THE CITY MANAGER IS NOT ELECTED AND TAKES DIRECTION FROM THE COUNCIL
Good Afternoon Mr. Harden and city council members:
I would like to comment on a segment of Ted Noftall’s e mail to the city manager on 1 23 15: What follows is an excerpt from Mr. Noftall’s e mail:
From Ted Noftall:
Thank you Manager Harden,
What you have made perfectly clear is that you have zero intention of holding appropriate City Administrators, or the Mayor’s Crony Contractor friends to any standard recognizable in the private sector without firm direction from Council.
Let me make equally clear that while non-senseical explanations may work on Council initially – they do not work on me.
The simple facts regarding the mailed copy of the Health Inspection reports as you have confirmed is that
* they were correctly addressed to the City and its properly registered DBA, at a City owned golf facility that is open for business 364 days a year.
End of excerpt of Ted Noftall’s e mail
—- Comments by Hank Springer follow:
I have some doubts if it is proper for a city manager not to initiate an investigation on suspected failures of city operations unless the city council requests so. I think that is one of the factors of administrative operational requirements as to what I and others criticized the performance of a previous city manager.
Where I think Ted Noftall is perhaps not exactly on target is to accept your reluctance to delve into this matter and move on to the ultimate responsibility for a city manager’s lack of operational incentive, the city council.
I am beginning to more fully appreciate Ted Noftall’s call for a strong mayor type of city government.
A city manager is not elected by the people, and works for the city council. However, my representative I hope would expect you to inspect a city communication problem without direction from him. But, that not being the case, I think we should expect the city council to demand that you look into this U.S. mail communication problem.
We have seen this before, when a towing company did not send its franchise fees to the city and a billboard company said they had sent their checks to Port Orange City Government and wondered why they were not being deposited in the bank.
Did Mayor Green tell you to clear any operational difficulties first with him before you as city manager takes any administrative action, like an investigation?
Perhaps when this new bombshell was dumped on you and the city council members unexpectantly at a city council meeting you in the days afterwards contacted each council member by phone and asked them if they wanted you to proceed on an investigation and the consensus was “no”? Bob Ford is all for rewarding Kemper Sports with financial aid in refurnishing all that they oversee even to the extent of providing salary payments when workers are laid off during the construction process. Burnette and Green are always for providing visions of construction work, and I think Stiltner is against it, and I know not in what universe Bastian is playing ball in. The problem should not be at this stage in the ball game, with such an excellent coach leading his team, that we should not know where everyone is on this whole matter. By God, the city council hasn’t even voted on putting out 1 and ½ million dollars for the golf course and yet the golf course is advertising that they will be closed between May and November of this year. Who is kidding whom? The democratic procedure here has been hijacked.
I now address my remarks to the city council members. If you think you can get away with playing this Manager/city council non accountable form of government your should realize by now it will not work.
Take a look at the documentary on Netflix, “United States of Secrets” and see how NASA employees first tried to fix their internal problems, got nowhere because of the system, and finally went to the press, and a whole nation of citizens’ got involved. God forbid, team, that it happens in Port Orange!
I make another observation. The rebuttal to the wonderful facts, honesty, opinions, and comments of Ted Noftall has been met with severe opposition by Mayor Green’s financial crowd interests and it led to the Mayor calling him an “ass”. The truth is, a certain financial interest portion of Port Orange City Politics resents the message as well as the messenger. So I might be asked. Is that a normal reaction from a special interest group? And I would answer yes, especially so if they have been receiving special financial considerations, like Kemper Sports and the Chamber of Commerce.
On social media I explain myself as I do in this e mail, and the son of the Mayor called me a puppet of Ted Noftall. Noftall’s opponents have made Ted the focus of the problem with Port Orange City Governmental operations, and I would suspect that a growing number of citizens are starting to realize the deviousness in rebuttals to Ted Noftall’s facts and his “puppets”.
It was especially telling that because Ted Noftall called a city worker “peg legged”, the entire citizen financial advisory board was disbanded. That action speaks for itself.
I am especially distressed when the mayor of my city calls citizens who want to keep taxes down, not good citizens, and my representative does not speak up for me. Representation of the average citizen in Port Orange is under a great cultural strain.
I don’t worry that any city council member unfortunately gets sick or dies. I worry that Ted Noftall, the Gardners, Mark Schaefer, Newton White get sick, die, or quit their research and comments to the city council.
Whatever little reform may have been achieved is overshadowed by the culture of them against us. I don’t think a city should operate that way. Ted Noftall from the start should have been embraced for his knowledge, passion, interest and research capabilities rather than marked as not one of the team. We all know who marked Ted as not a team player. That statement in a city council meeting was telling.
I have yet to see what Stiltner is capable of doing as city council person, but as for the rest, I can’t see supporting any one of them in the future. All they do is complain, and don’t get any real fixes in place.
I and many others on my blog and the other Port Orange blog can do all the complaining, but I would expect more from even a part time city council member.
I say openly to Mayor Green. It is not beyond my life’s experience for me not to realize that you brought this city to the tension that it has. Your kind and family may blame Ted Noftall, but I understand otherwise.
Take it from someone who is not up on all the facts and details, like the mayor and Ted Noftall are, but it comes from someone who necessarily has to get an impression of what is going on in the City Government of Port Orange.
Hank springer
Posted 422 pm 1 23 15 popdradiolog.com
Take it from someone that knows first hand, it is a sorry state of affairs in Port Orange city government and administrative management and it is fixing to go from bad to much worse in the following year.
Yes, that is because they never honestly address primary issues, but instead they cover things up, sweep them under the carpet, and move forward. When the piled up dirt finally comes pouring out from under the rug they will have to do an about face and deal with all the covered up problems to the extent that it becomes abundantly clear that they have never successfully moved forward in the first place. About that time they will find a few scapegoats, shit can a few more at will administrators, and then you will see some new faces on council next election that will plead ignorance and probably perpetuate the same BS ad infinitum ad nauseam..
I would love to see a staff report from Gravel Gertie that illustrates the percentage of employee turnover over the past 24 months.
It will pale in comparison to the turnover and exodus in institutional knowledge coming up in the next 24 months. QLHA will be licking their chops when the last vestige of value engineering and institutional knowledge and accountability departs this organization in utter disgust with the prevailing administrative management and political oversight starting with the mayor, the city manager, and Gravel Gertie administrative services director.The consulting engineer and contractors will have carte blanch to order up any high priced fix that they, the mayor, and the city manager see fit. Just like they got us into the reuse lake and the screwed up metering situation in the past. Stupid self interested administrators that do the mayor’s bidding running off the last of their good employees and paving the way for more special interest beneficiaries.
They deserve whatever they get. When was the last time the city had a “round-house” discussion on solving problems to include employees who actually work in problem areas and can give intelligent input on helping to solve some of these problems if given the opportunity? The city would not have to go outside, paying exorbitant money to “consultants” when they have the available brainpower and experience within their own staff.
I’ve figured out the simple answer to this. The city would SAVE MONEY but the Mayor, Quentin Hampton , Halifax Paving and all of the Mayors construction buddies wouldn’t be able to put their fingers in the cookie jar.
Meant Round-table discussion. Round -house is what goes on when Ted gets up to speak and the Mayor calls him an ass.
So much for Henry leaving this site forever ,he should run for council as he cannot make a commitment and stick to it.
At last evenings flood workshop the public works director said he needed another mincy muck to get the ditches cleaned before the next rainy season but there was no money in his budget to get one. That is kind of funny because it was only a couple of weeks ago at Council when about $75,000 of new lawn cutting equipment was approved for the golf course.
What we learned from last evening’s work shops is so sad. There is no money for gateway signage. There is no money for flood control. There is no money for sidewalk lighting. The only thing there is money for is the golf course.
Thanks to Kemper and Bob Ford Cypress Head is going to get the steak and the rest of the City is going to get the sizzle.