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June 25th, 2007
TAX CUT SHORTFALL
Last week in the Daytona Beach New Journal, the City of New Smyrna Beach was shown to have collected and spent 35% more in taxes than the cost of inflation and growth.
(LINK). Now, we do not necessarily think that the paper to the North got it right, but we thought you might like to know that they are at least making an effort to show how paltry the effort is to cut spending in the current budget by only a miniscule 5%.
The Mike Nifong Award
The Shadow has concluded that we have legal beagles here in New Smyrna Beach who have similar tendencies toward illegal activity as the former prosecutor in Durham County North Carolina. We have chosen to call it the “Nifong syndrome,” and it is manifested by attorneys that will prosecute or defend a cause of action their client tells them requires litigation, regardless of its validity. I.e., they are the ultimate hired guns. Well, you say, isn’t that what all attorneys do? We hope not, but understand why you may hold that view. Therefore, the Shadow has decided to run a contest, solicit your candidates, and make an award to be known as the “Michael Byron Nifong Award for Prosecutorial Misconduct.” The rules are simple; to be eligible for this award the individual you recommend must have unfairly and or without factual evidence or knowledge brought or engaged in litigation against an innocent person or persons on behalf of their client or themselves. We have one or two in mind, but will refrain from injecting bias into the nominating process since it is your contest. The month of July is designated as the period in which you can submit your candidates for this award. To do so send us an email by clicking “contact” on the SHADOW’S home page, and following the instructions found there. In your email, you must tell us in 200 words or less, using cogent English, who your candidate is, and why he or she should receive this award. Your anonymity will be protected! Use Mr. Nifong’s concept of justice as your template. He falsely accused and prosecuted individuals of a crime that he knew had not been committed, and tried to use the publicity to his personal advantage. Have fun! The winner will be announced in August, unless you wish anonymity. The Shadow knows he he he…
VOTE IN THE NEXT ELECTION, YOU CAN PREVAIL
YOU CAN INFLUENCE THE DECISIONS OF YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS BY VOTING FOR REFERENDA AND THE CANDIDATES OF YOUR CHOICE. RECENT ELECTIONS HAVE BEEN WON AND LOST BECAUSE VOTERS LIKE YOU DID NOT VOTE, AND YOU RELIED ON YOUR NEIGHBORS TO DO YOUR JOB. IF YOU CANNOT GO TO THE POLLS, OR YOU WILL BE OUT OF TOWN ON ELECTION DAY DURING THE NEXT ELECTION CYCLE THAT STARTS IN SEPTEMBER, SIGN UP FOR AN ABSENTEE BALLOT. REQUEST YOUR ABSENTEE BALLOT, MARK IT, AND RETURN IT TO THE SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS BEFORE YOU LEAVE.
CALL ANN MCFALL, THE SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS IN NSB AT 423-3311, OR GO TO HER WEB SITE http://volusia.org/elections/reginfo.htm#voter .
TAKE NOTE OF THE RECENT VOTE BY THE CITY COMMISSION NOT TO SUPPORT AN EXIT AT I-95 AND PIONEER TRAIL. A TRUE CONCERN OR AN ELECTION PLOY? YOUR CITY COMMISSION HAS VOTED FOR A NUMBER OF UNFAVORABLE TAXPAYER ISSUES. THE GOLF COURSE DEBACLE, YANCEY, THE PAVILION, PAY AND PENSIONS, AND MORE. TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS AND ENCOURAGE THEM TO VOTE. IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY WITH THE ACTIONS OF YOUR CURRENT ELECTED OFFICIALS, YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO REPLACE THREE OF THEM AT THE NEXT ELECTION IF THEY DO NOT ADDRESS AND FIX THE PROBLEMS. VOTE, AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO VOTE!!! IN THE LAST ELECTION, ONLY 4444 PEOPLE CAST A BALLOT FOR MAYOR! ONE VOTE MORE THAN 2222 (50%) WOULD HAVE ELECTED A NEW MAYOR IN THE LAST MUNICIPAL GENERAL ELECTION. YOUR SINGLE VOTE DOES COUNT!
NEW SMYRNA BEACH MAFIA
Or
(The Possum Club is alive and well)
The Mafia is a “Family” and elected officials and selected employees of New Smyrna Beach represents a Family relationship that is analogous to that of the Mafia. Even if you put aside the nepotism by proxy that infests this City government, the willingness to take care of its own, even in the face of public criticism of the rank favoritism shown by both elected and appointed officials to protect their friends and relatives without regard to the public interest, is no longer just amusing, but corrosive to the society in general..
Instead of thinking of our officials as representing the entire community, think of the arrangement as a Mafia organization with the following hierarchy:
Mayor Vandergrift, (in 'office' 24 years)......................................The GODFATHER
Commissioner Hathaway (in 'office' 20 years)............................ CONSIGLIORE
Directors, Deputies, Parks Coordinators, and Greens Keepers . CAPOS
Commanders and Detectives in the Police Department ............. 'MADE' MEN
Lieutenants and up at the Fire Department................................'MADE' MEN
The other three Commissioners are supporters who supp at the table as guests of the Godfather. They are expendables and while they are useful to the Family they clearly are expendable. Larry Sweett, for example, was too limited to project confidence in his ability to hold any office and they let him go just as Randy Richenberg is limited in his understanding of City government but was supported as an “environmentalist”. This no-growth position adds some votes to the Family support, but those voters, many of whom are 'Old Boy' members of the POSSUM Club would vote for the Family anyway. But when two of the expendables are controlled by the unions, the situation in the family can not be smoothly handled without that interest being continually fed and watered
Those holding “elected office” have been put there in large measure from an alliance of City employees, and those employees have been rewarded excessively to maintain their loyalty to the Family. One does not have to look further than the Fire Department contract to see how this system has worked to reward those who will vote to keep the current officials in office. Not only did that contract reduce the pension contribution of fire department personnel to only 1% (the police pay 8%) but also it increased the pension computation multiplier at the same time by over 50%. It is no wonder that these employees are loyal. The increase in compensation for all employees last year that significantly exceeded the cost of living occurred a year after City Commissioners became aware that revenues from real estate were tanking. The Shadow believes this is a blatant attempt to buy and keep the loyalty of Family members.
Consider the inaction to ground the expensive SUV fleet that is a large additional operating and maintenance cost to the City, and that there is no need to further enhance the pay for well compensated Directors and police officials by providing them with expensive public vehicles. Their unwillingness to correct the outrageous salary of the golf course greens keeper to no more than the top rate of the City's pay scale for the job seems a perfect example of decisions made for the benefit of the Family and not the public. When the Golf Course Advisory Board argued for ratifying violations of the City hiring procedures and grossly over paying an employee who just happens to be the husband of another overpaid City employee, there is an obvious problem. Also, consider the current disgraceful abandonment of all elements of democratic government processes in an attempt to divert attention away from the need for meaningful spending cuts by raising an issue so far away from fruition that it has no relevance to the most pressing issue of the day, tax reduction.
This is how the Mafia works. Reward your friends and Family; punish those who do not comport with your wishes (look at the escalation in your electric bill--- caused by their decision to force the Utilities Commissioners to toe the line). Think of the Mafia and you will understand why none of the major issues concerning your cost and quality of life are discussed publically, why they thought it was reasonable to use taxpayer money to oppose spending cut legislation in Tallahassee, and why the City Manager has been frustrated in his efforts to clean up the mess. The answer is you can not offend the Capos and “Made' men; they are what keep Family members loyal.
The Shadow has been told stories of about the time New Smyrna was run by the Possum Club. If you didn’t belong, you didn’t work, couldn’t get credit, and you were generally considered an outsider. Some of those old timers are still with us and they or their progeny may be influencing how things are handled in NSB. Perhaps the Possum Club is alive and well, we hope not!
DEMOCRACY AND THE I-95 INTERCHANGE
Our current elected officials appear to have no regard for the concept of participatory democracy. This is not the first time, but the Shadow hopes it is the last time, that an unnoticed proposed ordinance is placed on the agenda without prior discussion and without the sponsors being identified. The powers that be must assume that we are both asleep and dumb, a twofer for arrogance and disdain for what the people might think and how they will express themselves if given a chance. It is not the merits of the proposal that we will discuss below, but the apparent diversion to take your attention away from their failure to seriously reign in spending, but the failure to adhere to even the basic elements of the democratic process.
This discussion began with an agenda item proposal shown on Friday indicating that the City opposed building ramps permitting ingress and egress to I-95 at Pioneer Trail. There was no supporting information, and no statement was forthcoming until the following Monday when no complete statement was filed. The usual information indicating who sponsored the proposal and why it was either timely or necessary was stripped from the proposal submitted by the City attorney. No explanation was given, and at the Tuesday night meeting the discussion was limited to a couple of speakers favoring the proposal to not put ramps at Pioneer Trail and I-95 and no there was no insightful discussion. No one indicated the appropriate road planning template; the desires of the affected population in the Northwest part of the City, and how planning and zoning would accomplish limitations of any adverse affect from this addition to the road structure. They then voted to oppose the interchange, 5-0. Again, no notice, no meaningful discussion, and no opportunity for those favoring the proposal to discuss the matter or to consult and decide what should be said if they attended the meeting.
This was another railroad job. The elected officials did not want public participation. They were following a script laid down by the prior City Manager. When in trouble, change the subject. People are riled up about taxes and spending. Get them off your back by talking about the environment and no growth. They are all over you for failing to address excessive pension plans and nepotism by proxy. Distract them with anything, but distract them because otherwise they might hold you accountable for mismanaging their money. Obviously, they already had in hand the memorandum from the Volusia County Sheriff's office showing that the Mayor and Frank Roberts had participated in letting the 911 RCC service overcharge the City of might look like almost $500,000 just last year alone. Change the subject. Make everybody think of something else. It doesn't work anymore. It certainly does not work when you try to sneak it through and make sure that the public does not notice that you are not cutting spending and redressing pay and pension plans that were never supportable.
However, even more amusing is the scurrying around to find an issue. Consideration of building an interchange at Pioneer Trail is years away. The Federal Government is unlikely to address the Volusia County priority list to build this connection for another ten years. The fact is, the powers that be could not find anything happening before the election in November to obfuscate the budgeting and spending issue. In fact, they could not even find something next year so they go to an issue that is five or ten years out. By the way, neither is this an environmental issue. We do not have the carbon emissions data that identifies how much will be saved by having a more rational road system, but we are willing to wager that the savings in reduction of global warming outweigh most other reasons when evaluating this project.
NOTES
1. “The Number of Events by Nature” is a report issued by the Regional Communications Center (RCC- the 911) service and shows 18 structural fires, 119 brush fires, and 1 structural brush fire for the year 2006. The Shadow asked for,.and has not yet received an answer as to how many of the structural fires were beachside. When we find out more information, we will share it with you. (LINK)
2. We continue to marvel that the City muckity mucks paid a high salary are given free vehicles that cost almost twice as much as vehicles that could be equally as effective. That adds up to more than pocket change, and when you add in the extra fuel and maintenance costs, it is even more. Keep in mind that the City bought two SUVs this year, one to replace the K-9 vehicle and another for a Sergeant who may have to take extra supplies out to a squad car on patrol. We were thinking of an extra nine millimeter clip that could be carried in a Trabant.
1.. For those of our readers who went to summer camp for a week or two in the fifties or sixties, you probably remember short-sheeting one of your bunk mate's bed. Everybody laughed when they could not get in and then had to remake the bed just as the lights were going out. If they fixed the bed without cursing the rest of us, they were one of the group. Well, that is about what it is like to watch the City Commissioners doing everything but address the issues with any public statement of how they are going to get us out of the pickle they have put us in with their spending spree over the last five years or so. They short sheeted their own bed, and tried to tell the counselor that we did the dirty trick. So they must admit to being the cause of the problem. However, regardless of how we got there, they must fix it if they want redemption. If all they do is deny that the bed was short sheeted, they will never get a good night's sleep in that bed, and we will not get them to either fix the pay or pension problems now facing the City.
2.. What's wrong with saying you made a mistake and that you will make it right, by cutting your losses for the RCC by about $500,000 and accepting the offer by the Volusia County Sheriff's Office to provide the same service for about $390,000. The last tidbit we heard from the RCC, was that they had enough money to operate another year, and that no one was going to bang the gong. We do not understand how a not-for-profit service funded by its clients/owners can accumulate that amount of operating funds. Then of course, they do not have to admit any mistakes until after the November election.
DEAR JOHN
June 25, 2007
Dear Sirs;
I understand that consolidating the fire department of Altamonte Springs with the Seminole County Fire Department has not only worked well but has saved millions of dollars. I further understand that a consultant has been hired to devise a plan to consolidate all of the other municipal fire departments and that this approach has been tentatively endorsed. I hear that the consultant's report is expected to be issued within the next several weeks. We are considering similar action here in New Smyrna Beach and eastern Volusia County, and would appreciate receiving a copy of your study for reference and guidance if you find no difficulty in providing one to us.
Thanking you in advance for your assistance,
John Hagood, City Manager
City of New Smyrna Beach
Administrative Office Building
120 North Causeway
New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168-9985
“Best Blog 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
Dirty NSB.
Monday, 6/18/07, 6:22 AM
Another dilemma is facing our city of NSB utility commission and city fathers. The combined efforts of litigators representing the consumer will present our electric-water-sewer rate problem to the state and feds. The average $100 electric bill in Edgewater and surrounding cities and counties is $197-$207 in New Smyrna Beach. Mr. Crist encourages the process.
Monday, 6/18/07, 6:03 AM
Local realtors are finding it easier to sell homes to educated buyers in Edgewater were electric bills are 45 percent less than New Smyrna Beach and Water and Sewer rates are 20 percent less. Go Para Go Diesen Go Rodi
Monday, 6/18/07, 5:58 AM
By the way, if you consolidate the local fire and police departments of Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, and Port Orange with Volusia County, you would need to hire a couple of Brinks trucks to carry all of the money saved to the bank.
Monday, 6/18/07, 11:57 AM
You must assume I'm a NSB firefighter willing to fight with you on this blog. I'm not. I'm all for you sending your view to the elected officials who give marching orders to the negotiation table. That's the way it works. But, to bash firefighters on this blog does nothing but lessen the value of ANY message you send.
Shameful and childish
Monday, 6/18/07, 11:38 AM
It's one thing to disagree on policy issues. It's another to stoop so low you use name calling and personal attacks to further your point. GOOKS, UNION THUGS, HOZEDRAGGERS. Do you really expect to be taken seriously on an issue when you use insults that an adolescent child uses????
CONSOLIDATION
The issue of consolidating the police and fire departments, whether locally for the three coastal Cities, or with the County, is like growing old, ---not for sissy's. The attractive offers made by the Volusia County Sheriff's office to provide 911 emergency call service that in the case of New Smyrna Beach would save almost $500,000 from last year's whopping $980,000 bill from the RCC. This should prove too attractive for our own elected officials to turn down. The Sheriff's office proposal for Edgewater is to duplicate their present police service for half the cost, and we suspect there would be similar reductions for all three communities. So far, we are unaware that the City has asked the Sheriff for what he would charge to service New Smyrna Beach. For those who admire Chief Chitwood in Daytona Beach, why not also ask him just for the heck of it.
The Fire Department represents similar choices, but there is much more fluff surrounding the problem because of those individuals on the scene who are making every effort to cloud the issues rather than deal with it directly. Furthermore, there are more family relationships at the fire department among officials and elected Commissioners. For example, it is rumored that the Deputy Fire Chief and Commissioner Hathaway are cousins and in fact, Cindy Richenberg is the wife of Commissioner Randy Richenberg. On the blog, fire department personnel stretched credulity when they tried to deny Altamonte Springs realized savings when it consolidated. They can call there just as the Shadow did and get the facts from Altamonte Springs Public Works or the Seminole County Fire Department. The issue on the table is to stop the incredible increase in salaries and positions that have grown to the point where none of the Cities can afford the service, and where there are strong feelings that salaries and pensions are bloated.
There is no reason to denigrate or demean the services of either the police or the fire department personnel. They do their job and we are well protected. The issue is and has been at what price, and can we achieve the service we want for less than we are currently paying? We stated some time ago that the Police and Fire Department Unions each did an excellent job for their members. The failure was, and is, that of our elected officials have agreed to terms that are unreasonable. In the Shadow's opinion, there is simply no reason for having an only 1% contribution by fire department employees and a 3% calculation of pensions per year of service. The fault is that of our elected officials who agreed to these provisions. An example being salary increases for 12 Lieutenants who claim to have supervisory duties, but remain under union coverage. There is also merit in suggesting that the salary levels are excessive, but that is for each voter to decide come November, when they cast their vote to re-elect the current three, if they seek re-election, or replace them with new office seekers.
Consolidation with either the three coastal cities or Volusia County will reduce the imbalance of chiefs to Indians that our city management cannot seem to understand. The biggest argument against just putting together the coastal cities, is the demonstrated inability of the local officials to operate and manage something as isolated as RCC service, which should be the poster child for local mismanagement. Since we have no reason to question Sheriff Johnson’ offer, why should we believe those who say that we should control it ourselves. We have not demonstrated the capability to do so. New Smyrna Beach provides two members to the RCC Governing Board, one third the total. Last year it was Mayor Vandergrift and Frank Roberts, and we were charged almost $500,000 more than we can buy the service from the Sheriff. Are we out of our league or just incompetent?
There is also a question of whether the County can do better. Someone has pointed to the fact that the County portion of property tax is higher than the City’s. The County, in fact, has fire districts and covers a larger area, whereas the New Smyrna Beach fire department covers a smaller area. Of course, one would need to analyze their proposal to determine it overall value, or perhaps, it might be wise to talk with Seminole County people and get a copy of their study that should be available soon. Certainly asking the County for what they want would seem to be in order.
ANGLERS CLUB PROTECTORS
The City budget is tight and they need every dime, not necessarily for the right expenditures, but the need for money is very acute. So why doesn’t the City Commission demand, yes we mean demand, that the Angler's Club property be assessed at full market value. Given that the City recently spent almost $2,000,000 on the marina it refurbished less than fifty feet away, the Angler's Club property with its large number of covered slips and large lot should be conservatively estimated to be somewhere between $4,000,000 and $5,000,000. That is between $100,000 and $125,000 in actual tax revenue, 22% of which would go to the City. That’s a lot of dimes! O.K., forget our five elected officials and look at the seven members of the Volusia County Council. The next time you hear any of them caterwaul about the need for limiting tax cuts on property ask them why they have given up about $20,000 every year and permitted the school board to lose twice as much, because this property is not properly assessed.
This is not favoritism on a small scale; it is a down right favoritism for a few members of the old boys club. There are three Commissioners on the ballot this November. Mayor Vandergrift, Commissioner Hathaway, and Commissioner Plaskett. How about they each tell us why they have not or will not demand that Morgan Gilreath, the County tax appraiser, do his job. When Gilreath shows up at the tax reform meeting ask him. We did and got nowhere. He will not tell you why either. Remember, he is an elected official.
Here are the politics. The members of this old boys club ran the City in the twentieth century and controlled the sleepy little towns that coalesced to become New Smyrna Beach. We have no gripe if they pay their fair share, but the time for letting them have a free ride is long gone. They have no special claim to favored treatment and tax breaks. They have no claim to free slips apportioned out by PooBahs who have no more right to this property than the rest of the community. True, they have a $25 a year rental contract that the City attorney could probably have set aside as not valid because it does not reflect the true market value of the property in1944 when the City literally gave the lease away. State law requires that leases be for fair market value, and that the property, called possessory property, be valued at full market value. The Angler’s Club paid as much to repair their covered boat slips as the assessment on the building they call their meeting room. Total assessment last year was just a fraction of the boat slip shed cost.
If you have any doubt that this is a rip off, go take a look. The North Causeway at Riverside Drive, across from the City Marina where slips are rented on average for $4,000 year, and to our knowledge, Angler’s Club slips are provided for next to nothing.
HOSPITALS
Last week in the Shadow NOTES, we told you that this week we were going to provide you comparative information on Hospital costs for uninsured patients and patients with high deductible insurance coverage. It appears that because of The Shadow and one of its contributors initiated Hospital Cost studies, two of the Hospitals investigated are reviewing and changing their financial aid policies. We are pleased to see changes are being made. We will report, in detail, in the next week or so—just as soon as all the changes are known.
However, one thing that we can report to you this week is that we have discovered there are a number of companies that rate hospitals and their services. For example, United States Health & Human Services, hospitalcompare.gov, Floridacompare.gov Solucient, US News and World Reports, JD Powers and others. Unfortunately, they all use different criteria in their measurements when attempting to define quality, and as such, the results are rarely the same. It appears however, that the best, most widely used is HealthGrades.
Visitors to HealthGrades.com find quality ratings of the nation’s 5000 hospitals and 16000 nursing homes as well as in-depth profiles of the nations 650,000 physicians. To help consumers evaluate and compare hospital performance, HealthGrades analyzed patient outcome data for virtually every hospital in the country. To be considered for the Distinguished Hospital Award for Clinical Excellence, a hospital must have had in-hospital mortality or complication ratings in at least 22 of the 28 HealthGrade categories using MedPER data.
In Volusia County, Florida Hospital Ormond Beach and Florida Hospital Oceanside are the only two HealthGrades Distinguished Hospital Award-Clinical Excellence winners for 2006 & 2007. For 2006 & 2007, Halifax and Bert Fish did not receive the HealthGrades clinical excellence award. HealthGrades uses a “star” rating system: five Stars are best, three Stars is Expected, and 1Star is Poor. Please note that these awards are not purchased by the recipients, as are others!
THE ELECTRIC RATES SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
* Adjusted to include City franchise fee of 6%
A review of electric rates for April 2007 compared to April 2005 shows some interesting data. JEA rates increased by 10.45% from 2005 to 2007. Orlando’s rates increased by 9.31%, Gainesville’s by 15.55%, and New Smyrna Beach increased by a whopping 34.72%. Florida Power and Light rates increased by 15.10%. It is interesting to note that in April 2005 New Smyrna Beach ranked 11th of 32 electric utilities in the State for competitive rates. In April 2007, it ranked 29th of 32. The New Smyrna Beach fuel adjustment charge increased by an unbelievable 63.62% from 2005 to 2007. This is why your electric bills are so outrageous. It is time to do something about reducing your utility bill and insist on new Commissioners who will run the utility the way it should be run—efficiently.
SALLY MACKAY FOR MAYOR?
The Shadow is always interested in faithfully reporting information about people who may have a position of power and influence in our little town. Therefore, when a potential Mayoral candidate pops up, we take a special interest. The name of Sally Mackay has been in the news recently because she took out papers to run for Mayor in the up coming election. (More of our concerned citizens should become candidates for the three positions available this November). That makes her a person of interest for our residents and voters, so we want to make sure that the information provided to us is correct. If you find that it is incorrect, please contact us with correct, factual information.
Sally is currently the Chair of the Planning and Zoning Board, and is currently the wife of Utilities Commissioner Richard Spangler, one of the wrecking crew at the Utilities Commission. She is a British born naturalized American citizen, an avowed socialist, and conversationalist; and also a member of the NSB feminist support group that believes our government would be better run if females held all, or a majority of elected and appointed positions. She is very tight with Jeanne Diesen, Grayce Bark, Lynne Plaskett, the Richenbergs, Bill Rogers, and others of like mind and philosophy. We believe that one objective of the group is to replace John Hagood as City Manager, because he is not a shill for the local employee unions, principally the fire and police, is trying to return organizational and management sanity to City government, and is not easily manipulated to their will. In our opinion, the Diesen/Barck group that works behind the scenes to manipulate politics in our fair City will overly influence her, such as they do with Randy Richenberg and Lynne Plaskett. It is our view that they can not rely on the Mayor and Mr. Hathaway always to do their biding, so what better way to control local politics than to have your follower in the Mayor’s seat? In the future we will refer to her as the ''union candidate.”
