EDITORIAL
The Shadow views the current battle between the City of New Smyrna Beach’s professional staff and the three City Commissioners who are trying to fire them with a rather practical eye. If the professional staff did what they should and can do professionally to manage the City well, the three clueless ones would fire them. So what is better for us as taxpayers?
(1) Having our professional staff, the Shadow believes operating as best they can for the taxpayers, do the best they can to keep the City on some semblance of reasonable management (like not hiring an unneeded assistant manager and, even worse, spending another $100,000 for a useless business development specialist); or
2) Goading the clueless ones to fire them without cause because the management staff does not jump when told to jump.
We believe the former is preferable and so far we think that public opinion supports that view. To fire the City Manager and Attorney now, moreover, would cost another $700,000 in addition to their salary, and that assumes that neither sues the City for slandering their reputations in public meetings as not professionally doing their duties. The best of all worlds would have been that they did their professional best effort over the last two years despite the threats to fire them. But the Shadow still believes that we are all better off that they have stuck and been abused and belittled rather than take their big severance packages and leave the City totally rudderless. Some managers recently have been fired, like the ones at Edgewater and Orange City for trying to do the job for which they were hired. but in final analysis we believe that we are better off that ours are still here.
November 17th, 2008
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1. We are amused by those that think that the bulletin board postings (our BLOG) are all complaints by disgruntled readers. Not true, many of the articles are informative, very thoughtful and presented in a cogent form. Unfortunately, a few of these also include profanity despite the fact that the profanity adds nothing to the blog. In fact they distract. But the dialogue and discussion have definitely been on issues and have frequently been constructive. The Shadow does not delete blogs that discuss the issues, criticize its reasoning by the Shadow, or argue the points that are contrary to the position taken by the Shadow. We believe the blog works and welcome participation. Just keep it clean. But please, stop the profanity and posting about national interests. The election is over.
2. Tuesday, AM Judge Litt: When you go to Publix please park in the "Parking Places" Not in the driveway on the fire lane by the stop sign. You impede then the traffic flow for everyone. If your waiting for someone drive up when they come out. Don't be like the fire dept. and block traffic. Please.
The criticism is correct, and while some of the justification for the activity is valid, none are sufficient to overcome the criticism.
W-2S REVISITED
The W-2's published over the last few weeks are again presented this week as an EXCEL file so that you can manipulate the data as you wish. Additionally, we provide a number of analyses regarding pay and benefits. We have added charts in columns showing each employee and the percentage of increase that includes the benefit package for each employee.
“Best Blogs of the Week”
(Edited for grammar and punctuation)
A POTPOURRI OF CITIZEN COMMENTS IS
AGAIN PROVIDED THIS WEEK IN ORDER
FOR YOU TO GET IN TUNE WITH THE
MOOD OF OUR READERS
Wednesday, 11/12/08, 1:49 PM Hagood: after sitting in on 11/5 special meeting I would like to tell you something. It is very apparent that Lynne just does not want you as cm. she wants more? someone who thinks outside the box, maybe like her aliens and all. Sally, Randy and Lynne tried getting rid of you without cause and heard the loud out cry from us citizens. so now they are going to try and go by the book and give you 2 goals and objectives! which have to be done within 90 days. WAIT that has now been changed again 5 goals and objectives, because randy has gone around and asked other ceo's and they told him so? so now in 90 days these goals and objectives will be reviewed by lynn, who we know doesn't want you. do you really think she can be objective? and then randy, who I hear does not have a high diploma is going to also measure these goals??and then of course sally but, I was impressed that her hubby spoke up for you ??even thou it was sally that passed the gavel last time and made the motion to get rid of you!!!! The bottom line is what a set up!! They are nuts don't know what they are doing. Gumey take the money, you deserve it for putting up with these nut cases. We are s tuck till next year hope it goes fast, so we can tell them where to go.
RealityThursday, 11/13/08, 3:41 AM Fire fighting is a blue collar job. It doesn't take a Ba/Bs or a Ma to do it. Vo-tech yes, the pay schedules have gotten out of control and need to be adjusted just like the stock market goes through a periodic adjustment. You can't pay the workers more that the residents make and continue to operate as a solvent city. How many of the nsb fire dept workers live in this city ??? From:Smyrna Town
NSBThursday, 11/13/08, 11:31 AM Our City leadership is self centered and pompous to say the least. They all have very little management or related expertise to run a City. There answer is to hire someone else to help the City Manager. What a joke, just task him to do his job. He needs to do his job, and his Department heads need to do their job much more efficiently then they have done in the past. New Smyrna is becoming the laughing stock of the area, as well as a big joke. We now have a new vice Mayor so just maybe he can step up to the plate and help the Mayor more then the past individual did, and add more maturity to the whole situation. We have to get expenses and spending under control, or NSB will need a bailout. We need to reduce higher level personnel also to reduce expenses. The City can not ignore the present economy mess in this Country, hoping it will go away. It is only going to get better with lots of hard work and much needed reductions to reduce budgets to fit the situations we are all in. Most individuals are doing this to survive, but so far NSB has refused to recognize the true need to do likewise... From:NSB
DEAR JOHN
We know of the limited resources available to John Hagood, the City Manager, and to his inability to get all of the important letters written that he would like to send. So we decided to help him and provide him drafts that will simplify his tasks and free him up for more important tasks.
TO: Mayor Mackay
FROM: John Hagood, City Manager
In order to get a head start on the goals you will give me tomorrow night, I suggest that we also put on the Agenda tomorrow night as new business:
1. Give the County the 011-RCC service---- $300,000 savings,
2, Reduce the fire department by personnel by 12 positions and go back to two to a shift. Way over a $1,000,000 saving. This is staffing and is not governed by the Union contract. If you look at the County statistics you will see that there is no loss in public safety between stations with two to a shift and those with three to a shift.
If you are not prepared to vote on (2) above, let me tell those fire department personnel that are in the DROP program (Deferred Retirement Option Program) that they are no longer employees. That is nine employees and about $45,000 to $50,000 extra PER month just for the retirement portion. This would save on the salary side another million or so in salaries, pensions and benefits.
3. Authorize me to eliminate three Commanders at the Police Department. This can be done by putting them in other positions at the same pay. This would save about another $300,000 or $400,000 after a year or two.
4. Cancel the $10,000,000+ police department palace because we simply can not afford it. We also do not need it.
5. This may seem petty considering the millions at issue above, but how about no more Crown Vics and no more drive home vehicles except in the City.
Sally, I could do all of the above before Friday morning! It would make you look good!
Your friend, John
NOTES
1. We wonder if there is any part of the budget that is believable. Last year the State said it would make a $95,000 grant to buy a couple of cars. These were “chase” vehicles we were told and we were perplexed because the Charger bought with a similar grant a year or two ago cost only $38,000, so why $95,000? Two times $38,000 is $76,000. Well sometime last summer the State said it did not have grant money. We asked in late summer why the money was still shown in the budget and were told that it would be dropped out before October 1, 2008. Not only was it not dropped out, but it seems it was in there to buy three Crown Vics and two Impalas, the latter for “experimental purposes”. This way they did not have to discuss openly the purchase of the three turkeys. Impalas as “experimental” are like the Japanese wantonly killing whales and saying it is for “research”. Almost all jurisdictions in Florida, including the Volusia County Sheriff, now exclusively use Impalas. As far as the Shadow is concerned this is simply hiding from the taxpayer why and how the money was to be used. Entries like this one taint the entire budget process. For fun, try and find where all of the money collected for the Storm Water Fund ($1.425 million this year) Is hidden in the budget. Good luck! We believe they just spent it.
2. Talking about the budget, they mix all the funds together rather than compartmentalize them so that money can not be spent for something else from a fund that is set aside for a specific purpose. For example, the millions of dollars collected for the storm water management and repairs seems to have flown its account. For 2009 the City budget shows that it intends to spend only $209,000 for storm water repairs, but they are collecting a property taxes of $1,425,000 this year to cover these minimal costs. If the money was segregated the taxpayers could tell when the City decided to spend it and for what. Lots of luck that they will ever make these “thefts” transparent or just not collect what is not needed. That would be called a tax cut and they do not believe in tax cuts.
3. Parody is not ridicule, and ridicule is not bad when one deals with hypocrisy, failure to care about your obligations to the taxpayers, and total slavery to a select elements of City employee demands that are bankrupting the City. It is not racist to expose a racist police officer E-mail. It is necessary for good government to expose how the City tried to cover it up. We admit that lampooning the City’s futile efforts to cover up the incident, botched and poorly done, is embarrassing to us. It is much worse than spending $25,000 for a “Best City” award. As stated earlier in other editions of the Shadow, the greatest evil with Commander Drossman is not what he did but that the City bumbled around to avoid addressing his racist e-mail.
Similarly, not discussing Richenberg’s neighbor appropriating (some would call it stealing) City property at Beachway is a refusal to address public issues properly. He has appropriated about half a million dollars in value to his own use (close Inlet access property with six foot of water is generally appraised between $10,000 to $12,000 per running foot along the water). His reason we believe for doing this wonderful “beautification” was to keep the riff-raff fisherman, mostly from the poorer side of the mainland, from using the City property. They drink beer. If the Commission agrees that the public right-of-way should be denied beer drinking Riff Raff, lease him the property for $50,000 s year. Ask yourself why the code enforcement officers of the City have apparently been stopped from bringing this issue to the Code Enforcement Board? We think someone has told that it would go badly for them if they did their job. To avoid being told that no one has complained, think of this note as a complaint.
MO, CURLEY, AND LARRY;
SALLY, LYNNE, AND RANDY. COMMISSIONERS AS STOOGES. THEY FIT TOGETHER LIKE LOVE AND MARRIAGE, LIKE A HORSE AND CARRIAGE
15% of your bill goes directly to the city
The “THIRD RAIL”
HOW TO AVOID THE ‘THIRD RAIL’ OF NSB ISSUES
BLAME IT ON HAGOOD
The “Third Rail” of National politics is Social Security. If a politician touches it, he or she just might get electrocuted. The “Third Rail” of New Smyrna Beach for the professional employees in our City Management form of government has become the many sacred subsidized fat cows of the elected officials. These elected officials are engaged in a massive movement of tax money from the business community and private property owners (particularly non voting Condo owners) to a select group of their friends ---citizens who will vote for them. The key recipients are the fire and police departments and other government employees who also will be grunts on the ground during elections. Then comes the golf club members who are subsidized. The Utilities Commission is managed by a Political Science CEO who was a consultant for Bell South and backed up by a lobbiest whose company takes money from Florida Power and Light and Bell South which are competitors.
Please do not forget the favored old boy school projects, like the Marine Development folks, and the businesses who get free leases for City property—Anglers Club and Chamber of Commerce. Curtailing these “honey pots for friends” have been off limits for City Management. Touch one and get fired.
Well suddenly these politicians, some may call them panderers, need some one to blame for failing to cut spending and robbing the reserves. So they blame the competent staff for failing to address the issues that they would not let them address. This is hypocrisy, plain and simple. Roll it around your tongue. Hypocrisy. They are fooling no one. For two or three years they have been handing out raises to the fire department personnel including a retroactive three percent raise for 2007. Think as a taxpayer when you pay your tax bill whether a retroactive 3% pay raise was fair to you. As said above, they have protected the bloated and top heavy police department from budget cuts that are long overdue. They refused to just stop subsidizing the Municipal Golf Course. The City Manager did not make these decisions. It was the clueless threesome. Mo, Curly, and Larry— OUR THREE STOOGES.
A recent blog (republished from the New Journal) (Wednesday), says it all. The story in the Journal simply set out the drivel uttered by from these three commissioners .
“If you listen to the audio (located on the city website) of the city commission meetings the problem is obvious. We are in a recession and the city commission does not want to cut the city budget. It is a math problem and the city commissions don't like math problems. So they scream at their administrative staff. The city commissioners need to figure out what are they spending money on that provides little if any benefit to its citizens by doing cost benefit analysis for each municipal service. If you break down ever service into cost versus benefit it will be easy to see where the cuts can be made in the budget. Successful people look at problems as opportunities. Mr. Hagood is an accountant by training and an excellent number cruncher. I would tell my city manager that I wanted a cost benefit analysis for each municipal service. “
FREE AT RUTHIES THIS WEDNESDAY
MORNING BEFORE 11:AM
Red-Eye Gravy for Grits: Recipe
1 cup strong brewed coffee
2 tablespoons drippings from fried country ham
Add coffee to drippings and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.
Serve over grits. 
Home fries it turns out are ordered by a wide margin over Grits, an old time Southern favorite but no longer more popular than home fries. Ok, Ruthies Restaurant on West Canal Road (a block West of the Railroad track) will give you an order of Grits and Red Eye Gravy for free if you come in on Wednesday (November 19,2008) before 11:00 AM.
FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE,FREE FREE FREE FREE FREE
POWER POINT PRESENTATION
FOR HALIFAX HOSPITAL
Bert Fish Hospital and Halifax are two of a group of Florida Hospitals in Florida that have appointed Board of Directors. They are appointed by the Governor and have excessive, 4 mills, taxing authority ( Each year they can raise the last year tax by 4 mills—4$ per thousand). Bet you did not know that these appointed boards can not be changed by referendum from those being taxed and they even have another dirty little law that prohibits them from being audited. That is right. You as a taxpayer cannot change the system by referendum and you can not audit it either. Not representative democracy and clearly “taxation without representation.” So you would think that the Governor would appoint qualified people to these Boards. Guess again. It looks like at least four out of the seven here for Bert Fish are so political that they do not even meet the Governor’s own standards for appointment. One has a High School Education and one an Associate Degree from DBCC.
Attached here is a Power Point presentation for Halifax. As little as we think of Halifax which spent $350,000 of our tax money on the “Tower Project” groundbreaking party (Donald Trump would have been proud). At least they cut their tax collection this year by $10 million while Bert Fish raised its taxes revenue by 21%. Look and weep. LINK to Power Point. As bad as the power Point presentation shows Halifax, a similar presentation for Bert Fish would be worse.
Attached as a set of links are the four months of Cell telephone records. We intend to analyze them and do a pin study. We can use all the help we can get, so if you wish to play with the information we would welcome your input. It is on a spread sheet. We had to threaten to sue them to get them to release these public records, and it has taken since late September to get them in our hands. We think when you put the numbers with the letters you will see who really runs the City. By the way, is not the City’s telephone only supposed to be used for City business? Some of the calls suggest otherwise.
1.Management goals
The Clueless threesome has come up with the following “goals” for both the City Manager and Attorney. Whoops, we, your City Commissioners, do not have any “goals” yet because they are reviewing the last year of the Shadow Archives to see if there are any ways to cut spending. Back to you next week after they have decided that Hagood was derelict in not telling them how to cut spending and they have found that the fire department pension plan is crazy. Cindy told them.
We figure the Commission will give a go ahead to the City manager to do what he wanted to do for the last couple of years and which they would not let him do. The Shadow has a few goals which we think are better:
Hagood
1. Find a surgeon who can give the clueless threesome a brain implant that will permit them to understand budgets and spending cuts;2. Find an appropriate course of instruction that can explain to the three of them the word “hypocrisy” (In Richenberg’s case, this would probably have to be a three month course because of the current low level of thought processes).Gummey
1.Take a course in not giving legal advice unless asked. As a corollary, shut up immediately when told to do so by Plaskett;2. Give no opinion that could prevent some legal mistake on the part of the Commission that could cost money, like advising them that a vote could trigger a contract clause that could cost hundreds of thousands dollars in punitive damages for slander;3. Never say anything about the Utilities Commission. It immediately triggers your contract review.2.Response to IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters)
The IAFF appears to have started to respond to arguments advanced about staffing and public safety. This is welcome and is certainly better than the efforts that we think some of its members may have used in the past to screw up the bulletin board (our BLOG).Now while the Shadow was going to prepare a response, one of our readers took a stab at it first and it is set out below.
BY a reader:
“9:25 AM You noted, "When you reduce staffing it leads to closing of fire stations. I believe that is one of the most important questions when establishing an insurance fee for your home. How far away is the closest station, hydrant, the staffing at that station? With a reduction in these services taxes will go up accordingly. My point being, you will not save money. It will ultimately cost you more.".........WELL, YOU'RE NOT ENTIRELY CORRECT......First of all, it all depends on your individual Insurance Company and how they evaluate risks. Secondly, your ISO rating is based on several things, the fire department being just one of them, which accounts for just 50 percent of the total rating. The other issues evaluated in the ISO's Fire Suppression Rating are the city's emergency communications systems and its water supply.......So, one could argue that closing a Fire Station, or reducing staff, wouldn't have any effect on your Insurance costs at all.....after all, you could still dial 911, and you would still have your fire hydrants. And those two things make up 50 percent of your fire rating.....And the difference between a 4 min response time and 6 minutes response time in the event of a fire, hasn't really made a big difference here; Lets face it; every house that has caught on fire here in NSB in recent memory has been declared a TOTAL LOSS anyway! So, what kind of emphasis do you think your Insurance Company really puts on that? PROBABLY NOT MUCH.....Its more likely your insurance company is interested in how old your house is, and what its constructed of, then whether our Heroes in the FD can get to it in 4 minutes ............Now, how can we reduce staff without effecting our City Fire Rating? Well, the first thing we need to look at are the people who aren't on Engine Duty to begin with; The Chief, the Deputy Chief, the Fire Marshall, the Battalion Commanders, and of course, our FD's platoon of LT's.......Losing a few of these "Hangers-on" would have a pretty minimal effect on our fire ratings.....but they DO have a BIG effect on our City's Fire Budget. And that should make them all WALKING TARGETS when the City's Budget comes up for discussion next year.....And why we need 12 LT's in the FD is still a mystery to me! Can anybody justify this? The word LARD comes to mind......also is the notion that we're just giving these people fancy titles, ( and money) to make them LOOK important. Again, Can anybody justify this?”
Now the Shadow would add that no stations were added to our knowledge when the staffing level was raised to three to a shift and none will be closed if the manning level is returned to two to a shift. At least seven stations in the County operate with two to a shift and the statistics for the county show no difference in public safety between the seven and the other 15.
The primary ISO insurance basic standards are adequate water pressure in hydrants, a water supply that is within five hundred feet and no more than five miles from the nearest fire station. If you meet these criteria, you get between a 4-6 and there is no change in insurance rates.
