Wednesday, December 16th 2009
The Truth About The Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment...
Florida voters should be on the lookout for the Politicians and Speculators who are ramping up their founding fathers spin against the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment. This crucial Amendment will be on next November’s ballot as Amendment 4 (A4). Nothing else will make our representative government more “representative” than local voters checking politician’s most important work, Comprehensive Land Use Plan changes. A4’s link to our founding principles is found in our Declaration of Independence. Compare the historical and modern betrayals.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
Rights evaporate when politicians make land-use changes that ruin your neighborhood. Taxation without representation exists in changes to rural areas where you will pay for wasteful new infrastructure.
“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
Politicians haven’t feared losing power because they hide simple changes in techno babble so as not to anger too many people at once.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness”.
What better way protect our environment and property values than for local voters to cast the deciding vote?
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
A4 can’t stop political corruption but it will make it less profitable in city hall.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations (zoning changes, loss of neighborhood schools and libraries, out of control taxes), pursuing invariably the same Object (Comp Plan Changes) evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”   Enter Amendment 4“Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
The history of the present King of Great Britain (local power brokers and politicians) is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Candid facts about my home town show we have less than 40,000 residences built but allow over 300,000. This is ridiculous when we are already pumping over 80% of our water allowance. Is it corruption or incompetence that leads politicians to keep changing our Comp Plan to make this problem worse instead of lowering our disastrous build out?
To make an informed vote next November you must find out the facts about your local Comp Plan and how much water you have left too. Don’’t be surprised when the politicos refuse to disclose in fear of local revolution. Will the media throughout Florida continue to ignore local facts until desalination raises our water bills five times? By then it will be too late. Amendment 4 is simply the Florida resident’s modern Declaration of Independence. Don’t get tricked into letting it fail.

Thursday, December 18th, 2009
Daytona Beach Attempts Development At Any Cost...
Commercial real estate developers have been hit hard during this recession.  They can’t get financing and don’t want to risk any money for building new hotels or condominiums.  But that’s
not stopping Daytona Beach City Management.  A consultant has convinced them that since developers won’t do it, taxpayers should finance a major hotel to be built near the expanded Ocean Center.
Apparently, wasting almost three million dollars to buy and repair a pier that we could have gotten back through foreclosure, isn’t enough for city leaders.  Now they want to risk millions more on a major hotel.  Every time tax money has been used to ‘assist’ beachside hotels, taxpayers end up getting screwed when the hotel owner sells and leaves the area.
Politicians screwed up by investing millions to expand the Ocean Center when trade show and trade show attendance has been declining for years.  Now they again want to throw good money after bad again.  The key reason their developer buddies don’t want to build a major hotel near the Ocean Center is because IT WON’T MAKE ANY MONEY!  So tax payers will again be forced to pay million for the stupidity of elected officials and consultants that don’t really understand our city.
While we despise local developers that have bought numerous elections with campaign contributions, we should respect their decision not to spend money constructing a major hotel and force taxpayers into doing it.  But you can’t argue with Red-Neck Riviera politics, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’

Thursday, December 7th, 2009
News-Journal Sale Just About Finished...
Looks like the sale of the News-Journal is almost complete.  Halifax Media Acquisitions, backed by an Arkansas investment firm, has agreed to pay $20 million for the publishing assets of the company.  The sale includes the News-Journal offices, printing plant, the ‘Penny Saver Shopper’ and the ‘Complete Phone Book’. 
The sale was forced due to a lawsuit filed by Cox media, a minority shareholder that sued the News-Journal in 2004 after majority owner Tippen Davidson pledged $13 million for naming rights of a downtown arts center.
Halifax Media Acquisitions has pledged to keep the majority of the News-Journal employees.  We hope they get rid of editorial and government reporting staff.  These ‘journalists’ have failed miserably in their ‘watchdog’ responsibilities over Daytona Beach politics and government.  Looks like the old adage you can’t fight someone that buys ink by the drum and paper by the pound was wrong.

Thursday, December 7th, 2009
Daytona’s New Historic District Developer Driven...
You would think that a new historic district with more rules to protect home and building renovation would be a good thing, but it’s not.  While Daytona Beach city commissioners did vote yes to a new smaller historic district, in reality it should have been much larger.  As usual, developers such as Charlie Lichtigman lobbied the commission to decrease the amount of property that would fall under the new historic district.  Lichtigman stated a ‘desperate need for redevelopment in the area’ as why no historic district should be implemented.  In reality it’s a lot harder for developers to get CRA tax dollars for construction in historic districts and they have to comply with a lot more rules.  Guess we should be happy the commission showed some guts and said no to their campaign contributors.  But we’re sure they’ll gift them more of a tax dollars some other way.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2009
Report Shows Daytona Pier In Bad Shape...
Bad enough our City Commission ignores their own board and residents wishes buying out the pier lease for $1.3 million and bailing out the Diland Corporation.  Now a report shows the pier is in much worse shape than initially thought.  Many of the pier pilings are at a 75% deterioration level with three at 95%.  While the pier is still considered ‘structurally sound’ it needs at least $1.6 million worth of work.  If we would have just foreclosed on the least and not bailed out Developer Fink and the local bank that gave him the loan, pier repairs would only cost taxpayers $300,000, instead of $2.9 million!  But hey, why do something for $300,000 when you can hose the taxpayers for a few million more?  You really have to respect the balls of City Manager ‘King’ Chisolm and the total outright stupidity of our City Commission.  Makes us wonder how most commissioners are even intelligent enough to find there way to city hall.  Daytona Beach financial planning at it’s best in the ‘Red Neck Riveria’

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2009
Jamie France Still Not Allowed To Drive...
Jamie France asked for his drivers license back today during a hearing with a local judge, while awaiting trial for allegations of driving under the influence and possession of a controlled substance.  The judge said ‘Nope.’  Not surprising.  Since uncle Brian France got a free pass for an accident while driving under the influence a few years ago, we doubt if the courts are going to give Jamie a pass on anything.  Looks like his attorney has his work cut out for him.

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2009
Huge Development Plan Objected To...
Municipalities in Florida continue to push for more tax dollars through unregulated growth and sprawl, which places our supply of potable water at risk.  Elected officials sign off on this growth to ‘pay back’ all the campaign contributions they received from developers.  Taxpayers have fought back with local and statewide referendums such as Florida Hometown Democracy. 
A 50 year growth plan recently approved by  Volusia and Brevard County Councils’ was objected to by the local school board and the Florida Department of Community Affairs.  Seems they don’t want 30,000 homes and 4 million square feet of commercial development space on land used for growing pine trees and reclaiming water to our watershed.  The department slammed the proposed land use changes saying they constitute urban sprawl by leaping over undeveloped land and calling for unsuitable use of an environmentally sensitive areas.  The schools don’t want the development because that land area is designated for no school growth.
Looks like some of our state officials are finally beginning to protect our wildlife and water supply.  While this battle isn’t over by any means, at least someone is trying to protect us from developers buying sprawl through campaign contributions.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
Daytona Police Harass Bellair Plaza Business And Hotel Owners Over Turkey Rod Run Crowd...
Looks like Police Chief Chitwood is a total political sell out at this point.  Earlier in the week he threatened to shut down the street rod scene in front of Bellair Plaza during the Turkey Rod Run, unless business owners come up with $10,000 to pay for police overtime.
Charging businesses additional money for use of police services is an interesting concept except for the fact that they already pay for these services through the highest rate of property taxes in the city and county.
Since Chitwood is setting a precedent, we need to charge every business for any extra police service.  We should back charge Beach Street merchants for the extra cops required during the  Art Show last weekend.  Main Street merchants will have to pay big money to cover their block parties and the two annual motorcycle events.  However, the biggest business use of police overtime is, (you guessed it) International Speedway Corporation (ISC).  95% of police overtime is allotted to Speedweeks. 
When Chitwood was hired, he questioned billing ISC for all the police overtime.  He was told by City Manager Chisolm, “There’s nothing to talk about, it’s not going to happen.”  Of course Chisolm was interviewed, hired and ‘blessed’ by Bill France, so there’s no way ISC will be forced to pay. 
Meanwhile, the majority of our brain-dead City Commission sits by and does nothing.  The rich get richer the rest get hosed.  Red-Neck Riviera politics never change, they just get a little smellier from time to time.  Yee-Haa!

Friday, November 13th, 2009
Water, Water Everywhere But None To Drink...
As the fight over the Florida Hometown Democracy Amendment increases an area few have paid any attention to is development impact on our water supply and the associated cost.  The following information was obtained from the St Johns Water Management District pumpage reports and our area cities Consumptive Use Permits:
2008 Volusia Water - Availability v/s Actual Use
CITY OF HOLLY HILL 78.17%
CITY OF LAKE HELEN 103.51%
CITY OF NEW SMYRNA BEACH 69.89%
DAYTONA BEACH CITY OF 82.21%
DELAND CITY OF 64.65%
DELTONA WATER 82.79%
EDGEWATER CITY OF 57.02%
JOHN KNOX VILLAGE 75.01%
KOVE ASSOCIATES 84.81%
LAKE BERESFORD 85.65%
ORANGE CITY UTILITIES 62.19%
ORMOND BEACH 78.82%
PIERSON TOWN OF 88.42%
PORT ORANGE CITY OF 65.79%
Volusia County Overall 74.05%
State rules mandate we must have a concrete plan in place when we hit 80% of total use. Daytona Beach currently has less than 40,000 homes yet is already using over 80% of it’s total water supply.  City management has allowed for growth to 300,000 homes in our Comprehensive Plan.  Where’s the water supply to support the growth?  It’s not there!  The Florida Hometown Democracy amendment will give residents the right to determine what development they want and not politicians or city management.

Thursday, November 12th, 2009
Daytona Fire Department Greed Continues....
State representative and Fire Department do-boy Du-Wayne Taylor continued his rape of the Daytona Beach taxpayer recently.  Du-Wayne tried to get the legislature to vote for letting municipalities with over 30,000 residents to have the right to withdraw from the Countywide EVAC ambulance system and let the local Fire Department have it. Volusia County EVAC is one of the only public/private partnerships that works well, where the taxpayer doesn’t get hosed.
EVAC employees earn less than half the salary Daytona Firemen make and we don’t have to pay a ridiculous amount for their pension.  They also work a full month as compared to our fearless firemen that only work ten days per month but are paid as if they work full-time.
Fire Lieutenant and political advisor Len Taft is doing a road show, lying to anyone that will listen that the Fire Department will save money compared to EVAC.  It’s typical union bullshit, pure and simple.
Thankfully the County Council’s Advisory Board voted against any change.  That doesn’t mean it’s a dead issue but it certainly makes it much harder to get any changes.  State Representative Pat Patterson was so against Taylor’s resolution that he introduced legislation that would consolidate Daytona’s Fire Department into Volusia County.  Nice way to give the finger to the union Pat.  You’ll definitely get our vote next election.

Monday, October 26th, 2009
Volusia Tax Reform In Bed With The Daytona Beach Firefighters-Literally!
As we’ve said before Volusia Tax Reform (VTR) is really a developer driven organization misrepresenting themselves to residents, while working behind the scenes to take care of the people that bankroll them. 
A few years ago they stated they would force city and county governments to lower the millage rate.  That didn’t happen.  Then they said they’d form committees to do in-depth budget reviews of municipalities, to force less spending and that would result in lower property tax rates.  That didn’t happen.Now they’re lobbying for Daytona Beach to stop paying for the laundering of city employee uniforms.  Wow!  They might save the taxpayer a whole $10,000 out of $200 million city budget.
Meanwhile behind the scenes, VTR Chairperson Maureen France has decided to support the Daytona Firefighters bid to get the EVAC contract.  VTR will support the firefighters if the firefighters will support VTR’s various ‘developer’ based candidates during the next election.
We’ve heard this was all was negotiated during ‘pillow talk’ between Maureen France and Lt. Len Taft, the political guru for the Daytona Fire Department.  Seems France and Taft have been an item for awhile and are ‘sleeping’ together.
Shouldn’t be surprised.  The Daytona Firefighters union is going to bankrupt our city with their ridiculous pension plan and VTR management has been owned and operated by the development community since they started.  Too bad for the volunteers of VTR that thought they were really trying to accomplish something for residents.  It’s politics as usual in the Red Neck Riviera.

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
Daytona Politicians Ignore Redevelopment Concerns... 
Thank Daytona’s city commission and city management for dropping the value of your house or condo even more, while placing our already tapped out water supply at even greater risk.  Two gigantic developments were approved in our drainage basin and aquifer recharge area by the Volusia County Council without any protest from Daytona Beach officials.
The first was an annexation that doubled the size of Edgewater adding 10,000 more homes on  swamp land. The second, Farmton GreenKey, created another 29,000 homes  farther out in the swamp.
State regulators are taking Daytona Beach to court due to city management’s lies about how much water they sell to other municipalities while Volusia County rubber stamps even more unnecessary growth putting our water supply and the St. Johns River at even greater risk.  Apparently it’s not enough that sheets of toxic algae grow in the river.  Now they want to pump out more water so their campaign contributors can clear the state water review. Pumping will only increase the river's pollution concentration killing more estuaries, plants and fish creating low oxygen dead zones, red tide, and beach closures when it reaches the oceans.
Some say Farmton will never be built and all this is just to artificially run up the property value before another triple price conservation purchase, but what if they do build? Then just add another zero to your water bill.  Since our politicians can't say no to an obvious fleecing of our future. it's bye-bye real estate recovery and hello to more tax subsidies for urban redevelopment.
Since they said nothing, it’s obvious Daytona Beach officials really don't care about redevelopment, they only care about routing redevelopment dollars to their campaign contributors and the kickbacks that come with them.

Tuesday, September 30th, 2009
Daytona Pier Review Committee Member Comments Publically On New Information...
City Commissioner Gilliland was on Roland Via’s radio show today taking questions on the Daytona Pier buyout and other issues.  Pier Review Committee member Gary Libby called in and told Gilliland the committee should be reconvened to discuss the new information regarding the state land lease, which significantly devalues the Diland pier lease buy back deal.
Gilliland didn’t agree and Libby stated they committee would take back its recommendation to buy out the Diland lease, if the city commission didn’t let them meet and review the new information.  Libby is not just issuing and idle threat.  As Chairman of Volusia Forever, Director Emeritus of the Museum of Science and current Planning Board member, he knows his way around city hall and can significantly influence those involved.
Meanwhile the City Commission won’t meet until October to discuss City Manager Chisolm suppression of the state lease information.  It seems Commissioner Shiver is on a four week vacation in Costa Rica, smoking dope and surfing and won’t be around to vote.  It must feel kind of odd for Chisolm to not have Shiver’s lips kissing his ass for a whole month!

Tuesday, September 30th, 2009
Marina Contractor Deal Definitely Smells Fishy...
We received more information on the Halifax Harbor pier repair deal and it’s all bad.  A boat maintenance company named Island Bound Marine services, was given a no bid contract by Marc Phillips, the guy managing the Marina for the city.  Island Bound Marine Services is not a licensed contractor and doesn’t have insurance to cover this type of repair.  They were paid over $100,000 and didn’t make the repairs per the engineer’s specifications.  Initially Daytona Beach code enforcement was contacted, and then the building department, then City Manager Chisolm but no one did anything to correct the situation.  Eventually a complaint was filed with the State Department of Business and Professional Regulation, who filed a stop work order against Island Bound Marine Services because they weren’t a licensed and insured contractor.  One of the interesting things about this is that two employees of Island Bound Marine are related by marriage to two of the management staff of Halifax Marina.  At this point the dock work has not been completed.  If a storm hits and causes damage to boats on the docks repaired by Island Bound Marine Services, the city will probably be sued since the contractor doesn’t didn’t have a license or insurance.  There are over 100 boats on the docks repaired by Island Bound Marine Services so the potential cost of litigation to Daytona residents could be substantial, since our city is self insured.  Meanwhile our city manager continues to ignore the issue and keep the city commission uniformed, as usual.     

Sunday, September 20th, 2009
City Manager Under Fire From Yacht Owners...
Daytona City Manager Chisolm continues to ignore the laws and rules in place to protect the residents of Daytona Beach.  It appears Chisolm hired and paid an unlicensed contractor to do work at Halifax Harbor Marina on various I and J docks in June of 2009.  That contractor damaged a number of boats and Chisolm responded by doing nothing.  The resident with boar damage contacted called Weisheit, of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.  She agreed with the resident that Chisolm and the city should have never employed an unlicensed contractor and shut down the job.  Not the repairs are unfinished, the contractor already paid and Chisolm is doing nothing.  When the next big storm comes and boats get damaged do to shoddy dock repairs, taxpayers will foot the bill because Chisolm didn’t do his
job again.  When will the City Commission grow some balls and fire this turd of a City Manager?
Never, why get someone good to do the job when you can pay more for mediocrity in the ‘Red Neck Riviera.’

Thursday, September 24th, 2009
City Manager Chisolm, Rumors & Accusations...
We’ve said through the years that Chisolm considers himself to be King.  He’s extremely well versed in herding the ‘sheep’ on our City Commission and convincing them to rubber stamp whatever he proposes.  Besides the information in the previous story, here’s some other issues Chisolm is being investigated for: 1. The Florida Department of Community Affairs is calling for a formal hearing regarding the changes in Daytona’s Comprehensive Plan.  Seems Chisolm violated state law by making illegal Comprehensive Plan changes.  This is also related to violation of the St. John’s Water Management C.U.P. water use plan, where Daytona’s planned growth through Comprehensive Plan changes will pump out too much from the aquifer.  Chisolm violated the city charter by using outside legal services without Commission and City Attorney approval. 2. The city commission had a contract with a company to provide bus benches with advertising on them.  He only provided a few and refused to place them in low income neighborhoods.  The City Commission told Chisolm to cancel the contract in December of 2008.  He didn’t and the contractor is still being paid.  What’s interesting to note is the contractor is a friend of Chisolm’s from the city he was previously Manager of.  3.  It appears Chisolm withheld an environmental report that shows the city will have to pay millions more to meet environmental laws regarding renovation of the city pier.  City Management chose not to advise Commissioners that the State land lease for the property the pier is on prohibits charging for access.  So the Diland corporation has been violating the land lease for years. Any other city would have fired Chisolm a long time ago, but in the Red-Neck Riviera, this is just politics as usual.

Thursday, September 24th, 2008
City Manager Chisolm Accused Of Violating City Charter...
In a letter to City Manager Chisolm and the City Commission, Mayor Ritchey accused him of violating the City Charter by using outside legal counsel without city commission and city attorney approval.  Seems Chisolm placed an outside attorney on the city’s payroll to defend the State Department of Community Affairs action related to violation of recently filed Comprehensive Plan changes.  Chisolm paid the attorney in excess of $375,000 without the City Commission’s knowledge or approval.  Residents see a continuing pattern of high-handedness and disregard of residents needs and demands by Chisolm.  He’s secretive and solitary and disregards advice of resident boards as well as inquires by many City Commissioners.  Chisolm’s fate won’t be decided until October when all the City Commissioners’ will be in attendance. Commissioner Shiver is currently surfing and smoking dope in the Costa Rican house residents bought for him and unavailable to do the job he was elected for.

Thrusday, September 24th, 2008
Property Tax Victory Of Sorts For Daytona Residents...
A number of cities surrounding Daytona dropped their effective property tax rate to give their residents a break during one of the largest recessions in history. Immense pressure applied by Daytona Beach residents during public meetings resulted in the same property tax rate as last year.  It’s ‘bullshit’ pure and simple.  City Commissioner Sheila McKay’s various proposals would save over $20 million.  The boys from STAND have six charter amendments that would save over $50 million.  Yet, our City Commission acts like they did us a favor by holding to last years rate.  If they quit believing everything city management said and actually looked at the real numbers, they see many more cuts can be made.  Another year, another wasted tax dollar in the Red-Neck Riviera.

Sunday, September 20th, 2009
City Pays $50,000 Over Bad Arrest...
Many Daytona police officers are decent people.  Many are heavy handed, just looking for any excuse to pull over drivers and harass them.  A 26 year old black woman was stopped in a Midtown neighborhood in 2008 for a burned out license plate light.  She asked the officer to let her get her purse from the trunk, which had her drivers license in it.  He refused eventually arresting her for not signing the ticket for not giving him her drivers license.  Her car was impounded and she spent the night in jail.  Police Chief admitted the young officer made a series of mistakes but didn’t believe the case was racial profiling.  He also believed the cop learned from his mistake and will be better for it.  Yet, a young, innocent black woman, was falsely arrested in front of her three year old son, jailed and residents get to pay $50,000 for the error since our city is self-insured.  What kind of training do our police get to avoid this kind of situation?  Remember the next time you get pulled over for a minor traffic violation, kiss the ass of the Daytona Beach cop and give them the immediate respect they think they deserve or you too could be jailed for a minor traffic violation.

Friday, September 4th, 2009
Daytona Refuses To Correct Most Of It’s CRA Problems...
It’s been over a year since the State Auditor General found Daytona city management guilty of violating numerous laws, policies and procedures, illegally spending millions out of our CRA redevelopment funds.  In their recent re-audit, this is what they found...
A. City management spent almost $3 million in 2007 that didn’t qualify out of CRA’ funds.  They reimbursed $1.95 million back to the CRA but refuse to reimburse the other one million dollars, including $250,000 the gave the London Symphony Orchestra.   In 2008-2009 they illegally transferred another $800,000 to the General Fund.  Taxpayers screwed in the amount of $1.85 million in illegal CRA fund use, from 2007-2009.
B.  The city never provided sufficient detail to determine if many of the CRA expenditures followed their plan or state statute and were told to do it better in 2007.  In 2008 city management and the City Commission approved four amended CRA plans but still didn’t provide enough detail on the spending to make them legal.
C.  In 2007, city management did not use the appropriate property values in calculating tax increment revenues due from the Downtown Development Authority.  In 2008 and 2009 the city still did not use real property values to calculate tax increment financing, which costed taxpayers over $100,000.
D.  In 2007 salary and benefits charge to the CRA fund were not always supported by time records or appropriately allocated.  City management is still not correctly logging time and reimbursing city employees without receipts for travel and expenses.
E.  In 2007, Almost $30,000 in severance was payed to a former Redevelopment Director without Board approval and against state statute.  In addition the employee received a 2% salary increase while on administrative leave, Christmas bonus pay and insurance benefits equaling another $17,223 for a total of $47,223, which didn’t receive CRA Board approval and violated Florida statute.  In other words Chisolm did this without the City Commissions knowledge and approval and violate state law.
G.  In 2008 to present, City Management and our City Commission continue to pay tens of thousands of dollars in reimbursement for vehicle travel and cell phones without any receipts.
They continue to spend our tax money on anything they want without proper receipts or documentation.  Amounts totalled almost $3 million in 2008.
Bottom line city management and elected officials gave the finger to the State Auditor and residents illegally spending almost $7 million in three years against CRA regulations and State statutes.  Interesting how they can’t cut property taxes but can continue spending like this, isn’t it?

Friday, September 4, 2009
Volusia County Councilman Josh Wagner, Another Empty Suit
Like Daytona City Commissioner Pam Woods, recently elected County Councilman Josh Wagner has turned out to be another ‘empty suit.’  Josh got elected by saying he would bring fresh insight to the County Council, vote to control spending and lower property taxes.  What he did was bring his rubber stamp and agree to every spending and property tax increase possible.
His most recent brilliant comment was, ‘You can’t run government like a business.’  Yeah right, maybe in your case you can’t, since you’ve ran your law firm so badly.  You don’t have to worry Josh, we’ll be around to remind everybody how you pimped us in the next election and then you can turn your attention back to your crappy little law practice and we’ll elect a Real reformer.

Wednesday, August 26th, 2008
The Truth About Your Rising Property Taxes...
The growth boom approved by your local government is the real reason your property taxes are increasing.  Here’s the latest tally of the wreckage government of the developer, by the developer and for the developer has brought Florida: 400,000 vacant homes, highest foreclosure rate in the nation, highest mortgage delinquency rate in the nation, over half of homeowners are ‘upside down’ owing more than their property is worth and crashing real estate values.
The government’s big lie is growth builds the tax base.  We just had the biggest growth binge in history and what happened?  Growth builds government!  It always needs more money to fund the growth.  Over the past ten years local government spending has doubled.  High salary to staff, new roads, schools, infrastructure and services to accommodate never ending growth wasn’t cheap.
What did you get in return.  Responsible tax payers who didn’t flip and speculate are left holding the bag.  Your property taxes are going up.
It’s not surprising most public officials oppose the Florida Hometown Democracy amendment.
Although they’re responsible for this disaster they’re also desperate to hold on to their power.  They dream of a quick return to the ‘bubble.’
Hometown Democracy Amendment number 4 will begin to reign in this utterly irresponsible, corrupt system.  Voters will have veto power over speculative growth that we’ve been forced to pay for.  Remember last year’s battle cry for property tax reform: ‘Your taxes will drop like a rock!’  So what happened?  Amendment 4 will ensure real tax reform!  (Story borrowed from Daytona Beach News-Journal and www.Floridahometowndemocracy.com)

Friday, August 21st, 2009
Halifax Hospital Cuts Staff & Saves $15M...City Of Daytona Beach Does Nothing...
Halifax hospital is a despicable organization.  They’re one of the few tax supported hospitals in the state and have had no problem is wasting our money.  Remember the six-figure party they had for Board members when they opened their new wing?  Seems even they understand taxpayers are angry and decided to cut $15.6 million from their payroll, laying off a number of staff.  If a money wasting organization like Halifax can do it why hasn’t the city of Daytona Beach done so?
Because City Manager Jim Chisolm doesn’t want to lower spending (or property taxes) and the sheep on the City Commission continue to let him tell them how to run our city.  As the boys from Striving Towards A New Daytona (STAND) have pointed out, Daytona employees 300 more people than comparable city’s like Deerfield and Delray Beach.  This is part of the reason why they spend $120 million more per year in their budget than the other two cities.  Meanwhile
the majority of the City Commission wanders city hall in a stupor, their decisions being managed by ‘King’ Chisolm.  To quote Forest Gump. “Stupid is as Stupid does!”

Thursday, August 20th, 2009
City’s Budget Road Show A Total Waste Of Time...
The Mayor and City Manager ‘King’ Jim Chislom are at it again, trying to use smoke and mirrors while attempting to peddle the 2010 budget to residents.  We’ve mentioned before this budget includes a 17% property tax increase due to the decline of property values in the city during the recession.  Seems each Road Show is a general discussion of what makes up the budget.  All the details are omitted so no hard questions can be asked by residents that attend.  No surprise really.
Commissioner Sheila McKay has been asking for in-depth budget meetings for the past year and a half with no result.  Seems ‘King’ Jim just doesn’t want to be bothered with details like justifying where he spends our tax dollars.  Meanwhile, the rest of the sheep on our City Commission quietly eat a little grass, chew a little cud and calmly rubber stamp whatever’s put in front of them by ‘King’ Jim.  We predict these ‘sheep’ will be slaughtered in the next election.

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
Daytona Beach Spending $15 Million To Get A Payback Of $1.5 Million Annually!...
It’s a beeyootiful day in the Red Neck Riviera neighborhood!  Our brain-challenged city commission is supporting City Manager ‘King’ Jim Chisolm’s idea to bond $15 million to change our water meters to an automatic system.  He claims many of our 26,000 water meters are
old and don’t read accurately, which results in a $1.5 million loss every year for the city.  Perhaps if Chisolm and our City Commission would stop transferring money from the water and
sewer funds to other money losing ventures, they’d already have the money to fix the broken water meters, rather than having to bond millions for them. But hey, why use our money for what it’s intended for?  Isn’t better to sink the city deeper in debt and lower our already crappy financial rating?  Wonder how long these automatic water meters will work before they break and have to be replaced?  Did we mention that this ‘little’ expenditure isn’t on the 2009 city budget?  ‘Yee Haa!’

Thursday, August 13th, 2009
Florida Chamber Of Commerce Gives Up On Smart Growth Petition...
After admitting to spending about $4 million on their campaign so far, the “look-alike” petition sponsored by ‘Floridians for Smarter Growth’ appears to be dead. Their “Smart Growth” petition was created in the summer of 2007 by the Florida Chamber of Commerce with the sole purpose of destroying Hometown Democracy.
Since then “Smart Growth” has submitted 443,000 valid petitions to the State.. Their campaign needs about 230,000 more to make the 2010 ballot.
Truly the devil is in the details of their petition. Full of trickery and deception, they tell people what they want to hear and then pull the trap door.
Recently, Hometown Democracy supporters pointed out that the ““Smart Growth”” amendment process discriminates against active military and National Guard deployed abroad who can’’t get home to sign a petition
The smart growth process also discriminates against active military and National Guard deployed abroad who can’t get home to sign a petition. The “Smart Growth” process also discriminates against disabled, homebound people and probably violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Of course, the “Smart Growth” crew never gave a second thought to those Floridians¼¼their sole goal is to perpetuate the status quo of government of, by and for the developer.  But they overreached and they now know it.
We’ve heard the Chamber is abandoning the “Smart Growth” petition. Instead, in a desperate move, they’re going to lobby the Florida Legislature and push legislators to put a competing amendment on the 2010 ballot to kill FHD. We should not be surprised. This is the crew who recently passed the “360” bill, virtually gutting remaining growth management.
Smart Growth’s real message is: ‘Pave over paradise and wreck Florida’s economy with over-building and keep on doing it.  Don’t let the people vote on growth!!!!   Let’s make sure we hand these dirtbags a loss at the vote in 2010!

Friday, August 14th, 2009
Smart Ideas From Commissioner McKay On How To Reduce Daytona’s City Budget....
City management and the majority of the City Commissioner don’t want to stop spending.  They’re going to raise your property taxes during one of the worst recessions in history, just to prove it.  City Commissioner Sheila McKay emailed a bunch of potential ways to save taxpayer’s money, but sadly, most won’t even be considered.  These common sense changes would save over $20 million from Daytona’s budget annually!
1. Cut $4.6M out of the budget and maintain the current 5.42 property tax rate rather than increase to 6.53.

2. Cut city employees salaries across the board to equal the needed revenue.
4. Make the pier into a state park, saving the city many maintenance dollars.
5. Review bottling water operations for profitability
6. Reduce city management personnel by 10%
7. Regionalize fire services - stop sending a fire truck and EVAC to every medical emergency.
8. Look into overtime practices in fire and police departments.
9. Put leisure services and utilities back into city buildings - save $150,000 in rent.
10. Sell Halifax Harbor Plaza - not making profit and city should not be in the business of rentals.
11. Eliminate Support Services department and out-source fleet maintenance
12. Release LS facility on Orange Ave. to create taxable reuse. This could be used by city to produce income or sell to private user.
13.  Out-source fleet maintenance  No need to keep up our own equipment. Eliminates 65
Public Works employees and 25-30 in Leisure Services, saving almost $3 million.
14. Out-source auto maintenance - being investigated by Mike Robertson at the mayor’s request.
15. Eliminate Government Relations Administrator. One PIO is enough.  Savings $125,000.
16. Increase medical contribution/employee $5??/month. Savings $52,620
17. Reduce the number of consultants at $5M/year.  Savings $2.5 Million
18. Have 19 employees over $100,000; 67 between $70,000 and $100,000. This number has doubled since 2004.  Reduce number of employees and salary levels
19. Reduce vehicle purchase plan - savings $1,500,000? - being done this year.
20. Cut cell phone costs by $35,000 - Cost has tripled since 2004
21. Freeze all raises
22. Cut printing costs. Savings $115,000.  Costs escalated from $94,072 to $248,559
23. Eliminate special magistrate @125/hour Savings = $6,000/yr. He is not needed now. Our code board is underworked and does their work for free.
24. Hire grant writer - 3 grants will be the price of employee (has been put into this budget)
25. Add parking meters for local areas.
26. Hire a professional events coordinator with specific expertise to bring in real income to the city from our events. Perhaps ad some family friendly events.
27. Review Leisure Services department budget line by line.
28. Ease regulations so that more non-conforming buildings can be occupied thus generating additional tax dollars.

29. Account for all monies being spent by fire department in covering such areas as HH, DBS, So. Daytona and the airport with little or no reimbursement by these entities.
30. Remove the restriction on the amount a person is allowed to put into rehabbing their house to bring in more tax money.
31. Put some CIP’s on hold unless "essential to health and safety" of residents and businesses.
32. Do not accept automated water project.  Savings $11Million
33. Stick with established goals of 2004: ‘The City Commission shall adopt measures to reduce costs and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its service delivery systems as a matter of 1st priority.’
The City Commission will consider adoption of new source of revenue only if deemed necessary to ensure the financial stability of the city.
New revenue sources will be considered after cost reductions and efforts to achieve efficiency and effectiveness are adopted and only if the need for new revenue sources is demonstrated to the public.
34. Put traffic lights on sleep mode after 10 or 11PM - flashing only. Saves lots of electricity dollars.
35. Begin two week unpaid vacations for city employee.
36. Modify the city’s pension plan, which has $1.2B unfunded liability, by reducing the 8.4% rate of return, have the participants contribute and change the retirement age and years of service criteria. (Done in Jacksonville)
37. Smokers pay a higher premium for health care. Orange city will charge $650 for smokers/year.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009
Pier Debacle Continues...
Developers hold over Daytona’s city commission was never more secure than now. Pier Developer George Anderson, front man Bill Geary, and lawyer/political hit man Gerry Finke had to do very little work this time.  First George had to pay to take Bill Geary off the corporate paperwork for the boardwalk project, now that it is dead in the water. Geary won’t be his ‘front man’ any longer without more money.
Next, Finke let the pier run down so far that it’s impossible to do any business there.  What’s a developer to do in such tough times?  Anderson decided to make a little withdrawal from the public treasury by having Mayor Ritchey and the city commission buy back what the public already owns.  Seems only right for them to repay all his past campaign contributions and buy out his lease.
The timing is perfect.  If the pier collapses while Anderson holds the lease, his insurance has to pay, however, his insurance won’t pay if there’s lack of maintenance.
George is afraid all of this information becoming public knowledge will jeopardize the giveaways that he hasn’t fully cashed in on for the boardwalk property yet. The plan, written by former Commissioner George Burden, was for Anderson to buy off Gerry Finke and shed himself of the pier liability and now it’s coming apart.
Documentation is being presented almost daily showing the city could evict and the basis of Anderson’s request for payment is all smoke and mirrors. The latest bullshit floated is they own the structures on the pier and deserve to be paid for them. A few shanty town like plywood kiosks are hardly a basis for a multi-million dollar payment..
After dozens of residents objected, the commission pulled back at the last second tabling the pier buyout for another month. Now we can watch them come up with another version of the pier  giveaway while they’re screwing us with next years wasteful budget all at the very same meeting!
Fortunately the truth is out there for all to see. In any other city it would be unthinkable to even propose buying back the pier lease. Here it’s dragged on for months, led by the charge of the   City Manager Chisholm, who owns a beach vendor business and has a clear conflict of interest in even being involved in this issue.
Will anyone ever prosecute these scumbagss? Will voters ever get a choice other than sold out city commissioners like Woods, Reynolds, Shriver and Gillian?  ‘Gillian’ should be given extra scum bag points for arguing the city should cough up the bailout.  Don’t ever expect him to be the people’s choice for Mayor in the future. Campaign contributions in the hundreds of thousands and the resulting multimillion dollar public giveaways will insure his developer buddies always get what they want!

Thursday, July 17th, 2009
Huge Property Tax Increase In Daytona Beach...
When families and businesses experience a drop in income, they chose to spend less.  Instead, our City Commission chooses to spend more by increasing property taxes 17.5%!  In the worst recession of fifty years, with Volusia County number two in the nation in home foreclosures, we can’t believe they chose to increase taxes.
Daytona Beach property values dropped during this recession almost 30%, so the amount of property tax the city collects would have declined the same amount.  Instead of laying off all the extra city employees or not spending $2 million to buy the pier back from Finke, our City Commission decided, it’s only money, so we’ll just tax some more.
They’re hiding behind phrases like ‘rolled back rate’ which is really saying we want to collect the same amount we did last year regardless of the value of your home.
Per County Tax Assessor Morgan Gillreath, over the last nine years Daytona property taxes have increased 135%, while the budget has more than doubled to $220 million!.  The cause is uncontrolled spending, pure and simple.
Mayor Ritchie, Commissioners Shiver, Gilliland, Henry and Reynolds all voted for the tax increase.  Can’t wait to see how they expect to get reelected after angering voters.  Why don’t you give them a call and tell them what you think.

Thursday, July 9th, 2009
Residents To Pay For Daytona Pier Deal...
Looks like major campaign contributor Jerry Finke is going to get yet another great deal that taxpayers will be forced to fund.  The current lease between Diland Corp., (Finke’s company) and Daytona Beach, says Finke is responsible for maintaining the pier.  In the most recent Bellair Community Group Newsletter, pictures of the pier and building on it show major degradation, rot and rust.  Finke’s done virtually nothing to maintain it, nor has he built the public park next to it as he also contracted to do.
Now Finke and city management are attempting to convince our City Commission to spend $2 million to buy out his lease, rather than make him perform or foreclose on his failure to do so.  Despite the obvious and deplorable degree to which Finke has allowed the pier to deteriorate and not performed as our lease with him stipulates, our illustrious city commission appears likely to give him a gift of $2 million of taxpayers money.  On top of that the city estimates it will cost another $2-3 million to repair and remodel the pier and make it usable again, something Finke was supposed to do in the first place.  After we pay to repair the pier then we’ll have to lease it to a company to operate.  Guess who’ll be first in line to lease it back?  That’s right, Jerry Finke!
So we’re paying Finke $2 million, for not doing what he contracted to do, paying another $2-$3 million to repair what he screwed up, then giving him the option to lease it back and operate it at a profit! Just another fine example of how our city management is totally corrupt and could care less about protecting taxpayers interest.
Finke, has made millions over the years by getting special land use changes in exchange for campaign contributions for his hotels and nightclubs, then selling the property and huge profits.
It’s time this piece of garbage is forced to comply to the terms of the lease he signed and actually work to succeed or fail, rather than have taxpayers bear the burden of his bailout again.
Please call and tell the Mayor and City Commissioner you don’t want to bail out Finke and pay him millions for not doing his job.  Mayor Ritchie  671-8007, Rick Shiver 671-8001, Pam Woods 672-8002, Sheila McKay 671-8003, Rob Gilliland 671-8004, Derrick Henry 671-8005, Cassandra Reynolds 671-8005.

Monday, July 1st, 2009
STAND To Sue City...
We spoke to the boys from Striving Towards A New Daytona (STAND) and got current on where they are.  City Attorney Hartman admitted in a letter that Daytona’s city charter is illegal and can’t require 20% of registered voters to sign petitions.  Doesn’t matter to STAND because they collected just short of 10,000 registered voters or 24.5%.  Hartman claimed the need for a certified affidavit from the signature gatherer and 5% of registered voters from each zone is still constitutional.  STAND’s attorney said it’s against state law and they will be moving forward with a lawsuit.  All through the petition collection process city management and elected officials have never addressed STAND’s claims regarding their spending of $100 million more than other cities of similar size or having 300 more city employees than similar municipalities.
While the Mayor and two city commissioners have signed the STAND amendments, the majority of have refused, ignoring ten thousand residents who want to vote on the amendments implementation.  This should be remembered when these fools come up for reelection.  They’re self-serving, ignoring resident’s needs, totally trusting of city management, and easily bought and paid for by developers and other special interest groups.  The STAND boys won’t quit and change is coming to the ‘Red-Neck Riviera.’

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
Neighborhood Leaders Meeting A Waste of Time...
This was supposed to be a meeting that promoted the chance for City Commissioners and Neighborhood Leaders to talk and ask questions of city employees.  Instead, Grand Puba Jim Chisolm gave a 40 minute presentation of staff accomplishments, which have been previously stated over and over again.
Chisolm mentioned that five new parks were created.  He neglected to mention that Lenox Park was actually less usable than before the renovations were done.  Perhaps if plans were discussed with the City Commission before the renovation, the results would have been better.
It was mentioned that Daytona will enter into discussions with Holly Hill, South Daytona and Port Orange to find solutions to the flooding problems.  No concrete time line was given.
Approximately 80 residents commented on lack of street lighting, request of more police officers on the street, increased use of public schools for city led recreation programs, burying electric lines, prostitution, panhandling and homeless issues. 
The only city employee that seemed to have real positive results was police Chief Chitwood.  Department arrests have increased from 6,000 in 2006 to over 14,000 in 2009.
It seems City Manager Chisolm’s strategy to have numerous meetings at inconvenient times, conveying the same useless information over and over again is working.  In the meantime he’s having almost no budget meetings to discuss the $220,000 million waste of taxpayers money.
Some things never change in the ‘Red-Neck Riviera.’

Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
City Commission Meeting...
Daytona’s Police Athletic League basketball team won the state championship again this year and are traveling to Ft. Wayne, Indiana for the national title game.  We salute their achievement
and decry the fact that City Commissioners gave them $7,500 of our tax dollars to cover traveling expenses.  This is a perfect example of what not to do with taxpayers money.  The police should get off their butts and do fund raising to pay for this which is what happens in most other cities.
During the Consent Agenda, where no discussion by Commissioners or residents is permitted,
city commissioners spent money from their ‘slush funds’ on favorite charities.  Another waste of our tax money that shouldn’t happen.
The Catholic Charities issue was postponed to the July 1st meeting.  This issue should be killed off by the Commission due strictly to the verified high crime and panhandling statics that surround these types of ‘charitable’ situations.
Past waste of space Mayor Bud Asher was reappointed to the Racing and Recreational Board by Commmission vote.
In the May 20th Commission meeting the Gateway Village planned unit development was extended to 2014, or five years. 
This means we have no way to force development which would increase our property tax revenue, while sitting with a large piece of undeveloped land.  As usual developers that contribute large sums to Commissioners campaigns get what they want.

Monday, June 29th, 2009
Commissioner Shiver Campaigns For Mayor...
Rumor has it that Daytona Beach Mayor Glenn Ritchie is considering resigning his position so he can concentrate on running his automobile dealerships.  City Commissioner Rick Shiver wasted no time in speaking with Daytona’s power brokers International Speedway Corporation and Brown & Brown Insurance, to get their permission for him to assume the position if Ritchie leaves.  Only in Daytona Beach would a half-way decent mayor with years of business experience get replaced by an arrogant ‘pot-head’ city commissioner who accepted hundreds of thousands of taxpayer’s money to buy his house, a vacation home in Costa Rica, a beach concession and membership to a local hunt club.
Shiver’s voted for ever property tax and spending increase and bad zoning change suggested by City Manager Chisolm.  In fact, he’s crawled so far up Chisolm’s behind you might as well change the City Managers title to Mayor.
Hopefully, voters will object to our city commission promoting ‘pot-head’ Shiver and insist on a special election so they can actually select their mayor, rather than have our puppet city commission just appoint anyone.  ‘Red-Neck Riviera’ politics...the needs of the many don’t matter to the few with the money.

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
Daytona’s New Deputy Manager Of Public Works, It Just Gets Better and Better...
The following is a press release from the Opelika-Auburn News in 2003 describing the horrible experience Winter Springs had with our new Deputy Utilities Manager, Ronnie McLemore when he was their City Manager:
Here he is praised for controlling growth --- just look about you at all the high rise, high density, ill planned condos/apartments going up to merely support the city's home grown farce called "Tiny Town" by residents, and mislabeled as the TOWN CENTER by those responsible for the phony concept. The mayor and ALL the commissioners are behind these ill planned projects.
Remember the NAME that McLemore brought in to combat the charter change that had signatures enough gathered that would have put the City government back in control by the People, for the People, and of the People. It was "Dr. Watson" alias Auburn city manager Doug Watson. McLemore not only had his commission pay him handsomely, but at times even used the City's police as a chauffer service to and from the airport at the expense of the taxpayers.
The below press release tells of the extraordinary number of jobs, not all by title, or locations that "Ronnie" McLemore has held, but it doesn't tell of WHY he changed jobs so much. We know, and have documents plus personal research in Stuart Florida that indicates he was FIRED from that position BEFORE he became city manager of Winter Springs. Current Mayor Bush and at least TWO of the current commissioners were in on that deceitful hiring without even a background check!
One of those commissioners is commissioner Blake who is now running for County Commissioner since his time has run out in Winter Springs. Of course the mayor Bush is running again for his current office, as is that McGinnis gal. Must be the wonderful high salary raises they gave themselves.
Oh yes we forgot to mention in the the opening regarding the changes in the charter that was to be put on the ballot in November of 2001 was a fact that city manager "Ronnie" McLemore got city attorney Garganese to claim that the paper used in obtaining the required signatures for the charter change was on the WRONG COLOR PAPER -- it was white! He wanted PASTEL colors --- preferably pink! Something's wrong with that guy.
We know what's wrong with McLemore --- he's money hungry. The people will really never know how many jobs, like the one above, he used city time. and money trying to gain employment elsewhere. We know of at least a half a dozen. He should take one --- whoops --- forgot he tried !
Looks like McLemore is the ‘mini-me’ to Chisolm.  He hates residents input and has apparently attempted to deny them their right to petition their government.  Meanwhile the City Commission continues in it’s blissful ignorance, spending more and more of our money on employees we don’t need or want.                                                                                        

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009   
Developers’ Win...Residents Lose Thanks To Crist...
Governor ‘Gimme Campaign Contributions’ Crist signed a new growth management law which gives the Daytona Beach City Commission the ability to change our Land Use and Zoning regulations at will, without any state review and no consideration for the lack of roads and infrastructure already in desperate need of repair.  Now all those really bad developer plans gathering dust on City Manager Chisolm’s desk can be rubber-stamped by the morons on our City Commission.
They’ll get rid of more public schools and destroy more neighborhoods after spending over $400,000 on two different Vision Plans that they now don’t have to use.  Some foolish residents actually believed their input in the Vision Plans had some meaning.
Local development mouthpiece Greg Blose from the the Volusia Homebuilders Association continues to cry poor for Developers, demanding the School Board drop impact fees because of this recession.  Maybe if they hadn’t bribed so many state and local politicians for land use changes, they’d have more money to follow the contracts we gave them and actually build something for once instead of flipping properties for profit after receiving land use changes granted by politicians they bribed with campaign contributions.
Blose neglects to address what will happen when demand returns.  After Florida Hometown Democracy passes, residents will see a stabilization, then increase in their property values.  That is until we run out of water due to over-development.
Which leads us to congratulation to ICI President Mori Housseni.  Looks like all those contributions to the Republican Party finally paid off.  Governor Crist appointed Mori’s sister to the St. John’s Water Management Board and simultaneously signed a new law which gutted the board’s power to stop new water withdrawals, giving almost all the Board’s power to ‘staff.’  Now Housseni’s sister and municipalities ‘Staff’ can make sure Mori’s additional requests for ‘new’ water for development use is always granted.
With Crist’s most recent decisions Daytona will continue to have a Beirut style ocean front, major roads in disrepair, flooding, development based on campaign contributions, highest property taxes in the county and the dumbest politicians Developers’ money can buy.  It’s a beeyootiful day in the Red-Neck Riviera!

Monday, June 1st, 2009
City Manager Chisolm Continues To Build His Kingdom And Spend Our Money Needlessly...
City Manager Jim Chisolm continues to spit in the face of residents begging for less city spending by hiring a ‘Deputy Manager’ of Public Works.  Chisolm stated this was to free up
Paul McKetrick who was doing the job of Public Works Director and assisting Chisolm as a Deputy City Manager.  The new Deputy Manager of Public Works will run the department and also assist Chisolm with city management duties as well.  Bottom line, Chisolm added another senior staff Director to assist him, when he already has eight people working directly for him.  They include:Deputy City Manager-Paul McKetrick, Deputy Public Works Manager-Ron McLeMore, Betty Goodman-Assistant City Manager, Hardy Smith-Government Liasion, Susan Cerbone-Public Information Officer, Bobbie Yarborough-Personal Secretary, Pam Fearn-Office Secretary andCarol Walton-newest Office Secretary.
Before Chisolm was hired, there were only four people in his office, one Deputy City Manager and three secretaries all earning approximately $220,000 plus $127,00 for the City Manager.  At that time three secretaries were considered to be too much.  Now Chisolm has doubled  personnel in his office to eight.  These people earn in excess of $650,000 plus outstanding pension and medical benefits. 
Since Daytona’s population remained the same for the past ten years, it’s logical to assume the amount of services the city needs to provide resident remains the same as well.  Yet, Chisolm has hired hundreds of additional city employees and doubled the budget to over $220,000 million dollars.  Meanwhile the majority of our retarded City Commission can’t seem to understand what the problem is.  Chisolm continues to spend without regard to what it cost residents and our City Commission does nothing.  We’ll make sure to remind voters of that during the next election.

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
Where Is Daytona’s ‘Storm Water’ Money?...
Water, water everywhere.  Flooded streets.  Flooded housing projects in the ‘hood’ at Nova and Bellevue and the $45 million collected over the last five years for storm water sewer repairs and expansion, is no where to be found.  The city of Daytona Beach has been collecting over $9 million annually for storm water repairs for years.  It’s even in a little category by itself on your water bill.  But, they never spend it for what it’s intended.  Like much of the funds in the city budget, it’s transferred and eventually lost, misspent in a never ending ‘shell game.’  You’ve gotta love city management’s creative accounting and the City Commission’s utter stupidity or lack of caring where voters money is actually spent.  Guess City Manager Chisolm believes it’s more important to give the Firemens’ pension fund a cost of living increase, buy and knock down City Commissioner Shriver’s home after he got some poop in it, for $100,000 more
than it’s worth or spend 95% of the police overtime budget on Speed Weeks and not charge the France family for it.  Guess we should get him a little plaque that says ‘God put the water here and God will take it away.’  Be prepared for an increase in your water bill after this little storm.  After all, when opportunity strikes your city management will always get in your pocket to pay for it.  Yee-Haa!

Monday, May 11th, 2009
Business As Usual In The Red-Neck Riviera...
The majority of morons in our city commission continue their tradition of taking direction from
‘King’ Jim Chisolm.  A budget amendment was passed to spend $10,000 from the Halifax Marina Enterprise fund to subsidize the money losing Halifax Marina real estate rental project.
By city ordinance, Enterprise funds such as the Marina and City Golf course are supposed to pay for themselves and not be subsidized from other funds.  You might remember Chisolm convinced the commission to allow Public Works employees to have offices in the Marina building last year.  So instead of rental property that generates income, we continue to subsidize a losing enterprise and allow city employees to work out of prime waterfront real estate owned by taxpayer.
They voted to change the building density at the old police station property from 21 units per acre to 35 units per acre.  This means more crappy apartments can be build on the site, inviting ‘new’ HUD construction for the black minority living in that part of our city.  Guess the commission thinks it good to keep our black resident packed in like rats in their part of town.
The Commissions’ Strategic Planning Meetings have continued with no actual planning taking place.  Now they’re working towards 2010.  No budget meeting have been scheduled and the budget is due to be voted on by August.  Compare that to Ormond Beach that’s had six budget meetings already and is planning a road show style meeting with their residents in every zone before August.  Chisolm continues his absolute control of the city commission wasting their time in numerous meeting where nothing gets accomplished and limiting their input on the way our tax dollars are spent.  Yee Haa!  Some things never change.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009
News-Journal Board Of Directors Fired...
After seventy years of Davidson family management the News-Journal’s board of directors were terminated by the court appointed receiver managing the company.  Most recently the Board attempted to file bankruptcy in order to avoid paying $125 million the company owes to it’s minority share holder Cox News.  A federal judge wouldn’t allow the filing which cleared the way for the Board’s firing.  The Board and Davidson family was deserving of every bad thing that’s happened to them.  While some of their editorials on state issues were good, they always protected county and city government, hardly ever reporting on their corruption, waste and misuse of power.  Most city newspapers act as a ‘watchdog’ reporting local government’s failings.  The News-Journal did just the opposite.  They never spoke of International Speedway Corporation or Brown & Brown Insurance buying political office through campaign contributions for dozens of years or disclosed Developer  relationships and gifts to city employees that resulted in special land use changes.  They never bothered to investigate why it costs $100 million more yearly to operate our city compared to others or why we have the highest property taxes in the county.  In short they never really defended the residents, just took their money and built their little empire, which eventually rotted from within due to their arrogance.  Perhaps a new company will purchase the News-Journal and force it to act like a Real source of news, but it’s doubtful.  The ‘Red-Neck’ Riviera always resists change for the public good.

Monday, April 20th, 2009
Residents To Pay Millions For Failing Convention Center And Airport...
Three years ago Real Daytona stated it was a bad idea to spend millions of tax dollars on renovating the Daytona Beach Convention Center.  Declining attendance at trade shows, lack of quality hotels and an increase nationally in available trade show space made expanding our convention center a bad idea. 
The Daytona Beach airport’s always been a joke.  The majority of flights that take place from there are by Embry-Riddle students, not major airlines.  Ticket prices are ridiculous compared to Orlando and Jacksonville and there isn’t a direct flight to anywhere. Yet airport management always seems to report airport use is up or only down a couple of percentage points.
Spending any additional monies on either of these already next to useless dinosauers is plain stupid.  But stupidly wasting tax dollars has never stopped a Volusia County or Daytona Beach politician from spending money.  So, the Convention Center was expanded and Daytona Beach International Airport is still marketed as a great place to travel to and from.  Now, (surprise) residents have to pay millions in additional taxes to cover their losses with the County Counsel blaming the economy, rather than their stupidity and lack of fiscal accountability.  It’s been proven over and over that ‘Build it and they will come’ doesn’t work in Volusia County and Daytona Beach especially.  We have the highest property tax rate of any county in Florida and the highest city property tax rates for Daytona Beach as well.  It’s time for our politicians to quit wasting our money, cut spending, eliminate local government jobs and become competitive the old fashioned way, by offering better service at a lower cost!

Friday, April 17th, 2009
Volusia County Council & Embry Riddle University Screw Daytona Neighborhood...
The Highlands neighborhood in Daytona Beach is a nice place to live and has been here a long time.  It’s separated from Embry-Riddle University by a 35 acre buffer with nice trees and
foliage. The Volusia County Counsel and Embry-Riddle University want to change all that.   University management has been lobbying the Council to eliminate most of the buffer so they can knock down all the trees and construct baseball on soccer fields.  They even offered to let residents use these fields for free some of the time to sweeten the deal. 
Taking a page from the Developers’ ‘hand-book’ Riddle made some quiet threats that they might move their headquarters out of Daytona Beach.  They even employed radio talk show host and blathering idiot Mark Bernier as some type of lobbying representative for the University to help smooth local waters.  The County Counsel got nervous that Riddle might leave and offered them almost anything they wanted.  The result is elimination of a neighborhood buffer that’s been around for over fifty years! 

As usual local government betrays the public trust to satisfy a developer, in this case Embry-Riddle University.  Residents of the Highland neighborhood are fighting back but it’s probably too little too late.  Business and politics as usual continue in Daytona Beach and Volusia County.  Yee-Ha!

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
No April Fool Here, Daytona Residents Screwed Again By Pier Group...
Jerry Fink, Bill Geary and George Anderson of the Carlsburg Management Company are taking Daytona residents for millions and the City Commission is getting ready to let them do it again!  After more than twenty years of developer ‘giveaways’, the Boardwalk and Pier represent real blight. Carlsbad Management Company was supposed to change that with their Pier renovation and Boardwalk project.  Instead they did nothing, letting our Pier fall into disrepair.  Now the very developers who promised to improve the pier and build a new entertainment center on it have the audacity to negotiate better lease terms and request another $2 million dollar city bail out.  The real irony is city management is happy to negotiate a new deal, lose money and then give the Pier back to the same people that failed the first time!
This all stems from city managements’ attempts to use eminent domain laws to eliminate local land and lease owners under the cover of city authority. It then became worse with the promise of  millions of city redevelopment dollars as financial incentives to developers such as Carlsburg Management. Add a building boom and you have to wonder why with all this help Carlsburg still couldn’t produce the project. 
So another ‘bail out package’ goes to the politically well connected in Daytona Beach. Residents are supposed to pay for it instead of making Anderson, Geary and Fink either comply to the lease terms or take back the pier when they default.
Isn’t it time city management and elected officials started holding developers to their contracts and not allow them off the hook because the project was harder or more expensive than they expected?  The only way the Pier and Boardwalk will every return to it’s former profitable glory is by maintaining it and allowing driving on the beach.  Beach drivers are customers that spend money at places like the Pier, Boardwalk and hotel restaurants. Keeping them off that portion of the beach is just plain stupid! You may remember driving was removed from that part of the beach years ago to satisfy another developer who ended up selling the hotel we lent him money for.  We’re still paying for the land while he took his millions in profit and left the area.  Seeing a trend here?  Developers make huge campaign contributions, get special deals and free tax dollars, screw-up and don’t do the project, then get to start the whole thing over again with some taxpayer cash up front.  Call the Mayor and City Commissioners.  Tell them no to the Carlsburg bailout!

Thursday, March 26th, 2008
Commissioner Harasses Neighbor While Breaking Law...
City Commissioner Rick Shiver just can’t seem to help himself.  He believes he can violate the law with impunity then blame and harasses his neighbors when he’s caught.
His problems started when he backed his concession wagon into a short brick wall bordering his neighbor’s property and knocked it down.  He’s been parking his beach concession wagon, (a commercial vehicle) at his home for a number of years against city code. Of course, he saw no reason to inform his neighbor of the damage.  Shiver’s neighbor is an out of town landlord and rents his house out to vacationers.
The vacationers called to tell the landlord Shiver knocked down the wall.  The landlord then called Shiver and left a message stating he didn’t really care about the wall but didn’t want the responsibility of having to clean up the debris.  Shiver never returned his call to address the issue.
A few days later Shiver did call his neighbor, leaving a recorded rant of how the renters next door were making too much noise.  He then claimed to have complained to the police on five separate occasions about the noise problem and that his neighbors property was violating city codes by not being zoned for vacation rentals.  A few days later the landlord received a letter from city Code Enforcement telling him he couldn’t rent his property to vacationers anymore.  Now he’s considering a lawsuit against the city for selective enforcement of the vacation rental law.  Meanwhile Shiver damages private property, leaves the scene of an accident, doesn’t report it to the police and nothing is done to him for it.
Kind of reminds us when Shiver installed an illegal toilet in the garage of his old house without a permit, had a bunch of sewage flood his house and taxpayers ended up spending almost $400,000 to buy him out after we already paid to clean it up, for no reason.
Shiver never takes responsibility for the problems he causes like massive spending and tax increases or sewage back-flow through illegal toilets.  He just blames someone else, gets them to pay for it and goes on his merry way to smoke some more dope and surf in Costa Rica at his vacation home that Daytona residents paid for.  Now Daytona taxpayers get to foot the bill for another lawsuit because of Shiver’s arrogance and lack of accountability.  Seems some things never change in the ‘Red-Neck Riviera.’

Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Mayor Ritchie Reneges On Finding Sponsor For London Symphony Orchestra...
Months ago after Mayor Ritchie was challenged for endorsing the spending $500,000 of taxpayer money to continue bringing the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) to Daytona Beach, he said he’d  find corporate sponsors to pay for it.  That didn’t happen.  We understand the recession hurt a lot of businesses in the area but the ones that profit the most like International Speedway Corporation and Brown & Brown Insurance certainly could have come up with some cash to ease the pain of the taxpayer.  Now LSO ticket sales are down over 40% and no major company has stepped up with substantial dollars to assist.  Looks like many of the ‘high rollers’ in our community are now stuck living paycheck to paycheck like the rest of us, with the exception of the France family and Hyatt Brown of course.

Saturday, March 14, 2009
Almost 200 People Attend Memorial For Terry Whelan...
Our city lost a friend and political activist this week when Terry Whelan passed away unexpectedly at 51.  Terry’s day job was as a plumbing contractor but his advocation was politics and finance.  We at Real Daytona remember when Terry challenged Darlene Yordon for Zone 2 City Commissioner a few years ago and lost by less than 100 votes. Terry was described by the minister at the memorial as one of the most intelligent and ethical men he’d ever met.  He always had a joke or kind word for those around him and loved to talk to people.  Terry was a Navy veteran, Boy Scout troop leader and active in the Bellaire Community Group. He’s survived by his wife LuAnn, daughter Theresa and son Sean.  We were lucky to have known him and he will be missed.                     

Thursday, February 26, 2009
Bike Week Pumps Badly Needed Money Into Local Economy...
After speaking with vendors, restaurant and hotel owners the general consensus was ‘Bike Week’ was pretty good this year.  Many believed changes at Myrtle Beach Bike Week encouraging Bikers to go elsewhere also fueled Daytona’s attendance increase this year.
The usual local whiners such as despised columnist Pam Hasterok, f the Daytona Beach News-Jounal, bitched about Bike Week, but who really cares what she thinks.  Hasterok rents a home, doesn’t pay property tax or even live in Daytona.
If the fools that manage our city would choose to better embrace Special Events and Spring Break they wouldn’t have to increase property taxes and spending every year, instead letting the tourist industry pay for most of it.  They continue attempting to shape Daytona into what they think it should be instead of embracing what it is, and is not.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
City Manager Blocks Park Near Main Street...
What City Manager‘King’ Chisolm wants ‘King’ Chisolm gets, or in this case decides not to get.
Paul Holub has put a piece of property up for sale just south of Main Street behind Stevens Tire,
that could make an excellent city park right on the river.  There’s bunch of grant and redevelopment money available that would make the purchase of this property virtually painless.
But Chisolm and his staff don’t want a park there.  They delayed the project by not submitting Comprehensive Plan changes to Tallahassee on time, which means the Grant’s can’t be applied for and no money obtained for purchase of the property. As usual, a project for the residents obtained for very little tax money, is deliberately blocked by City Management before any public discussion can ensue. 
Kinds of reminds us of the Daytona YMCA project.  City management delayed discussions regarding the purchase of the YMCA until it was sold to someone else.  Now they’re spending three times the money to develop a similar building without the pool, in the same location.
Yet the majority of our City Commission continues to back Chisolm with unflagging loyalty while he taxes and spends us into oblivion.  As a famous comedian says, ‘You can’t fix stupid!’

Friday, February 13th, 2009
City Manager & City Attorney Fight For Power...
The News-Journal reported on an acknowledged ‘failure to communicate’ between City Attorney Marie Hartman and City Manager Jim Chisolm which may be costing taxpayers thousands. 
The City Commission appears to be unhappy about it and is urging both to do better.  The most recent argument is based on Pub 44 being refused a request to have outside loudspeakers during Bike Week.  They appealed to the Special Magistrate of Code Enforcement and the city attorney’s office wasn’t even aware of what was going on because they weren’t informed by city management.  Marie Hartmen complained about not being informed to Chisolm’s office. It seems even with six deputy attorneys Hartman can’t keep up with her legal responsibilities of our city.  This is why we need to get rid of this expensive group of incompetent attorneys and hire an outside law firm to take care of the city’s legal business.
The City Manager and City Attorney are the only two positions filled directly be the City Commission.  Since City Manager Chisolm runs Daytona with an iron fist, he’s angry that Hartman doesn’t do what he wants or report directly to him.  We at Real Daytona think they’re both extremely overpaid for their poor performance and should be terminated for cause.
Chisolm apologized to Hartman and suggested a Thursday meeting every week to make sure they’re all ‘on the same page.’  Meanwhile he’s probably planning how to screw her over again.
It’s really hard to say which person we dislike more.  They’ve both costs taxpayers millions by their poor job performance.  Meanwhile the majority of our clueless city commission continues to support city managements growth, tax and spend philosophy.  Some things just never change in the ‘Red Neck Riviera.’

Thursday February 5, 2009
City Commission Continues To Waste Money And Ignore Laws...
Daytona’s motto should be out with the old and in with the same, waste, ignoring the law and out of control spending..  Here’s a recap of City Commission and CRA meetings.  Insurance agency Brown & Brown was awarded a $50,000 ‘consulting service’ charge regarding Daytona’s insurance coverage.  The previous supplier of this service had provided it to the city for over ten years without a problem.  But, they didn’t make anywhere the level of campaign contributions that Hyatt Brown and his company did.
The city attorney’s office continues to spend more and do less.  Another $135,000 was budgeted for a sixth assistant attorney with more money needed to promote one of them to the Deputy Attorney level.  Yet they still can’t handle the case load they have. 
Cartrights Landscaping was a one year contract of $109,586 for mowing, a $35,000 increase from last year.
After years of complaining by residents the City Commission is finally modifying who can be on city boards.  While most city’s limit to residents only, our politicians still want to let non-resident business owners continue to ‘serve’ on these boards.  Apparently they want to make sure these business owners can still influence what happens in our city by more than just giving campaign contributions.
It seems there’s problems with the city board activities as it relates to CRA funds.  The City Commission is supposed to make decisions about all redevelopment area spending and the boards is responsible for recommendations.  However, city employees are taking some of the recommendations the board makes and implementing them without asking permission from the City Commission who manages the CRA.  The key problem is City Manager Chisolm doing what he wants, while ignoring the law and our elected officials.
Examples include removal of the shuffle boards on Orange Ave., filling in of the historic canals in Beach Street Riverfront Park, spending CRA money for banners on Main Street and spending over 22% of the Downtown Redevelopment budget on ‘policing’, one of the items the State Auditor General was extremely critical of.
After almost two years City management still refuses to address the issues the State Auditor General pointed out regarding misuse of millions in CRA funds.  Meanwhile the majority of our  clueless city commission sits in oblivion, doing nothing.

Thursday, January 28th
2009-Keeping it REAL in 2009
2008 is well behind us but before we say goodbye lets take a look at how Real Daytona and its readers have had a profound impact on the everyday lives of the working class folks who make up the backbone of Volusia County.
During 2008 a number of public officials departed (we don’t care where they went as long as they’re not here burdening the taxpayers with their incompetence). Here’s the short list:
BOB BROWN DAYTONA BEACH CITY ATTORNEY: No one will miss Bob because during his tenure it was like he wasn’t even there anyway. Due to his poor performance the city lost millions in lawsuits paid out and his lack of oversight in legal matters allowed city management and elected officials to break the law in the administration of the CRA’S, a mess which still hasn’t been straightened out.  Unfortunately, his replacement Marie Hartman continues his tradition of incompetence.
FORMER STATE ATTORNEY JOHN TANNER: Tanner thought he was above the law instead of being a  guardians of justice. The office of State Attorney was a ‘bully pulpit’ where he promoted his ‘god given’ personal agenda instead of being a sacred trust as it should be. God didn’t tell Tanner it was time to retire but voters certainly did.
FORMER CITY COMMISSIONER MIKE SHALLOW : Due to his own ‘handiwork’ Shallow has finally removed himself to the self imposed political exile he so richly deserves. Real Daytona and its readers have worked for years to expose this charlatan for what he is. We’re so glad he took it upon himself to take matters in his own ‘hand’ and ‘expose’ himself to the world!
FORMER CITY COMMISSIONER DARLENE YORDON  : According to our sources the ‘shrew of shrews’ has moved to Jacksonville after reeking political havoc upon our city. She’ll always be remembered as a city commissioner who said much and did little. We suggest that those who want to remember Darlene make a donation to the council on Mental Health in her honor!
We’ve covered many stories this past year that were never mentioned in ‘The Mullet Wrap’ (The News Journal). From government manipulation by the Speedway and Hyatt Brown to lies told to voters by city management, politicians and Daytona firefighters. With your help and contributions Real Daytona has been able to expose the protected and powerful in our city.
We’ll continue to expose Daytona government driven by unethical political contributions, unresponsive to the residents they serve while continuing their budget lies and out of control spending.  We invite you to contribute your stories and participate in our forum boards with your opinions. Working together we can build a brighter future for our children and our city. This is the year for change!

Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
Hyatt Brown, The New ‘Boss Hog’ of Daytona Beach...
Bill France Sr. of International Speedway Corporation used to be the one to pull Daytona politician’s ‘strings’ to get done what he wanted.  With France’s death it appears Hyatt Brown of Brown & Brown Insurance has filled the void.
In a recent city commission meeting Brown & Brown insurance was promised $50,000 to have their insurance sales people ‘evaluate’ the current city employee medical insurance plan and make recommendations.  You know, the health plan where city employees get better medical benefits than the 95% of Daytona Beach residents that pay the taxes to support it.  So instead of the city human resources compensation and benefits person who we already pay to determine insurance coverage for city employees, we now also get to pay Hyatt Brown’s salesman another $50,000 for them to ‘consult’ and make recommendations.  What a scam!
In another related issue, remember the new 1,000 person amphitheater that was included in the city’s Master Plan?  The one where taxpayers get to spend a couple of hundred million dollars and knock down the county courthouse and library on city island?  Hyatt Brown’s been backing that as well so the London Symphony Orchestra can have a permanent home to play in every two years.  After all, Brown’s on the International Festival Board and part of the reason we get to pay $500,000 out of the city budget this year to help the LSO come to our town.  His company also gave tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to many of the current politicians on
our city commission as well.  Hyatt Brown’s never met a politician he didn’t like and couldn’t buy.
Guess losing a bunch of money on the News-Journal Center doesn’t bother Mr. Brown or city management either.  After all, few of them actually live in Daytona Beach and aren’t really affected by high property taxes or service charges for utilities.
So Hyatt Brown’s the new Boss Hoss of the Red-Neck Riviera!  Guess we should get him a ‘ceegar’ and scream yee haa in tribute.

Tuesday, January 5th, 2009
Another New Year Of Politics In Daytona Beach
Personal motivations rules most of our elected officials, with little consideration of the consequences to the community.  We no longer have a government ‘buy the people and for the people’.  Instead those in government are there for the kickbacks and to benefit friends and campaign contributors.  Why?  Because they can get away with it. 
Even elected officials who began as advocates for effective, fair and efficient government get co-opted over time.  One Commissioner recently said they would vote for a land change not in their zone even though they didn’t agree with it, if they would get a reciprocal vote from the other Commissioner on a different issue.  That’s how the erosion of their integrity begins.  A great example for term limits.
Sadly, most politicians run for elected office to gain power, stroke their egos or increase their income through influence peddling and illegal means. Daytona’s voter apathy has been caused primarily by a lack of honest candidates who can raise enough money to campaign against the well-oiled machine of commercial developers and large corporations that have controlled Daytona Beach politics for decades.  Waste, spending and corruption has blossomed in our city government over the past ten years, yet the quality of life for most Daytona residents is worse than it has ever been.
Until we have more citizen involvement, outraged and ethical, well informed people willing to run for elected office, nothing will change, regardless of how much money taxpayers are forced to spend.
Until we get non-partisan law enforcement willing to truly investigate and charge politicians and city employees with corruption and malfeasance, nothing will change.
Until we reign in our elected officials by voting for state and local amendments and charter changes that limit their ability to make decisions influenced by campaign contributors, nothing will change.
We urge you to continue to support Hometown Democracy state amendment 4 and the STAND
city charter amendment petition efforts.