Dunlawton Flooding Report
To: City Council
From: David Harden. ….
My report is attached. My recommendations in response to my findings are on page 5.
- Port Orange Homeowners Can Expect More Flood Damage – 'says Mayor'
- Did Mayor Green Put Another One Over On City Residents ??
That appears to be concise, understandable, and transparent.
Impressive and rather rapid review by interim CM.
It doesn’t fix want happened but it’s a start. Indirectly points some fingers and places blame. Likely why Mary Anderson took flight.
Yep. I agree .Manager Harden produced a clear report and promptly. He defined the problem. Had a friend tell me David Harden did a very good job down in Delray Beach.
Mary Anderson needs to be fired before her resignation takes place on Oct 15th
Rick Wilson needs to go right behind her.
WTF are you kidding me. Is he telling us Dunlawwton was flooded because no one called the Director of Public Works or Utilities and told them it was raining big time that night …
They must have had their head pretty far up their ass that night not to know we were having a serious rain event’ Why did anyone need to call them
Gary, it has something to do with “accountability”. Finally “accountability” has shown its face in Port Orange city government. I like the look. See me smiling at this report. Excellent report.
No one at the city has been monitoring NWS or likely other emergency alerts!
Only after a citizen called dispatch was any action taken, the County EMS and dispatch could be the 24/7 alert service countywide as the 911 center is equipped and manned.
Do no miss that their was no one “on watch” this was a reactive response to a citizen initiated call.
What has our past leadership done? Cooperation between utilities and works was not ironed out during or after the QLH meeting on Jan.10.
“No one on the City of Port Orange staff nor any City organizational unit has been assigned the responsibility of monitoring the National Weather Service Flood Advisories and Flood Warnings. Volusia County did not contact Assistant Fire Chief Burgman, our Emergency Manager, about flooding until around 10:00 AM the morning of September 24 when they called him to ask about the extent of flooding in the City. ”
The system hardware and infrastructure did not fail, we do not know if it will work as it was not used as intended and designed.
“The operating protocol which was approved by Public Works and Public Utilities on January 10, 2014 clearly states that in pre-storm and storm mode the tide gate is to be kept in the down position. This was reiterated in an email from QLH dated August 11 to Public Works and Public Utilities personnel which included the statement, “We recommended . . . that the tide gate be left in the fully down position during the wet season”. To have raised the tide gate was a violation of the operating protocol and obstructed the flow of water out the Halifax Canal, even though water overflowed the weir. In addition the Drainage Foreman should have instructed the Plant Operator much earlier than 5:35 AM to begin pumping water out of the Dunlawton Pond.”
The inflow and infiltration problem so I am told is well within industry and environmental standards. Most would say we have a “pretty tight” system.
“The extremely high level of inflow and infiltration of storm water into the City’s sanitary sewer system caused the Reclaimed Water Plant”
This makes me question as I have been shown that our system allows monitoring of flow rates from lift stations. The knowledge of where the most water comes from is already known. To my surprise and suspicion these areas of the city have not been at the top of the list for relining and pipe replacement. In fact other areas built with more modern and long lasting materials that did not have an identified I&I problem have been serviced instead. This should be boldly addressed in any study of our system. The prospect of 60 million in renovations should never have been floated by the rate study group until a hands and eyes on inspection and assessment of condition and needs.
Overall this report is a pleasing change from that of our last manager. It did not take weeks or months to be conducted at a cost of thousands of dollars. It is clear and understandable. It does admit to errors and deficiencies that caused failure. The action plan is included and calls for accountability of the persons responsible, though the person most responsible for the lack of planning between departments as already resigned as has the utility director, and the works director has already tendered her resignation.
Thank You Mr. Harden, despite the circumstances that brought it this is a refreshing change in the SOP.
Newton White
Yeah he looked into it himself, and did not hire a paid consultant to issue a report !
Three cheers for Mr. Harden. Finally, a city manager who can investigate, honestly report, fix accountability and make directions and instructions for the future. Three cheers again for an excellent report and service to the city. City council members, please take note of what we should have all been treated to in the past. He is here, do not let him go. Keep Green away from him.
Mr. Harden did well, but you are also not aware that we have two individuals in Public Utilities that have been recently placed into interim managerial positions that should have been promoted years ago. The Interim Assistant Public Utilities Director and Interim Field Operations Superintendent. These two individuals have been the technical support that Mr. Harden has recognized and relied on for substantive information and transparency to generate this report. They may be the beginning of the new paradigm in the city management team that we need for competency and transparency.
I think that Mr. Harden is good at recognizing competence, character, and transparency. Hopefully this trend will continue in his assemblage of a senior management team. Time will tell. I think we have a real opportunity going forward to develop the kind of management that will solve some major problems left behind by the self entitled obfuscators. The selection of the new Public Utilities, Public Works, and Assistant City manager will be telling.
I agree Mr. Trickster.
Does anyone remember at the end of a CC meeting a few months ago….Mayor Green announced we were NOT prepared for a hurricane? Hell we ain’t even prepared for some rain. Why did he announce that and why wasn’t something done immediately following that announcement? Just wondering. Unfortunately Mr. Harden was NOT here at the time.
Even though he bragged about all of his public utility experience, as always Mr. Kisela had a very simple solution for a very complex problem which was to get his ass out of here when the going was good and leave someone else holding the bag. Good riddance to Greg Kisela, Wayne Saunders, Shannon Lewis, Jason Yarborough, Marie Anderson, and Stella Gurnee. May we do better in the future.
Don’t forget Zicker and Pozo too.
Although Pozo seemed like a keeper, he didn’t want to endure all the BS.
Actually Zicker was not nearly as bad as Gravel Gertie Stienebach. She is the last of the old guard, and in spite of having a great staff has turned personnel/human services/administrative services into a morgue. Even when Zicker was down there employees would stop by for a cup of coffee and have some human interaction and feel like someone gave a shit. Very few employees and managers go down there or have an audience with her unless compelled through some adverse action.
Gravel Gertie is so employee adversarial, self entitled, and self interested it amazes employees why she received this gift job with all the highly competent and educated human resources personnel that were already working in that department prior to Kisela giving her this retirement linch pin deal. Gravel never dreamed of becoming a Human Resources/IT Director until her contract as the Riverwalk Assistant City Manager expired. As I say she is the last dinosaur of and old obfuscating self entitled paradigm.
Is she a certified HR manager ? Does she have the proper training and credentials to proficiently run an IT department ?
I think she got this combined role by default and likely is not fully qualified for either role. “Administrative Services Director” ? Give me a break.
Yes, you are correct, and with the price tag of her temporary assistant city manager salary of over $125,000 a year transferring over for that lack of qualification or personal suitability. This is a left over land mine from Greg Kisela and just another way to stick it up the tax payer’s and remaining employees’ asses. Thanks Mr. Kisela for leaving us with Gravel Gertie!
Still bitter about having to pay your comp time aka free vacations on the taxpayers back Fraudster?
How about you Fredster? How’d your time off work out?
What about the two highest paid employees at utilities. Don’t they fit that mold?
For those of you not sure what you have just witnessed, because we haven’t seen it in a while, we have just seen an act of responsible and effective leadership. Well done CM Harden! I would like to see the council give him some latitude to make some much needed changes during his interim time in Port Orange.
I sincerely hope that Mr. Harden can understand why citizens are so skeptical of anything related to them by city management. We have all been lied to by our two previous City Managers and led by incompetents in managerial positions. Mayor Allen Green has interfered in every way possible with the running of the city for his own personal agenda.
Mr. Harden responded quickly with this concise report that even the average person could understand .He’s not responsible for the reclaimed lakes debacle, the meter mess and the finance fiasco but as long as he will be our city manager he will be responsible for putting protocol in place as he has indicated above. Then if procedures are ignored or not followed we’ll have a direction to directly point the finger and assign the blame. There are still some total idiots in the Public works department but perhaps they can be salvaged by proper training, good management and a desire to keep their jobs.
From my humble perspective I say “Good work Mr. Harden”. You’ve got a long row to hoe.
I was glad to see that Mr. Harden compiled his report with the help of learned city employees instead of spending thousand on outside consultants. I’ve been fed up with the idea of hiring outside consultants every time there is a problem to be solved. Getting advice and sound ideas from long term and competent employees has been completely ignored by the past two administrations. They have people on staff who are in the know and can solve problems every bit as well as our city engineers and outside consultants who get the big bucks.Most of these so called “consultants” have no real idea of the inner workings or hands on experience with the problems we faced. They go by what they learned in a college textbook and have that ever so holy diploma which in my opinion means jack shit..Employees who have the experience and credentials have offered advice in the past which would have saved Port Orange taxpayers millions of dollars were completely brushed off or ignored by upper management and the former two City Managers. Time to use the institutional knowledge of our great minded , forward thinking employees.
Mad Scientist, I agree.
Amen. You hit the nail right on the head. Real transparency, real knowledge.
The likely outcome regarding disciplinary action will be Mary Anderson being the scapegoat. She indeed held the ultimate responsibility. She has already packed her bags, so it will be simple to point at her. Now this Rick Wilson is a long tenured employee, who has recently been summoned to speak up at council meetings. The question is: is he actually empowered to make decisions at all or is he yet another long term flunky drawing a paycheck ?
Also, it has been and will again be noted that the city has no leadership team nor department heads in place at present, due to all the turmoil. They will begin discussion on Tuesday to develop a plan “for the next time” something like this occurs. The discussions will be long and drawn out, with all councilman angry and pissed off, the Mayor will blow it off and babble and not much will be accomplished. Councilman Ford is the largest stakeholder as the bulk of the problems were in his district.
It was indeed a monumental failure in all aspects.
It looks like the CM used questions posed by R. Woodman as an outline for his report. We could use Mr. Woodman as an operational consultant.
Article in the News Journal today indicates a great deal of errors on the part of City employees at the upper level of Public Works and Public Utilities played a part in the flooding. General Translation: There was confusion due to poor leadership in the Public Works and Public Utility departments, which lead to employees not performing critical tasks as expected. Mayor’s Translation: Employees made a decision not to do their job because they don’t “want to be picked on.” Really Mr. Mayor? Don’t make our City employees sound like a bunch of 6 year olds that were sent to their rooms with bottom lips stuck out. They are much better than that! Sounds like our Mayor is finally realizing he is the only one on council that has been there long enough to shoulder the blame for being part of building such an incompetent group of department heads and failed managers over the last 6 years. His problem is that his shoulders have narrowed over time and he no longer know where to put the blame.
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@TedNoftall.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2014 9:34 AM
To: Harden, David; Robin Fenwick (rfenwick@port-orange.org)
Cc: Bob Ford (rford37@cfl.rr.com); Dennis Kennedy (dkennedy@port-orange.org); don@amlsfl.com; Drew Bastian (db2070@cfl.rr.com); Mayor Green (agreen@port-orange.org); Larry McKinney (mckinney@mindspring.com); Scott Stiltner (stiltner4council@yahoo.com); Sonya Laney (slaney@sonyalaney.com)
Subject: Additional Questions Re Dunlawton Flooding Report
Thank you Manager Harden for a speedy report, including the candid depiction of the sorry state of the department leadership in Public Works and Utilities that you inherited from former Manager Kisela.
I have a several questions regarding this matter
1) Would it be possible to get a cost breakdown as best as can be determined on this near $2.9 million dollar project allocated between its major components of Reclaimed Water Augmentation, AND Drainage Improvements to forestall flooding.
2) Would you provide some detail as to the volume discharge capacity of the 36 inch effluent pipe into the Halifax River under the varying loads of the Plant Pumps and the Storm Water Pumps.
3) Would you advise as to the volume discharge the Storm Water Pumps achieved throughout the flood day – from before the Plant pumps were started, while the Plant Pumps were operating, and after the Plant Pumps were scaled back.
4) Do the Engineers stand behind their adequacy of their design if operated correctly, And if so –Relative to the Storm pumps capacity to discharge water with and without Plant pumps discharging also, would you have them disclose the break points point at which the Dunlawton Pond’s capacity is exceeded and flooding ensues expressed as a function of storm water volume and time lapse, up to when Dunlawton Avenue is declared impassable.
5) Was the Dunlawton Pond designed and constructed to be entirely reliant on its pumps discharge capability, OR did it contain a gravity outlet that would begin to discharge flood water once the pond reached a certain height, And if so what is that height level relative to Dunlawton Avenue, and did it function as designed.
6) Your report notes that “environmental and cost constraints make it infeasible to construct another separate outfall” into the Halifax River. I do not remember hearing any such discussion or seeing any such analysis.
Would you please provide any such analysis, and direct me to when these considerations were discussed by Council.
Thank you
Ted Noftall
Way up here in North Carolina, I received distressed, devastated, messages from my loved ones that their home is under water 8″ and their means of transportation is half submerged in flood waters in the cul de sac where they live! This is heart wrenching to receive this kind of news! As a nurse, I immediately am concerned regarding this water in their home, destroying it by the minutes!
GET YOUR COMBINED LAZY ASSES IN THESE FLOODED AREAS, ROLL UP YOUR SLEEVES, HELP THESE DEVASTATED FAMILIES NOW!!!!! These families are in contaminated water trying to right the wrong YOU have created in THEIR life!!! DO SOMETHING NOW-SHOW THEM YOU ARE CARING, CONCERNED INDIVIDUALS THEY VOTED FOR!!! If you don’t get in there and help, pack your bags because you are a disgrace and need to go live where people don’t give a damn about their neighbor!
I want to apply for the new job opening to be created – the person to monitor the weather conditions, who also will push the button to open the flood gates.
concerned citizen that is a good one . I like that. lol So you too want to get on Laney’s government payroll list?
I want to clarify questions about the reclaimed water line from the reclaimed plant to the well field reclaimed lakes. Water from the Dunlawton retention ponds cannot be pumped directly from the ponds to the lakes. Plant operations could have pumped plant effluent to the lakes freeing up capacity in the river discharge line in order to pump the Dunlawton retention ponds down faster. The water that goes to the lakes must go through the plant and come out as treated effluent/reclaimed water.
As far as the automated controls go, most systems have a hand, off, automatic feature. This is needed to take the equipment out of service for repairs and maintenance, to allow the system to run automatically on limited predetermined parameters or to run manually if auto fails or if circumstances dictate that the automatic settings won’t work for that particular situation and human judgment is needed.
Thanks Woody. It was The city’s great loss when that SOB took all of your personal leave time and forced you out.Especially since you and some others were granted the comp time by the former C/M Ken Parker in lieu of a raise for extra work you performed for the city without compensation. YOU AND A FEW OTHERS EARNED IT. Unlike many of the other HIGH PAID ADMINISTRATORS who received tons of free time because they were with the IN CROWD..
The City of Port Orange will never regain all of the knowledge that you posses in your field. It will take them years.
I watched the meeting last night and listened to what former employee Kyle Brayman had to say….LOOK OUT PORT ORANGE. Five years up the road you will lose all of your key water personnel due to retirement and you have nothing in place because of being the lowest paying city in Volusia County and because you do not recognize the importance of people in Water and Waste Water. The city can’t run without them and unfortunately not many are going into these fields because they require licensing and accountability to the state for their actions. It is a crying shame that we lost someone of Kyle’s caliber because he could not support his family on what the city was paying him. Shame, Shame. Someone ought to wake up and realize that Water and Waste Water ARE PROFESSIONS, equally as important as Fire and Police.
Woody, again thanks for all of the help you have been providing via the blogs.
They will just hire some sub par Johnny come lately’s the caliber of some of our recent Dept. heads and managers to run the water plant. Then we can sit back and watch it all go to hell while they ask themselves why. They can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way. Talk about dense. They should promote the chief operator of the water plant to utilities director. I’m sure he could run the department as well as he has the plant. He has a proven record of excellence, around 30 years of experience and great institutional knowledge. I wish council and city manager would get their act together when it comes to putting the right people in the right positions. It appears that we may be making progress in finance. Time will tell.
Adios to Kyle Brayman who was a sincere stakeholder and future successor in our organization. A young man picking away at his academics while advancing his professional certification and practical competency. His senior mentors, nearing retirement already recognizing him as a future successor to potentially manage our city’s water production operation. Someone that was also harassed and targeted by the previous Utility Director, Jason Yarborough, pet of Greg Kisela who were both discretely ushered out of here to mitigate the existing scandal. The reason for the harassment was that Kyle had integrity, intelligence, was outspoken, and stood up for people he admired that were blacklisted by these interlopers.
The administrative services director and recently resigned assistant city manager did everything they could do to obfuscate and do damage control for Greg Kisela and Jason Yarborough in an ongoing investigation that involved numerous public utilities employees that gave testimony from everything from, harassment, to conspiracy, to defamation of character & slander, conspiracy to fire a long term elderly female employee, to violation of HIPA laws, instigating discord, and lying to create dissention.
The administrative services director’s stonewalling and obfuscating in hopes of delaying a response to the review is a typical avoidance tactic in hopes that resolve will diminish and all the players will fade away. Similar allegations were found to be valid by the Palm Bay Human Resources Department, and Jason Yarborough resigned from his position there as public utilities director while still on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.
Fortunately Ted Noftall who is of impeccable character witnessed Donna Stienebach and Shannon Lewis effectively admit under oath at an administrative hearing in council chambers relative to an ancillary disciplinary hearing of another scapegoated employee that neither of them disputed the aforementioned allegations and testimony relative to Jason Yarborough and his remaining senior management team.
Donna Stienebach has over a month ago indicated to the PEA that her final report of this internal inquiry would be forthcoming but has opted to forget about it until the PEA pries it from her. Maybe we should wait a little while until the lawsuits are filed and the subpoenas flow. At the end of the day the city will have to recognize that Miss Stienebach hedged her bets on a lack of resolve from victims that she should be advocating for, and her previous obfuscations for an ex-lackey city manager are going to become a liability for the City of Port Orange. The city needs more young intelligent honest dedicated employees like Kyle Brayman and a few less Parker/Kisela dinosaurs like Stienebach. Hey Gravel, have you been in touch with Spradlin lately?
Similarly, a number of these infractions were chronicled in a scathing report that has been available to the previous city manager and all of our city officials with a simple internet search that occurred in the previous utility director’s position in Palm Bay. This recidivistic behavior previously perpetrated by Jason Yarborough who did not even apply for the position of Public Utilities Director, and although there were viable internal and external applicants that legitimately applied had been authorized and sanctioned by Mr. Kisela, who opted to herald in this FCCMA buddy he knew needed a job from his old stomping ground.
The shady secrets are finally coming out about Kisela. I hope all took notice of that last night. Makes me wonder why Mr. Griffith’s wife was so sad to see him go. Her big farewell was sickening.
In my opinion ass kissing is reviled by the person who’s ass is being kissed. The ass kisser doesn’t even know how little is thought of them.
With each passing council meeting we are seeing more and more confirmation that it was in fact time for Ken Parker to have retired and that Kisela was absolutely not the right person to replace him. The Kisela supporters of August have quickly faded away and must feel very foolish now for ever speaking up in his defense!