Once upon a time, in a little kingdom called Delaware County, there lived thousands and thousands of people.
There were farmers and merchants, seniors and children, taxpayers and tenants, Republicans and Democrats, and people who wished everybody would stop talking and just fix the damn road.
- There were towns.
- There were villages.
- There were governments.
- There were nonprofit corporations.
- There were public authorities.
And - there were Hats.
Oh, what magnificent hats there were.
There was the Town Supervisor Hat.
There was the County Supervisor Hat.
There was the Delaware Opportunities Board Member Hat.
There was the Catskill Development Foundation Board Member Hat.
There were committee hats, advisory hats, economic-development hats and assorted other important hats connected with property, contracts, government services, public money, nonprofit money and power.
There was absolutely no shortage of hats.
But the Kingdom suffered, its rulers explained, from a terrible shortage of heads to fill those same hats.
This was strange.
There appeared to be heads everywhere.
Thousands of them - after all, the Kingdom was supported by extracting exceeding amounts of funds from a large number of those same heads.
Nevertheless, the important hats had a mysterious tendency to land on the same few heads - year after year, decade after decade.
One particularly accomplished - even though relatively new - collector of hats was Maya Boukai of Delhi.
Maya wore the Town of Delhi Supervisor Hat.
That also gave her a seat at the great County table, where she wore the Delaware County Supervisor Hat.
Maya also wore the Delaware Opportunities Board of Directors Member Hat.
And, Maya wore the Catskill Development Foundation Board Member Hat.
One head.
Four hats.
It was quite a balancing act.
“Why does Maya need all four?” asked a villager.
“Small community,” came the answer from Maya. "Wearing many hats in a small community is unavoidable".
The troublesome villager persisted: “But what happens when two of her hats want different things?”
Nobody answered.
At least - not yet.
The busybody villager pressed on:
“How many people live in this small community?”
“Thousands.”
“And how many people would we need to put four potentially conflicting hats on four different heads?”
This was an extremely difficult mathematical problem.
The Royal Mathematicians were summoned.
They sharpened their pencils.
They counted the hats.
They counted the heads.
They multiplied.
They divided.
They consulted spreadsheets.
They held a meeting.
They formed a committee to review the meeting.
They hired a consultant to advise the committee reviewing the meeting.
At sunrise, the youngest Royal Mathematician emerged from the Royal Mathematics Chamber.
“We have solved it.”
Everybody leaned forward.
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Four thousand?”
“No.”
“Four hundred?”
“No.”
“Forty?”
“No.”
He held up four fingers.
“FOUR people.”
The Royal Court gasped.
The mathematicians demonstrated.
- Hat Number One could go on Head Number One.
- Hat Number Two could go on Head Number Two.
- Hat Number Three could go on Head Number Three.
- Hat Number Four could go on Head Number Four.
Easy-peasy.
And—this was the astonishing part—the Kingdom would still have thousands of heads left over.
“So we don't actually have a shortage of heads to fill those hats,” said the villager pensively.
Apparently not.
“Then why do the same heads keep collecting those hats?”
Another villager looked around carefully.
“I think - it is Greed.”
The Royal Hat Department immediately objected.
“Greed for what?”
- Money.
- Power.
- Positions controlling money and power.
- Seats at multiple tables where property, contracts, government services, public money and nonprofit money were decided.
The Royal Hat Department objected even more strongly, called it frivolous and demanded removal of the defaming villager from the Royal Court. Guards! - Remove him!
But the guards did not fudge. They were busy discussing their head sizes and whether the hats would fit THEM.
For Pete's sake!
As an entertaining distraction, before anybody could investigate the matter any further, Maya's hats went to war.
The First War of the Magic Many Hats
For more than fifty years, Delaware Opportunities helped feed the Kingdom's senior citizens.
Maya sat on the Delaware Opportunities (DO) board. Not really on the board board - but on the - well, you get it.
Maya was also a Delaware County (DC) Supervisor.
For a while, the two magic hats, the DO hat and the DC hat, behaved themselves. Somewhat.
Then the DO hat said:
DC HAT OWES US APPROXIMATELY $300,000.
Maya's DO Hat immediately jumped up.
“WE WANT OUR MONEY!”
Her DC Hat jumped up too.
“YOU WANT IT FROM US!”
- “Pay us!”
- “Protect the County!”
- “Delaware Opportunities!”
- “Delaware County!”
- “Collect the $300,000!”
- “Don't give away the taxpayers' $300,000!”
Soon the two hats were pushing and shoving and pulling Maya's one poor head in opposite directions.
The villagers gathered around.
“Well,” said one, “that looks remarkably like a conflict.”
The Royal Hat Department requested that everybody refrain from inflammatory terminology.
Then Maya's DC Hat began to tremble.
“What's it doing?” whispered Grandma.
Nobody knew.
The hat shook harder.
POP!
A wooden leg with a hoof appeared.
The villagers jumped backward.
POP!
A second wooden leg.
POP! POP!
Two more.
The brim swelled into an enormous wooden belly.
A tail sprouted from the back, furiously waiving to swat flies.
The crown stretched forward.
Two ears appeared.
Then came a gigantic wooden head wearing a remarkably self-satisfied expression.
The villagers stared.
The Magic DC Hat had transformed into:
A MAGIC TROJAN HORSE
“How beautiful!” exclaimed the Royal Public Information Officer.
PLOP.
Something landed behind the beautiful creature.
Everybody looked down.
“What is that?”
The Royal Public Information Officer cleared her throat.
“An unavoidable consequence of maintaining horses in a small community.”
Grandma examined the pile closely.
“Looks like horseshit to me.”
What Was Inside the Horse?
Delaware Opportunities (DO hat) had an Executive Director.
The Executive Director was positioned to protect Delaware Opportunities' interests.
Delaware Opportunities (DO hat) claimed that Delaware County (DC hat) owed DO hat $300,000 in debt for Senior Meals program.
The dispute for a breach of contract could - and still can - potentially land up in court.
That was inconvenient for the DC hat.
Ordinarily, if one institution wants to reach inside another institution, there are walls in the way.
But not in the Kingdom of Magic Many Hats.
The DC hat looked across at the DO hat. Sitting on the same head of Maya Boukai. And on the head of another DC supervisor Wayne Marshfield, who also wore those same two hats - among many others.
Here stood those two beautiful members of the local community.
County Supervisors.
Delaware Opportunities fiduciaries.
Wearers of multiple hats. Which is unavoidable in a small community.
The County (DC hat) did not need to climb over the DO wall.
- It did not need to break down the DO gate.
- It did not need to sneak anybody inside DO.
- The Trojan Horses had already been delivered, as little tiny magic hats on the formidable heads of Maya Boukai and Wayne Marshfield.
Then, according to the public account of what happened inside one of the secret, executive chamber, of the County castle, came the instruction:
"WEARERS OF DO HATS - PUT THE COUNTY FIRST and SUSPEND DO EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR"
that bothersome woman who claimed the $300K debt that nobody ever knew about before her - but the accounting books, obviuosly, and Wayne Marshfield as DO treasurer, and Maya Boukai as one of DO's Directors, and... and... and... Never mind.
PLOP.
Grandma looked down.
Another pile.
A villager raised his hand.
“But they're Delaware Opportunities fiduciaries. I read the law, it says that they owe their undivided loyalty to DO”.
“Small community,” echoed simultaneously Boukai, Marshfield and the Royal Public Information Officer.
PLOP.
“But Delaware Opportunities is demanding $300 grand from the County.”
“Multiple hats.”
PLOP.
“But the County is the party on the other side.”
“It's complicated.”
PLOP.
Grandma climbed onto a chair.
“Could somebody PLEASE bring me a SHOVEL?”
Unfortunately, the Magic Trojan Horse was not finished.
The DC interests sitting within DO hat mulled DC's suggestion to put DO's Executive Director on administrative leave and disabled her lawsuit-signing pen.
The villagers stared.
One slowly raised his hand.
Everyone groaned.
- “Let me understand.”
- “No.”
- “I insist.”
He began counting on his fingers.
“Maya's DO hat says her DC hat owers her DO hat 300 grand, right?”
“Yes.”
“Maya's DO hat could potentially sue Maya's DC hat to collect that money, right?”
“Yes.”
“The Executive Director Maya's DC hat wants suspended is positioned to pursue DO's interests in that lawsuit, right?”
“Yes.”
“Maya's DC hat wants the two-hat bearers Boukai and Marshfield to force suspension of DO's Executive Director, right?”
Silence.
“And while exercising their authority of their DO hat, they're supposed to help their DC hat, right?”
He checked his notes.
“—PUT THE COUNTY FIRST?”
PLOP.
Grandma picked up the shovel.
The Great $300,000 Disappearing Lawsuit Trick
Another villager suddenly became excited.
- “I understand! now”
- “What?”
- “The trick!”
- “What trick?”
He climbed onto a box and spread his arms.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Taxpayers of all ages!”
THE GREAT DISAPPEARING 300 GRAND-LAWSUIT TRICK!
The villagers gathered around.
“How does it work?”
- "Easy-peasy - first, have a substantial financial dispute with a nonprofit!”
- “Yes?”
- “Then have your own officials sitting on its board!”
- “Yes?”
- “Tell those officials to PUT YOU FIRST!”
- “Yes?”
- “Then ask them to use their positions inside the nonprofit to help suspend the person positioned to pursue the nonprofit's interests against you!”
The crowd waited.
- “And then the $300,000 debt disappears?”
- “No.”
- "The 300 grand lawsuit disappears?"
- "No".
- “Then what disappears?”
The villager lowered his voice.
“Potentially, the person pursuing it.”
Somehow, nobody applauded.
Even the horse looked embarrassed.
PLOP.
“Really?” said Grandma.
Meanwhile, Grandma Was Waiting for Her Lunch From the Senior Meals Program
There was, however, another small problem.
While everybody was discussing approximately $300,000, fiduciaries, invoices, documentation, contracts and Executive Directors, the senior-meals program was suddenly dropped.
Then came the Great Rescue.
- There were emergency announcements.
- There were volunteers.
- There were heroic stories.
- There were urgent meetings.
- There were explanations about invoices.
- There were explanations about documentation.
- There were explanations about contracts.
- There were explanations about who knew what and when.
- There were press releases.
- Many, many press releases.
Grandma sat at her table.
“Excuse me.”
Nobody heard her.
The Magic Trojan Horses were attracting considerable attention.
“Excuse me.”
Officials were busy saving the senior-meals program.
“Excuse me.”
Another press release was being prepared about saving the senior-meals program.
Grandma picked up her spoon.
BANG.
Nobody stopped.
BANG. BANG.
Everybody looked.
“WHO,” Grandma asked, “WAS SUPPOSED TO MAKE SURE THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE FIRST PLACE?”
The Kingdom became very quiet.
Grandma looked at the County Hat.
She looked at the Delaware Opportunities Hat.
She looked at the Trojan Horse.
She then looked at her busy shovel.
“I see.”
Surely Everybody Had Learned Something
After the Great Senior Meals War, the villagers assumed the Kingdom had learned an important lesson.
They had watched the same people sit inside two institutions whose financial interests became adverse.
They had watched Magic Hats turn into Magic Trojan Horses.
They had heard:
PUT THE COUNTY FIRST.
They had watched an effort to have nonprofit fiduciaries recommend suspending the Executive Director of the nonprofit demanding money from the County.
They had watched the senior-meals program collapse in the middle of it.
They had shoveled quite a lot of horseshit.
Surely nobody would put another pair of conflicting hats on the same head.
Surely.
Then came the Battle of the Building.
The Second War of the Magic Many Hats
In Delhi stood the Jim Thomson Business Center.
The Town of Delhi and the Village of Delhi were interested in the building.
The Catskill Development Foundation had interests and responsibilities concerning the building.
The Delaware County Industrial Development Agency entered the struggle.
- There was property.
- There was development.
- There were taxes.
- There were PILOTs.
- There were familiar wealthy interests surrounding the Kingdom's economic-development machinery, including the wealthy Clark family and its history with PILOT benefits.
And in the middle of that all stood Maya.
Her head looked like a cube with pegs popping on corners on top - it developed four pronounced bumps on top, one for each of THREE hats.
- THE TOWN OF DELHI SUPERVISOR HAT
- THE COUNTY SUPERVISOR HAT
- THE CATSKILL DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION BOARD MEMBER HAT
- DELAWARE OPPORTUNITIES
The Town Hat jumped up.
“THE TOWN AND VILLAGE WANT THE BUILDING!”
The County Hat hissed -
"DO NOT EVEN TRY - MY INTERESTS and MY FRIENDS' INTERESTS"
The Foundation Hat clumsily wailed winking at the County hat:
“THE FOUNDATION HAS ITS OWN RESPONSIBILITIES!”
- “The Town!”
- “The Foundation!”
- “The building!”
- “Control!”
The villagers stared.
One pointed upward.
“Look, it's happening AGAIN!”
Maya's Catskill Development Foundation Hat had begun to tremble.
Grandma closed her eyes.
“Oh, shit.”
PLOP.
Grandma opened one eye and looked down.
“Precisely.”
Then—
POP!
One wooden leg with a hoof.
POP!
Another.
The Royal Mathematicians began packing their calculators.
POP! POP!
- Four legs.
- Wooden belly.
- Tail.
- Neck.
- Ears.
Another enormous Magic Trojan Horse stood in the middle of Delhi.
The Royal Public Information Officer (RPIO) approached her podium.
Grandma pointed the shovel at him.
“Don't.”
RPIO reconsidered.
The Hat That Wasn't Unavoidable After All
This time the conflict became sufficiently public that Maya took a leave of absence from the Catskill Development Foundation board.
The villagers were astonished.
- “Wait.”
- “What?”
- “She took off the hat, somewhat, temporarily”
Everybody stared.
“You can do that?”
Apparently.
One villager ran to fetch the Royal Mathematicians.
Another stopped him.
“We don't need them for this.”
“But if a hat can be taken off—”
“Yes.”
“—then it wasn't unavoidable?”
The villagers contemplated this dangerous proposition.
Then the story became even stranger.
Because Maya began complaining about other people's multiple hats - the villagers looked at the people Maya was criticizing.
Then they looked at Maya.
Then they looked upward.
Town of Delhi Supervisor Hat.
Delaware County Supervisor Hat.
Delaware Opportunities Board Member Hat.
Catskill Development Foundation Board Member Hat.
Another set of hats on another head.
And another.
And another.
One villager began counting on his fingers.
Grandma stopped him.
"There is like twenty people here each wearing a 5-6 hats. There are enough villagers in this room to fit each one of these hats!"
YOU CANNOT SAY THAT - whispered RPIO.
The Great Magic Spell
And that was when Maya tried pronouncing once again the Great Magic Spell:
“Multiple hats may be unavoidable in a small community.”
There was silence.
PLOP.
Everybody looked at the horse.
“Even the horse doesn't believe that one,” said Grandma.
The Royal Mathematicians looked at Mayas head and hats and reluctantly reopened their notebooks.
- Four hats.
- One head struggling with them.
- Thousands of villager heads available to fill them.
They calculated.
They recalculated.
They turned the calculator upside down.
They tried again.
The answer stubbornly remained: they only need
FOUR villagers to REPLACE Boukai in those four hats.
One villager finally stood.
- “We have been calling this by the wrong name.”
- “What name?”
- “Unavoidable.”
- “What should we call it?”
The villager looked around.
- At the government hats.
- At the nonprofit hats.
- At the boards.
- At the property.
- At the contracts.
- At approximately $300,000.
- At the PILOTs.
- At the public money.
- At the nonprofit money.
- At the seats at multiple tables.
- At the two Magic Trojan Horses.
- At the enormous pile behind them.
Then he answered:
"I already told you before - GREED.”
- Greed for money.
- Greed for power.
- Greed for the positions through which money and power move.
The Magic Many Hats situation - was not caused by having too few people.
There were thousands of people.
It was caused by too many important hats not so magically accumulating on too few heads.
“Small community,” protested somebody.
PLOP.
“Unavoidable!”
PLOP.
“Public service!”
PLOP.
Grandma leaned on her shovel.
“Keep talking. I needed fertilizer.”
Then Came the Season of the Snakes
And then, one month before the great election, a miraculous transformation swept through the Kingdom.
For years, the villagers had been taxpayers.
- They paid.
- They tried to ask questions.
- They tried to request records.
- They tried to complain.
- They waited for services - for a long time.
- They shoveled a lot of government horseshit.
They were ignored.
But now—
THEY WERE VOTERS.
And suddenly everybody loved them.
- Incumbents loved them.
- Challengers loved them.
- Everybody loved Grandma.
- Everybody loved taxpayers.
- Everybody loved seniors.
- Everybody loved transparency.
- Everybody loved accountability.
- Everybody loved ethics.
- Everybody loved public service.
The incumbents began fighting the challengers.
The challengers began fighting the incumbents.
Old friends discovered disagreements.
Old adversaries discovered principles.
Everybody proclaimed that everybody else was terrible.
- “I serve the people!”
- “No, I serve the people!”
- “Transparency!”
PLOP.
“Accountability!”
PLOP.
“Public service!”
PLOP.
By now the villagers were ankle-deep.
Grandma stopped shoveling.
- “That's it.”
- “What?”
- “I quit.”
- “But somebody has to clean this up.”
Grandma smiled.
“No. I remembered something better.”
The Magic Boot
Deep inside the Kingdom was a closet.
The County did not own it.
The Town did not own it.
Delaware Opportunities did not own it.
The Catskill Development Foundation did not own it.
The Industrial Development Agency did not own it.
The wealthy did not own it.
The incumbents did not own it.
The closet belonged to the villagers - no tricks.
Most of the time it remained closed.
But every few years, just about when the wearers of the Magic Many Hats became most anxious to keep those hats, after producing some extraordinary amount of horseshit, tired villagers would recall existence of the old closet.
And - CREEEEAK.
Inside stood something enormous.
- Old.
- Patient.
- Heavy.
- Mud-and-horseshit resistant.
- And, most importantly under the circumstances, very easy to clean.
THE MAGIC BOOT.
The villagers stared.
Suddenly everything made sense.
The Magic Many Hats had their incantations:
- SMALL COMMUNITY.
- UNAVOIDABLE.
- MANY HATS.
The Magic Trojan Horses started to run in a carousel chiming about cute little ponites.
Yet, the Magic Horse Shit had its own peculiar property:
THE MORE EXPLANATIONS, THE BIGGER THE PILE -
JUST what the Magic Boot loved to see, and handle.
Because The Magic Boot required no incantations at all.
For most of the time, the villagers had to ask the people wearing the hats:
- “Why?”
- “Who decided?”
- “Who benefited?”
- “Which hat were you wearing?”
- “Whom were you representing?”
and receiving NO ANSWERS in return.
But during the Season of the Magic Boot, something extraordinary happened.
The who-chased-who order reversed.
The uppity person wearing those many Magic Hats elected hat had to approach the villagers.
Take off his or her many hats.
And hold them out like a beggar.
And ask:
“May I have these back, puh-lease, I will be very, very good, pinky promise!”
The villagers looked at the hats.
They looked at the Trojan Horses.
They looked at the promise of a 300 grand lawsuit generated by the multi-hat wearers.
- They remembered the "PUT THE COUNTY FIRST" horseshit.
- They remembered the "suspend the DO's Executive Director" horseshit.
- They remembered the turmoil with Grandma's lunch horseshit.
- They remembered the Battle of the Building horseshit.
- They remembered the PILOTs and exceeding the tax levy in Delhi budget horseshit
They then recalled the Great Magic Spell:
“Multiple hats may be unavoidable in a small community.”
They looked around at the thousands of perfectly usable heads surrounding them.
Then they looked down.
There was HORSE SHIT EVERWHERE.
Grandma pulled on the Magic Boot.
“Now,” she said, “I finally understand why this thing is a boot.”
“Why?”
Grandma planted it firmly in the pile.
“Because when you're surrounded by horseshit, you need proper footwear.”
Villages blinked - OOOPS - where did those wearers of many hats go?
Was it THAT easy?
Yes, it was!
It is the election season in Delaware County!
The Magic Boot is calling for you!
