A Little More About Ted
Thanks Stacy Jax…we too agree that one’s method of presentation can be as important to the listener as the content…
My goal is always to be appropriate…and have my facts straight….. and to be somewhat coherent……and yes…..I agree…Ted Noftall is engaged in a noble cause…his goal: clean, transparent, open and responsive government …the Founder’s goals….the way I want our democratic government to function…
..and by the way…
….I failed to mention enough of the measurable objective facts I know about Ted Noftall when I spoke on Tuesday night…
Ted is the father of 3 very nice adult kids….I know his son…personable, well met, a good looking young man, nice to old ladies like Dianne….a hard working kid…works long hours….the affect and achievements of someone’s adult kids always speaks to me of good parenting….they are all gainfully employed and well educated… Ted did something right for a long time with those kids…a very engaged father….as a child whose father left when she was 4 essentially to never be seen again…the father who hangs around, pays the bills, coaches ball, is there for the spaghetti dinners, gets the kids through college and tries to leave something that can be inherited by those children…….that stuff impresses Dianne…
Ted really is a sucker for animals…as someone who has adopted 8 feral cats with all the attendant costs I admire Ted for all he has done for the little guys who live at his shop…cats are great judges of character…particularly feral cats…Chloe is Ted’s feral cat ambassador when you walk in the door of J&M Moving at Eastport…..she is clean, well fed, has no fleas, lives the life of Riley..and adores Ted…a cared for animal….so just ask Chloe…..Ted is a compassionate man…
Ted is a fighter against injustice…all kinds of injustice…..if the thugs are on you and Ted is driving by, he will be there at your back no matter what your politics…..its just his nature……when we were having our struggles with the city Ted appeared at our door and said..”who the hell are you guys and what is going on?”…and he listened and he helped us…what is a good neighbor after all?…..he was a complete stranger to us that day……..I will always be grateful to him….he helped me resolve my problems ..which appeared to be beyond solving…and he hooked me up with my dear and decent and civil councilman, Dr. Bob Ford…another man who stepped forward to help me…and our neighborhood…so…it was a good day for me and Mike when Ted Noftall showed up at 618 Ruth Street….
Ted has an Incisive intellect…he grasps concepts and issues immediately I struggle with even after repeated explanations…….his accounting back ground is extensive…he understands the accrual method of accounting ..he knows the questions to ask…..he did much good work on Audit and Budget and repeatedly asked reasonable questions appropriate to the mission of that board about internal controls and processes of the city and our finance department of Kisela and Saunders that were never answered or answered incompletely……”we will get back to you Ted”….
He is a massive payer of taxes in this city…..business and residential taxes….and he is an employer of about a dozen people…..the classic small business man who is the backbone of this nation and our small city…..so he has skin in the game……no taxpayer handouts for Ted…I like that…I do not like government welfare for developers and Ted is a developer…..go check out what he has built over there in Eastport…..beautiful property…well maintained…..a significant contribution to our city…
Ted has devoted thousands of volunteer hours to this city…just consider even the time commitment of showing up at city council meetings every week….for years…..just sitting there for however many hours each meeting lasts…..who is willing to do that???….not most of us…and Ted not only shows up..he comes prepared to speak to the agenda with fact filled comments or questions…believe me Port Orange..this requires personal commitment…
Ted is an engaged citizen..and an informed voter…..how many of us are? How many have even a rudimentary grasp of the issues that face this city?…..the stuff that happened under Parker and continued under Kisela…the residual mess we have today…..so I would say to his detractors, are you willing to put in even a tiny portion of the time Ted has devoted to this community?….and this is time put in on top of 12 to 14 hours a day running a business…he performs all functions over there at J&M…not just sitting at a desk drinking coffee..he is labor too…..I have seen it..he is always working…
And he is an immigrant…from New Foundland….as the grandchild of an immigrant myself who came here with nothing off the boat back in 1911 and started a business in the Mid west….. I admire that…Ted loves America…as did my Greek grandfather….and Ted wants America to live up to its values..
Ok..that is Dianne’s incomplete defense of my friend Ted Noftall….many more good things could be said….but I regretted that I failed to say at least this much on Tuesday…so thanks to anyone who wades through this and maybe can begin to see Ted in a different light…
Best regards to our thoughtful readers and bloggers,
Dianne Templeton Gardner
If given the opportunity to sit down to a meal at Booth’s Bowery and pick someone’s brain, it would be Ted as opposed to Mayor Green. Picking Green’s brain would likely not last past the waitress initial taking of our order. Ted is a very smart individual and his fiscal efforts are appreciated.
Maybe a Dale Carnegie course is in order and he can challenge for office down the road. If not he can still be a pit bull and citizen watchdog for us all. Ted, a bit of advice – let the interim CM settle in for a week before barging in his office or swamping him with correspondence.
Oh, I forgot to tell Concerned Citizen. You mention a Dale Carnegie course. Do you remember the abbot and costello skit when “niagara falls” was mentioned Lou would go crazy? I am a Lou when you mention the Dale Carnegie course. Please try to be nice and don’t upset me. When you mention Dale Carnegie to me I consider it abrasive. LOL – not really kidding about that diabolical Dale Carnegie course. A lot of people in city hall whom we thought were very nice people, were nice people, and just that. Nice people – bad administrators. We can all thank Dale Carnegie for who gets ahead in the nation. How to win friends and influence people. Yes indeed, the Dale Carnegie graduate who detests being held accountable and refuses to hold his subordinates accountable. Need I say more. — hank
I know what you mean – “too nice” and always wearing rose colored glasses.
thank you concerned citizen for understanding.
I agree with you Diane. Ted is crazy smart. The only issue that I have with Ted is how he sometimes get ugly with his words towards people. And, in my world, I’ll take nice over smart and hardworking anyday. A lot of time in this world people think that money or being right in our own minds is most important. I don’t believe it is.
Mr. Onlooker you hit the nail right on the head. I do not agree with you except to point out you expose one of the perplexing issue in the USA. you wrote ” I’ll take nice over smart and hardworking any day” and” being right in our own minds is most important. I don’t believe it is.”
And there it is America, put in print from an honest individual. Truth has to be delivered nicely or it is not accepted. The problem being that a lot of things are touted as being truthful today with a lot of niceness, and turns out not to be so. 2×2 = 4 is something we are hesitant to agree with if said by Hitler. And an opinionated person who delivers the medicine for a remedy needs to put it to you gently, or it is hard to swallow. But we have to consider is that more the fault of the medicine provider or the patient?. You can catch more flies with honey and sugar, and let me tell you Mr. Onlooker a lot of us are learning to be wary of the honey and sugar and are looking for the truth no matter how obnoxiously it is presented as long as it turns out to be real and provides a remedy. Ted Noftall is at times abrasive but if your ego is more precious to you than the truth being dispensed by Ted, then go cater to yourself and feel good about yourself and the world. I would guess you would say you do not want to go back to the good old days of blissful ignorance but can’t we just have a hug while we do what we have to. The medicine man who comes to us may get abrasive when City Hall does not want to take its medicine and get true reform going unless they get praise and hugs too, for being an obstinate patient. Guess what, we are lucky to have such an obstinate medicine man as Ted to treat the obstinate patient who just wants to go back to the good old days. The city does not want to take Ted’s message and fully do the right thing. It is all so complicated you know.
— hank springer
Its not that truth can’t be accepted, just not at the expense of being civil and respectful. You’re a deeper thinker than me Hank! I’m a lot simpler than you. I try and live how the man upstairs expects me to. Their is always rights and wrongs if life. I just don’t know how important it is to prove or disprove the rights and wrongs at the cost of being a civil, respectful person.I don’t believe I’m that important, you’re that important, the mayors that important, or Teds that important to be disrespectful to others. It’s your issue if you let the sugar and honey mask the truth from the people you disagree with.
Onlooker..so let me get this straight. You would rather work with a nice person over a hard working competent employee? Business and industry would be in one hell of a mess if we followed your creedo. We have two Yiddish words for you, Schlemiel and Shumuck.
How is this for a suggestion. Lets keep this objective and do Ted a big favor by listing all those instances of where he is ugly in his words towards people. If he is so crazy smart i will bet he either hasn’t been as as ugly of abrasive as he is being accused or he will learn from those instances. Either way we will all win.
Well guys……I find all this talk of civility and “being nice” very amusing…..Mike and I tried “niceness” and civility in our initial correspondence, phone calls and emails with this city when we were having “our troubles” last Fall………as did many of our incredibly civil neighbors….nothing happened until we became much more forceful in demanding the documents and emails we knew existed….and they did……and sadly we finally were forced to pull out all the stops to get the supporting data…
….hence our resorting to FOIs….email dumps…etc…having court reporters at City Council meetings…..it cost us a bunch of money and more than a few brain cells……brain cells Dianne could not afford to lose…..but we were willing to do whatever was necessary because we knew we were right…….and its why Ted has resorted to stronger tactics about Audit and Budget issues…ramped up rhetoric…impassioned letters…heavy with detail….. a simple courteous request got us no where….and it got him no where too…..this is not a civility issue….its a truth issue…if the requested documents are exculpatory for the city and its policies and procedures and whatever the circumstances are that surround the question being posed to them…….then drag ’em out and show ’em to us and shut us up…for God’s sake I would…who the hell would want Ted Noftall after them? ….not me…he is formidable..
….so…the city knows these requested documents are not exculpatory…they display very specific instances of costly mistakes for the taxpayer, numerous errors, generalized failures of due diligence, lack of attention to detail, failure of internal controls. or no internal controls……and in some instances attempts at cover ups…like most recently the $411K overspend…..that mess had all the elements I just listed above..
….and coverup and delay and foot dragging will always fail miserably…..a technique we should all know ultimately never works…..just ask Richard Nixon and John Dean…..”what did the President know and when did he know it?”….. stonewalling does not work…..the truth will out…always has, always will…..thank God….its the nature of truth……especially the truth supported by a dedicated searcher for it like Ted Noftall…….
… a much more effective and far less costly tactic the city could have taken with us and with Ted was just to give us the requested data….they had it…..they just did not want to release it….it was embarrassing and it supported our position and our premise…and they knew that…..and when they finally realized we were not going to quit and were contemplating legal action finally the former city manager was driven to seek a solution for us…..which he did grudgingly and under half steam …….my speculation… the former CM finally bailed because he knew the issues this city has are on going…there is more to come…we all know it….he knew it….and he knew too that the struggle between those who want transparent financially competent honest government were in it for the long haul ……and at some point it just became too much work to sustain the city’s stonewalling mentality….and much of the stuff he inherited…and he got slammed with many intractable issues not of his making……I get that…..I never thought the former CM was stupid…..I hope our new interim CM decides to let it all hang out…and that he is given that freedom by council……if documents are requested….release them……if questions are posed…..answer them …in a forthright and fulsome manner..save us all a lot of grief..
SO….I believe strongly in Martin Luther King’s phrase…..the moral arc of the universe is long but its bends toward justice…
And I would say to Ted Notfall …. baby…. you just keep on keeping on…apologists for tyranny brought us Hitler and Stalin and Nixon……..Scrutiny and insistence on good government are here to stay in Port Orange…yes……it is a new day in Port Orange…
Best to all,
Dianne Templeton Gardner
…
Ted is a lunatic and an anarchist!
Get over it, you sound like a Ted supporter writing on behalf of Ted.
Hey, do you have any of those free QLHA Jacksonville Jaguars season tickets left over you might hook me up with?
Shame on you Get Over It. Can’t you think of anything intelligent to comment on?
Ted Noftall is by no means a lunatic. He is a highly intelligent person who asks pertinent questions for the benefit of Port Orange citizens and their pocketbooks.He is an honorable person with a good moral compass.
As to calling him an anarchist that’s laughable.An anarchist is a person who believes government and laws are undesirable and should be abolished. If he were what you call him he wouldn’t be paying taxes, renewing his drivers license and registration, registering his children in school and running a profitable business in Port Orange.
I think you should Get Over It whoever the heck you are.
Thanks for nothing Get Over It. If that is all you can contribute you need to go back waving signs for Sonya.
Come on guys I am counting on an outpouring of those instances where Ted has been abrasive and ugly in his words towards people.
I agree with Dianne Gardner about Ted Noftall and I would like you to hear from a couple of more of his staunch supporters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00M7CojclWM
I always think its funny when someone voices an opinion and gets slammed on here. First off i think the name calling is not called for, if you support Mr Noftal or not. That being said, all of his fans love to name call and get very nasty if anyone posts anything on here that does not make hin look like an Angel sent from heaven. I have read so many posts, so many articles about him. I can tell you this. I think he has great intentions, but he goea about it the wrong way. I have read from his supporters about how awsome he is. I jave read from his opposers how horrible he is. I also remember when the mayor said negative things about him everyone on here freaked out but forgot how negitive he was about people. Please tell me why its ok for him to name call and bully and be disrespectfull to people bit its not ok for people to disagree with him. He is far from perfect, none of us are. But if a city employee spoke to him like he talks about them he would want them fired.