April 6th, 2009

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How the City Aided the Angler’s Yacht Club in Paying No Taxes and No Rent. On the Agenda, WHETHER THEY LIKE OR NOT, For The   Commission Meeting FOR APRIL 14, 2009

The first LINK is the letter to the City Commission from Morgan Gilreath, the County Tax Appraiser, in response to a letter from Frank Gummey, the New Smyrna City attorney. Now understand, this follows another letter dropped on the Commission last week by Harvey P. Mitchell, again raising the issue of the Angler’s Club. LINK The letter from the County tax appraiser is interesting because of how close it comes to saying that by submitting its annual Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) report the City was part of conspiracy to hide the Angler’s Club taxable status from the appraiser—what some might call a conspiracy to hide the fact that this club was not using property for public purposes and should have been taxed. Read the quote below from the Appraiser’s letter:

“There can be doubt that a conscious application was made and a conscious decision was rendered by the Volusia County Property Appraiser’s Office to exempt this City owned property back in 1988. In my opinion, this never would have occurred without the prior knowledge of the City of New Smyrna Beach”.

The Angler’s Yacht Club lease is in the CRA district and the City knew it was private and not  open to the public. What the County Appraiser concludes is that this property was clearly subject to be taxed like any other privately used leased land and the City deliberately   did not include it in the list.

Just to  clear up a few possible ‘misrepresentations’ thrown out as a chaff to distract the observer. The clubhouse was built by the Navy as an officer’s club in 1940 as the U.S. Navy was ramping up coastal defenses. The Navy also built the airport at the same time.  The lease for $25 a year included that structure and was invalid when signed because even then it was not a “fair market” value lease. Secondly, the Anglers Yacht Club discriminates against any one who is not a white male and it does not matter what is in its by-laws. Somebody possibly lied to both the Federal Small Business Administration when the Angler’s Club took out a loan in 2005 and again to the State Submerged Land  Permit office when it sought a permit. Also, since it borrowed over $300,000 for repairs to the covered dock, why did it tell the City that repairs only totaled $135,000 (permit submissions)?

DELAY, DELAY, and more DELAY. The Angler’s Yacht Club rip off has been before the City for over two years. Last January 5, 2009, they were hit over the head with a memorandum that laid it out again like cold sliced turkey. They used good old Gummey to gain time—“the lease might be valid” opinion he gave and the on again off again independent appraisal and “effort” to hire an outside lawyer who will need six months to identify the problem.  They wait for the Angler’s Club to get its Public Relations operation in gear to write rather false explanations to obscure facts, and they have entered into secret negotiations. The only people really excluded are the taxpayers. Why do we just not start off by publically disclosing who these 90 rich worthies are and what their boats, docked at $50 a month under a covered slip, cost when they bought them?  Hey, it’s like the W-2s; you might get upset if you knew.

LINK

LINK

CELL TELEPHONE FREEBIES

Stealing cell telephone use does count, just like any other deliberate effort to avoid taxes or not pay your fair share.  THIS IS WHY IT MATTERS:

No body usually gets dumped on for making innocent mistakes or failing to include something on their tax return that is not like the 800 pound gorilla swinging from the living room chandelier. Innocent mistakes are forgiven. The individuals get scolded and are charged interest on what they did not pay. Cheats are given penalties. Some go to jail. Just  look at the progression of events here in little old  New Smyrna Beach on cell telephone use. Remember, every cell telephone call that was for personal use is expressly forbidden, but if you do use it for personal calls you are required to identify the calls and pay for them. The City Commissioners, except maybe for Grasty, did neither. You decide whether they are cheats.

1. They were told that they were in violation of the cell telephone laws;

2.  They issued an ordinance and City wide directive as to how it was to be followed;

3. They were told the next year that they had not followed their own directives. That was in the notes to the audit for 2007 (see Shadow week of March 30, 2009);

4. They unanimously adopted the 2007 audit. They are charged with knowing what was in it. They signed off on it. It does not matter that they may not have read it or are too dense to understand the requirements. It is like the traffic  laws, ignorance does not make a defense;

5. They individually chose to ignore the IRS rules;

6. The haphazard and sporadic, essentially both feeble and totally misleading, effort to file something shows that they understood that they were stealing cell telephone usage while claiming it was City business;

7. There is nothing that the Shadow can find in this year’s audit on the subject;

8. When raised as an issue at the City Commission meeting on March 23, 2009, the City Attorney said that the matter should not be discussed, the Mayor told the taxpayer that he would not be heard further, and the Police Chief moved to a spot behind the taxpayer which was interpreted as a hostile gesture. That was not “democracy at work”, an example of open government or truthfulness by the auditor. 

If you think deliberate violation of the law by prominent officials is small potatoes, we suggest that you learn Russian or Chinese. Even more perplexing is why when it was obvious they were in violation of the tax laws they did not even try to fix it properly. Maybe they thought they could treat it like all the other problems facing the City: ignore it ’till the idiots forget and it goes away as a problem.

THE RISK FACTOR

Port Orange is meeting the imminent threat of a biological or chemical attack in Southeast Volusia County by buying a $55,000 decontamination unit. The next time you see talcum powder in the bathroom or a used tea bag and imagine that someone has spread anthrax spores in Port Orange, call them. This is risk management at its finest hour. Spend money for the most unlikely risk, train all your personnel to use the equipment, and give them a raise for being trained. Good work Port Orange: you get a gold star. You never discussed the hidden pay raise when you bought the unit.

Also think of it as Port Orange going into the business of having its very own fire department do the decontamination for the public for a fee. The fire department is clearly almost out of work. Think of it. No house fires and decreasing medical calls.  Port Orange turned down buying a couple of $1,000,000 new fire engines (used ones are only a couple hundred thousand), so they voted to buy a $55,000 unit to compete with the private concerns who already supply such service. Then, there will be the likely extra pay for those trained to use it. Government in business!  Why not. Some think the President is doing it at the Federal level at your expense and setting a bad example for Port Orange.

1. Surfboard contest

We really do not think we have seen any information from the so-called Landshark sponsored surf contest except for mail outs from Karen Clancy. The one we read stated that she and Randy were really pushing it.  Look, whatever the Safari Club says it is running is like a sub under water, and the only thing we see above water is the enthusiastic sponsor looking for money to support it. One of the blogs states the main supporting club is broke and offered no money. So if we got it wrong, she can write us a disclaimer and we will put it up against her requests for support when she and Randy wanted the Commission’s support.

We are amused at the suggestion that a success for New Smyrna Beach for a surf board contest is entertaining Spring Break kids already here. We thought it was putting more heads in beds, a surge in restaurant receipts, and a multiplier effect for the money spent.

2. Yup, they seem to have got it right with the skate board park. But then we heard that they awarded the concession without competitive bidding. How did that happen? Some wag said it was a friend of one of the Commissioners.

3. Take the three sable palms from Beachway and put them in front of the needless fire station on 3rd Avenue. Heck, it is just moving them to another spot of City owned land. Not only that, the ones on Beachway are bigger than the ones they bought for the fire station.  After eight months Sally says she is going to get a handle on the issue.

“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

3/31/2009, 7:23 pm

Do we have Bernie Madoff's Accounting Firm?

I would like to make a point about the city auditors. First they missed it. Second they only reported it after the IRS caught the City. Third they missed it again this year in the audit. They sound like Bernie Madoff's accounting firm.

3/30/2009, 10:11 am

JG

The county fire union is the most potent political force in this area and you people just don't understand that concept. We would love to add the city firefighters to our fire union local and make us that much stronger. In the last county council election we got our candidate (Josh Wagner) elected. We are stronger than any citizen group that tries to support anti-fire union candidates and we will prevail. And the cost for county fire protection far exceeds the cost for city fire protection but we'll still win due to our influence.

3/30/2009, 8:40 am

Taxpayer

The saying that Power Corrupts Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely” holds a very special meaning to NSB. Note the IAFF and what has taken place here with our fire department.  All those Chiefs and so few Indians.   Anyone  paying attention to the Automakers problems? The same is here in our City. More and more WE want and   Nothing on the Give. Cut the crap and cut the lawn. Get rid of the Cable T.V { unless You Take a collection and pay for it yourself}.And for Gods sake and for us as taxpayers get rid of all the excessive leadership. If the FFs we have need that many Leaders maybe we need more competent FFs!

NOTES

1. The Bankruptcy Judge in the Vallejo, California, bankruptcy case ruled (March 13, 2009) that the City employee contracts were subject to be set aside under the bankruptcy laws. The IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters) has been arguing otherwise, and Vallejo is seeking to set these contracts aside. The Police Union and general employee union have agreed to a settlement which rolls pay pensions, and benefits way back, but the IAFF has refused to settle hoping that the judge would find that he had no authority to set aside the contracts.  See LINK. Since the Judge already has ruled Vallejo is bankrupt, it is highly likely these contracts will be modified by the Judge if a settlement is not worked out before he rules. Here in New Smyrna Beach, the effect of such a settlement would be to set the clock back five or six years. 

2. We did not include the link to invoice showing payment for the new City website. The first bill was for $20,000 which we misplaced. We are correcting the oversight. We think the old website was perfectly adequate.

“That is about what you pay each month on your car.”

DEAR KAHALID

As we have stated in the past, we realize that the City Manager is limited in the resources available to him for pursuing cost reduction projects, so we have decided to help him out and provide draft letters for his review. As  we have said this will free him up for important things, like dealing with all the serious problems of the police and fire department pensions.

TO: Mayor Mackay

FROM: Kahlid Reshiedat, City Manager

Dear Sally,

I am concerned that the meetings that are being engineered to explore combining the fire department of Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach and Port Orange are composed mostly of members who have personal and direct ties to the fire department union (IAFF-International Association of Fire Fighters). Shannon Lewis, who is now an Assistant City Manager of Port Orange, is married to a fireman, the City Manager of Edgewater is the former fire Chief, and Randy Richenberg’s wife  I am sure  is still a union member. Under these circumstances there cannot be any public perception that this is not an effort of the IAFF union to sabotage real reform wanted by the County and set up a sweet heart deal to benefit the union members at the taxpayers’ expense.

Could you give me some pointers as to how to make the public think that they are not being led down the garden path by the IAFF union yet again?

Kahlid

INACTION, AND NO REAL CUTS IN SPENDING

Remember Yogi Berra who said that “this was like déjà vu all over again”. Well, we published the article below about a year ago and now a year later nothing has changed. The Shadow, not the City, did get the County Appraiser to take a look at the Angler’s Yacht Club rip offs of the taxpayer and he raised their property appraisal by almost $1,000,000 this year.  While the City is still trying to figure out how not to make this segregated all white male ‘club’ pay a proper lease for their $5,000,000 property, the appraiser will get another look at this property again this year and the Shadow hopes raises their assessment to full market value. We will settle for maybe $4,000,000 which would be an $80,000 tax bill.

Then last week they gagged the auditor.  The auditor was told not to talk about the individual Commissioners’ possible tax evasion.   Just a suggestion from the City Attorney that Sally  liked. Gagging the auditor was even more crude  than  listening to a police sergeant being paid $82,000 base pay state that he “needed” the 2% pay raise. They unanimously voted for the pay raise during a depression.

The worst was when they over paid $2,000,000 for the Esther street parking lot (43 spaces for $4.3 million if we recall) and did not “quibble” (Sally’s word) over the price for the possibly heavily contaminated Dunn Lumber Property ($40,000 more than another contract for sale which fell through we are told because of the contamination). Did Sally ever sell or buy any property without “quibbling’? They really showed their incompetence in buying property, which was only eclipsed by their inability to look at the unaffordable pay and pensions for their fire and police employees. So, if reaching a new low for failure to govern gets you into Yogi’s ball park, they certainly are a winner. As Yogi also said “You can observe a lot by just watching.”

Last year’s article (slightly edited):

“It is budget time. We laughed when we heard the auditor commend the City Commission for doing such a great job in managing its money without even referring to the use of reserve money to make it come out in the black. But what do you expect from a firm that has done the audit for ten years and has a good idea of what it needs to say to keep the account. But then we are cynics.

We said it before and we will say it again. The New Smyrna Beach City Commission should put the following items on the Agenda for their first meeting in April, and have each Commissioner and the Mayor state and explain their position on each issue. The Shadow believes they owe the taxpayers an explanation for why they will not take action to resolve these pressing issues and reforms as an indication of how they propose to reduce spending in the coming fiscal year. We invite the other area newspapers to investigate each of these issues, publish reports of their factual findings, and utilize their editorial skills to analyze and comment as they see fit. It would be refreshing to observe real journalists in action for a change. Come on guys, the Anglers Club would be any easy task for an investigative reporter!

Lost Revenue

1. $80,000 to $100,000 tax loss because the County Tax Assessor has still not assess Anglers club leased property at full value, and the City will not challenge him.

2. $25,000-$50,000 tax loss because the City will not pursue setting aside the Anglers Club $25 a year lease for a fair market value lease.

3. $520,000 unnecessary annual expenditure because City will not eliminate three hours guaranteed overtime for firefighters that costs $10,000 week [they caved].

4. $500,000 loss for not getting bids from professional management companies to manage Municipal Golf Course [they raised some rates and will cut budget loss somewhat].

5.  $1-2 million  savings by abolishing all fire department lieutenant positions.

6. $500,000 to $750,000 savings by abolishing three police department Commander positions.

7. $300,000 by consolidating tri-city RCC operation with County 911 center [ they cut out $300,000 of the over payment in 2007].

8. $87,000 subsidy for Marine Discovery Center [we believe lots more and add kayaks and building for kayaks].

9. $72,000  by buying regular gas.

If all savings are realized, the City could reduce its budget by as much as $4,500,000 or so real dollars. We, of course, cannot picture these politicians taking such extreme measures to accommodate the wishes of their constituents over their special interest supporters, but we can hope for the best…….”

In sum they did nothing significant to cut spending, spent a couple of million dollars out of reserves, and want to raise taxes this year so as to give the fire and police department pay raises or at least not reduce salaries or pensions.  When you tell your kid you can not afford to take the family to the movies, remember that they increased the municipal golf course number of employees to 25.