Is There Still Corruption At City Hall?

 
Is There Still Corruption At City Hall?   Is The Mayor Stone Walling On The Audit Committee ?    Is the Mayor showing arrogance in his shrewd jovial way, when he condescendingly,  jokingly, puts public speakers at Council Meetings down?

 
Hank,
You have made several apt observations that  would be hard to refute.  Let me add a few of my own regarding the:
Mayor and Council    Port Orange would not be Port Orange if like gravity the Mayor  was not working behind the scenes  night and day  sapping and mining away at taxpayers wallets.  Looks like the Mayor and Manager have decided that taxpayers will be investing in a new Fire Chief, more police,  increased health and dental insurance  premiums AND  a pay raise for all City employees.
Things may be changing somewhat however as Council is slowly but surely getting up of their knees. Have they finally come to realize that the Manager works for them and not the other way around ???
Manager Kisela      I am  at a complete loss to understand why Manager  Kisela  is not  both disclosing and resolving the numerous problems left by the previous manager.    At this point Greg has come to fully understand those  improprieties, AND  yet he has taken little in the way of demonstrable corrective  action.   The payroll fraud is a case in point and it goes to heart of his senior staff’s  integrity and competence,  in that    half were  being paid for bogus hours,  And  the other half knew or should have known this fraud  was taking place and yet no one was held accountable…..then or now.      Why is that ??
Audit and Budget Committee          A duly appointed 5 five person A&B Committee has been passed by ordinance and yet the first meeting of this committee has not been called by the Manager ….. despite his admission that calling such a meeting,  where  that committee will  elect its own chairman and set its own future meeting schedule,  is purely  ministerial.  A cynic might conclude that the Manager is attempting to run out the clock until the CRI forensic report  and the Annual audit report have been concluded and beyond the examination of this committee.  The Mayors suggestion that this 5 person committee be expanded to 7 before it even meets for the first time with the inevitable delay that will cause could well  be viewed in the same light.
Presentation of Forensic Investigation       Carr, Riggs & Ingram are slated to present their report smack dab in the middle of next Tuesday’s  Regular Council meeting.  That is totally inappropriate and smacks of a desire on the part of the Mayor and Manager who set the agenda to have the CRI report minimized.    This is a most important subject matter that deserves to be heard in a Special Council meeting where appropriate comments and questions may be posed by  Council and by the public.
Ted

From: Hank Springer [mailto:poimages@cfl.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2013 9:16 PM
To: Corry B.; Mark Schaefer; Newton White; Patrick Nelan; poimages@cfl.rr.com; Ted Noftall
Subject: I watched the may 28 city council meeting on pog tv.
 
I have some thoughts on the May 28, 2013 port orange city council meeting.
Ted, the audio on pog TV was horrendous tonight. It seems like the audio volume on the mikes on the Dias was set to high, so what the city council members said, very often came over garbled.  Ted when you spoke about the forensic audit, your audio was weak, and was overwhelmed by rustling of papers on the dais.  I was not sure of what every sentence of yours, words contained.
The problem with the fuel tax and Volusia County, I think I generally understand, but wouldn’t be able to report the specifics of the problem.  Tell me where I am wrong.  It seems to me that Volusia County is kind of black mailing port orange. If Port Orange goes the wrong way the county is saying, then it will declare more reasons for receiving another 10 percent by including the race track, beach driving and votran.  It seems to me that Port Orange is being blackmailed not to complain and lose its present money.  but the money coming to Port Orange is unfair.  My personality is that which says, when you are being blackmailed, and still not getting fairness, then you should fight.  My dangerous personality is to get out of a bad spot, by damning the little hand out I am now getting, and on principle fight any way I can.  Maybe this won’t work in the politics of this unfairness, but I kind of think the public would support drastic action by the city council to take on the county and fight. The public is fed up with unfairness and I think the city council should go public, let the people and the rest of Volusia County know how unfair this all is.  It seems to me that the more we tolerate unfairness in this nation, and we have a lot of it, it just gets worse.  The city council can go to the press, or at least threaten the county that the city will go to the press, and damn the unfair portion of the gas tax money that we are getting, because the city council will not take it anymore.  Wouldn’t those county politicians be afraid of not being voted in again, and wouldn’t Port Orange redeem itself by sticking up for the average citizen, and damn the unfair money that it would lose?  Perhaps then the county would have more respect for the po city council, and start working to really solve the unfairness.  The unfairness is to the advantage to the county.
Speaking of earning respect.  I see that the Mayor is granting you activists some leeway on time and accommodation to speak.   Tonight, he allowed you to make comments from your seats, and entertained your comments, but when you go up in front of the city council to speak, the mayor gets kind of jokingly condescending, like you are to be tolerated, but don’t have really serious business to bring to the city council.  When you present a good argument, the mayor does not engage in it, becomes silent.  But at every other chance he sort of makes a joke, in his shrewd jovial way, of the fact that you are there to speak.
Newton has been urged so many times by the Mayor to not make it long.  I would turn around at that point and walk away from the speaker mike.  When the mayor calls newton back, I suggest that newton tell the mayor not to worry about newton speaking at great length for the mayor has his egg timer to cut him off.  He is already telling newton, that he the mayor begrudges the 3 minutes allotted to newton.  The mayor is not engaging you guys in your arguments, but engaging you with an attitude of “Oh, You, again?”
If I were Cory, and the mayor says, “Ok make it fast, because I am not here”, I would stop and say to the mayor, when you do return please call me back to the microphone, turn around and go back to my seat.
You guys by the Mayor’s attitude are starting to seem like you don’t count, and nothing beneficial to the city council will come from your words.  I am not a public speaker, and I applaud you gumption and courage in going to speak before the city council, but I am getting concerned with how that arrogant is condescendingly, jokingly, putting you guys down.  He is shrewd and I think sneaky.  Which brings me to my next topic.
The mayor told newton that he would not allow the advisory budget board to proceed at this time. Am I correct?  What is he doing?  Stone walling so you guys on the budget advisory board won’t meet until it is too late to get on what the auditors are doing?  I don’t understand this, but do not trust the mayor.  He was the one who came up with 7 guys instead of5, and he is the one who will not name his candidate.  Am I reading this all correctly?  I remember when the budget advisory board was first proposed; he asked if that might include his wife who is good with numbers.  Do you remember that?  Now he is looking for the proper team to serve on the advisory board and he is not ready to propose his candidates. What is he doing, trying to stack the deck?  As you can tell, I do not care for Mayor Green.
When I spoke to the mayor by phone, some months ago, and he told me about his conversation with ken parker, and his talking to Margaret about what parker and Shelley was scheming, I asked him why he did not inform the other city council members. He told me that he did not want to exasperate the situation, and inferred that city workers would leave in droves if the situation was exasperated.  I told Green that he seems to be the kind of guy to play his cards close to his vest, and I thought that such a tactic no longer sits well with some of the public.  He did not respond. Absolute Silence.  He knows when to be silent, and he knows when to kid around.  Don’t be fooled by his pretended friendly familiarity with you guys.  Perhaps I do not know all the relationships, and you are meeting and or talking with the mayor in private a lot more. If so, beware.  But what do I know? I merely observe and speculate. I am a reporter and that is my way of being an activist.
If you think any of the foregoing of my observations should be made public on my web site, and/or sent to the city council by email, let me know, and I will rework it and tone it down.  For now, I am content to reach out to you and provide my input, and I am glad you guys are there to speak up in front of the city council.  And I am glad you will be on the advisory board.
Hank 386 852 3178
 
From Hank Springer
Editor/Publisher
poimages@cfl.rr.com
386 852 3178