When it comes to politics or statecraft, we seem to believe that anyone who can collect the necessary votes is able to rule" - Plato

We're still here covering the Real news in Daytona Beach and reporting what the News-Journal won't.

Please feel free to comment or question what areas of concern you have about Daytona Beach in our Public Forum.

In the meantime, we'll be watching!

Friday, June 9th, 2010
Daytona Beach Political Language Definitions..
Visioning Committee
A committee of residents or ‘stakeholders’ brought together to be pre-sold the most recent concepts of how giving local insiders like developers another $75 million of taxpayers money will make their lives better, before the City Commission rubber stamps the deal and the insiders make lots of money.
Stakeholders
Fairly unintelligent, easily influenced residents that participate in committee and board meetings with the fantasy that their input will actually be considered when in reality, the decision was made months before by campaign contributors that bought the City Commission in the last election.  When you see a public notice for one of these in the paper it is a notice that your property value is going to decrease again and your taxes are going up. They do not really want you to show up and slow things down.
Campaign Contributors
Usually but not necessarily people and business owners that live near Daytona Beach that expect special favors such as land use changes, for the bribes they give to the Mayor and City Commission candidates who are running for office.  The list includes developers, Brown & Brown Insurance, the city fire department union, Civic Pride and numerous others.
Property Taxes
Millions of dollars taxpayers our forced to spend to have the ‘privilege’ of paying for bloated city employee salaries, benefits, fireman that only work 14 days a month for full-time pay, waste, fraud and our city manager and his friends to play golf for free on our municipal golf course every Friday.
City Election
City election=Auction.  Campaign Contributors give money to mayoral and city commission candidates and receive huge returns on their investment when they’re candidate is elected. Often these campaign contributors skip town with a big wad of tax money after they fail and then screw the taxpayer one more time by convincing the City Commission to buy them out.  Examples include the Daytona Beach pier, water park and numerous beach front hotels.
City Board Members
Residents trying to portray that they’re volunteering they’re time to better the community.  In reality it’s an audition to be considered for the next puppet seat available on the city commission.  Perfect example is Edith Shelley running for the Zone 1 Commission seat.  As Planning Board Chairman Shelley voted for every bad development plan that wasted millions of tax dollars, while benefitting developers and her husbands’ law firm.  Now campaign contributors have given her money to run for office so she can give even more of our money to them and her husband gets to benefit from their business.  Shelley should get an award for longevity.  For nearly two decades she has dutifully done the wrong thing, not only on the Planning Board, but also screwing residents on height and density limits on the two Visioning Plans.  Now she get here chance to really screw residents and make big money for campaign contributors, herself and her husband’s law firm

Friday, July 2nd, 2010
Daytona Pier Costs Continue to Increase With No End In Sight...
Two groups recently made a presentation to get the restaurant service on our pier.  The first was Joe’s Crap Shack.  They want the city to put in $2 million while they contribute $5 million.  They have a record of success in renovating old waterfront buildings and a national reputation to protect.  The second is Marilyn Hoopers local group.  She currently runs Crabby Joe’s restaurant on Sun Glow pier. She only wants $320,000 from the city and plans on a 1920's style restaurant.  The chain will provide 150 parking spaces immediately while the local group will work with what the city has.  Real Daytona doesn’t know much about the restaurant business except that 30% of them in Daytona fail annually.
We have nothing against Ms. Hooper or her group but would actually support spending more money for the national chain that’s been in this kind of situation before.  Let’s all remember it was the local development group that screwed us the pier in the first place, adding millions of unbudgeted tax dollars to Daytona’s budget.

Thursday, July 1st, 2010
City Manager Chisolm Continues To Keep Residents Out Of Budget Meetings...
A budget planning session initially scheduled on June 30th at 5:30pm was reschedled to July 21st at 4pm.  This is the meeting that will discuss the initial proposed millage rate based on the County Property Appraisers value of Daytona Beach properties.  Chisolm wants to have the meeting before most residents get home from work.  That way they can’t attend.  Not that it matters since our city commission rubber stamps anything Chisolm wants.

Monday, June 28th, 2010
Bornia Claims ‘Free’ Music Festival A Success...
Music Festival Chairman claims the free weekend festival with no name bands was a success, with people waiting in line overnight to get front row seats.  Really?  He also claims as many as 4,900 people were in attendance.  Some business owners at the Boardwalk just don’t see it that way.  While they did state the amount of people at the Boardwalk and Bandshell was up, it certainly wasn’t 5,000 more than typically come to the beach on a summer weekend. 
Meanwhile our city commission seems lost as to what Bornia is really supposed to be doing.  During a recent city commission meeting Commissioner Shiver said it wasn’t important that Bornia wasn’t able to bring big name concerts to the city because he was hired to create a marketing plan for CRA’s.  Commissioner Gilliland insisted the primary reason for Bornia’s program was to rebrand the city using $25,000 of taxpayers money to do so.  As usual the majority of the commission didn’t bother to investigate Bornia prior to employing him and don’t really know for certain what they’re paying him for.

Friday, June 4th, 2010
City Manager Chisolm & Commissioner Rick Shiver Undermines Concert At Bandshell...
We really love when the Real story unfolds.  Confidential sources inside city hall told Real Daytona they have evidence City Manager Chisolm and Commissioner Rick Shiver attempted to get the Bandshell concerts moved to the Speedway or the Convention Center and openly lied about an ordinance that exists, limiting Bandshell attendance to 4,200. 
As many of you may know Chisolm had to actually interview with Bill France Jr. to get his city manager job, so he gives ISC anything he can.  Good thing the Speedway said no thanks.  They knew hosting the concerts would be a misuse of CRA funds and certainly wouldn’t help ‘rebrand’ Daytona Beach.  The Volusia County Council was angry that Daytona Beach might be able to bring A level talent to the Bandshell, while the County was having trouble coming up with quality entertainment at the Convention Center.  They put a lot of pressure on Chisolm to not have the concerts anywhere but the Convention Center.
Commissioner Shiver initially worshiped Mannie Bornia.  When it started to look iffy for Bornia to book the entertainers he promised, Shiver then threw in with Chisolm to move the concerts to the Speedway or Convention Center and attempted to salvage what little of his reputation he had left.
It seems whatever Shiver touches turns to shit.  His old house was flooded by it and he is generally full of it.  As ususal Chisolm doesn’t care about rules, laws or what he’s directed to do by the City Commission.  Looks like it will be a bad country western singer in shorts and cowboy boots at the Bandshell concert, fitting entertainment for the ‘Red-Neck Riviera.’

Thursday, June 4th, 2010
Michael Jackson & Elvis Presley Return From The Dead To Play At Daytona Beach Bandshell-Not!
It’s official, Manny Bornia, the man known in Palm Beach circles for over-promising and underperforming, failed to bring any high profile entertainers to perform at Daytona’s American Music Festival in June.  Our City Commission used the excuse of an ordinance that only allows a maximum of 4,200 people at the Bandshell for concerts as the reason.  That’s total bull-puckey.  They rewrite ordinances all the time to fit their needs.  Remember the ordinance that city Enterprise Funds such as the City Golf Course were supposed to at least break even financially and no money was to be transferred in.  They rewrote that one two years ago after transferring millions to keep the golf course afloat.  Another example was an ordinance that said residents could get free tickets for events, such as the London Symphony Orchestra, if tax dollars were used to pay for it.  Our city commission changed that after spending $500,000 of our money to bank roll a concert very few taxpayers could even afford to attend.  Commissioners could easily change the Bandshell  ordinance if they wanted to.  Fact of the matter nobody checked Bornia out before giving him a job. He screwed residents and the City Commission and they’re embarrassed to admit it, hiding behind the Bandshell ordinance as the reason not to move forward.  A few other things these no-brains apparently didn’t consider.  Where can you park the thousands of cars near the Bandshell if 10,000 people attended these concerts.  What happens if it rains?  It’s 95 degrees and humid in late June, what were you thinking having an outdoor concert at that time anyway?  There’s a nice, newly expanded convention center that can hold 10,000 people and it’s air conditioned.  As usual, elected officials and local blue bloods continue attempting to shape our city into what they think it should be, rather than working with what it really is.  Congratulations on another really spectacular public failure.  Keep up the good work!

Wednesday, May 26th, 2010
Miley Cyrus, Led Zeppelin and Elton John To Perform At Daytona Beach Bandshell-Not!
Looks like Daytona Beach has been suckered again, this time by Manny Bornia, previously Director of the Daytona Beach International Festival (DBIF) and now running a marketing campaign for it’s parent group the Community Cultural Foundation. DBIF was closed and avoided paying money owed for various groups and services provided during the London Symphony Orchestra’s event last year.
A few days ago Bornia released a list of high profile bands that were ‘booked’ to play at the Bandshell this summer including Huey Lewis, Janet Jackson and the Jonas brothers. Then reporters spoke the booking agent in Orlando and found most of the groups Bornia mentioned weren’t confirmed or even available to play.  Guess it’s no surprise, when Bornia managed the Palm Beach cultural trust in 2008, he was viewed as a ‘big talker, that exaggerated everything and never delivered.’ (http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Bornia_Manuel_196044718.aspx).  The majority of their board quit over two years and Manny managed to virtually destroy two of the trusts signature events.  A former Palm Beach Cultural Board Member called Friday was surprised that Daytona Even considered employing Bornia.
When Mayor Ritchie was elected he supported both the city and county spending $500,000 each of non-budgeted taxpayer money to support the London Symphony Orchestra.  Now they’ve hired Bornia at a $65,000 salary and spent another $150,000 of our tax dollars continuing to try and make Daytona Beach into something it’s not.  Let’s all remember the Daytona Beach City Commission voted to support Bornia and this event when election time comes around in November.

Tuesday, April 28, 2010
Zone 1 City Commissioner Rick Shiver Steals All He Could, Won’t Run Again...
Zone 1 City Commissioner Rick Shiver announced he won’t run again.  Guess he can’t think of anything else taxpayers can buy for him.  You may remember Shiver had some sewage backup in his ‘basement’ garage which taxpayers eventually paid him almost $400,000 for, even though the house was remediated and could have been lived in.  We bought him a pretty new house, a beach concession, a hunt club membership and a Costa Rican vacation hideaway where he can smoke his dope in peace.
All on a fireman’s pension and some fraudulent use of Daytona Beach tax dollars.  His pension actually is pretty good, especially since as a City Commissioner he voted to increase the amount we pay into it twice even though he should have recused himself.  Shiver also voted for every property tax increase, utility bill increase, fire services charge, and increase in fire personnel salaries that ever came up.  If Daytona Beach had a political dictionary Shivers picture would be right next to the definition of scumbag. 
The choices to replace Shiver aren’t very good either.  Edith Shelley was Chair-Woman for the city’s ‘Visioning’ project. She threw out height and density limits for our city against her committee’s recommendations, to help her husband’s law firm that represents real estate developers.  It’s obvious Shelley did whatever she could to screw the majority of residents out of a voice in their local government.  She does political consulting and government relations work for her husbands law firm which means she’ll be voting for every land use change and give-a-way to developers.
The other Zone 1 candidate is Ken Ali who owns a flight school.  He wanted to be the consultant for the second ‘Visioning Plan’ but an out of town consultant got it instead.  He’s angry and wants change but has never really taken a stand on anything.  They jury is out on if Ali will be a decent commissioner or not.

Monday, April 26, 2010
Florida & Daytona Beach Chamber Of Commerce Abandons Business Goals To Fight Against Residents And Law-Abiding Gun Owners!
The Florida Chamber of Commerce is once again attacking Second Amendment rights.  Rather than offer constructive ideas on how to create jobs and stimulate the economy, they’ve abandoned their true mission.  In the past the Chamber has sued and LOST in it’s attempt to prevent workers from exercising their rights by keeping firearms in their vehicles at employer parking lost.  Now their attacking our freedoms again.  In fact if you review the Chambers position on various issues, they appear to be against democracy in general.  They’re against Hometown Democracy Amendment 4, Redistricting, and Our voting on CRA Bonds and how the money is used.  They’re for virtually unregulated land use and development and not protecting our water resources or residents quality of life.  It’s time to end their little charade and evict them from the river front office space the city owns in Daytona.  Let the people that profit most from the Chambers efforts, the developers pay for their lobbying against taxpayers interests.

Tuesday, April 21st, 2010
Daytona Beach Chamber Of Commerce Misrepresents It’s Members And Violates The Law In The Process...
Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce management are a bunch of scumbags.  Today they placed a sign in front of their building coming out against Hometown Democracy Amendment 4.  Since the Chamber building is on city property the sign violates state campaign laws.  Our Chamber presents the public image of just trying to bring more business to our city.  In actuality they’re really just a front for commercial developers with no concern at all for residents quality of life.  Local politicians, bought and paid for by developers and other big-money Chamber members, grant land use changes and special financing to their campaign contributors.  These practices eventually crashed our economy, devastated our property values, almost ran us out of drinking water, created massive blight in our city and stuck the tax payer with huge bond obligations when developers flipped their property, never building what they promised.  Chamber management refuses to admit business owners won’t relocate to Daytona Beach until we can provide fundamentals such as good schools, libraries, stable neighborhoods and fiscally responsible government spending.
It’s astounding the Chamber has any small or mid-sized business members left at all.  If business owners really understood what Chamber management is doing is actually hurting their profits, they’d stop supporting them.  When residents and business owners start to understand the issues Chamber management is actually supporting, that Chamber of Commerce window sticker will evolve into a do not shop here sign.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Daytona Beach Commissioner Pam Woods Wants To Eliminate Some CRA’s...
Community Redevelopment Areas or CRA’s are a method for municipalities to take additional property tax dollars to be used for reversing blight in a community.  Commissioner Pam Woods wants to shut down the South Atlantic and Balough Road CRA’s because they haven’t been very effective and move the money to the general fund.  Nice thought but it’s not going to happen.  Commissioner Rick (Never met a tax I didn’t like) Shiver, blamed the resident CRA city boards in those areas for not doing their job and said it would, ‘take a lot to convince him’ to eliminate the CRA.  The CRA boards have done their jobs.  The City Commission just never follows the boards recommendation.  Think were wrong?  Remember the two CRA audits by the State Auditor General?  He found millions of CRA dollars illegally mis-spent with poor record keeping and no receipts for city employee reimbursements.  Yet the City Commission has done virtually nothing to correct the way CRA dollars are spent.  Commissioner Woods is sort of on the right track but not taking it far enough.  All CRA’s should be eliminated with the current funds being used to pay off as much long term city debt as possible.  Until the city cleans up it’s ‘financial house’ we will never get true redevelopment or large corporations to bring jobs here.

Monday, April 12th, 2010
1,000 Friends Of Florida Another Developer Scam....
1,000 Friends Of Florida is a political action committee that recently came out against the state Hometown Democracy (Amendment 4).  No surprise.  Their member list includes large and small developers, consultants to developers, politicians that receive campaign contributions from developers attorneys for developers, Florida Homebuilders Association, Florida Association of Relators, Florida League of Cities and the Florida Chamber of Commerce.
Definitely a who’s who of scammers and scumbags that bribe politicians with campaign contributions, get land use changes, then stick the taxpayer with the bill.
In contrast supports of Amendment 4 has thousands of homeowners, environmentalists and community organizations like the Sierra Club, Florida Wildlife Federation, Alliance To Protect Water Resources, Environmental Land Use Center, The Manatee Club and numerous local Audubon Chapters.
Amendment 4 takes control of the future of our communities away from profit motivated politicians and developers and puts it back in the hands of the taxpayers.  Considering the sprawl, over-development,
traffic congestion, tax hikes, environmental destruction and economic collapse that over development has caused our state voting for Amendment 4 is the only way to go.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Deland To Give Property Tax Rebate...Daytona Beach To Do Nothing...
Over the past three years the Deland City Commission has quietly reduced their number of city employees by 25%.  This cut in expenses will now allow them to rebate up to $300 to each homesteaded household that pays property tax.  Isn’t it interesting that Deland had no problem cutting millions from their budget this way yet Daytona does nothing!  Looks like the boys from STAND (Striving Towards A New Daytona) were right about municipalities being able to cut extra city employees in order to operate more efficiently.  Of course the Daytona Beach city commission is so afraid of city employees. especially the fire department union that they’ll never have the guts to cut benefits or lay-off anyone off.  So taxpayers will continue to get hosed, paying some red-neck $25 per hour plus great medical benefits to cut the lawn at city hall. 

Monday, April 5th, 2010
Taxpayers Screwed Again...Now No Fishing On ‘New’ Daytona Pier!
First our illustrious City Commission spends millions on buying back the city pier that they could have gotten through foreclosure due to non-performance on a lease.  Then they spend even more money on bad pilings and asbestos contamination of the old, ugly pier restaurant.  Now they’ve decided the pier shouldn’t be used for fishing anymore.  This is ludicrous!  Webster’s dictionary describes a pier as ‘A platform built from the water to supply access for boats or to fish from.’  Looks like Daytona Beach will be one of the only places a city pier can’t be used as a pier.  Newsflash to our city commission... If locals and tourists wanted to eat at and financially support a pier restaurant, it would have never closed in the first place!  A commercial relator told Real Daytona that almost 40% of restaurants in Daytona fail, yet elected officials see no problem in risking our money on renovating the pier and restaurant, taking away our access and bailing out developers that made campaign contributions in the process. So much for our representative form of government.  Taxpayers are now on the hook for almost $4 million unbudgeted dollars with no spending end in sight.

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
Davidson Family Finally Out Of The Newspaper Business...
The Daytona Beach News Journal has finally been sold.  Similar to the typical City Commissioner development deal, the Davidson family was legally forced to accept $20 million for a business that was valued at over $300 million just a few years ago.  Couldn’t happen to a more inept and corrupt group of people.  Management never bothered to act as a watchdog over our corrupt, money wasting local government, failing to report the majority of their screw ups. Kind of fitting the whole legal process was started by Tippen Davidson’s arrogance in financially supporting the London Symphony Orchestra by constructing a new live entertainment center against NJ’s investors wishes.  Hopefully the new owners will be more professional and actually report the news for a change.  Maybe they’ll even fire that stupid twit Pamela Hasterock.  You never know.

Monday, March 22nd, 2010
The White Family...Not As Clean As News-Journal States...
Jack and Kelly White were in the NJ today.  Lot’s of nostalgia about Jack’s parents and grandparents but nothing about the scams he’s been involved with at city hall. It all surrounds a little apartment building project on Grandview Avenue.  The city bought it for 150% of it’s value, then demolished the apartments eliminating the value to the land only and costing the taxpayer $2 million.  In steps Jack White who buys this cleared, construction beach access property for only $20,000.  Wow!  Guess anyone in Daytona can be a successful developer when the city gives you a taxpayer funded gift of $2 million.  Let’s not forget the city (taxpayers) will also pick up the infrastructure, planning and architectural cost as well, all part of the $20,000 sweetheart deal.  We’ve seen city give-aways before but not at .01 cent per dollar.  It was also recently mentioned in the News-Journal that Jack’s wife Kelly will be running for City Commission soon.  Wonder how big the handouts will be to Jack and other developers if she’s elected.  Looks like George Anderson may finally get a little competition for inside deal of the year.  What a bunch of slime-balls!

Friday, March 19, 2010
Past Commissioner Darlene Yordon’s Parents In A Snit Over Marina Approval...
We truly miss the entertainment value of past Daytona City Commissioner Darlene Yordon.  Know as the ‘Queen of Mean’ Yordon made Nancy Pelosi look like Mother Teresa.  Her parents have recently discovered that their pristine river view will be disturbed by a new marina and they’re angry.
They’re especially distraught because the developer will be allowed to build right in front of their property without having to purchase it from them.  The Florida Department of Environmental protection has limited the number of new docks that can be built in Daytona to 4,000.  Most cities would portion those docks to residents living on the water, but not Daytona Beach.  Our city commission gave all 4,000 to developer Zev Cohen. You might remember him as one of the major slime-ball developers that helped buy the city commission in the last few elections.  Zev owns the river front apartments formerly know as the Diplomat near the Seabreeze Bridge. The city commission will be leasing the land under the bridge for a park.  In reality it’s a free parking lot for Zev’s new marina paid for by Daytona residents.  First he gets thousands of boat docks, now a free parking lot with river access and one of those ‘forever’ approvals our city is famous for. So Zev can flip the property and leave taxpayers with the bill like many local developers do.  This will make a nice addition to his current ‘For Sale’ not started project, ‘Gateway Marina’ near the ISC bridge.  Maybe our inbred city commission can throw some CRA money on top to sweeten the deal.  Perhaps this is the second coming of George Anderson or maybe he’s just Anderson’s do-boy.  Yordon’s parents are furious.  They get the dock’s view with no access or use, just the pollution and intrusion.  Now they know how it feels when their daughter used her office to ‘steal’ property using eminent domain laws for the Ocean Center, Parking Garage and George Anderson’s mirage of a boardwalk, that we just bought back for millions.  Life’s a Bitch, then you raise one.

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
City Commission Agrees To Use CRA Money For Road Repairs...
Many high travel volume roads in Daytona Beach are in poor repair and have needed resurfacing for years.  Though money for repairs has been listed in the budget our government has never seen fit to actually use it for that purpose.  Now, City Manager ‘King’ Chisolm has convinced our City Commission to ‘borrow’ the road repair money from other sources, including CRA funds.  Here we go again, using money from CRA’s for something it’s not intended for.  These people just never seem to learn.

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
International Speedway Corporation Not Paying Local Contractors...
At Real, we believe overall the Speedway is good for our community.  However, the local media seems to worship them, allowing them to get away with all sorts of stuff.  Most recently, we learned ISC hasn’t paid a number of contractors for work they did on their new headquarters building.  A local concrete contractor is still owed over $700,000. He was recently forced to layoff a number of his employees due to ISC’s lack of payment.  Comments have been made that ISC has already forced a few, small local contractors out of business by not paying them.  It’s time they pay up and take care of the local businesses that took care of them.  Maybe a little public pressure will help open up their checkbook.

Monday, March 9th, 2010
News-Journal’s Pam Hasterok Hates Anyone That Own’s A Motorcycle...
‘Columist’ Pam Hasterok is an unintelligent hater.  Her most recent column rants again against Bike Week and Biketoberfest, classifying anyone that attends as drunken fools only interested in public nudity and sex.  Noticeably absent of course were any comments by her about the negatives of Race Weeks.  Drunks walking around ISB with open beer cans which is against the law, is apparently fine with her.
Hasterok wants to turn Daytona Beach into a city of the arts and get rid of the economic engine of Special Events.  It’s obvious she has little grasp of basic economics.  Special Events which total less than one month, generate over $300 million into the local economy.  This is in an area with some of the highest property taxes and government spending in the state.  This is in an economy that has few high paying jobs in manufacturing and has depended on the tourist industry for decades.
We again challenge Hasterok to put up her own money and open a boutique or nice artsy type business in support of how she wants Daytona to change.  She hasn’t done it yet and won’t do it now.  In fact she doesn’t even live in Daytona, own property or pay any property taxes in Volusia county.  Easy to criticize and try to change something  when you’ve got nothing invested in it.

Friday, March 4th, 2010
City Commission Continues To Be Directed By City Manager Chisolm...
It’s almost comical to watch a city commission meeting anymore.  The majority of commissioners either sits in a stupor or wait to be given their ‘rubber stamp’ orders by King Chislom.  Most recently Chislom directed them that issues voted on at the CRA meeting don’t need to be voted on again at a city commission meeting and they stupidly agreed. Since the CRA meeting is during the day and most residents have jobs, it’s just another way for Chisolm and the commission to successfully limit voter input and discussion while continuing to misspend millions in CRA funds. (Remember the State Auditor Generals two bad reports and city managements’ refusal to follow the CRA rules.)
As usual Mayor ‘the great communicator’ Ritchey didn’t say a word in defense of citizens and open government.
The commission also decided 244 city vehicles will get oil changes from a private company rather than have city employees doing it.  They were quite surprised that it would save so much money.  Imagine how much money they’d save if all the vehicle maintenance was done by independent companies as well as all the grounds maintenance, construction on the pier and Schnebly Center.  But they don’t want to save too much money because King Chisolm might get mad and spend a few million more of unbudgeted funds to make the point that he controls our city.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2010
No Fishing Off The Daytona Pier After Residents Pay Millions To Restore It...
Our city commission is certainly predictable.  Against the majority of residents wished and their own advisory board they give back to local developers for all their prior campaign contributions by spending $3 million to buy the Daytona pier that they could have easily gotten through foreclosure.
Then rather than accepting bids to rehab. the restaurant on the pier the decide to pay much greater cost for city employees to do it.  Then they discovered that there is $300,000 worth of asbestos that needed to be removed.  Then they found out that more major pilings were bad but that was only $250,000 more, and the list goes on and on
Now they’ve decided that no fishing should be done from the pier after the restaurant reconstruction is complete.  What a bunch of B.S.!  Odds are the refurbished restaurant will fail like 50% of the restaurants in Daytona do and taxpayers will have been forced to spend millions on yet another failed economic development project by city officials. Meanwhile, fishing off the pier, which has been a mainstay for years and years will be eliminated.  Typical Daytona Beach government stupidity.

Saturday, February 6th, 2010
Danica Patrick Does ISC And Area Good...
There’s no doubt Real has been critical of ISC in the past and most times for good reason.  Now we’ll take a moment and sing their praises.  Great job getting Danica Patrick interested in roundy-round racing!  She is a phenomenal draw and great marketing tool to reinvigorate a sport and a region that’s been hurt by the economic recession.  While some may be critical of Danica using her physical attributes to capitalize on earning big money, make no mistake, this woman can drive!  Most people have no idea the level of physical fitness and superior skills it takes to drive a formula one or cup car.
A pretty face means absolutely nothing if the skill isn’t there.  Kudos also to Dale Earnhardt Jr’s team for the professional way they’ve handled bringing Danica to the sport.  Every once in a while International Speedway Corporation shows a flash of brilliance and we salute them for it today!

Friday, February 5, 2010
City Of Alachua Hinders Free Speech Through Use Of Consent Agenda...
The City of Alachua recently lost a public records lawsuit.  Seems they refused to provide certain election records and made them part of the consent agenda during a commission meeting, which then prohibited public comment on them.  The North Florida Herald newspaper thinks the consent agenda should be done away with completely.  “It’s a vile way to keep residents from commenting on some issues and the city commission has used on numerous occasions to do so.”  The city commission has voted itself pay increases and spent millions of dollars using the consent agenda to prohibit public comment and discussion.  New mayoral and commission candidates have pledged to remove the consent agenda from commission meetings if elected. Looks like STAND had the right idea in mind when they developed a city charter amendment to eliminate the consent agenda.  Meanwhile in Daytona, open government and taxpayer input continue to be hindered regularly.

Thursday, February 4, 2010
Local Save Our Neighborhoods Endorses Amendment 4...
Over 1 million Floridians have signed Florida Hometown Democracy Constitutional Amendment 4 which would allow voters veto power over local growth and development.  Today the Daytona Beach Save Our Neighborhoods group finally voted to endorse it as well.  They had their highest member and board member turnout ever and it was close to a unanimous vote.  It’s good to see this wishy-washy group finally endorse something.  We guess their hearts are in the right place but they’re so busy trying not to make anyone in government angry that they never seem to take much of position on anything.  Maybe this vote is the first of many more good ones to come.

Friday, January 29th, 2010
City Commission Attempts To Destroy Special Events Again...
At least our elected officials are predictable.  Why encourage motorcycle, racing and beach events that bring tens of millions of dollars to our community over a short ninety day period, when you can spend millions of taxpayer dollars promoting the arts?  If some powerful local leaders get their way, Daytona will be known for beautiful symphonies and places to canoe with marketing and promotion paid for by...you guessed it...our tax dollars!  Just to make sure it happens that way Commissioner Rick (I got a free house from taxpayers) Shiver, is backing Manual Bornia, President of the Daytona Beach International Festival that brings the London Symphony Orchestra to our fair city every year, to head up the committee.
We here at Real Daytona have no problem with the arts, just the fact that the majority of taxpayers in our city get stuck with paying for them and don’t get to attend.  The LSO is a perfect example.  The cost of bringing this group to our city has been outrageous.  It eventually destroyed the local newspaper, cost the taxpayers $500,000 and now will cost our local university (which is tax supported) millions as well.  Bornia’s claims that the Festival makes money and brings customers from out of town is ridiculous.  If that were true, then he would have paid the $70,000 the Festival owes the city for rental of Peabody Auditorium already.
We understand that supporting the arts cost money and often times this will be at a deficit.  Our complaint is the potential to easily increase RaceWeeks, Bike Week , Biktoberfest and (gasp) even Spring Break revenue without significant government spending is already there.  But that’s not the way of our politicians.  Why spend only $100 when you can spend $1 million and receive a much worse return on tax dollars invested?

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
City Commission Quietly Screws Local Vendors With Chamber’s Support...
For years the Daytona Beach city commission insisted local vendors that receive temporary permits for outside sales during special events, have their stores open and staffed the majority of the year.  They were rewarded for doing so by the commission severely limiting the number of part-time, out of town vendor permits issued during special events.  Not anymore!
At the Chamber of Commerce urging, our city commission quietly changed the rules.  Now businesses only have to be open ninety days over the whole year in order to qualify for an outside vending permit.  The chamber stated this makes it easier for local business to do business.  Wrong, this allows out of town businesses to blow into Daytona, rent a store front for ninety days and then leave, taking their profits out of our community. 
We wonder what kind of ‘donations’ the chamber members and city commissioners received from out of town vendors for this vote.

Tuesday, January 19st, 2010
Local Chamber of Commerce and Tea Party Members Are  Hypocritical And Bankrupt Morally As WNDB/Black Crowe Broadcasting Is Financially...
We recently read an interview between Congressman Ron Paul and Steve Forbes.  Paul stated,
“In a free market system some businesses make mistakes.” “ If those mistakes are bad enough the company gets liquidated and employees and shareholders suffer.”  “But that doesn’t happen in government.” “They just continue to push more money at bad ideas while attempting to convince taxpayers the artificial growth created is real growth.” “It’s not.”  “Great reasons cities use to create artificial growth are ‘serving the interests of the poor, of the developers, of professional sports teams or of the financial community.” 
Daytona’s Chamber of Commerce and Tea Party members love to hypocritically quote Ron Paul but certainly don’t support his philosophy at the local level.  What they do support are taxpayer funded government hand-outs, such as CRA’s, the Ezone, and tax increment financing.  Daytona’s history of attempting to create artificial growth is all around us.  Residents are still paying the long term financial price of bonds for failed and sold hotels, removing valuable property off the tax rolls for a performing arts center and the most recently buying out a defaulted pier lease for $1.3 million to save a local bank and developer.
Our local Chamber and Tea Party leaders like to make residents think they’re on our side.  In reality the only side their on is the side that pays them our tax dollars.

Friday, January 15th, 2010
WNDB/Black Crowe Broadcasting Files For Bankruptcy Protection...
Looks like talk radio host Mark Bernier ridiculously right wing attitude has helped put WNDB’s finances in the toilet.  They filed recently for bankruptcy protection.  Can’t place all the blame on Bernier though, company management was heavily involved in local politics.  They supported a number of candidates that are now in office, fleecing the public on regular basis.  Rumor is a number of Bernier’s advertisers tired of his incessant rants and refusal to discuss the real problems in our community.  We’ve also heard another major advertiser is close to pulling the plug on Mark.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.  He portrays himself as a ‘family man’ yet he’s rumored to be one of the public bathroom stall boys like past commissioner Mike Shallow.  No matter what Bernier’s sexual preference is, we’re happy to see a local news firm punished by it’s advertisers for not doing it’s job in protecting the public interest.  The News-Journal family thought they were untouchable and their paper was just sold for cents on the dollar.  Can WNDB and Mark Bernier be far behind?

Tuesday, January 13th, 2010
Daytona Beach City Commission Meeting=Business As Usual...
It’s not surprising that some things never change in our fair city.  City Manager Chisolm still rules the Mayor and City Commission with an iron fist.  Rather than forcing local contractors to be competitive in their bids for city work, commissioners continue to attempt to modify a local preference ordinance, fumbling miserably.  The Seabreeze Historic District ordinance was defeated four to three.  It’s no surprise developers managed to influence Mayor Ritchie, Gilliland, Reynolds and Shriver.  They want less preservation, more unregulated development.  The commission voted to let manger Chisolm spend ‘only’ $25,000 per issue or project without their approval.  Nobody discussed the fact the Chisolm has authorized multiple $25,000 amounts be paid for the same project or issue in the past.  Chisolm continued to ignore the commissions directive to hire a Grant Writer.  The position was budgeted for 2009.  He stated money was tight (year right!), so he elected to not to hire anyone, completely ignoring the directive of the commission.  The Daytona Beach International Festival still hasn’t paid the $60,000 it owes the city for the rental of the Peabody.  Apparently no interest or penalty charges will be accrued.  We wager the city will never be paid.  Meanwhile the mayor and commissioners continue to wonder why nobody wants to move to Daytona Beach.