September 23st, 2009
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1. We do not understand why they bought that puny $9,000 plastic Christmas tree when they could have spent about $38,000 for a 38 foot pre lit tree. Or go whole hog with a 50 foot tree for a little under $70,000 which is about $30,000 less than just the salary of the Director of Parks and Recreation. LINK. Heck if they want kayaks at the almost deserted Indian River Lagoon Park, why be piker’s for a puny Christmas tree?
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(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
9/22/2009, 11:26 pm
Watcher
Mr Ed: Good points all. Lets keep track of this one and see what happens. The mere change from defined benefits to defined contribution will save an enormous amount. Add to that what Port Orange did by eliminating vacation, overtime and sick leave (all permissible by the State without balancing added benefits) to the final pension computation and you add some more large saving. Finally you need to monitor overtime, as the unions will have young officers call in sich so older officers can get call back overtime near the end of their careers and thus boost their final salary used to compute the pension; been a trick used for ages to boost the payout. Check the overtime in NSB and you wil see this in action.
But we will also need to cut the overall pay structure from about 35 or 40 grand up by 10% to bring overall pay back to some measure of reality with that earned by the taxpayers. I hope we can do that but it will take a lot citizens in the hall to make that happen.
Keep up the good points.
9/22/2009, 10:50 pm
Fed up
Chris, as far as I know the Unions and the News Journal are the only idiots out there who make endorsements these days.
Think about it; Doesn't it strike you as a tad-bit condescending, that somebody, or some group of people, would dare tell you how to vote, and who to vote for? As far as I'm concerned, they can all stick their endorsements! I'm fully capable of making-up my own mind.
And that includes the Shadow too, if it comes to that. But the truth is, the Shadow hasn't endorsed anybody. He just pokes fun at people. And I can laugh at it, and take his humor into consideration. But I still make up my own mind. And you know, the city's budget is most in my mind these days, and that's out there, all in black and white, for everybody to see.
So I didn't vote for Sally, Randy or Jack. ( Not that's its any of your business)
Because the city's budget is a dam mess! And that's the only way I have to hold them accountable for it!
NOTES
1. BERT FISH TAXES
At the Bert Fish roll out of its BIG new tax increases.
Donna Banas, who lives in the unincorporated part of the district, said Bert Fish is quickly becoming irrelevant to her life -- given how the hospital stopped delivering babies and providing pediatric services.
"I don't feel like you represent what the community wants," she told the board. ". . . We are the people, not your overdraft protection."
Says it all does it not!
DEAR PAM
As we have stated in the past, we realize that the City Manager is limited in the resources available to her for pursuing cost reduction projects, so we have decided to help her out and provide draft letters for her review. As we have said, this will free her up for important things, like dealing with all the serious problems of the police and fire department pensions.
DEAR SALLY
AS YOU KNOW, WE MUST APPOINT A NEW FIRE CHIEF. MAY I CONDUCT A SEARCH FOR A CANDIDATE OR MUST I APPOINT SOMEONE FROM WITHIN THE DEPARTMENT. I KNOW YOU THINK THAT CINDY RICHENBERG WOULD BE A GOOD CANDIDATE BUT FOR HER HUSBAND. HOW ABOUT A PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR?
Jack wins, Sally and Adam to a runoff and Judy might still pull out a primary win!
Congratulations go to Jack Grasty for winning the election.
Adam and Judy would be a good start in changing City policy if they win on November 3^rd. .They would put an end to the no-growth idiocy. Given the breakdown of votes, both Sally and Randy would do the City taxpayer a favor and withdraw. Adam and Judy if they win will be refreshing. We also expect they would address the union contracts, the bloated police department, and subsidizing the golf course and Marine Discovery Center. But regardless they would welcome business to the City and not pass crazy zoning ordinance which give an anti-growth message.
We bet Mayor Mackay and Randy vote tonight to cut back the millage rate. It will not matter, they are tax and spend people who do not care about the taxpayer and everybody knows it.
THERE IS NO ANGLER’S CLUB LEASE
The nonsense about the cost of a lawsuit has reached the gag-a-maggot stage. There is a simple fact that the City under Mr. Gummey has been willing to spend the mythical million dollars a law suit might cost on almost any law suit against the City. He operates on the assumption that he has enough resources to wear down any complainant. But here he does not want to litigate.
But putting this aside, the fact here is that the legal option would be a Motion for A Declaratory Judgment. That is a straight forward filing saying that the matter at bar is solely a legal issue to be decided by the Court on the basis of claimed legal issues presented to the Court. Here the work has been performed by the consultant-lawyer and the presentation would be his conclusion that the applicable State statutes in 1944 limited the City’s ability to lease property.
What the City has done is take other prospective purchasers or lessees out of the picture, stating in essence that the Angler’s Club has a preference for this property. It does not if it has no lease, and only the taxpayer is hurt. Nor does it have an equitable claim based upon its “good deeds” since all it is doing is giving away a token of the hundreds of thousands of dollars it grifts each year. It is even more obnoxious to hear the candidates give legal opinions as to matters which they have no knowledge. Would you ask them to do heart surgery?
THE CITY MANAGER AND THE MEDIAN INCOME
The City Manager, Pam Brancaccio, knows better than to spin the budget numbers to make out that the sky high City employees’ median income is even close to the low average of a family in New Smyrna Beach. First, she is comparing family income to single employee income. But then she also uses apparently all City employees as in the mix rather than eliminating the low paid part timers. For fun Liz Yancy (Park and Recreation Director)and John Yancy (overpaid greens keeper) have a combined family salary of about $170,000 and close to $10,000 of John’s salary is more than shown as the top pay of his position.
Turning to both the police and fire department reveals an even larger discrepancy with her numbers. Over half of the fire department fireman earned more than $60,000. That is a good median to put your finger on.
But even more amazing is that she did not add in the pension and benefits package which is one of the reasons why government jobs have always been attractive and why no employee tends to leave. The W-2s you look at on the Shadow do not display that every one of these employees have benefit packages to die for. Each fireman gets a 70% override in pension and benefits. So a $60,000 employee is really benefitting to a total package of $102,000 a year. It is a cost to the City, but it sure is one of a heck of a benefit to employees not enjoyed by many employees in the private sector. Police have a 60% over ride. And that $50,000 secretary with her 45% benefits package is costing the City almost $75,000 per year. The Shadow does not believe that most of the households in the City benefit from a bloated benefits package including full medical and a lot of days off.
Last, her reference to that phony push poll they engineered over the summer was gross. She knows that that was a rigged poll designed to support tax increases and suggest that everybody just loved the level and bloated costs of public safety. The Shadow has no doubt that she knows it was phony. That is why they will not supply the telephone numbers of those called because they know they would be exposed as a waste of taxpayers’ money to get answers that were valueless. The following BLOG says it all:
9/9/2009, 2:17 pm
Not Fair!
The median income for a household in the city was $35,372, and the
median income for a family was $43,409. Males had a median income
of $29,544 versus $25,706 for females. The per capita income for the
city was $23,547. About 7.3% of families and 10.8% of the population
were below the poverty line, including 18.9% of those under age 18
and 5.2% of those age 65 or over.
The median income for a city employee is 43,000. The median income
for a firefighter is $60,000. The median income for a cop is $53,000.
The city employees make more than the people who pay their
salaries.
Telling the truth cleanses both the body and the soul ! Oh, did we forget to tell you that the Yancys’ pension and benefits package is another $80,000. Wow! The benefits alone are almost twice the average median income of a family in New Smyrna Beach.
PICKING AN AUDITOR
NEW SMYRNA BEACH STYLE
They have set up deal so that they can keep the Auditor for the City’s books who has done it for the last 33 years. Common sense dictates, if not the norm in the industry, that the same auditor not be retained for more than a short number of years without change. Remember Enron and how its auditor covered the problems? But even if there is no hanky panky, the auditor’s role is to rat out bad management to a company’s Board of Directors or as in the City, the elected officials. Cozy is not the relationship that is desirable.
So what we have here is that the number one pick of the committee had to go through another process and, while still number one, now suddenly has a local company that did not even make the cut in the first process as number two. The fix looks like it is in. Of course the local firm will probably lower its price at the last minute--surprise. But the most relevant issue is that they should not be maneuvering to limit the contractors to “buy New Smyrna Beach”. It is not fair, and it is costly to the taxpayers.
DAYTONA BEACH NEWS JOURNAL: TAKE A POSITION
In the last election cycle the News Journal not did not take a position on important issues that are currently confronting the mismanaged communities in Southeast Volusia County. It also acted unfairly toward at least one of the candidates so that one would never know he was educated and had a police academy certificate. At every opportunity where that candidate was named, he was identified as the candidate who had been accused of being a felon by his opponent. Nor did it say a word about the smear campaign mounted that identified the then Mayor as a crook based upon odd real estate deals but certainly not illegal real estate deals. Nor were these deals significantly different than those of his opponent, our current Mayor. We hope that in the current cycle the News Journal will be fairer, but to paraphrase a popular store slogan, “we expect more but will get less.” They will continue to fill the few stories they write on what goes here with the managed news, such as the golf course farming out its catering, and avoid the real issues.
Now for the issues:
1. City Employee pay, pensions and benefits.
We invite the News Journal to address the pressing issue of Cities overpaying city employees pay, pension, and benefits. The News Journal has laid off or furloughed hundred of its employees because of falling revenue. Falling revenue for a newspaper is no different than a city collecting fewer taxes because of falling real estate assessments from decreased property values. It is no different from falling fuel tax revenue because people are driving less or less revenue from cell phones because there are less people around to buy and use cell phones. Does the News Journal think that the Cities should raise taxes to keep all of those employees happy? The News Journal reduced the number of its own employees. Why does it not suggest the City do likewise. Take a position, it would be refreshing!
2. Consolidation of the County fire department.
We invite the News Journal to take a position on consolidating the fire service in Volusia County. The current system is bloated, has overlaps that are unaffordable, and redundancy that is unneeded. Take a position, it would be refreshing!
3. Reorganizing the Police Department
One of the candidates for Commissioner presented a proposal to restructure the police department. He is a retired police detective. His proposal would get rid of some of the unneeded top heavy management and increase the number of police on the street. Take a position, it could be refreshing!
4. The 911 service
There is no question that the current 911 service provided by Edgewater, New Smyrna Beach, and Port Orange is a costly and unnecessary expense. The Shadow believes it should be consolidated with that of the County. Take a position, it could be refreshing.
5. The Angler’s Yacht Club Lease.
Counsel from a prestigious law firm in Orlando hired by the City has stated its lease is invalid: a $25 a year lease for a $4 or $5 million dollar property with 43 deep water slips is also obscene. This Club also has the distinction of thinking that it is not offensive in the US today to have an all white male club filching favors from all taxpayers, Federal, State, County, and City. Take a position, it could be refreshing!
6. The Utilities Commission.
The mismanagement at the Utilities Commission. Let’s just look at the latest insult of essentially going forward secretly with plans to build an inadequate and less than efficient garbage burning generation plant between two of the most affluent residential communities in the City. Then there is the $80,000 secretary, the payout to an Orlando lobbyist, the meter readers that could be replaced with a fiber optic system, etc, etc, etc. It has resulted in basically the highest electric rates in our part of Florida. After more than five years of mismanagement, you would think that someone could suggest a change in management. Take a position, it could be refreshing!
7. The disgraceful abuse of “antigrowth”.
When you hit an existing business with impact fees for moving from one street to another in the City, you are hitting a new low in being anti business. The crazy purchase of Esther Street and Dunn Lumber properties for more than they were worth, the height limitations that the City attorney now does not think is defensible, the campaign against Lowes, Wal-Mart, Ruby Tuesdays, and the NSB Mayor’s opposition to zoning by Port Orange are issues that should be addressed. Take a position, it could be refreshing!
