned out to be strategically hypocritical about this stance.  And now he wants to introduce term limits, so even the few voters he approves of are limited in their opportunity to have the elected representatives they want.

And if someone says something with which Bryan disagrees, or which he doesn't want to hear, he declares that person a liar.  Bryan has shown repeatedly over time that for him, there are no differences of opinion, and certainly no honest ones.  He cannot be outvoted, or disagreed with, without concluding someone is being underhanded and dishonest.

It's a mystery what or whom Bryan trusts, apart from one past and one current colleague, and presumably himself.  But when you watch Bryan in action (inaction?,  Is that one word, or two?, as the joke goes), it's no mystery how paralyzing it is not to be able to trust anything or anyone.  It leads precisely to the isolated, embittered, embattled stance, and the bunker mentality, Bryan has shown us.

3 comments:

  1. Better late than never. Once again you summed it up perfectly.

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  2. So once again Bryan Cooper has become a talking point…. and for all the wrong reasons, again.

    I suppose wasting copious amounts of the Villages time and resources looking to create disharmony isn’t enough to satisfy his ill-advised agendas. He now finds the need/time to poke his nose into another municipalities business. And based on the comments from the residents of NMB, it was neither warranted nor appreciated. Geez, no surprise there is it?

    And yes, for four years we have been burdened with Cooper’s ever present arrogance and mismanagement of his position. Perhaps Bryan is simply a renaissance man born out of his proper time. He would have been better served as an inquisitor instead of an elected public servant.

    But, the reality of the situation is that he has been a menace to progress and the wellbeing of the Village for far too long.

    Thankfully we will soon have the opportunity to make amends.

    We MUST ALL do a better job moving forward of vetting would -be new Commissioner Prospects to make sure they possess the common traits required for the position. You know, small little issues like the ability to work with others and handle defeat with some degree of grace and humility. To be able to deftly comprise and put the Villages best interests before personal agendas and petty power struggles. And to a lesser extent, showing up to Village functions and actually participating as a productive member of our Community would be a nice start.

    We MUST ALL use our own common sense and not simply and blindly follow the advice of another as to whom and how to vote!

    It is past time to expose and disband this divisive voting block that has plagued our Village from within. We simply cannot continue on this path.

    We owe it both to ourselves and our neighbors to all work together to create a better place to live and avoid further embarrassment caused by a few misguided elected officials.

    If not now….when?



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  3. Sorry I missed your meeting last night. I went to the Village Hall instead of the Recreation Center. I should confirmed this in advance, but I obviously did not. I will definitely attend your next meeting, so please let me know when it's scheduled.

    Stephanie Kienzle

    ReplyDelete