February 25th, 2008
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There are fire hydrants in Silver Sands and Bethune Beach. Not as many as you might think, but they are close enough to your home so that the insurance industry does not raise your rates. Some one drove down to JB's, did not see many fire hydrants and thought maybe there were none. Not to worry, they are there, and if not right next to a condominium building, about every thousand feet along AIA. OK, you live five hundred feet from one of those suckers, and up on the beach or near the intra coastal, which would add another two hundred feet to reach your burning beach house on South Atlantic, at say Bonita due east of AIA (or Turtle mound if you like that name better). Most fire trucks, it seems, carry about 1200 feet of assorted hose (2 ½ and 1 ½) so that aside from the time it takes to place and connect the hoses, the spacing seems adequate. For us neophytes, spotting some of the hydrants might be like “Finding Elmo”, but the fire department knows where they are. So baby, there is no need to buy chocolate and marshmallows in Silver Sands or Bethune Beach if your house catches fire.
We have wondered about these meetings and workshops held in the morning or mid-afternoon when most of the voters are working and cannot easily attend. They castigated the Utilities Commission in the past for those late afternoon meetings, but the city Commission seems wedded to them. (Do as I say, not as I do). They had a “visioning” meeting last Wednesday at the Garden Center that started at 9 AM. (One of the current City properties leased for $1 a year). If it is posted, listen on the Web. It was so exciting it almost gives you goose bumps. They just do not bother to discuss the real issues like those related to the over paid fire department personnel and their exorbitant pension plan, the unneeded management at the police department, the huge losses at the municipal golf course and other enterprise activities, and what they will do about stemming the hemorrhaging of taxpayer dollars. By the way, we are told that the re quirement to be ethical has been removed from the City Manager’s evaluation criteria. Duh, no comparison will be made with the one that was fired and the one who currently holds the position. Too bad, everyone knows that one of the incumbent’s strong suit is that he is an ethical, honest person. Maybe they do not want the public using him as a standard for comparison for them and other senior managers.
It seems that at least one of the fire trucks in the City is not a fire truck. It has now morphed into the real service provided by our fire department, as a “Medical Rescue “ unit. It is painted with a big white backed logo on the vehicle explaining what the fire service does today. This truck looks smaller, but still carries hoses for putting out fires. We told you they had changed their role because their original purpose of being firefighters has nearly evaporated, gone up in smoke we guess, and they needed a new purpose. “Medical Rescue” to the rescue!
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. NEW LINK
NOTES
Edgewater is advertising for a person to fill the position of crisis manager. They apparently fired the old one for doing her job, unfortunately counseling and helping the nineteen-year-old daughter of Councilman Rogers who was accused by her daughter of holding her on the floor naked, pouring olive oil on her, and holding up a cross. This was to exorcise demons. Now look at the current cast of characters involved in this posting. The acting City Manager is on leave as the Chief of the Fire Department. He replaced the City manager who was fired without cause by the City Commission at a surprise putsch organized by the Fire and Police department personnel who felt that the City Manager was unfairly trying to keep down wages and benefits. These employees declared no confidence in the City Manager and the Police Chief, the latter of whom then resigned after the City Manger was fired. They applauded because they were “demoralized” by his efforts in behalf of the taxpayers. So we now have a City Manager who replaced his predecessor who was fired without cause, advertising to fill a position for someone he essentially fired without cause, because she did her job and helped a child abused by a sitting City Commissioner. If the new employee has any sense, he or she will hire Frank Gummey to negotiate an employment contract.
How about addressing the real issues of how to cut spending before we talk about how buying new property for public parks along US 1 at Canal Street? How about getting the County Tax appraiser to carry out his proper function and appraise the Anglers Club property for its highest and best use value, and direct the City Attorney to go to court if necessary, if he must, to set aside the ridiculous lease of $25 a year on a prime piece of City property? How about at least finding out what a golf course management firm would charge for managing the Municipal Golf Course? How about not filling any lieutenant positions at the fire department? How about a public discussion of how dragging out the fire department negotiations just on the issue of three hours of overtime a week for every one of the fireman has cost the city a fortune, when an impasse should have been declared and an effort made to end this unnecessary drain of City finances (three hours a week for each lieutenant alone could be close to $250 each in pay. Pension and benefits)? How About, How About, How About and How About?
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Monday, 2/18/08, 7:44 AM I have had the FUN of going thru the minutes of the UC for 2007. What I have seen is Smoke by Rodi and 1 other Commish. Care to guess who? And Boy did Rodi Flim/Flam the new Mayor on the Joint meeting. I guess Rodi forgot his statement about a Garbage fueled Power Plant. Even though NSB according to Rodi doesn't produce enough has anyone ever seen one? Just go to the Daytona Dump. Look and Smell! Quotes to follow. Email: smyrnaborn
Monday, 2/18/08, 10:50 AM Mackay's biography was a masterful deception or should I say swindle. Let's assume you want to falsify a college degree and not get caught. First, you need a college that has gone out of business. Second, you have to use the word "attended" because even if the college went out of business you would still need a diploma (who throws their college diploma away). Third, since the word "attended" is a red flag you need something in the next sentence that says you graduated. In this case Mackay said she taught high school and everyone knows high school teachers have to be college graduates. This has Diesen's and her DC lobbying firms finger prints all over it. I think more important that the swindle is who prepared the copy?
Monday, 2/18/08, 2:54 PM I still have hope for our local government and City Commission. I will judge it's success based upon the following indicators: 1) The Mayor's public explanation for her campaign propaganda regarding education and teaching experience; 2) The results of the goal setting workshop scheduled for this week; 3) The conclusion/outcome of the Fire Union's labor agreement; 4) The decision on the future of MDC's management fee for the Water Taxi; 5) The adoption of next year's budget; 6) The number of lawsuits filed due to bad decisions made by the City Commission; 7) How the water dumping issue is resolved.
Tuesday, 2/19/08, 5:17 AM The 2007 UC audit states that the UC operating fund has a negative cash balance. The 2004 UC audit stated that the UC operating fund has a surplus cash balance of $10 million. They are broke. Go Diesen, Go Rodi
Tuesday, 2/19/08, 6:33 AM Didn't the UC just borrow a bunch of money and Hathaway complained about the financing methodology? Is he the only person on the City Commission trying to stop the careless spending and borrowing?
Tuesday, 2/19/08, 10:39 AM I don't know much about the current management of the City Golf Course but it seems to me that if what is stated here on The Shadow is factual, there is a great need for reform in both fiscal and human resource mangament.
I found this below on Firehouse Forums Tuesday, 2/19/08, 3:58 PM "New Smyrna Beach is currently going thru a hiring process, if you're a state certified medic your chances are extremely high. We work a typical 24- 48. We have 4 stations, 3 man minimum manning, local 2271. Population is 25k, weekend and holidays it escalates to over 100k. We run 3 engine companies, 1 truck with mutual (automatic) aid responding. The room for advancement is great, over half the manpower have 25 years on and are either in the DROP or about to enter, most hold some sort of rank !!!!" IT SEEMS WE'VE GOT A HOSDRAGGER WHO LIKES TO BRAG ABOUT HOW GOOD HE'S GOT IT! Email: http://forums.firehouse.com/showthread.php?t=97399
Wednesday, 2/20/08, 12:59 PM 8:45, the proposed site is not large enough to build a parking lot for a hotel. The tax accessor says the Bauer lot is 190 x 88. One row of parking takes 20' in depth and 10' in width for the space, and 22' for the travel isle. That means you get only one row of parking on both sides. You lose 40' at both ends of entrance and exit (no turn around room). That means you have 150 feet for parking on both sides. It looks like the total parking on the lot would be around 30 spaces (but where would the storm water go?). So I guess you are going to build a 30 room hotel over the parking lot? There is not enough room on the site.
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
SUBJECT: Evaluation Criteria
At the “Visioning” meeting last Wednesday the Commission, as I understood it, stated that the criteria used for evaluating the three commission hired positions would not include “ethics.” Frankly, I do not understand why this criterion would not be included since “integrity” is one of the bulwarks of an employees' value to any governmental operation or business. I hope that this is not a true reading of the Commission's intent because quite frankly, others would consider it a bad omen for the entire government enterprise. You must agree that taking bribes and doing personal favors is not only undesirable, but also a personal deficiency for any employee in a position of trust. I use this standard for evaluating employees under my supervision, and cannot imagine that the Commission would not do the same.
I would appreciate your comment about this concern at your earliest convenience.
Thanking you in advance for your assistance,
John Hagood
Sally's so-called college education
We published an article several weeks ago that not only called into question the educational credentials of our Mayor, Sally Mackay (nee Burridge), but noted that she deliberately deceived the electorate by implying that she had a degree from the prestigious school of Exeter in Oxford England. We have written to the school we believe she attended and asked when she matriculated and the degree awarded to her. That school merged with another school and actually stopped functioning, we are told, over 20 years ago. The Shadow believes it would be prudent for her to clear up this matter. It is easy. Just post your college degree. Otherwise, it will be taken for granted that the biographical material supplied to the Sentinel and the electorate was simply not true. Reprinted below is the original article.
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The Orlando Sentinel printed in its snapshot statements about the candidates for election immediately before the election (November 4, 2007) where it stated that Mayor Sally Mackay:
“Studied rural science at University of Exeter in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s; did post graduate work in education at the University of Bath in the early 1960s” [Source, Candidate and research]
Well we always thought that when a candidate stated that they attended a particular school, and implied that they had graduated, a statement such as “ BS, FSU, 1961”, would be included. The intended impression here was that she graduated Exeter. She then states in the same sentence, that she attended postgraduate work at another institution. The “Exeter” she intended for you to think that she attended is either a part of Oxford, a school in Oxford England with 320 undergraduates, or Exeter at Cornwall.
The Shadow became interested in the educational achievements of our Commissioners when we read that Commissioner Plaskett had “some college”, since we did not know what that means, we decided to look a little further to try to determine the educational background of each of our Commissioners. Commissioner Hathaway has a BA degree from Stetson, Commissioner Grasty has a two year Associates degree from Daytona Beach Community College, Commissioner Plaskett says she has “some college” education, and Mayor Mackay says she attended Exeter college, UK, implying that she graduated, which we now know was misleading as to the school and probably that she did not graduate. You will note that she does not list a college degree or any education on the City web page, We do not know whether Commissioner Richenberg has a diploma from high school or a GED. We do not believe he attended college because he would have told us so.
We believe that Mayor Mackay made a misleading statement of her educational accomplishments. There are at least two Exeters, one in Oxford that is essentially an elite school, and a large regional university called Exeter College in Exeter City, Cornwall. However, our Mayor attended neither. She did attend, it seems, a small agricultural school, Seal Haynes College, also in Exeter City under her maiden name Sally Burridge. It is pretty clear that she attended Seal Haynes ---- not Exeter as a part of Oxford, or even Exeter College in Cornwall.
We were curious as to whether Mayor Mackay matriculated at Seal Haynes (which merged with Rolle College and no longer exists.) and, if she did receive a degree. If not, how could she take postgraduate courses at Bath. Of course, the English system is different and taking graduate courses may have been permissible in the U.K. without an undergraduate degree. In the States taking postgraduate courses in the 1960s usually meant, as a prerequisite, one had an undergraduate degree. The degree of misrepresentation about her educational credentials proffered as a means to establish her qualifications to serve as our Mayor borders on hypocrisy. She does not list any education on the City web page. Nor do Plaskett or Richenberg. Perhaps formal education is not a requirement for elected office in New Smyrna Beach, only the promise to support special interest groups.
Look, many successful people do not have college degrees. Nevertheless, on the other hand it is a fair indication in our society today as to how smart and how effective one is likely to be in grasping problems, and engaging in their solution. We are concerned that several of our elected officials are woefully deficient in such capabilities , as they are needed to decide issues before them at this time. That impression was displayed when Commissioner Richenberg tried to fire the City attorney without Cause, and was not aware that it would cost the City $406,000 in severance pay. Would someone please tell us what ”some college” means?
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By the way, Larry Sweet used to say that he attended both FSU and the U of F, and, when questioned, would laugh and state that he flunked out of each after one semester. Despite what may have been other failings, he was honest as to his educational accomplishments!
FLASH
Members of the Golf Course Advisory Board have requested time on the Agenda to speak before the City Commission tomorrow evening. They are there to ask for up to another $1 million dollar open-ended bail out. Some of you please represent the taxpayers for a change and tell them that we would rather have a golf course management company, like Kemper or LPGA Management tell us what to do. Tell them to take their handout plate elsewhere. Close the money tap. Remember, the people who are standing there with their hands out are the ones that told you they would not need any more handouts if you just gave them $2 ½ million (now closer to $4 million) to refurbish the place. By the way, John Yancey still works there at a cost of about $100,000 per year for the City in pay, pension, and costs.
Wasted Water
There is no question that water lines need to be purged of water that has become ”stale” which means has lost its potability because the level of undesirable components has risen too high. This seems to occur most often in lines that are not looped so that the water does not recirculate, and where the sale of water falls far behind the amount being processed. That is what has seemed to happen here and the water dumped seems more a factor of a failure to move the water produced as sales to the area being served. This apparently has resulted in a much larger portion of water being dumped than is usual and, rather than not produce and treat less water, they apparently put the same amount into the line and must dump more. Tonight the employees who control this operation will make a presentation to the Utilities Commission. There is no question that they went by the book, and that the water dumped, or at least the amount they admit to have dumped, was within the limits provided by the St. Johns Water District, and met the technical guidelines for water that should no longer be deemed potable.
The problem is that the “book” and the permitted way of handling more water than needed to be processed was apparently written when there was so much water no one cared if you dumped 20% of the water taken from the deep aquifer. And going by that standard, while not seeking new answers for different times has now gotten us to the shocking position of not even looking at ways wasting this water could be avoided. Commissioner Hathaway's suggestion is that you figure out how not to throw water away. We have heard, in fact, that when the Utilities Commission requested a study to bolster their understanding that “bad” water could not be re-chlorinated, the engineers said otherwise. Whatever, there must be some better way to use this water, either by reprocessing it, or for a diminished use. Bcause you cannot drink it, does not mean that your lawn and plants cannot benefit from its application.
The volume dumped is also questionable. Some have suggested that the dumping was done to protect the claim of high use despite the advent of lower sales. This would be an effort to make a case for a new holding tank and to support the demand for another $13 million dollar bond issue. The argument is that the lack of recent sales undermines the need for any new facility, and dumping from 60 to 100 million gallons, a year bolsters the case. It has also been suggested that if they take less water out of the aquifer, then the allotment would be cut back, New Smyrna Beach would lose its rights, and the volume would be reduced. Interesting claims, but answerable by only the State, County, and St Johns Water District. They should be here looking into these concerns.
The Observer devoted its entire front page this week (Feb. 20) to an analysis of this issue, and interviewed most of the people involved. It is an excellent presentation of the problem, and just as the Shadow has indicated that the technical skills to stop this waste lies with others, the Observer concludes that there has to be some better way to address this problem than to dump large amounts of treated water from the central Florida aquifer into the intra-coastal waterway.
We were recently advised that the chlorinator at the Hill Street tank has been in disrepair for a very long time and was the main reason water on the South Beach could not be chlorinated properly. Could it be that lack of maintenance or repair led the UC to waste 60-100 million gallons of water and blame it on un-looped lines?
NO NOTICE VOTING
Last summer with essentially no notice, the City Commissioners put a proposal on the agenda to oppose the building of ramp entrances at I-95 and Pioneer Trail. They had arranged for two witnesses to speak against building the interchange, one the head of the Sugar Mill Homeowners Association and another Turnbull Bay resident. Nobody else knew enough to show up to discuss this issue and it turned out that the Sugar Mill “representative” had not apparently discussed the issue with any of the Sugar Mill denizens. Based on two people stating that they opposed the interchange, the Commission voted to oppose it. If we remember correctly, it is like number two or three now on the building list for road projects in Volusia County, and the next evaluation step has now just been completed. Apparently it shows no big savings in traffic flow from I-95 if built today, and standing alone this would not it seems serve to scotch the project. The next step if you oppose it would be funding a $250,000 and up study and survey, including public participation. Otherwise, there would be no change in the current direction to go forward and put it in place. The State will not fund a further study it seems. Deciding not to build the interchange, therefore, would possibly require great changes and expenses. New Smyrna Beach would have to pay for any further study and survey out of its own money. Of course, the results would just as likely be to continue to support the project. as currently planned. This seems like a lot of money if the only purpose is to claim you are against development and certainly is not warranted if based solely on the statement of two people who were not representative of the community at large, and were deliberately staged to talk against the project.
At the time, the Shadow thought this issue was just more of the same timing foul ups engineered by a now retired City Manager who did something like this to change the subject when one of his pet projects was questioned. Here it was made to appear that the City was putting the brakes on development, and was designed to get everyone's mind off of deals like the Island Town Center and Alba Court Inn which were embarrassing to the then Mayor. We do not know whether it is a good or bad idea to leave this project on track, but it has been on track for many years and is heavily supported by Port Orange. The study, we are told, would cost over $250,000, and it is not very likely to support those who oppose building the interchange. We also do not think the City has the money for this questionable process. Study, we do know that it has not been discussed by those affected and that the way it was presented originally was totally devoid of fairness for those who think it should be built. Keep in mind that from an environmental point of view, it would save much time, money, and fuel for anyone in Sugar Mill or Turnbull Bay who needed to travel to Port Orange, Daytona, or other points north or south.
VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY RISK
For the past 50 or 75 years there has been a good deal written on the question of voluntary and involuntary risk, and the perception of what is acceptable and unacceptable to individuals in their personal lives. A rather simplistic primer on how this works follows:
1. Voluntary Risk: This is the risk that an individual will accept for either doing a job, enjoying a sport, or deciding to take an action which results in saving another from harm whether a child, parent or stranger.
2. Involuntary Risk: This is the risk one will permit the government or society to impose upon the individual where the only recourse to the individual is the power of the ballot box, or the courts, to question whether that level of risk is appropriate. Think of a nuclear facility at the Swoope site, or a toxic chemical plant in the now clearly defined industrial zone next to Rinkers on US 1.
Accepting a pursuing and accepting a position with a fire or police department is a voluntary risk, and those that do so knowingly make a choice as to the level of risk they will accept based on the amount of reward offered.
Back in WWII, the United States Eighth Air force in its daylight bombing raids over Germany (1943-1945) suddenly found that there was a marked increase in crews claiming to be sick when the raids intensified and crew losses exceeded 25%. The solution to this problem was to expand the area of the bombing runs and reduce the risk of being shot down to less than 25% on any given mission. This was accomplished by keeping larger portions of the formations within areas where fighters could protect the bombers and reduce the risk of being shot down.
Now this was voluntary risk, regardless of whether the crews were drafted or not, and the crews were motivated to destroy an enemy which sought to kill them and their love ones. But it showed that even highly motivated individuals willing to expose themselves to risk, were not willing to reduce their chance of survival by participating in situations where the cumulative risk would be almost certain death.
On the other hand, the men who entered Chernobyl after it melted down knew they would die of radiation poisoning. They sacrificed their lives. The man who jumps in front of a speeding car to push a kid out of the way falls into the same category. They accept the risk for a perceived greater good. They are heroes and we honor them accordingly. We also honored those Eighth Air Force crews who daily flew into immense danger to protect us all.
Then there is the black diamond run at the ski slope, the sharks in the inlet that might mistake a surfer's foot for a mullet, and skateboards, and inline skates for the kid who ignores the statistics for injuries they may cause. We not only accept these risks, but also brag that our 15 year old can traverse the high-risk slope without body injury. We make these choices for ourselves, and our loved ones.
Involuntary risk is another matter. The chance of radiation poisoning might only be one in one hundred million. Nevertheless, the public does not want an atomic fission plant in its back yard. You might let your kid have a skateboard “knowing” that he will be in the hospital with a broken bone or two within the year, but propose a nuclear plant and everyone shows up to complain. The Three Mile Island incident was clearly dangerous, but no one was injured. Thousands evacuated despite the low or limited risk. However, that risk is forced on you by your government, not something you do for just the fun of it.
The young statistician who figured out the first of these risk categories for the Eighth Air force was Chauncey Starr, and after WW II he went on to work for one of the large electric industry think tanks. There is probably a bunch of statisticians out there today who can elaborate on our simplistic statement of these categories, but the general principal is that there is a vast difference between the risk you accept for yourself, as opposed to what you allow others force upon you. Which leads us to police and fire personnel.
The supposed high risk factor promulgated by our local fire and police departments to justify higher pay ignores the fact that they sought and accepted the job. Voluntary risk clearly extends to the workplace. Fishing and logging related jobs are risky. Working at a desk in New Smyrna Beach is not. Being a police patrol officer has more risk than does the Police Chief, and if acceptance of risk is the primary factor for being rewarded, the Police Chef should be the lowest paid employee in the police department. He does not answer calls at 4 AM in the morning, and if he is at a crime scene, it is after the fact. In fact, most of us only see Chief Pagano in full dress uniform, or at Commission meetings where he is required to appear. Neither position is statistically as risky as a large number of jobs performed by people who are not highly rewarded. As one wag has continued to state, the Krispy Kreme driver has a much riskier job. Nor do these other groups count heart attacks at the truck terminal or driving accidents as requiring hero status, (Orlando just put up a plaque where the names of fire department personnel who died of heart attacks at the fire station are enshrined, we are told.).
In another article today, we state specifically that these are important jobs and should be reasonably paid, however, they are not particularly dangerous jobs, and even if they were, the people who take them weigh the risk against the compensation reward. Cindy Richenberg did, and accepted a $35,000 salary with a fixed but modest pension as adequate for 20 years. Think 2001. What changed was that she had an effective advocate for enormous pay and pensions increases in her active union, a windfall of unprecedented property tax revenue to the municipal governments in the State, and elected officials with neither the ability nor the foresight to see that you could not just give away government resources without regard to the future consequences for taxpayers. Fixing it is harder than if they said “no” to the last contract three years ago when they agreed to a 3% calculation for pensions, and only a 1% contribution level. However, fix it they must, and to fix it now is a necessity.
NO WIN GOLF COURSE
An article on the front page of the New York Times (Yes. Virginia, they sell it here) states that the game of golf, as well as all other outdoor sports, is suffering from a massive loss of players and an ever increasing number of courses where they can play. In each category of relevant statistics, golf is hemorrhaging players. From 2000 to 2006 there have been losses from the number of total players (26 million down from 30 million), the number who play 25 times a year (4.6 million from 6.9 million), and the number who play at least eight times a year (15 million from 17.7 million). These decreases are in the face of more courses being built, like Venetian Bay that just opened here, as well as three others that did not exist when the municipal course was first opened as a needed attraction and amenity.
The other golf courses in the City are run as businesses, not as “business enterprises” by a government claiming it has the skills to run a successful business. They are run successfully but apparently, our government does not possess such skills. Unlike the other courses, for example, our costs are too high. In fact, it looks like they are almost double those of both Hidden Lakes and Turnbull Bay, and that does not even take into account that none of the others is operated tax-free. The losses at the Municipal Golf Course are a luxury that would be hard to justify at any time. Certainly, in a decreasing market with little hope for a turnaround on the horizon, it represents a huge drain on city resources that must be ended as soon as possible. If you lose $60,000 in what should be your best month (first quarter they said, but it is really their “best” month”), think about the possibility of $1 million in losses for the whole year.
Removed W2s til Monday. New file to come.
TUESDAY FLASH
The full City Agenda, you know the one that was supposed to be displayed t on the City Web page on the preceeding Thursday but was notdisplayed until Tuesday, turned out not to be complete. Randy Richenberg submitted a separate paper, we were told by a phone call, that was not included. We obtained a copy and here it is. The City Clerk stated that she would send it to the City Web Master but did not know when it would be posted. That is one way to keep the taxpayers uninformed ! LINK
