Civility | Page 2 | Your Delray Boca

21 November, 2016 2 2 Comments

Finding the Signal in the Noise

November 21, 2016 By Jeff Perlman 2 Comments

It can get noisy out there.

Like many things, social media has its pluses and minuses.

I suspect I’m like many when I say I enjoy Facebook for the convenience of being able to stay in touch with a wide variety of friends and family that I wouldn’t have been able to without the ease of social media.

From former work colleagues and classmates to neighbors and far flung family, Facebook enables me to catch glimpses of their lives and to share snippets of mine (mostly dog pics). It makes me feel at least nominally connected to people I care about but in all honesty would never have time to call, take to lunch or visit. (It also enabled me to discover a fantastic song called “Debris” by the Faces, thanks to music guru Steve Martel).

But there’s also a dark side to social media—where trolls, cyber bullies, rumors and outright lies thrive.

On balance, I’ll take the bad because I think the upside and potential of social media far outweighs the negative.

The good, bad and ugly of social media is being debated loudly these days in the wake of the strangest and most divisive election most of us have ever seen. I assiduously avoid national politics on my Facebook page but many of my friends on both sides of the gaping divide had a field day this cycle.

I watched in real time long standing relationships blow up over posts and comments and it saddened me.

I suspect a few Thanksgiving celebrations may have different rosters as a result of social media posts.

And it’s not just national elections that get us overheated. Local politics is also rife with anger and recrimination.

I keep an eye on this page in Boca that can get lively. I’ll shield the names to protect the innocent, but this was an exchange last week regarding a luxury hotel coming to town.

It follows a typical pattern.

Someone expresses happiness that a project is coming.

Someone else quickly replies that the project stinks, will ruin the city forever and create traffic jams.

The person, who was happy a second ago, replies that his neighbor should move if they don’t like what’s happening. This is a pattern and usually it’s not a polite: “why don’t you consider a locale where you might find bliss” suggestion; nope it’s typically a variation of “shut up and move if you don’t like it.”

And now we are off to the races: fighting words like whining, greed and moron are exchanged and we descend from there until it finally burns out only to be rekindled when someone else joins in and expresses an opinion about how things “used to be” or the need for one thing or another. It’s exhausting and I’m not sure what it all adds up to.

Did we learn something?

Did we solve anything?

I think there’s some value in expression, but this kind of stuff hardly qualifies as dialogue.

I just finished an interesting book: “I’m right and you’re an Idiot” which explains why people get dug in and offers some insights into how to bridge divides and achieve some measure of civility and compromise.

One giant takeaway is that “facts” hardly matter—oh sure some people will change their mind if presented with evidence, but many won’t regardless of how much you throw at them. People do respond to stories and emotion, but typically once they adopt a narrative and a world view it’s hard to budge them. Social media only amplifies that human trait.

I think social media is an amazing tool for a public official or anyone in a leadership position. I think if you are in office you should be using social media to connect to constituents and to explain your positions and also solicit input. But it is NOT a substitute for face to face human interaction and real life interaction.

A lot is lost online—we’ve all been burned by email, text messages and social media posts—because we can’t see body language or ask for clarification like we can when we are face to face.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately, as I’ve seen families fight and friends “defriend” and “block” each other.

Social media platforms have had an odd response to this difficult and complex environment.

Twitter has suspended accounts and has been blasted for doing so. The service says it is ridding the platform of hate speech; those who have been booted are crying censorship.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has argued that “false news” (like the Pope endorsing Trump which was shared, liked and cited thousands of times) didn’t have an impact—in the next breath he’s selling advertising on his site because of its ability to influence decisions. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. And yes, Facebook ads work. I can personally attest because I have sold a few books with Facebook ads and we have sold a bunch of hot sauce and beverages by promoting our brands on the site. Like it or not, Facebook is our water cooler these days. It matters.

I would just caution that we don’t limit all of our interactions to social media—there’s still room for meet ups, coffee with friends, group discussions etc. With augmented and virtual reality coming fast, we better leave room for face to face old-fashioned conversation.

We may not ever agree on whether a Mandarin Hotel is the right thing—but it’s not as easy to call someone a moron when he or she is sitting right in front of you.

18 July, 2016 0 Comments

We’re Asking Too Much Of Officers

July 18, 2016 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

It’s Monday morning.

Another weekend of carnage in America. Another three police officers murdered. Another three shot in Baton Rouge.

When the news flashed, I thought immediately of Dallas Police Chief David Brown. His words ring truer every day.

“We’re asking cops to do too much in this country,” the police chief said at a briefing last Monday. “We are. Every societal failure, we put it off on the cops to solve. Not enough mental health funding, let the cops handle it. Here in Dallas we got a loose dog problem, let’s have the cops chase loose dogs. Schools fail, let’s give it to the cops. That’s too much to ask. Policing was never meant to solve all those problems.”

Chief Brown is correct.

In Delray too, we ask a whole lot of our police. And our firefighters too.

Someone overdoses on heroin let the cops and paramedics save them. No facilities for the homeless guy who scares you, no worries call the cops, they’ll deal with it.

We want our cops to live in our city but we don’t pay them enough to live here and if you mention the need for workforce housing–which almost always requires density– we adopt policies that make sure it will never happen. (I’m holding out hope for Congress Avenue).

And when it comes time to compensate them we cry poverty and moan about their pensions.

Are pension liabilities a concern? You betcha, a big one, so why not roll up our sleeves and help solve the issue because you can’t just wish it away and the men and women who protect and serve us deserve security when they retire. If you have financial acumen think of applying for the pension board, maybe you can help. But don’t begrudge a cop or a firefighter if they have a pension. They earn it.

It’s a tough season to be a police officer in America. It’s a tough season for everyone period.

Last week I had the occasion to speak to several officers. They are aching for their brothers and sisters in Dallas and now in Baton Rouge.

When I was on the City Commission we solved a serious attrition and recruitment issue with a package that included take home cars for officers who lived in Delray or within a few miles of the city. The literature at the time showed that having police cruisers in neighborhoods lowered crime and was popular with residents who felt safer living in a neighborhood populated with officers.

I believed that, still do.

But last week, I heard from a few officers who were concerned about bringing their cars home. They were worried about being targeted. They had read reports from around the country that police cars were being vandalized.

It’s heartbreaking to hear.

Our community has been largely supportive of our Police Department for a long time now.

I’m not referring to politics and labor negotiations –which have been good and bad over the years depending on the players involved– but about the larger community which seems to get how important our police officers are to the welfare of our city.

Every chance I get (this time included) I like to credit our officers for creating a safer city which enabled our turnaround to take place. If a community doesn’t feel safe, you can’t attract investment or families. It’s just that simple.

But these days, there’s an overall feeling of unease in America. We are not immune.

We have so much work to do. So much trust to restore. So much fear and hatred to overcome.

We shouldn’t rest until every boy and every girl is given real opportunity. We shouldn’t rest until and every man and woman goes to bed knowing they can find a job and if not they will still have a roof over their head and food for their families.

Is that asking too much in a country with our resources and ingenuity?

I don’t think so. I don’t believe most Americans feel this way either.

We wrote last week, that while our national politics were a mess, there was hope for progress in our cities.

So we have to get to work. We have to create a community of opportunity for everyone.

We have to be focused on jobs, education, strengthening families, enriching our cultural opportunities and restoring civility. Have you seen a city commission meeting lately?

Too often instead of debate, we engage in coarse, personal attacks. We label people, dismiss them, call them self serving or worse. We can do better. We have done better.

It’s going to take work. It’s going to take vision and investment. It’s going to take dialogue and a commitment to understanding. More people have to be engaged in the important work of community building.

It starts with engagement and dialogue. But it doesn’t end there. It doesn’t end period. We have to keep working. There are problems to solve and we can do it. There are opportunities to create and we know how to do that as well.

We can’t just leave it for the cops to handle. They need our help. Now.

17 August, 2015 0 Comments

Debate and Dysfunction

August 17, 2015 By Jeff Perlman Leave a Comment

'We figure out the city or we fail'--David Simon creator of The Wire and Show Me a Hero.

We used to have some tough meetings. 
There were ugly incidents; episodes of incivility. 
There were nights when you came home and you couldn't sleep. Some nights you would leave a meeting and just drive hoping the night air would allow you to breathe again.
Local politics can be as ugly and as petty as national politics. In many ways it's even tougher because on a local level its personal. We know the people involved. We know where they live, have common friends, see them downtown, know their spouses. 
I know all five elected officials in Delray Beach; have known everyone who has served here since 1987. I've liked many, didn't care for a few.

When I first started writing about Delray Beach nearly 30 years ago, City Hall was a lion's den of intrigue. It was great to be a reporter back then, it wasn't so great to be a resident or a business owner.

Then Tom Lynch came along.

The tone of the meetings changed dramatically. Tom had help from people like Jay Alperin and David Randolph and later gentlemen like Ken Ellingsworth and Armand Mouw. There were some kind female elected leaders as well: Barbara Smith, Rita Ellis, Brenda Montague, Alberta McCarthy and Pat Archer come to mind. There were others.

We had 17 years of commission peace and strong leadership; it allowed progress to happen. 
Peace doesn't mean no skirmishes or that everyone loved each other. It also doesn't mean that were wasn't heated debate and passionate arguments. But it does mean that when the question is called and a vote is taken, you move on. You win some and lose some, but you try not to let bad feelings carry over to the next issue.

We've been off course for a while now. If you don't believe me, take a gander at the last meeting. Watch 20 minutes or so (if you can stomach it) of an issue relating to whether the city should accept a million dollars from the CRA for the old library site or fast forward to commission comments. Go ahead...we'll wait a few minutes.

For those who watched the meeting, it was a microcosm of what ails us as a community.

I saw mistrust and disdain among commissioners for each other and for key staff and agencies. I saw anger. I saw frustration and I saw dysfunction.

I don't watch meetings and haven't since leaving office in March 2007, but I was sitting on my couch watching a ballgame when I started getting texts from employees and others who were at the meeting.

"You gotta see this," one wrote.

"Hurry, tune in," wrote another. "It's like Jerry Springer."

So I did, I tuned in. And while the Springer references were an exaggeration, it was a poor display. If this was an aberration, I would chalk it up to a full moon. But this is a pattern and it shows a commission that's deeply divided. They can't even agree to cash a million dollar check without a split vote, a tongue lashing from the finance director (not a good move for an employee) and a full on attack on the City Attorney that was labeled an organized lynching by the mayor.

Most fun city? Indeed.

Every mayor and commission have their crosses to bear. We dealt with several hurricanes, a racially charged shooting of a 15 year-old child, a few hot development issues and a wildly controversial and deeply complicated move of Atlantic High School.

So far, at least in my view, this commission has had it easy. If you're biggest problem is whether to approve a downtown movie theater and a corporate headquarters, I'd say you were a damn lucky city.

But if I learned one thing about public life is that you never know what's coming down the pike.

It's a smart move to get your house in order, so that if something more serious than cashing a check comes before you, you'll be able to work together.

I'm sure this column will rub a few partisans the wrong way. That's OK. I'm not a partisan player...I've had favorites but Delray has always come first for me and for many others. So if my friends are screwing up, I don't think it's wise to ignore it. I don't think that's what a good friend does or a good citizen either. See no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil is no way to run a railroad.

I've been friends or friendly with all five elected officials sitting on that dais as temporary stewards...with the emphasis on temporary and especially on stewardship.

 It's hard to be productive when you can't get along or when there is no trust. You don't have to be buddies, but you do have to find a way to be productive because this city has serious issues.
I see a problem up there.

You will too, if you tune in or  listen to the chatter around town.

Tomorrow: iPic.