Vic Socotra

12 November 2009

All Politics are Local

(The Little Giant, Speaker Carl Albert)

Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-OK-3), the most famous former resident of Big Pink, would probably have sent in his proxie for the Board to vote his unit at the annual meeting.

I say that only because he was a busy man with national responsibilities.

Of course, I can’t be sure about that, since Carl was a consummate Democrat, son of a coal miner and born in a log cabin. He grew up in Bugtussel, comfortable with ranchers and farmers and a colleague of the legendary Tip O’Neil, (D-MA-11 & 8) the man who is credited with the line about “all politics being local,” regardless of how high the profile.

Tip took Carl’s job as Speaker, by the way, since the Tongsun Park Koreagate scandal brought the Little Giant low, and sent him back to retirement in McAlister, OK, where they still thought highly of him.

Carl thus was gone when Big Pink went Condo in 1981, part of the real estate bubble of the time that popped while Tip was Speaker. I still think he would have sent a Staffer to monitor the meeting for trends.

Annually, since that time, the membership of the Big Pink Condominium Association has met in solemn convocation to address the annual budget, and the ritual of raising the monthly assessment for maintenance and improvement of the sprawling park-like complex.

Times being what they are, the last thing I would want to do is put out a spread of finger-snacks and white and red wine on demand. It is a tradition, and I supposed it was intended to numb the audience to whatever the realities of the day might be. The vision of our founder, the legendary Empress of Buckingham Frances Freed, was that we were to be an island of elegance in an uncertain world.

That has been hard to maintain down through the years, as this part of Arlington transitioned from a population of earnest, largely white bureaucrats to a magnet for n immigrants attracted by increasingly seedy rental apartments.

Vietnamese was once the lingua franca; replacing English. Now it is Spanish in the blocks of garden apartments all around.

Big Pink stands as an island, out of time, flanking the big road and looking within itself. The annual meeting is more in keeping with the traditions of the real founders of the Republic; voting rights are restricted to owners, which is one of the reasons that all things are difficult. There are nearly 250 units in the building, and a large (though not overwhelming) number are populated by vote-less renters.

A quorum is necessary to make the gathering legal, under the rules, so maybe that accounts for the food and alcohol as an attraction.

This rainy night we started late, and the restive crowd was able to get up a good head of steam. That should be a cautionary tale for incumbents everywhere- start on time, and get it over with before the crowd becomes a mob.

As with all politics, national or local, the people most likely to attend the meeting are those who think they have a dog in the fight, and there has been a lot of dog-fighting in a bitter run-up to the election. It is as nasty a campaign season as I have seen in nearly a decade of residence here.

My parsimonious company is one of those where the Vets are expected to work to honor the government civilians who take the day off to honor our service. The company sniffs and says we could take one of our "floating" holidays if we wanted to, but these days the line between where we are working and what we are doing is so blurred that I often can't tell the difference.

I got done with what needed to be done and strolled over to the Unitarian Church across the road, which had offered to host the meeting in the Fellowship Room.

I sat in the back, near the newly-svelte Mrs. Hitler, Uncle Bill and Sweet Jen, and just behind Jeremy and Diana Ross.

I leaned forward and stuck my head in between Jeremy and Ms. Ross.

“Did you see the graffiti?” I asked. “There was a long rambling political attack on the President on the new blacktop in front of the building.”

“Did you see me write it?” Asked Ms. Ross, pursing her lips. She seemed to have a good head of steam up already, over and above the complementary beverages. “For the record, I had nothing to do with it.”

Bruno from the Eighth Floor was flushed and eager. He had disseminated an independent newsletter the night before, which I found slid under my door that very morning. I had to characterize it as being a polemic of the Back Helicopter segment of the electorate, which saw clear conflicts of interest between the rapacious management company, the sitting Board, and possibly the Tri-lateral Commission.

I may take some liberties with Bruno’s message, but it seemed to me to be something along the lines that the incumbents were in league with the alternate government and/or space aliens.

The first matter of business was the election of two board members, who happened to be the President and the Vice President. Both the honorable gentlemen had been in the local government for years, serving in just about every position since the early 1980s.

I was of the opinion that we probably needed new blood, but these are all volunteer jobs, and thankless ones at that. I had vaguely intended to vote the party line for continuity and almost dropped a proxy for the Board to vote as it saw fit.

The only announced opposition candidate was George, a former Navy Labs engineer originally from Russia, who sports a fringe beard that makes him look a bit like Alexander Solzhenitzen. He had a lucid and seemingly well-reasoned campaign document which appeared in the mail-boxes last week and which I have been meaning to read.

Not having done so, I would characterize his platform as being of the moderate wing of the Helicopterist Party; which is to say, he thought the incumbents were overly secretive and possibly deranged in their budget priorities. Sunlight was called for, a sort of Big Pink Glasnost.

Bruno, on the other hand, was a radical. He is of the opinion that the incumbents were thieves, and told them so to their faces. He asked if I would nominate him from the floor as a write-in candidate. I was appalled, and shook my head. “I’ll second the motion, if you like, but not that.”

Each candidate had five minutes to speak, and no one was current on Robert’s Rules of Order. The campaign oratory was sequenced by last name in alphabetical order, which was the key to how things went down.

The President did himself no favors, since he seemed to take the allegation that he was a crook personally. He is a known Realtor, as close to being one of the reviled Wall Street Masters of the Universe as we have around here, and his bitter response to Bruno’s accusations didn’t come off well.

The ballots were called for at the end of the speeches and I had to change one of my votes. We handed them in, and the volunteers began to tally them up as the Treasurer gave his usual muddled annual report and announced the predictable rate increase, along with a 3% bump in fee for the management company.

Someone asked how that might be justified, since inflation is negative, and no one on a fixed income is getting a COLA. I would not say that there was rioting, but the meeting was clearly getting out of hand. Some people wanted to attack the pool contract, others the increase in the laundry token fee. A resident tennis pro suggested we rent him one of the courts that no one uses.

Things were getting unfocused.

I raised my hand, was recognized, and rose to thank everyone for serving the common good.

I did not stay for the formal announcement of the results of the election, but I did grab one of the volunteer vote-counters in the hall on my way out.

“So who won?” I asked. I didn’t think this violated any confidentiality provisions of the Condo Rules.

Larry leaned forward, and said “George is in, Richard is out.”

I shook my head. “What do you know,” I said. “Richard is a good guy. He just got pissed off about being slandered in public.”

“Can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen,” said Larry. “Even Carl Albert got run out of town eventually.”

“Yeah,” I said, a bit sadly. “There is no reason to let them get your goat in an election. It is too bad Richard had to act like a dick.”

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