November 9th, 2009
NSBShadow.com....
Published Weekly, Direct from the Web.
Look to Us for the Latest Intrigues and
Tell Your Friends About Us!
Visitor on this Site This Week.
(Nearly 2500 hits last week. Thank you, enjoy your visit and come back to see more.)
You are:
1. TAXPAYERS WON
Rather than publish the list of losers in this past election, we will simply state that the taxpayers won.
2. NO TOURISTS
Please reflect on the fact that this is probably the worst economic trough for beach tourism that the Shadow has witnessed for the last 20 years. Empty restaurants and supermarkets where, on this past Wednesday afternoon, you could shoot a cannon down an isle and not hit anyone. No cars in condominium parking lots and empty beaches.
“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
11/3/2009, 11:37 pm
Edwin
To say that Mackay has no class is absolutely wrong. I totally supported Adam and Judy and am very happy they won. BUT Sally had the class to go to SoNapa and concede the race to Adam. I respect her for that and congratulate her because at the end of the day, she exhibited grace and a sense of decorum.
On the other hand, Randy did not concede anything. He will just wither away into the nothingness of his mind.
11/3/2009, 11:25 pm
Classless
MacKay has no class. It is simply a ploy hoping Adam will appoint her to a board, so she can have that power again. DON'T DO IT, ADAM.
What do they say, A zebra can't change it's stripes.
11/3/2009, 10:44 pm
Florida1
We have given written information and concerns to the commissioners and
mayor for two years, but this was a done deal the minute Sally, Steve Dennis and Linda Deborde talked to the developer and insisted that Flagler Avenue be added to the hospitality overlay, which changed the units per acre from 24 units per acre to 75 units per acre. Maybe finally someone will really listen as the Planning and Zoning board did last night - but was told by Mark Rakowski that they had to vote yes under the assumption the the PUD Agreement would be approved on the second reading and that the date of on the P & Z vote would be the day after the Commission vote - next week. YAY, the wicked witch is gone.
11/5/2009, 3:45 pm
NSBConcerned
To 610-612: You will never get a business to open up here if the taxes are too high, services non-existent or over priced (city staff salaries) or the culture and focus of the city is wasteful and anti-business. If Adam wants economic development, and I think he does, he will have to fix the broken and unresponsive government first. Can be done by anybody with the guts to tell the unions to take a hike, cut salaries and staff, reign in the pensions, and establish a more open and transparent, customer focued government that is lean and mean (in terms of cost.)
Once you do that, business will be interested because they see some busines sense in the manner in which we govern.
Now lets get to it....
NOTES
1. TRANSPARANCY AND THE CITY OF NEW SMYRNA BEACH GOVERNMENT
With a new Mayor, a new Commissioner in Zone 1, and the help of Commissioner Jim Hathaway we expect that there will be transparency in government in New Smyrna Beach that has not recently existed . Five weeks into the fiscal year we might even find out how much money the municipal golf course lost and how they intended to reorganize the City departments and employees. As we said last week, the Shadow has been denied almost all information from the City over the last several months. We were told on Wednesday, after the election, that the vaunted guarantee that the Mayor said in the debate was 10 years was only three/five and has so many caveats that it looks worthless LINK They can deny the comments of the Shadow only as long as the underlying documents cannot be published to expose lies and misrepresentations.
2. PENDING ZONING LAW SUIT
Will the Commission now tell lawyer Gummey to drop his defense of the pending law suit seeking to set aside the Beach zoning ordinance? He tried to settle the case because he knew he could not win. Not a bad strategy for a lawyer who told the Commission that the ordinance was valid.
3. GIVING AWAY PUBLIC LAND
Behind the curtain out of public view Randy Richenberg was working on giving his next door neighbor on Peninsula Avenue the City right of way next to his house at Beachway. His next door neighbor is the guy who put three palm trees in the middle of the street to keep black and Hispanic fisherman away from his house. That riverfront is worth about $10,000 a running foot, but Randy though it was a good idea to call it a “pocket park” and tell the police to keep everybody out of there during some of good fishing times. Since the palms are on public property and do not belong there, the City should remove them and put them say near the Brannon Center.
4. ANOTHER UNNEEDED FIRE STATION ON SR.44
What a time to go into further debt to build another needless fire station, probably another $5 million in capital costs on land that should be producing benefits and taxes as commercial property. If they cannot steal Station 23 from the County (Willard just north of Winn Dixie) they will build their own. No showing of need, but the fireman need separate rooms and new digs to feel good. Also unlike the County we will overstaff the facility with three to a shift. In a depression the City should not be spending money for gilded structures for its pampered employees. Move the Columbus Avenue Station behind the Car Wash on SR 44 and do not spend a dime on a new facility. We bet it can be deconstructed and rebuilt cheaply on a side street and not put on prime commercial property.
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 Adam,
I am a loyal public employee and it was prudent of me to not give the Shadow and Nsbnews any information in a useable form over the last two months that would contradict positions of the incumbents running for reelection. Both would have published the original documents which then could not be denied. It was important to both the Mayor and the Zone I commissioner that information, like the losses at the golf course and the limited guarantee for the $9,000 plastic Christmas tree, not be made public before the election. It was not my idea. Besides, you know that I will be loyal to you just like I was loyal to them.
PAM
“An Act Relating to Volusia County; Creating the Volusia County Emergency Services District;”
LINK A bill to be introduced to the State legislature by the Honorable Pat Patterson to bring some semblance of order to providing the best service to the public and stop the efforts to fragmentize the service. It would combine on a County wide basis all emergency medical response and ambulance service. The City Commission should support this bill. Turning all emergency medical responses over to a single County organization will improve response and public safety as well as save a ton of money for every jurisdiction.
CITY EMPLOYEE PAY SHOULD REFLECT TODAY’S MARKET
The biggest problem with City employees pay, pension and benefits is the absurd mindset of the City management and elected officials in addressing these issues. For example, they looked at so called “comparability” of pay by comparing employee salaries with those of other cities. Almost all of these salaries are at today’s inflated prices and the City then proposed raising the salary and perks of City employees to at least the median of what other Cities are paying. The proposed City Clerk’s pay increase, for example, was labeled as a “salary adjustment” which included a golden parachute and car allowance because other Cities were overpaying City Clerks over the last few years. The Personnel Director did not even want to call it a pay raise.
Using the effort to raise the pay of the City Clerk as an example, let us examine some of the fallacious bases that the Personnel Director and the rest of management are using to justify high salaries.
A. THEY WANT TO PAY EMPLOYEES MORE
JUST BECAUSE SOME OTHER CITY PAYS MORE.
ABOLISH THE DEFERRED RETIREMENT
OPTIONAL PROGRAM (DROP)
The reason there is no turnover in the employment of City employees is not only the fact that they are overcompensated, but they can retire and still draw their regular salary. This program was designed to give the employer an incentive to keep on workers that the employer needed, not as employment right of the employee. They are retired. Remove them from the Payroll. NOW. The last we heard there were 17 “retired” employees still drawing their regular salaries.
The Shadow described the DROP ( Deferred Retirement Options Program), as out of hand because the employee decided that they were so essential to the operation of the municipality. If they wanted to get a double pension for five years the municipality had nothing to say about it. Effectively, even if the municipality have no interest in retaining the services of the employee for the next five years, the employee can announce, if he or she is in the program, that they want the double pension program. This is how it worked for our Poster Child of what is wrong with the system last April 21,2008:
“We alluded to the fact that there was also a component of favoritism that had turned the program into a special cash cow for favored employees who drew a double pension for five years and then were rehired a month later at the same high price job they “left” a month earlier. The Orlando Sentinel addressed this aspect in an editorial a week or so ago[early April,2008], but did not address the problem that resulted from a highly paid employee, like Cindy Richenberg, opting for the program and a year later getting paid an extra $48,000 when she retired. It was a total rip off of City funds since she had a salary of about $90,000 that year and as it turned out because of DROP she made $138,000 and not $90,000. We see no benefit to the city for that extra $48,000 on top of a salary that is also difficult if not impossible to justify. Now knowing how this City operates, there are probably three and maybe even four City Commissioners who see nothing odd about this arrangement. Think about it. We think they should demand that this program be ended. By the way, we do not fault her for taking advantage of a stupid program from the taxpayer's point of view.”
Tell them they are retired and take them off the payroll. Cindy Richenberg retired because the $10,000 a year job that she was given (we think only because her husband was a Commissioner) to be the public relations person for the fire department ( the role of the Chief and Deputy) was discontinued. Her high five was going down which affected adversely her unconscionable pension. That $20,000 extra pay for those two years boosted the pension we think about $7,000 a year for the next 30 or so years.
SWEARING IN OF NEW COMMISIONERS
IS AT START OF THE COMMISSION MEETING ON NOVEMBER 10, 2009
(1). First look at the position of City Clerk under out City manager form of government. It is a relic of the time before this form of government was adopted. The position of City Clerk is no longer needed. The County does not have one. Before the current City Clerk was hired the needs to keep minutes and put out an agenda was being performed primarily by the City Manager, we think with a part time assistant, and the City Manager’s secretary. These duties are not difficult and could be done by a qualified secretary. We did not need to fill the job and therefore filling it was not necessary for the City to function the way it had been functioning;
(2). so what if the position is paid less than the average of a couple of our neighboring towns. Our current City Clerk bid on the job and accepted it on the basis of the salary he bid. No one forced him to accept the job, nor did anyone tell him that he had to commute 30 or so miles a day in his own vehicle and pay for his own gas. That was his decision;
(3). He needed the job and did not hold out for a severance package because the Shadow thinks he wanted the job more than the City needed him. If he had asked more, the City would have decided whether the extra amount he wanted was necessary for the City to obtain his services;
(4). Again, who cares what some else pays today giving the fact that our economy is where it was in 2002, and the dollar, when adjusted for inflation, does not warrant the current pay as compared to the 2002 salaries adjusted for inflation for most of the jobs out there in the public sector.
(5). A better idea might be to find out what the lowest pay a qualified applicant would accept and not offer to pay a dime more.
B. THEY BELIEVE THAT A CITY JOB IS WORTH MORE THAN THE LEVEL OF PAY FOR A SIMILAR JOB
WITH THE SAME EDUCATIONAL LEVEL REQUIREMENTS IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR
.
(1). someone with only a high school diploma is likely to be a blue collar worker. With ten or twenty years of experience he or she would be paid under $20.00 an hour and have little or no benefits. That is the salary of a journeyman carpenter. A new hire would get $10 an hour as an apprentice roofer or apprentice carpenter. A secretary is lucky to earn $25,000 to $30,000 a year and probably has only partial health benefits and no pension other than Social Security. Compare that to the $80,000 salary (plus 35% pension and benefits package costs) of Rodi’s secretary at the Utilities Commission and the three or four secretaries in the City at about $50,000 with full benefits (45% additional cost over salary to the City). Compare that with fireman who earn over $60,000 a year and have a $42,000 benefits package. An adult without a high school degree might not even be able get a job flipping hamburgers;
(2). In 2002 Frank Roberts the City manage earned $72,000. Adjusted for inflation that would be about 20% over the last seven years or an adjusted $85,000 to $90,000 ($86,000 though 2009) for comparable pay for Frank Roberts. LINK Why offer much more than that to the new City Manager. We were clearly over paying her predecessor if inflation is the proper yard stick. The Commission is now paying her $120,000 salary ($10,000 a month), and a car and housing allowance. The old Commission intended to offer her $132,000 which is what she requested, and we assume she will request a severance package if she incurs expenses to move here because she knows they fired her predecessor without cause.
WHY SHOULD WE PAY ALL THAT MONEY FOR A CITY MANGER IF WE DO NOT HAVE TO?
The current interim City Manager was out of work for at least a year and a half and was willing to take a contract with a 30 day termination provision because she both wanted and/or needed the job. We fully agree that she is qualified or over qualified by most standards. She worked for two different counties in Florida, but she apparently was retained by neither. She as well as a large number the applicants who applied for the job were and are out of work. This is a buyer’s market, not a seller’s market.
The Shadow would think if this were a private sector job the offer for a new manager in New Smyrna Beach during a depression would be under $100,000, limited benefits, and no significant money upon termination of the contract—no golden parachute. There would also be no offer of a car allowance and no allowance for housing. We are not talking about exploiting an individual, but the day when managers may have been in short supply is long gone. Ask the former managers at General Motors whether this is a buyer’s market. In fact, maybe we should consider advertising the position in a Detroit newspaper for an auto plant manager with experience on managing 500 employees. In sum, we should act like an employer in the private sector would act. Do not spend more than is necessary to obtain a qualified employee. Heck, at the $100,000 salary the pension and benefits package priced at 45% should be more than enough inducement.
C. THEY HAVE HAD TROUBLE WITH ADJUSTING THE FIRE DEPARTMENT PACKAGE DOWNWARD. JUST TELL
THE CITY MANAGER AND PERSONNEL DIRECTOR TO NEGOTIATE CUTS IN PAY, PENSIONS, AND BENEFITS.
1.Port Orange has done so and significantly reduced its obligations;
2. Orlando has offered its fire department the following deal: give up the in-place negotiated pay increase for 2009 or the City would fire department employees to make up the money needed. The IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters) gave up the pay raise. No surprise here;
3. Vallejo, California, where the unions refused to negotiate so the City declared bankruptcy. The Teamsters and City employee union settled essentially for 2002 pay, pensions, and benefits. The other unions will follow or be ordered to do so by the Bankruptcy Judge. January 1, 2010 is the deadline for settlement for the IAFF set by the Bankruptcy Judge;
4.West Palm Beach proposed deep cuts in its fire department . This is how the Fire Chief argued that the 46 dismissals of fireman proposed by a consultant hired by West Palm were not needed:
“Instead, by eliminating one battalion chief position, using civilians instead of higher-paid firefighters to conduct fire scene inspections and taking one ladder truck out of service, among other measures, the department could cut $2.2 million from next year's budget, Webb said. All of those moves are under way, and with 15 positions already vacant, no firings would be required, he said.” LINK.
The consultant hired by the City of West Palm Beach stated there would be no loss in public safety if 46 fireman were dismissed. Ask the Deputy in New Smyrna Beach to come up with a similar plan, or say the City will abolish the position of the 12 needless positions of “lieutenant”;
Hundreds of other municipalities are either downsizing or reducing pay, pensions and benefits for fire department personnel. Why not here? Do not add New Smyrna Beach. Last time out the Commission caved to the union.
6. New Smyrna Beach should name the Deputy Fire Chief as Fire Chief, leave his pay the same, and hire no Deputy. It is argued by many that the current Deputy has been running the department for the last few years anyway. We did not need a Chief and Deputy then and we do not need one now.
EMERGENCY AGENDA FOR NEW CITY COMMISSION:
NOVEMBER 10, 2009. THE SHADOW PROPOSES AS NEW BUSINESS THE FOLLOWING ISSUES
1. Vote to invite Wal-Mart to build in the City. We need the permit and impact fees
(LINK for schedules);
2. Vote to demand a new auditor at the Utility Commission and authorize a forensic audit and not just a point in time audit (find out for example not just what Clay Henderson billed but what the Utilities Commission received, if anything, for Henderson’s $250,000+ service contract);
3. Vote to request that Volusia County provide within 30 days what the County cost and terms would be if the County provided both police and fire department services. This would be a benchmark for discussions with our public safety providers in negotiations on their contracts;
4. Vote to request a Federal audit of Bert Fish Hospital (3.56 mill rates whereas Halifax Hospital mill rate is 2 and Florida Hospital in Ormond Beach is none).
A START FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR NSB: STATE THESE
POLICIES IMMEDIATELY
1. The City will fire any City employee who tells a prospective developer “that it is my way or the highway”;
2. The City will fire any City employee who tells a prospective developer that “we thank you for your proposal and the review will only take six months”;
3. The City will fire any City employee who attempts to impose general revenue charges on new development proposals--- like the $400,000 rip off of Home Depots for cutting down trees on its own property when it built its store. The money went to general revenue. Stop it.
LETTER (EDITED) FROM AN INDIVIDUAL OPPOSING HOTEL
ON FLAGLER
Cerie Coccia is in opposition to the current hotel plans for Flagler Avenue. She has written an article for the Shadow LINK The Shadow believes her position represents a legitimate view, but also believes that if a businessman wants to commit his and his investors money in a project that is also a legitimate expression of a view which should command respect. The matter is on the agenda for tomorrow night’s Commission meeting.
