Friday, May 25th, 2007
Daytona’s Visioning Scam Continues
As we’ve said before the ‘Visioning’ process is a ‘shell game’ for Developers and City Management to get around the state’s restrictions in changing the city’s land development code more than every six months. The process has now continued to where residents and business owners, have been broken up into various committees to address specific ‘Visioning’ issues, such as city appearance, environmental concerns etc. Each team elects a chairman to head up that group. It’s interesting to note that there’s no Land Use Committee, even though land use is the key item in the ‘Visioning’ process.
It should be no surprise that city management and real estate developers are loading up the committees
with people loyal to them that will vote for change, regardless of what residents want. Developer Bray and Gillespie is boldly trying to capture the chairmanship of a number of committees, with the city staff’s help and approval.
Remember, Bray & Gillespie the developer that promised so much but has constructed nothing. Their scam is to buy a bunch of property, make huge campaign contributions to our city commission, which result in favorable zoning changes that allow them to sell the property to a real developer at a huge profit.
‘Visioning’ is all about the greed of the city staff and developers. City staff wants more property tax money to spend and developers want uncontrolled growth. Daytona’s past zoning changes currently allow for a population density of over 500,000 people that we don’t have the roads or water supply to handle. Don’t let their greed corrupt the process. Show up at the meetings and vote against uncontrolled land use changes and uncontrolled growth.

May 21, 2007
Taylor Out, Ritchie Back In. News-Journal Caught Napping.

In case you missed it (and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, what with the News-Journal and the local TV stations asleep at the switch) the race for mayor of Daytona Beach is over.

Interim Mayor Glenn Ritchie has informed friends, family members, and a select few power players in town, that he will announce “within the next few days” his reluctant decision to run for a full four-year term as Mayor of Daytona Beach.

Ritchie’s decision has been months in the making; and in announcing his candidacy, Ritchie will be reneging on an earlier, well-publicized pledge to serve only the balance of the late Yvonne Scarlett-Golden’s term in office. Indeed, finding a way to adequately explain Hizzoner’s obvious flip-flop to the public has been the subject of several intense, high-level debates at International Speedway Corporation this spring; and is the reason for the self-imposed news blackout at the News-Journal.

As reported here April 13th, ISC ginned up a supposedly “spontaneous” petition, releasing the mayor from his earlier pledge and urging him to run for the top spot in town on his own. Sources inside ISC and the local Republican Executive Committee tell us, however, that Ritchie prefers the tried and true (and certainly self-serving) “… there’s-work-left-to-be-done-and-I-want-to-see-it-through-before-I-step-down …” statement as his official explanation. The mayor could be seen Saturday sailing off into the sunset – literally – on Bill France’s 100-foot yacht High Banks; sipping pina coladas and exchanging high-fives with the area’s power elite.

Ironically, Ritchie’s decision has set off a whole new kind of mayor’s race in Daytona: the race to get out of the way. Former Zone Two Commissioner Darlene Yordon and current Zone Five Commissioner Dwayne Taylor are falling all over themselves to be the first to exit the race gracefully.

Ritchie’s decision especially is bad news for Taylor, who had been tagged by several prominent Chamber of Commerce types and the Civic Pride beachside lobby, as Scarlett-Golden’s heir apparent. We’re told Taylor’s persona – ISC and its attorneys care little for Taylor’s haughtiness – and raft of personal problems (i.e. a messy divorce, bankruptcy, allegations of malfeasance in office and drug use) simply proved too much for the Five Families to stomach and cost Dwayne his place in line.

Thursday, May 10, 2007
Daytona’s ‘Reuse’ (Reclaimed) Water Program A Scam!
We’ve stated for years there’s all sorts of scams our city management is involved in. A good example is information we recently received from a contributor regarding Daytona’s ‘reuse’ water program. Every new housing development in Daytona must utilize ‘reuse water’ for irrigation and install a ‘reuse water’ main for the city to hook up their ‘reuse water’ supply to. ‘Reuse water’ is not fully treated and can’t be used for anything other than irrigation. Physically getting the ‘reuse water’ to a new housing development is an expensive budget item for the city, but required by St. John’s Water Management District. When Daytona agrees to let a developer build a new housing project, he pays impact fees that are supposed to defray the cost of bringing ‘reuse’ and potable water to his site. This St. John’s Water Management District determines how much potable (drinking) water is allowed to be pumped by all member cities, from the underground aquifer system. The District issues a consumptive use permit (CUP) that states how much potable and ‘reuse water’ Daytona is approved to use.
The scam starts when Daytona’s utility department connects the new housing development’s ‘reuse water’ main to the regular potable (drinking) water supply, instead of the city’s ‘reuse’ water supply. They perform this deception to avoid spending our money budgeted for this project, instead redirecting it somewhere else. City Manager Chisolm then lies to the St. John’s Water Management District regarding how much ‘reuse’ and potable water the city is really using.
The underground water Daytona pumps from wells near Deland is the cheapest available. Treating surface, river and ocean water is much more expensive and would require investment by all cities in the St. John’s Water Management District, something Chisolm doesn’t want to invest in, even though residents do.
Chisolm is no stranger to water authority fights. He’s the key reason the Water Authority of Volusia County failed this week and he did almost the same thing in his previous job. Investing in water treatment plants is expensive but it must happen in order to support Florida’s every increasing population.
What Daytona is doing under City Manager Chisolm’s direction is illegal and dangerous. Putting our water supply at risk and not spending our tax dollars on what they’re budgeted for is unforgivable. This guy should be dropped off in a desert and made to walk back, contemplating his actions without any water of course!

Wednesday, May 9th, 2007
Please Check Our ‘Visioning’ Section!
Please check out the new information in our ‘Visioning’ section. We discuss the ‘Real issues behind local governments push towards a ‘Visioning’ process. Also check out http:/www.Daytona 2020.com
for a more in depth discussion of ‘Visioning ’ by Daytona resident Greg Gimbert. It’s extremely well done!

Monday, May 7th, 2007
Public Records Barely Public!
The Daytona Beach News-Journal carried a story today about a Deltona resident who was going to be charged $1,200 for public records requests of the Mayor’s cell phone records. He decided not to complete his request.
While public records are available by law, many municipalities charge the maximum amount possible to obtain them, in order to discourage public access.
We were contacted by an Ormond Beach man who’s been attempting to obtain public records from the City of Daytona Beach regarding a $7 million miscellaneous charge in the public works division of the proposed 2007 city budget, for almost ten months. City officials state they, ‘Can’t find the information’ and it will cost 40 to 60 hours of research time to do so. By dragging their feet and making the information expensive, they hope he’ll lose interest and forget about his request. He’s hired an attorney and will be filing a lawsuit shortly.
Another man in Daytona has gathered more than 11,000 pages of public records mostly from Daytona Beach, to perform budget and spending comparatives with other Florida cities. He stated to Real Daytona, “Directly and through intermediaries I’ve spent more than $8,000 for these public records.”
“Most cities are computerized and have reasonable prices for their labor.” “ The city of Daytona Beach is the worst.” “They use numerous delaying tactics, quote ridiculous amount of research hours and charge as much as they can, to avoid doing the work and disclosing information.”
The public needs to continue requesting any and all information from elected officials and city staff, to insure they’re aware we’re watching how they spend out money!

Monday, May 7th, 2007
Developers Bray & Gillespie Don’t Comply With City Codes!
When you’re a top five donator to the Mayor and City Commissioner campaign funds, city codes apparently don’t have to be followed.
Developers Bray & Gillespie are supposed to have ‘barriers’ placed around all their beach side properties in order to stop sand and debris from blowing off and causing a hazard to drivers and residents like is happening today. They certainly didn’t bother to place any barriers on any A1A properties that we can see.
But what do you expect from a ‘developer’ that’s developed nothing in our city, other than a reputation for ‘buying’ zoning changes from the City Commission with campaign contributions! Guess their philosophy is ‘God put the sand here and God will take it away.

Monday, may 4th, 2007
Not Enough Hotel Rooms To Support Ocean Center Expansion!
A local event coordinator stated on Mark Bernier’s show today that he could expand a lot of the Ocean Center events, such as the cheerleading competition, if more quality hotel rooms were available. Since the hurricanes damaged hotels a few years and our City Commission re-zoned most of them for condominium development, we now don’t have enough rooms to support many of events at the Ocean Center.
Volusia County taxpayers should be furious at the Daytona Beach City Commission for the short sightedness of their re-zoning just to get more property tax dollars from construction of condominiums.
Our elected officials are so busy taking care of their campaign contributors that they’ve neglected and almost destroyed the local tourism market as well as driving most Special Events away from our city.
No surprise their though, Red-Neck Riviera politics are never based on what’s good for the residents or the local economy, only on what lines the pockets of the people in power!