November 2nd, 2009
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1. FREE GOLF FOR CITY EMPLOYEES
It seems that if you are a full time City employee you can play free this month at the Municipal Golf Course. You must rent a golf cart for $13. They are putting Hidden Lakes and Turnbull Bay out of business with their cheap membership and shenanigans. Why not just put road blocks up at the entrance ways of the private golf courses and get it over with. We do not need their employees or their taxes! The City running businesses is bad business for the merchants trying to make a buck and who pay taxes. We did not get this memo either, but we asked.
2. WHO IS POSTING?
W e do not know and do not want to know. In fact, there is no way to get an internet provider to give out the names of the people who blog absent a court order which will not be provided absent a public showing necessary to obtain a warrant. The FBI and CIA are operating under laws designed to protect us from terrorist and criminal activity. They are different. Moreover, the Shadow has no interest in identifying anybody. The Shadow does not post, but did so last week to comply with a request of a blogger who had inadvertently posted her e-mail address. We could not edit the heading so reposted the material under the heading of the Shadow.
3. DIESON AND RODI ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR LOSSES AT UTILITIES COMMISSION
The Shadow removed the two extremely lengthy articles posted recently on the BLOG that attacked two past Chief Executive Officers of the New Smyrna Utilities Commission because (1) they left five years ago and have nothing to do with the current mismanagement of the Utilities Commission which has resulted in the highest electric rates in Central Florida, and (2) they included a rehash of alleged misdoings which were found to be false by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement whose results were stated by the Daytona Beach News Journal as clearing both individuals. The current management, both its board of directors and its current CEO, are responsible for what looks like the worst run utility in Florida.
The loss was caused by the Utilities Commission under Dieson and Rodi forcing a debtor into bankruptcy. That debtor was in the reprocess of repaying the debt. This is another red herring, dredged up to suggest that there is an on-going investigation when there has been none for the last three or four years. The FBI apparently trashed the last nonsense filed by lawyer Preston to claim wrong doing.
4. COLLEGE DEGREES
Barringer: UCF undergraduate degree, and a masters and doctorate from “distant learning centers”.
Mackay: no undergraduate and no master degrees. Today, the claimed degrees from named institutions have morphed into “certificates”!
“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
10/25/2009, 3:23 pm
Woody
Grab the Hometown News and figure out what Sally means? Adam has no experience. Sally has experience at robbing from the reserves, buying property for the tax payers at inflated prices, not being able to reduce the budget, no ability to bring Sunshine to the office, supporting special interests and provide cheap rounds of golf for the more fortunate duffers. Sally is afraid that walkers will slip and fall on the Flagler street sand. Yet it does not disturb her that a man was injured in a fall over an electrical box placed in the Flagler public walkway supposedly by CRA or a picnic table in Riverside Park that collapsed under a woman when the city has a qualified designated playground employee. Funny set of condemnable values. When you take a hard look at our mayor and her second in command, they do not deserve another chance for failure. We have plenty of failure left over from her last term.
10/29/2009, 4:38 pm
questioning
If anyone has been following the Flagler hotel debacle since its beginning, it is the city's P&Z board who is recommending to send much of the traffic (trucks, etc.) Out the "emergency" exit onto Florida Avenue. Florida Avenue is home to many elderly who walk their pets, young children riding bikes, etc AND is basically residential. Should we sell our souls and every bit of pedestrian friendly streets we have to developers to "enhance" our community with a 3 story hotel?
If you CARE, please attend the P&Z meeting on Nov.2 and voice your concerns and ask that they leave the "emergency exit" as an EMERGENCY exit. If Flagler merchants want the hotel, let Flagler handled all the traffic (which is nonexistent, as represented by the developer at the last commission meeting! AND they did a traffic study to prove it!!!!!). It doesn't take a traffic "study", only sitting through several traffic lights to get across the bride, to KNOW that there IS a traffic problem on Flagler.
I think the hotel is and has been since day one, "a done deal" because what residents want does not matter....only what the CofC, CRA, and REALTORS want matters. That being said, citizens should still be able to demand SOME of their concerns be addressed and the project changed.
11/1/2009, 12:36 pm
poor concerned
583
Dear concerned citizen The MDC and the Water taxi are robbing us every freaking day. They have taken $150,000 from the city in cash this year AND they hold property hostage that should pay almost $100,000 just in taxes. They also got a $40,000 grant to teach people how to plant mangroves. That’s pretty darn close to $300,000 and that’s just what we know of. They are leeches and need to be driven off. After 12 years they cannot stand on their own income. They are beggars. They are currently taking business from two kayak outfitters in town. Lets not forget they already ran off a private tax paying tour boat. That is also "city" money. Now they are funding that jackass Richenburg in his run for office. He has wasted MILLIONS of city tax dollars. All fact no fiction - get your head out of the sand.
NOTES
1. PORT ORANGE DOES NOT CARE THAT NEW SMYRNA BEACH IS ANTI-GROWTH
It is obvious that we do not have the respect of our neighbors, the County or the State and that the cause for their disdain is in large measure the recognition of the fact that we have had poor leadership. The last time Sally told Port Orange not to zone its own territory because the City thinks Pioneer Trail should remain a two lane rural road forever not only did not fly but engendered rude treatment from Port Orange. Now she wants to tell them to not zone land near Venetian Bay for what we are told is a Publix Shopping Center. They are not only anti-growth for NSB, but are trying to foist their views on others. We think they will give them the raspberry, again.
2. REORGANIZATION IS ON THE MENU
We asked for the new reorganization chart and of course did not get a copy before the last Commission meeting. Nor did we get a copy of the guarantee for the $9,000 plastic Christmas tree. Nor did we get any backup to support that there was any basis for what we hear is some bellyaching by the police force about their new Impala police cars. And of course, we did not get the river of red ink numbers for the municipal golf course. It looks like close to $350,000 loss which we think is a gift of about $1,000 of cheap golf for each of its well off members for recreational golf. NOR, NOR, NOR. Do you get the message that Jonny Bledsoe and his handlers do not care for you to know how bad they have managed this town? The Shadow is perplexed on one of the denials since on Wednesday morning a week ago the publisher thought that the City Clerk said he had received a reorganization chart and the previous week it was only sort of weakly denied that Park and Recreation had been merged with Public Works.
3. GIVE THE EMPTY SOS BUILDING ON US 1 TO ANY COMPANY THAT WILL PUT 50 EMPLOYEES EARNING MORE THAN $50,000 A YEAR ON THE PREMISIS
A. It would be on the tax rolls;
B. Employees spend money and a bunch would move here and spend money.
DEAR PAM
As we have stated in the past, we realize that the City Manager is limited in the resources available to her for pursuing cost reduction projects, so we have decided to help her out and provide draft letters for her review. As we have said, this will free her up for important things, like dealing with all the serious problems of the police and fire department pensions.
Dear Sally,
I just want you to know that I will not take the fall for failing to reorganize the City staff because you did not want it to be announced and a topic before the election. I do not need the job that badly. The City Clerk stated it does not exist but I am sure I sent him a copy last Wednesday. He works for you and I cannot control what the Clerk sends out to the public. You do.
Pam
THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WORK IS DIMINISHING. GOING, GONE, GONE!
There is a statewide offensive by the entrenched city fire departments to find more work. The number of fire calls continues to decrease and the number of serious fires in houses is becoming almost non-existent. Just between 1995 and 2004 house fires decreased by over 27%. LINK Statewide there was an almost 10% drop in house fires from 2007 and 2008 (2008, 17,307; 2007, 19,358).They are no longer fire departments but have become de facto emergency response teams. They wormed their way into the emergency response business as fire calls went away, but as new heart and stroke preventive medicines are introduced that business is also going to be drastically cut. Auto driving also is down 10% to 15% and one could expect that so are accidents. They expanded to emergency service calls in order to find more business, claiming that there was a benefit in getting to the scene sometimes before the EVAC vehicle. There is no scientific evidence statistically supporting the proposition that marginally faster is better except in a very limited number of heart attacks . Now that business is going to go away and they are trying to expand into ambulance service to keep their jobs. Since there are less and less of so-called real emergencies, multiple fire department vehicles are dispatched to fender benders. They even call responses to elevators getting stuck as “extrications”. They are an $80,000,000 solution in search of a problem. What they want is to save their jobs
.
The new plan is to get the State to mandate that Volusia County cannot make decision for its citizens but that the individual City fire departments in the County can opt for providing this service. Every argument the city fire departments advance will not hold water. It will cost Daytona Beach taxpayers a fortune since the number of indigent persons who cannot pay is much higher in Daytona Beach than the County average of no-pays carried by EVAC. See yesterday’s New Journal article on the growing number of poor in Daytona. But the Union does not care because it wants more members and more pay and the huge cost to the City is not relevant to its desires.
Then there is the problem of staffing of three to a shift with fireman and their mandatory overtime. To begin with, there is no need to support the third employee in the fire station on each shift for fires. There are no fires. But that third employee is called a “lieutenant”, paid more, and larded with overtime before retirement so that their pensions can be exploded when they retire at an early age. This system will extend to the additional employees they hire to replace EVAC services. Compare that to the costs of two employees per ambulance for service provided by the County. The ambulance has no permanent station and is guided by computer generated predictions as to where they should idle their vehicles for the most likely call. The employees at EVAC are on 401(k) pension plans and do not cost the 70% additional for pensions and benefits as it costs New Smyrna Beach for each fireman employee tucked into bed in his new $5 million dollar station.
This issue was addressed last year and it has not gotten better since the last time it was rejected as being costly, ineffective and not a very bright idea. Why not just call it for what it is: ‘The Fireman Union Rip-off’ LINK
THERE IS NO QUESTION
There is no question that this election may not result in the needed shift of power from the current self-serving and greedy power centers back to those who represent the taxpayers. The interlocking groups that have siphoned City money still function and all of them still support themselves and each other with money. There are no clear lines but there are factions within the greater group that has run the City for many years. Some, like the Angler’s Yacht Club heavily supported two candidates despite having had one of the incumbents in its pocket with a letter saying she would not touch their lease for $25 per year on what looks like $5 million or more worth of property. They hedged their bet. But keep in mind that despite an issue which unifies the Angler’s Club members that is their own self interest on the major issues that confront the City they are against the program of the incumbents. We suspect that every member is pro-growth and for significantly cutting spending.
The “central control” of the group spending your money after this election will still be the Chamber of Commerce regardless of who wins. The intertwined relationships of the unelected Chamber extend to almost every segment of City politics, and it is the Chamber
THE ANGLER’S CLUB LEASE APPRAISL
FOR VACANT LAND
Interestingly, the failure to get a fair lease for the taxpayers for the Angler’s Yacht Club lease will probably result in lawsuits from taxpayers demanding that it be done only at a public auction. When confronted with the public demand for a fair appraisal, the City asked an appraiser for the value only of the vacant land. We think both Sally and her then friends at the grifters club were aghast when the independent evaluation came back (Hamilton & Jacobs report of March 12, 2009) that the vacant land alone was worth $2.1 million. You read it right. The total package with the $500,000 building and $500,000 shed, plus the 43 slips were not included in the request for an appraisal. Adding them in would be probably $5,000,000 even in today’s depressed market. So what did the City do when the shock wore off of a high appraisal on only a small part of what makes up the property value? Sit on it, hide it behind a bushel and let the conversation of value spin off to the ether so that it would not be discussed by the taxpayers who are ripped off by the month after month of no decision. An 8% standard commercial return on this value alone would peg rent should be in excess of $160,000 per year just for the vacant land. Seven months have gone by since the Club should have been sent a preliminary rent increase.
PLANNING & ZONING MEETING ON FLAGER HOTEL SITE - TONIGHT (NOV 2)
6.30 PM DeBERRY ROOM UTILITIES COMMISION, 200 CANAL
that directs spending your money on purchases like Dunn Lumber and Esther Street through its control of the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) which has the money. Millions of dollars of your money. It is this structure that must be addressed and it is this structure that has to be exposed and disinfected by exposure of the harm they do to the taxpayers. It may or may not change tomorrow. In this election, there is no assurance that even if the incumbents are defeated that any real change will occur in using tax money to take care of the Chamber’s friends until more of the taxpayers are disgusted with business as usual.
First, understand that the Chamber of Commerce does not oppose the City in spending money or mismanagement itself or the mismanagement at Bert Fish or the Utilities Commission. Putting aside the obvious problems with the over the top costs of the City employees, particularly the fire department and the police department, the major money siphoned from the City and currently supporting the excessive expenditures for salaries and projects are the Utilities Commission and the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA). The former operates almost with no over sight by the City Commission and it has the same excessive pay, pensions and benefits which you pay for through high electric and water rates. Think of $80,000 a year secretaries with pensions and benefits costing the UC probably another 45%--$35,000 in pensions and benefits. The CRA is controlled by the Chamber of Commerce directly (we count six of the seven board members). There is another pot of money at the end of the rainbow that they tap—the Southeast Volusia Advertising Association which uses its bed tax money ($300,000 this year) to support, not surprisingly, the Chamber ($36,000+ this year). It also supports events in town that do not put heads-in-beds and supports the projects of their friends—like the Safari Club. As an aside, the incoming President of the Chamber’s husband is on the CRA board.
In the greater scheme of things the Angler’s Club rip-off for 60 or so years is small potatoes as against the insidious and corrosiveness of the abused power of the Chamber and the people who run it for their own benefit. Sure the Angler’s Club discriminates in an era where this is not acceptable to our society. It makes the City look bad. Sure they have ripped us off, but that is history. You cannot get the cookies back that the three year old ate from the cookie jar, but you can keep the kid out of the cookie jar in the future. The Chamber’s raiding the cookie jar can and must be stopped. The CRA must not remain under the control of a bunch of Chamber members who buy needless and polluted and over priced property—Dunn Lumber and Ester Street. They must not stay in control of our tax money which is supposed to help blighted areas. Does it not say a lot about them that buy $9,000 plastic Christmas trees which should not be bought at any price?
It could not be worse than the scenario painted by an esteemed blogger. His or her BLOG suggest impropriety. If true, that also looks bad for the City:
10/27/2009, 8:17 am
Doug Hodson's money line
The CRA has indeed awarded $5K to the Italian restaurant and $7K to the Mexican restaurant [two restaurants that recently opened on Flagler and Canal]. Who is on the CRA, none other than Doug Hodson, the advertising director of the Observer who is now going to swoop in and collect advertising from both? Hodson also is [on] the S.E. Volusia Advertising Authority, both clearly conflicts of interest. Too bad our mayor ignores such conflicts and the CRA spending machine moves on unabated. Who is Mr. Hodson's boss? You got it -- Mr. Conflict of Interest Bob Lott, owner of the Observer, head of the Chamber and formerly of the hospital board. Guess what, Bob Lott's Chamber and Observer moderator Bob Burns will be running the Chamber candidates debate. The Mayor takes her orders from Bob Lott.”
If anyone solicits money from a business based on his friends in high places having given the business grants, it is improper. Or maybe just an arrangement that is simply not fair to the taxpayers. Besides, there is nothing illegal about a paper selling advertising. Right?
But the most scandalous aspect of the Chamber is not the excess of spending taxpayer money for their friends. It is much worse because the reason for its existence is to represent the business community, and they have not done that. If they were true to their asserted conservative beliefs they would be in the fore front to reform the Utilities Commission to lower the utility costs for their failing business friends on Canal and Flagler. They would be screaming for cuts in the pay, pensions, and benefits of City employees in order to lower property taxes which are killing their members. They should be paying a fair maintenance feetal for their building and maintain the building. No, no rent and not a word on issues that adversely affects its members. And the biggest irony is that their current President, Robert Lott, argued for higher taxes as a Board member at Bert Fish instead of demanding reasonable management and reducing management salaries to reflect that the economy has declined. In sum, they do not represent their members but support all of the crummy bad management and bad tax schemes which hurt the members of their drinking club.
Voting tomorrow is not between the status quo and reform. That hopefully will come in the future. But seeing the future in New Smyrna Beach now could be like driving down a dark road without headlights. Regardless of who wins tomorrow the issues have been put on the table this time and the choice is no longer just “mirror, mirror on the wall, who is fairest of us all?” We believe that whoever wins will have to reorganize the fire and police departments, reign in the pay, pension and benefits of all City employees, and not buy needless polluted properties or prime sea shore property at inflated prices. They must stop the anti-growth nonsense that has choked off all meaningful development and destroyed our future tax base. As a start, Williams, Steve Dennis, and Doug Hodson, who works directly for Bob Lott’s Observer, should be requested to resign immediately from the CRA. If something is not done about these issues, we believe that they will be short lived incumbents and re-call petitions could be filed against the rest.
