May 11th, 2009
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1. Bert Fish is Now Authorized for Emergency Heart Care!
HUH! This is 2009. Bert Fish takes in tons of tax money, allegedly for indigent care, because it is run inefficiently. Now we find that if you were experiencing heart attack symptoms they could not treat you until now! Given the age of the population you would think that this service would have been in place years ago. But no! Until now the EVAC vehicle whizzed by Bert Fish and took you to Halifax hospital in Daytona if you experienced a heart attack. Think about it. Then think about it again and ask why this was not in place years ago. How about a little oversight by the City?
2. Forget Open Government
When asked point blank who dreamed up giving the City Clerk a 10% pay rise and a golden parachute, Sally made a waffle look like a concrete sea wall. She would not answer. Period! Credit to the NSBNEWS.net which ran a video last week showing her being secretive and avoiding the question. Do not forget that the other four Commissioners sat mute as well. We remember her campaign promise of 'open government'. Ho, Ho, Ho
“Best Blogs of the Week”
(Edited for grammar and punctuation)
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5/4/2009, 1:40 pm
Excuse me!
It was Randy Richenberg who set a meeting to do something about elderly black men fishing in the rich white neighborhoods on the beachside. It is the city playing the race card. The city commission is running for reelection on the platform of using its police department to implement its policy of no black men on the beachside. Randy is just like all the rest of the rednecks that grew up in this town. Everyone is worried about property values, property values are always crappy in towns run by redneck white trash like Randy Richenberg.
5/4/2009, 11:42 am
Concerned Citizen
State employees making $45,000+ will take a 2% pay cut. State Legislators took a 5% pay cut and will get another 1% cut. How much will out City Commissioners cut pay in NSB?
5/4/2009, 11:36 am
Not Fair
the month by catching his dinner along the river and now he has to hide from the police. Nice guy Randy Richenberg, you are a really nice guy.
5/4/2009, 3:04 pm
Explaining it to the IAFF
Let me see if I cannot explain to the IAFF why they are not worth more than 35K per year without any fancy benefits. The reason is if we dropped the pay to 35K we would still have people lining up around the block for your dick job.
5/5/2009, 4:30 pm
Fisherboy
It's such a mess right now with Commissioner Richenberg and the citizen committee that he selected to keep ethnic people from fishing on the north beach public riverfront. I thought that Randy said he was against discrimination. Many people that fish for food work six days a week and only get off on Sunday. Now that day will no longer be for fishing by the minority people who don't own boats or have friends with riverfront property. This is a sad time for the regular folks who want to enjoy the simple things in life that NSB offers like fishing at Beachway Ave.
NOTES
1. Impact taxes
We do not generally look to Deltona for good government or innovations that will result in increase economic activity. However, they have joined DeLand in waiving City impact fees that inhibit new construction. New Smyrna Beach has had the habit of discouraging business as when the Economic Development office tells prospective industrial developers that the City wants $50,000 an acre for a new business to locate at the industrial park. It was done at the same time Edgewater gave a financial break for those willing to locate in its industrial park on Park Avenue. Well that was several years ago. But with two cities in Volusia now giving an incentive, why come here to anti-growth NSB. We are the “no” capitol of Volusia County. Think Wal-Mart, Lowes, Ruby Tuesday, and think too of the lost property taxes just from those three businesses when Randy votes to raise your property taxes.
2. International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF)--Rumors
Rumors are being spread by the IAFF, we are told, that all of the County fire stations near incorporated Cities in South East Volusia County are going to be taken over by the Cities, that many will be closed, and that those remaining open will have only two personnel to a shift. No one should be fooled. There are discussions all over the place because consolidation and reducing expenses of the bloated local fire services with their over loaded management is going to happen. The IAFF, it seems, wants to stir the pot early and make some of the tax districts campaign with the County Council against consolidation. The rumor for Silver Sands is that the City will take over the station and close it with “service” supplied by the new NSB fire palace on 3rd avenue. Hey, its only 10 minutes to Bethune Beach and 12 minutes back to Bert Fish.
3. EVAC Is Cost Efficient
The concerted effort by the fire department to dump on EVAC is amusing. The reason you might “save” money is because you currently have a $7,000,000 of unused facilities called fire stations or fire palaces if you will, with a lot of employees receiving large pay checks, pensions and benefits with almost no work. EVAC is efficient, cost effective, and the money paid to them is primarily because a large number patients they transport are County are indigents that do not pay.
As far as calls are concerned, you will never get an accurate count of med/evac calls as long the 911-RCC is reporting them. Turn the 911-RCC service over to the County and let us look at the real numbers. As we have said before, the numbers are rigged. Among other things they imply that citizens of NSB are 20% to 25% sicker than the neighboring communities. We do not believe it. We believe that they go to ambulance calls not to enhance public safety, but to overstate their number of calls. That is also we believe why there are two or three fire department vehicles at every fender bender.
DEAR KHALID
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: Khalid Resheidat
Dear Sally,
The failure to address the Angler’s Club lease is about to raise more issues. The County tax Appraiser has already stated that the City was directly responsible for misleading his office about the Club’s status. I now understand that documentation is surfacing that shows that the Club also may have deliberately lied about its membership in formal documents filed with the Small Business Administration. I intend to find out whether the permit requests to the City for rebuilding its covered boat docks after the hurricanes in 2004 were not in compliance with disclosure of the true costs. Under the circumstances, do you still want me to do nothing until we get the report from the lawyer we hired?
Yours truly,
Khalid
LOGIC AND STATISTICS---THE INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FIRE FIGHTERS (IAFF)
Would the defender of high wages for the Fire Department Personnel explain how comparing identical statistics from 22 fire stations is statistically flawed? The statistics reveal identical service from those with two firemen to a shift as against those with three firemen to a shift. When you line up the statistics for all 22 stations, you can not pick out the seven without lieutenants. That proves they perform no service in enhancing public safety. They are there to create more members for the IAFF and to get more pay. They may make sense in dense urban areas, like Boston or maybe even Orlando, but they make no sense in New Smyrna Beach or most of the rest of Volusia County with one or two story mostly concrete buildings built under modern construction codes.
The logical conclusion is that public safety is not enhanced or affected at all by the increased and expensive additional fireman. The only “study” that examines the issue they point to, it seems was written by a fire man in Rhode Island on an IAFF grant and his conclusion was only that statistically, fewer firemen might get hurt. Look these so-called standards are nothing but suggestions by boards controlled by the IAFF. The proof that they are not dispositive is that the ISO insurance rates, pegged at about four or five for most of Southeast Volusia County, are based essentially on how long it takes for the equipment to arrive and how close is the water supply. The rate paid is not dependent upon whether there are two or three to a shift. By the way, posting the argument three or four times on the BLOG does not make it true.
And then we turn to the ludicrous argument that the jump in pay for the needless “lieutenant” is only five percent. It is an extra $2500 for a $50,000 employee. It translates to an increase in the annuity for life for a 46 year old retiree at $1800 a year (75% of the last three years salary) for maybe the next 35 years---almost $65,000 in unfunded pensions at today’s rates. The argument for the third person for a shift is not about safety. It is about more money. It is about more money to the IAFF members.
The Airport is Quiet
The $265,000 AIRPORT “Noise” Study:
Preliminary Conclusion, NOT NOISY.
SALLY, THERE IS NO NOISE PROBLEM
“Sally, Sally, where have you been? I have been to Washington to see the Queen (Representative Kosmas or House Speaker Pelosi?).
Sally, Sally, What did you do there? I frightened a bureaucrat under a chair.”
The Mayor said she would go to Washington and seek new legislation. Why? They will tell you that just because a handful of malcontent people complain about the noise, and you support them, they will not further regulate all U.S. airports. What do you think the Congress will decide when the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) tells them it has made a preliminary determination that there is no violation of the noise standards at even at your local airport? They will say “get lost”! How sad!
Move next to a pig farm and it smells. Move next to an airport and you have noise. Move next to wind generators and it goes ‘swoosh’ all night long. And a train, just think of the train: click, clack, click, clack and it has a whistle.
The preliminary report is posted on the City web site (cityofnsb.com, click on airport, and click on quick links, click on part 150 noise study draft). The preliminary finding stated at the meeting and borne out in the graphs, was that there is no violation of the Federal Aviation Administration noise standards at the New Smyrna Beach Airport (LINK). Attached as a second LINK is the last seven months of complaints—63 separate complainers calling almost three hundred times. In October 2008, for example, of the 34 calls, “M” called 10 times and “E” called 8 times. Some, or most, do not even live in the City. Look at the codicil we believed was signed by those who bought at Turnbull Country Club Estates. Third LINK. It states in General Provision “G”:
“Owners are advised that a substantial portion of the Property is within the New Smyrna Beach Airport runway clearance zone.”
They did not include the train with its whistle, but the train is even closer to Turnbull Country Club Estates than the airport. If you live in Turnbull Country Club Estates, we are told you signed this document.
The City requested a noise survey which, before it is over, will cost $265,000 of tax money. Does it matter who spends tax money? Regardless of who spends it, it came out of your pocket. It is tax money. The Shadow thinks that the $1.8 million in the Federal Budget that is proposed to be spent to find out if pig manure can be made to smell better is money better spent. Maybe you think that pig studies of the smell of pig manure is not money well spent, but we believe it better than being spent to pander to a number of malcontents who moved to a nuisance and then complain that it is noisy. And these malcontents not only were not bought off by your efforts, Sally, but bit your hand by buying a billboard ad dumping on the City. Add the name ‘ingrates’ to ‘malcontents’.
But then (1) the new $10,000,000 needless Police Palace arising at the end of runway, along with the new fire station, on airport property, and (2) the sought for modification of a building permit at the end of another runway, if granted, are more encroachments on the airport. Given much more encroachment and you will have a heliport.
The Airport as a Business
The Airport is a business that is run by the City of New Smyrna Beach that does create jobs, pays taxes, and generates revenue for the City. In commenting on the failure to run businesses well, including running some like the golf course as a giveaway program for its favored voters, the Shadow was remiss in not commenting that the Airport is a successful business, seems to run well, pays taxes on the property it does not rent out, and is poised to be an engine for economic development for the City. We decided to take a closer look at its activities and asked the current part time manager for some background information and current statistics. The Shadow will share what it learns as we garner additional information.
Having wasted a ton of Federal and City Money on a failed water taxi, the Marine Discover Center moves on to create another huge drain on City resources.
The more important issue is not just that they subsidized the water taxi, but how they have chosen to hide the subsidy. Paying it is bad enough, but hiding it is worse. The Shadow believes it represents total disdain for the taxpaying public.
The Shadow had a hard time figuring out how the Water Taxi service could run at a deficit, have losses every month, exhaust its grant from the Federal government, and still operate. Fraud is the word that comes to mind. It is a fraud on the taxpayer. It is a fraud on open government. It is simply dishonest if you run on a platform of “open government”. The City Commission accepted the grant with both Commissioner Hathaway and former Commissioner Rogers saying at the relevant Commission meeting that NO City money would subsidize this project. Well $250,000 sure seems like a subsidy to the Shadow and they tried to hide it under the rug.
The use of creative book keeping has permitted the City government to disguise its subsidy as a “Management Loan” given to the Marine Discovery Center (MDC). It was supposed to be reimbursed to the City from the grant, the dollars you paid as a Federal taxpayer. No, that appears is not how it worked. The $85,000 annual phony management fee paid to the MDC became a part of the grant, but the revenue that was generated during 2007 and 2008 that would have paid for management from the grant was put into a separate account. The MDC kept the revenue and no money we believe has been returned to the City. The MDC is now using this money as it looses $10,000 to $15,000 a month by continuing operations at a loss. This is your money, and despite the fact that the grant is over, they have another $84,000 in the 2009 budget.
Isn’t it strange that the Legislature is cutting the pay for government employees that have not had a pay increase in three years, while we in New Smyrna are handing out minimum pay raises of two percent for everyone. Totally irrational!
