LEGAL COSTS
About 10 years ago an appointed City Board member (Planning and Zoning) was charged with impropriety in an ethics complaint. It cost about $14,000 we were told to defend him. Here is the response of what the City says it spent to defend former Mayor Vandergrift’s and Mayor Mackay’s ethics complaints:
Responses from the City Clerk:
1. What has the City of NSB been charged for legal services in the defense of the ethics complaint filed against Mayor Mackay while Chairman of the Planning and Zoning Board? $ 35.25 to date
2. What was the City of NSB been billed for legal services in the defense of two separate ethics complaints filed against former Mayor Vandergrift in the 2005/2006 time frame? $2,065.00 from 2005/2006
The real costs are hidden. Through deduction we believe that to be a fact. What is carried on the City books is simply not a true statement of the charges by the fancy lawyers in Tallahassee who Frank Gummey hires to handle ethic complaints. We believe these are simply not the true expenses, and buried somewhere in the City financial statements are large bills that were submitted late or were for “other service” and not identified as being expended for the defense of either mayor. We believe $50,000 to $100,000 is hidden.
Here is how we get there.
Assume that a lawyer/lobbyist in Tallahassee charges more than a top Daytona Beach lawyer. Ten years ago that would have been about $200 an hour. We figure the hot shot Frank Gummey hired, a man with much influence as well as a top lawyer, charges about $500 an hour. After all, he is the ex-chairman of the Ethics Commission. In fact, no one cared that he made telephone calls to the staff during the investigative process (shown on his bill) when their rules prohibited such contacts during the investigative phase.
OK, in the first case against Mayor Vandergrift we believe it dragged out for more than a year. The staff recommended no prosecution. In the second case, the staff recommended that charges be lodged and the case go to trial. The Chairman over turned the recommendation. So we have the lawyer spending a total of four billable hours on one and no charges for the other. His communication with the Chairman’s office alone to overturn the staff recommendation was probably worth at least $10,000. But then, as we have said, we are cynics.
OK. There has been no bill for defending Mayor Mackay. Lawyers bill monthly, at least most of them we know do. Some bill by the “task” and some when the job is done. Some contract for the job, and charge more when they win and less when they lose. Most bill by the hour in an open ended case. There has been no bill apparently received or paid in Sally’s case. The base consultant fee would be a couple of hours we figure at $500/per hour just to open the referral envelope.
All we can say is that the real bills are hiding in a drawer somewhere with Sally Mackay’s college diploma.
Now let us take a look at the Drossman investigation. An Orlando labor lawyer on retainer might work for as little as $350 an hour, but the bill for services for the first 45 days was only $2000. OK, that is about eight hours, and at least two were for driving between Orlando and New Smyrna Beach. We were told he really was working hard on this issue. He said so when he arrogated another 20 days to the 45 days he already was allocated, and, in our opinion, had done so little. It is not really a legal issue he is investigating; he is killing as much time as he can since the City wants this issue to die from inattention. But his bill tells it all. Whatever he gets paid, it will not be for a legal opinion, but because he has delayed the process. We wonder what the real bill is or will be.
September 29th, 2008
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1. They use to say that you go to Chicago if you are very sick because voters cast ballots in elections there for eternity. Well being over 70 does not make you old anymore, and having something that the doctors can not fix does not mean your mind cannot function on all cylinders. It also does not mean you cannot get around if it is important and it does not affect your sense of humor unless you let it. If your philosophy is that any day you wake up beats any day you don’t, there is little that will get you down. Now calling the publisher of the Shadow an old wizen decrepit individual is not likely to be considered as a complement, but then again it is better than some things he has been called over the years.
Tidbits:
a. Sally is alleged to have said that she will “set aside” the Anglers Club lease. Wish it were true. Go Gummey Go.
b. FEMA, after the original statement of paying in $400,000 included in the original budget last summer, has now determined that we are to get $800,000. As a cynic the Shadow thinks that it may have been the larger amount to begin with and that they were going to throw it in a slush fund before they had to find ways to reduce the budget.
c. Has any one driven up Hill street and figured out how many parking spaces could be provided if they made the streets the proper width with a couple of passes of a bulldozer? They could even take down all the no parking signs. At six or seven a street that would provide many more than the 56 parking spaces at Esther Street and cost less than the $4.4 million. We figure less than $5,000.
d. How much money is in the Storm Water Slush fund? They could have saved $1,425,000 this year by not adding to the $10.5 million they said was in there. But then just because the budget says $10.5 million is in reserve, we have been told that it might not be there. Oh where. Oh where, is the $10.5 million?
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.
“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
A POTPOURRI OF CITIZEN COMMENTS IS AGAIN PROVIDED THIS WEEK IN ORDER FOR YOU TO GET IN TUNE WITH THE MOOD OF OUR READERS
Everyone likes Beazley. He was the president of the Kiwanis Club. He was the "free" lawyer for Habitat for Humanity and a half dozen other charities in town. He worked for Legal Aid in Jacksonville. So, please stop bad mouthing one of the few truly good guys in town.
Well the plot is afoot. Our Queen Sally, the burnt out surfer and the ET Princess are conniving to terminate John Hagood as City Manager. The reasons boil down to two ... He tries to stand up to some of their idiotic antics and half-baked ideas and he bruises their egos by simply being smarter and much better versed in civics and management. Make no error people he is on the city's side and therefore our side. If this happens, the recall petitions will be in circulation within 24 hrs. No threat just a promise. Its time these imperious pompous asses remember who serves who.
The City Unions are trying to get Richenberg, Plaskett and Mackay to fire Hagood to keep him from firing Drossman. The rumor mill says the Teamster's Lawyer is representing Drossman for free. I do not know if it is true. If that is true here goes another ethics complaint. Management taking gifts from the union they are supposed to be negotiating against. I’m starting to hear the theme music from the God Father movie again. Hello, Hollywood FLORIDA!
Property owners in NSB lost big this week - police and fire pensions are guaranteed at 8% return. Where is that going to come from? Maybe our mayor will take charge and protect us citizens from overpaid union members who campaigned for her. OR NOT.
Richenberg, Mackay and Plaskett are planning to drop the City manager from his position on Tuesday. They know he's cutting the unions back, so they are going to fire him. STAND UP FOR THE CITY MANAGER. DONT LET THE UNIONS WIN AGAIN.
A national publication is working up quite an article on NSB Government & her overpaid peeps. Seems we have a highly unusual situation here, considering the people paying the bills (taxes) earn roughly $30k. The whole country knows we are in big trouble with big idiots at the helm.
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
Re: PUBLIC SAFETY BUDGET REDUCTIONS
Loyal employees expect loyal and fair employers and when that is not the case there is a serious problem. I am afraid you now have a problem. I am drawing up budget reductions for the fire and the police departments because it is my job to balance the budget and we are almost out of money. Willy Sutton robbed banks because that was where the money was, and our money is tied up in the city’s obligations for pay, pensions and benefits encumbered for the prima donnas at the fire and police departments, and super heavy management at the police department. I am confident there will be no loss in public safety by implementing these cuts. If you have any questions, call the finance department.
By the way if you want me to go away, just pay me the $300,000 and I will be gone tomorrow, and you can sort out your mess. Add another 10% ($30,000) and you do not have to cough up the money until after November 1st when the new tax receipts come in.
John
NOTES
1. Gosh, we are accused of publishing rumor whereas other news sources publish news. Some say falsely it is not news until it happens. Let us see, Lynn Plaskett signals three weeks ago that she is ready to go forward with what we believe is the plan to fire the City Manger. You know the guy that they have directed not to touch the pay or pensions of any fire or police union employees (clericals are expendable). Then the three of them, Sally, Randy, and Lynn, stopped looking for their college diplomas and all write up phony evaluations which are all clichés and innuendo. Not one word in these “evaluations” states what he could do to fix what they think are his deficiencies. OK, we got a copy of them thrown over the wall. The Shadow’s review strongly suggested the usual sandbag job. That is news. The Shadow thinks of Paul Revere as an American hero. The news was the message of our review. We connected the dots. Paul Revere saw a lantern. We agree, better than dots.
2. We like this posting as a real statement of what we are about. We cannot improve on it. How about writing for us?
“Do not read this unless your IQ is at least 100! Thursday, 9/25/08, 6:21 AM I believe the point about the News Journal, NSBnews.net, Hometown News and the resurrected Observer is that everyone in town knew it was going to happen. The reporters could have done a little reporting and talked with the city commissioners and the city manager and advanced the story. Litt had a copy of the evaluations. The fire department had a copy of the evaluations. It is just piss poor performance that an elderly guy that has trouble getting around scooped "professional" news gathers. The analysis he did of the grades comparing them to the educational levels of the city commission was top rate analysis. For people who do not get it, the Shadow is built very much in the tongue-in-cheek style of the National Lampoon back in the 1970’s or the modern equivalent the Daily show on Comedy Central. It's loud, it's overstated, it's often hilarious and it's intended to make you think instead of reading the city's press releases and believing every word as it was gospel.”
Within the first hour at the New Smyrna Beach City Commission meeting last night, Randy Richenberg stated at least three times that he did not understand why anyone was complaining about taxes in NSB because we had the lowest mill rate of the small Cities in Southeast Volusia County. What he forgets is that we are also the City with the highest property value assessment. So let us look at the math. We will not use real numbers but set out an example:
NSB property assessment of $500,000,000 X 3 mills = $15,000,000 collected in taxes.
Other City property assessment (think Edgewater) of $100,000,000 X 6 mills = $6,000,000 collected in taxes.
Now Randy does not like those new condominiums on the beach with their million dollar units, four to a floor, and their $15,000,000 to $30,000,000 property assessment values. In fact he does not like them to the point of pushing for the Esther Street purchase fiasco (56 parking spaces, an unneeded park a block or two away from the Flagler Street Park, and justified as stopping run off to the intra coastal five blocks away).
Putting aside that he detests building anything in the City. His more thoughtful predecessors who ran the City, here we mean Mayors Munson and Vandergrift, encouraged planned development, and built the base which now forms the underpinnings of the economy. It kept taxes down for the average property owner which made development here more likely than elsewhere. Randy, on the other hand, with Sally and Lynn, sees taxes on the past development as a cash cow to overpay friends and buy votes. We doubt that the average taxpayer thinks because you have a lot of money that you should throw it away by paying exorbitant salaries and pensions to essentially 50 high school graduates with limited technical training, who volunteered for the minimum risk jobs they perform.
Randy, your wife is still the poster child for paying an exorbitant pension at age 46 (remember $63,000 for life), but we have at least nine (9) more firefighters who retired on DROP (Deferred Options Retirement Program) who should be removed from the payroll immediately. Richenberg defends these payouts because we collect a lot of money. We believe the average taxpayer wants to pay a fair salary and pension, but stop the excesses. These three are protecting excessive pay and lousy business management merely because we can collect more money because we have a bigger tax base. Remember too, that our current poster child is Battalion Chief Coates, whose employment in 2006 cost the City $171,000 ($101,000 in salary, pension and other costs of about $70,000). Tell us about our low tax rate after the three of you let the City Manager address the overspending issues. It would help if you did not try to fire him for doing his job. And, by the way, it looked like an unlawful conspiracy.
The Golf Course Peach
Let us examine the new deal at the Municipal Golf Course for attracting new members. Now understand that members are not something that a golf course wants if it is run as a for-profit enterprise or, to break even. Cypress Head, which is the municipal golf course in Port Orange, had 100 members, we are told, and that Kemper Management was required to “grandfather” them in when they were contracted to manage it. It now has only 85. Kemper does not want “members”. Only private country clubs not run for any reason other than the benefit of the members, want them. Having members is inconsistent with a for profit business model because they are bad for the bottom line.
Now let see if we can put into perspective the likelihood of what will happen with this wonderful 50 play package for the cut price teaser of $500(single) or $600 (family). They will lose money on each sale, but they will make it up on volume. Ok, they sell 500 of these packages and this brings in $250,000 or $300,000. Let us assume, however, that most of the buyers are snow birds who play the four winter months. This means that for the four months that you can get top dollar for each tee time (four to a tee every six to eight minutes during the preferred morning hours), you have sold cheap between one fourth and one fifth of your best tee times. True you could have sold more than 35,000 tee times, but the industry is ailing and the totals for play each year are falling. Then add into the mix that we do not have a top flight golf course. Immediately after Easter, you can play a bunch of other good nearby golf courses cheap. Why play on a course which is already being criticized for having poor greens, not properly maintained traps, and scalped moguls on the fairways? The answer is that in the shoulder and off season, even assuming they are here, they will play elsewhere.
As someone in the business put it: “That scheme sells the edible part of the peach and leaves the pit for the City.” It will require a continued subsidy that will increase, not diminish. .
Why the Golf Course
Loses Money
It is not run as a business. The people who run it do not think of it as a business, and our elected officials think of it as part of the City’s “Charm”. That is why, despite the fact that it abuts another course open to the public (Hidden Lakes) and is less than a couple of miles from a second course (Turnbull Bay) also open to the public, they rely on ‘Charm’ as the reason for losing $513, 000 last year. We believe that the only thing the municipal golf course adds to the City at this point is a political plum to curry favor with free loading ‘members’ who will vote for them in the next election to keep their freebees. The argument that had us spinning was the argument advanced that the sparse membership (85) at Cypress Head in Port Orange (a publically owned course run by a professional management company) showed poor management. We had, it was argued 550 members which showed good management. Of course they lost only a few dollars compared to the $513,000 New Smyrna Beach lost. Horse pucky! We gave away to each of these 550 members the equivalent of over $900 dollars of product each. Charm at a price, and they do not ask whether the construction worker who is scrounging to make ends meet thinks his taxes should go for the ‘charm’ to allow affluent people to play golf.
Now the reasons for why it is so costly to run our golf course are not hard to find. The municipal golf course has a staff this year of 20.5 employees. That in itself is interesting because last year the budget showed 21 employees and two were moved to public works. Wrong, there was a mistake in the budget. They had 23 at the time and minus two makes 21. O.K. There are now 20.5, which we believe is seven more than the combined number of employees for both Hidden Lakes and Turnbull Bay, both of which have contracts with other tax paying companies to provide services. Then you must ask yourself what is the ‘Charm’ of running a business as a country club, giving away the product, and losing lots of other peoples’ money in a venture that utilizes almost three times the number of employees that competitive for profit enterprises employ. On top of that, these employees are paid more than the market suggests they should earn for their skills. They also cost the City 45% of their salary in pensions and benefits.
In Louisiana, small grocery stores used to give a kid a ‘lagniappe’ if he came in and bought bread or butter at their store. You see, there was a corner store selling groceries on every corner and, when mom gave the kid money to pick up an item or two the kid had a choice as to where to buy it. A penny candy was a nice bribe. Our golf course “kids” think in terms of larger bribes, $900.
The new fee schedule does not eliminate the continued loss of money. True it might lessen it somewhat, but we are in a recession, golf course play is down, and the number attracted to the links has been falling for the last several years. There are simply too many good golf courses. You may choose not to recognize these trends, but if you do, you will see nothing but a black hole into which your tax money will flow forever as a subsidy to preserve the “Charm”.
Last, a curious issue has arisen regarding the ownership of the golf course. Apparently, the land is leased for 99 years with a reversion clause (the original owner gets it back if it is not used for a golf course). Should we continue for the next 38 years with the same non-business template and continue to pour money down a rat hole? They could call one of twenty golf course management companies tomorrow, and the Mayor says she has had calls from these companies. What is she waiting on? In addition, we are told that the owner of Hidden Lakes has stated that every six months he renews his offer to take it over and run Hidden Lakes and the muni together, at a profit. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Sally, you look cool in your new personal Honda—34 miles to the gallon as against the SUV you got rid of. Bet you do not even miss the gas guzzler. Tell the City to follow your example. Impalas, no more Crown Vics. Everbody in a small efficient City car. You can do it. Think of the money you will save the City.
We understand that at a recent public gathering in Vallejo, California, the impresario had hired a ventriloquist to warm up the audience. If you recall, Vallejo declared bankruptcy because of excessive pay and pension costs for its public employees. After a series of jokes and comments lambasting the employees as greedy, a man stood up and said he was a public safety employee and resented the slurs. The ventriloquist started to apologize when the man blurted out, “Not you, the little jerk on your lap.”
Well we do not know whether the ventriloquist was in the room here at the Commission meeting last Tuesday, we think not because the puppets lost their cool. We believe this was a rehearsed and orchestrated act, just as we believe it is true of many if not all of the important issues dealt with at City Commission meetings. However, the problem for our local puppet masters is that these three Commissioners cannot remember their lines, and when they get off script, they begin to flounder. As one citizen commented, they show their extreme stupidity. When things go amiss, it appears that they must adjourn to get more instructions. Some say it is IQ and others attribute it to not being educated. Sally even said they should hold an executive session to discuss this subject, which of course would be illegal, and which she would have known if she were properly educated in Sunshine law procedures. She also does not seem to know anything about Roberts Rules of Order. But then we believe that the three of them may already have had informal contact and still fluffed the game plan.
Here is how it went:
Under Commissioner’s time, Lynn raises the issue of the City Manager’s performance. She rattles on without making a point or a motion. Sally asks Gummey if she can make a motion and is told only if she passes the gavel to Randy, she hands the gavel to Randy and then makes a motion of no confidence in the performance of the City Manager, no one seconds the motion. She then asks Grasty to second the motion for discussion purposes only, he vehemently rejects her request, Randy passes the gavel back to Sally and seconds the motion, they start to discuss the subject and Sally refuses to let anyone from the floor speak. Somewhere in here Hathaway says why not tell him what you want him to do to improve his performance. They refuse. (It is understood that if you evaluate some one so that they can be fired or promoted that it is customary if not required that in the former you give the individual an opportunity to improve.) John Hagood tenders his resignation and says he will leave if they will sign off to pay him the $300,000 they owe him, they refuse, and Sally revises her motion to say the Commission has no confidence in management of the city. Cute, no confidence in their management as well as his, but they are not elected to be managers? Motion passes with stated intent to hold a meeting or meetings to discuss how to improve city management. Easy, resign!
Wow, what a disaster for puppetry. They had previously passed the budget, or so it seemed. balanced by raiding the reserves to the tune of $1milliom plus, with an agreement to hold a meeting to discuss ways to further reduce the budget. There was no discussion at all as to why they would not let John cut fire and police department budgets if there was no loss in public safety. Business as usual for the Sally, Randy, Lynn threesome..
We will put money on the proposition that you did not know that in addition to the exorbitant salary, pensions, and benefits you pay the fire department personnel from the City budget, 1.74% of your insurance premiums goes to their pensions when you pay your fire insurance bill. Hey it was only $132,000,000 last year. It is not a property tax; it is an unwarranted contribution to those poor firefighters levied by the State for their benefit. If the State had collected that money rather than distribute it to each city as a reward their firefighters over the past four years, they would have around $600 million in the bank to cover casualty losses, and would not need to pay Warren Buffett big bucks for an insurance umbrella policy to cover these possibilities. It would be wonderful if the State worthies just either abolished this tax, or used it for the intended purpose, significant casualty losses? But we all know, you may as well wish upon a star. On second thought, perhaps Commissioner Plaskett could commune with her alien buds for help!
Stealing from the Reserves... AGAIN
It is the budget, stupid! They are basically just raiding the reserves. No real spending cuts. They changed the subject with the City Manager fiasco. But it is the budget, stupid! They did not make any significant cuts. Sally, why did you allow the $95k for Pagano’s vehicles? Why did you include all of the perks for the IAFF? Why are the 9 retired DROPs still working? Why are you spending City money on the MDC? Why are you funding the RCC? SOS, all talk and no action Sally!
Sorry, but we were just astonished
We must admit that we were totally astonished that the NSBNEWS had not realized or been told that Sally and the other two puppets were going to fire the City Manager.
It is stated that Daniel Webster was in bed with another man’s wife when the man barged in on the pair in flagrante derelicto. I am surprised exclaimed the husband. No said Webster, I am surprised, you are astonished.
This was posted on our Bulletin Board (our blog) on Wednesday.
“Henry Frederick Wednesday, 9/24/08, 6:42 PM Dear Shadow, To clarify your lead item, NSBNEWS.net was not aware of any personnel decision regarding New Smyrna Beach City Manager John Hagood prior to or after Tuesday's meeting until just now after reviewing your Web site. We are puzzled as to why you are reporting otherwise. As for our previous story on Mr. Drossman and his biographical information, the biographical information was relayed to us at the 9/11 remembrance. From: New Smyrna Beach Web Site: NSBNEWS.net Email: henryfrederick@nsbnews.net “
Why are we so sick—revisited?
The Shadow published an article a long time ago that we thought the main reason that New Smyrna Beach has continued to subsidize the 911-RCC service (about $300,000 annually) is that as long as they control the data the apparent odd number of suspect calls claimed by both the fire department and police department in New Smyrna Beach, cannot be examined. It is inconceivable that the statistics they claim are valid. The original article is published below.
“If you remember the mystery TV series where the detective turns to the perp and says, “Oh, there is one thing that has been bothering me,” and then asks the question that begins unraveling the scheme of how and who murdered whom. Nothing as drastic as all that here, but the one thing that has been bothering the Shadow since we obtained the 2006 RCC calls for the three cities is that the med/rescue calls allegedly handled by the three jurisdictions should be relatively close in number based upon per capita considerations, but they are not. Look at the numbers (2006, fire department survey):
The data show that Edgewater and Port Orange are about equal in calls per thousand, but New Smyrna Beach is significantly higher. How could this be? Logic suggests that the number of med/rescue calls per thousand reported by New Smyrna are inflated by about one third or 33%. They do not represent the real number of medical responses calls, and yet, they are primarily used to justify the number of employees and cost of our fire department. The number of calls is also used to determine the percentage of total cost paid by each of the three owners. We believe the validity of these statistics must be questioned.
Let us state it differently; our citizens seem to be 33% sicker than either those who live north or south of us. We do not believe that this is the case. The Shadow believes they are inflated numbers, and will continue to think they are inflated until they are verified.
However, no one is available to check their veracity. The group that would normally investigate this anomaly is the City's Finance Department, but instead of adding staff to ferret out fraud, waste, abuse, and other allegations like Parks and Recreation not properly back billing the golf course, or the golf course giving away fertilizer and tin sheeting to friends, Lynne Plaskett engineered a cut in their personnel. The City needs to authorize the Finance Department to hire an independent Inspector General to look into such charges. Unlike Parks and Recreation there are only a few votes in the financial department so we guess cutting their personnel makes sense if you would just as soon leave these issue under the rug.
While we are on the subject of audits, to date, the Utilities Commission has refused to turn over its books to the City so that the finance department could verify that the UC did not lose the $7.3 million it said was stolen. We think the books show that these were paper losses caused by its mismanagement under Diesen-Para- and then Chairman Spangler. Why will Mr. Gummey not just walk in and pick them up? After all, the City has oversight we are told. Even though they both use the same auditor, how about exercising it!
If we turn this costly and inefficient service over to the County, we would immediately save $300,000. We could also get a handle on the statistics and probably show that one third or so of the so-called work load claimed by the fire and police departments is just smoke and mirrors. “Trust but verify.” Not a bad statement.
