"The Hardworking Taxpayers of Port Orange Deserve Better"

 Port Orange has been run  for all intents and purposes by the Mayor and Manager for at least the past decade.   The way it has worked is that the Mayor and Manager decide an issue,  AND  then the Manager and his staff and his  consultants go to work on Council to ensure the desired ceremonial vote  is achieved  3 Tuesday evenings  a month.
If your are pleased with developments  since Dorothy you need to thank Mayor Green and the Former and Current  Manager.     If you are not so pleased then you know the cause.
For purposes of this discussion let us be kind and say that it is only arguable and not indisputable that the Mayor and the Manager  have at least 3 department directors who lack the requisite qualifications and experience necessary to provide competent leadership in those departments.

• * What does that say about the fundamental respect the Mayor and Manager have  for good government in Port Orange.

• * What does it say about the  fundamental arrogance they  possess  to employ less than competent department heads  and then tell Council and the People that everything  is just fine.

• * What does it say kind about the fundamental distain with which they held  Council s’ directive to retain a consultant to simplify an overly complex rate structure,   AND  have that consultant bring back a report with zero reference to rate simplification,  INSTEAD   recommending  increased borrowing  and 30%  to  50%  rate increases  to support $60 million  in expenditures based on nothing more than the Manager’s bold faces lie that   “because we haven’t done anything for six years, we are going to have to play catch-up,”

• *  What does it say about the Mayor’s  commitment to keep on wasting   taxpayer funds  on the pipe, ponds and pumps that comprise Port Oranges’ defect laden reclaimed system despite looming 50% rate increases.

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What does it also say about  4 caring and I  genuinely believe well meaning  councilman who would take issue with little of what I just said, AND  who have little  to no confidence in the department directors of Public Utilities, Public Works and Finance,  BUT YET  sit by at  Council meeting  after Council meeting and take no meaningful action ??
Port Orange never came to terms with the internal rot that was exposed in the wake of the  Public Works/Finance/Water debacle in 2012  thanks  to Mayor Green’s  secret and manipulative nature.   Because a thorough housecleaning was never undertaken,  the result some 2 years later, is a series of  multiple festering wounds that are coming to light with increasing frequency.
At this point it is  fair to ask if Council is any more up to their task which must be to bring Manager Kisela’s continued employment to a vote than the aforementioned department directors in whom they have so little confidence.
The hardworking taxpayers of Port Orange deserve better, and I feel confident  that after this year’s election will we  have  a Council dynamic  that will no longer shrink from meaningful action when required.