Were City Medians Deliberately Butchered and Scalped ?
If you were wondering why the medians along Dunlawton appear to be butchered and scalped it is because they are. That’s right folks.
On Friday past, Manager Kisela, having been stung by his incompetent decision to re-hire Glenco Lawn Services, ordered his even more incompetent Public Works director to have her department cut those medians.
At that point one of two things happened; Either the full extent of Public Works competence is now on display, OR that department is in full revolt and the medians were scalped deliberately as payback for being given additional work that is not in their job descriptions.
Those medians are a City asset like any other and they have cost taxpayers millions to install and maintain. If an asset of this value were owned by the private sector and it were treated so callously someone would be out of a job by now…..…..because that is the only known way to encourage others to take proper care of assets for which they have responsibility.
But not in Port Orange under an ICMA manager who believes in codling and cuddling employees with pizza parties and pop psychology counseling from unlicensed therapists, instead of telling them to stop their whining and start remembering that have working conditions and salaries and benefits that far exceed their counterparts in the private sector.
Maybe Public works would do a better job cutting grass if they were getting annual awards for Excellence in Mowing — just like Finance’s annual award for Excellence in Accounting — even in the year it was revealed that millions of taxpayer dollars were lost and its former director and CSM resigned in shame one step ahead of being fired for incompetence.
When the complete lack of controls City wide became apparent last spring and fall: the former Manager should have been fired; the Mayor should have resigned, a real investigation should have been conducted , AND the City should have begun the catharsis that was and still is necessary.
Instead the Mayor stayed on and has done his level best ever since from having anything come out that wasn’t leaked.
The former Manager in cahoots with the Mayor retired on his time table and was thus * allowed to authorize the phony baloney Moore Stephens investigation, * arrange sweetheart retirement deals that ensured his CFO and CSM would never reveal anything , * put the foundation in place for the further fake investigations conducted by Carr Riggs, and * finally through a series of Range Rider dog and pony shows convince Counsel to hire his replacement from the ICMA gene pool………. All of which were a disaster for taxpayers.
When the new Manager search started last fall I begged Counsel to forgo the hacks that populate the ICMA talent pool and hire a Manager from the private sector. A manager who would be appalled with and un-accepting of the daily incompetence that is Port Orange government. A Manager committed to making needed changes instead of needed excuses. Sadly Counsel chose to ignore that advice,
AND thus we lurch from one embarrassment to another, pretending always that latest embarrassment will be the last one, never once admitting that the leadership in Port Orange government is hopelessly incompetent for the tasks at hand, or that no matter what rock you turn over in Port Orange government incompetence and double standards jump out at you.
And now we are starting to make excuses for Mr Kisela …. ‘he could not possibly have known that the former lawn care company he hired was dismissed for defrauding taxpayers by failing to meet contract standards’ or ‘ he cannot be faulted for relying on his Public works director’ That is such total rubbish. When will anyone start being held accountable for anything at City Hall.
The News Journal reported yesterday that a Polk county judge and her assistant were arrested for of all things – falsifying time sheets. If she and her employee worked for Port Orange government they would have no such worries. Because as we all know no charges were ever filed in the $250,000 payroll fraud in Port Orange Utilities, and even more disgusting is the fact that the employees who participated in and benefited from that payroll theft still have their jobs. But then again Port Orange government is a consequence free zone.
Just as there is no doubt in anyone’s mind which City claims the moniker as the Big Apple, Big Easy, or the Big D.
There should also be no doubt which City likewise owns the right to be known as the City of Double Standards, No Responsibility and Zero Consequences.
False Time Sheets Arrest
Published: September 14, 2013
TAMPA — A Polk County judge and her former judicial assistant were arrested Friday for submitting and approving false time sheets.
Circuit Court Judge Beth Harlan was charged with scheming to defraud and grand theft. Her former judicial assistant, Alisha Rupp, was charged with scheming to defraud, grand theft, perjury and filing a false police report.
The Polk County State Attorney’s Office arrest affidavit states that the investigation revealed that there was “a level of complicity between Alisha (Rupp) and Judge Harlan to commit a scheme to defraud and grand theft on the taxpayers of the State of Florida.”
Both were arrested Friday by the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.