City Water Plant Manager & Crew Receives Another Statewide Award In Spite of Utilities Department Director's Attitude
.[editors note] As a observer from the sidelines, and in view of the number of State awards won by Mr. Miller & his crew, the City Manager would serve the best interest of the citizens of Port Orange by transposing the positions of Water Manager Steve Miller and Utility Director Andrew Neff. OK folks what do you think?
Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Bob Martinez Center
2600 Blair Stone Road
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2400
Rick Scott Governor
Carlos Lopez-Cantera Lt. Governor
Jonathan P. Steverson Secretary
January 15, 2016
Mr. Steven Miller
stmiller@port-orange.org
Chief Water Plant Operator
City of Port Orange, Florida – Charles B. Garnsey Water Treatment Plant
1000 City Center Circle
Port Orange, FL 32127
Dear Mr. Miller:
I am very pleased to announce that City of Port Orange, Florida – Charles B. Garnsey Water Treatment Plant (3641044) has been selected to receive a 2015 Plant Operations Excellence Award from the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in recognition of outstanding treatment plant operation, maintenance, and compliance.
.
The award will be presented at a ceremony to be held at a Florida Rural Water Association seminar called Focus on Change. The seminars will take place in Panama City, Lake City, Ocala, Haines City, Punta Gorda, and Tamarac. Your award will be presented on Wednesday, March 2, 2016, during the morning general session of the seminar at Marion County Agricultural Center, 2232 N.E. Jacksonville Road, Ocala, Florida. The details of the award ceremony will be available shortly at http://www.frwa.net/. I hope that you and/or representatives from your facility will be able to attend.
.
Congratulations! We look forward to seeing you on March 2. If you have any questions, please contact Virginia Harmon at (850) 245-8630 or via email at virginia.harmon@dep.state.fl.us. It is not necessary to RSVP for the event.
.
Sincerely,
Frederick L. Aschauer, Jr.
Director
Division of Water Resource Management
.
cc: Jeff Prather, Director, DEP Central District Office, jeff.prather@dep.state.fl.us
Aaron Watkins, DEP Central District Office, aaron.watkins@dep.state.fl.us
Chris Ferraro, DEP Central District Office, chris.ferraro@dep.state.fl.us
Kim Rush, DEP Central District Office, kim.rush@dep.state.fl.us
Ronald Freeman, DOH in Volusia County, ronald.freeman@flhealth.gov
Comment from local taxpayer
.
In reply to taxpayer.
You hit the nail on the head taxpayer. The CM would be wise to look into what happened at Mr. Neff’s previous assignment in Seminole County. He landed in Seminole County after being asked to resign from his previous three assignments. His County Manager in Seminole County, Joe Forte, who is now the CM in Holly Hill supported Mr. Neff’s running roughshod over his subordinates and skirting the rules until they both ended up in Tallahassee before the State Ethics Commission. This was around the time Joe Forte, Andrew Neff and a number of Joe Forte’s management team where asked to resign in Seminole County.
It is ironic that after being asked to leave Seminole County and landing in Holly Hill that Joe Forte would contact his old I.C.M.A. Lifesaver buddy David Harden and ask him to reject all viable candidates that had legitimately applied for the Port Orange Public Utilities Director position and call in a favor for his old buddy and fellow reject Andy Neff. This is the same old shit that Greg Kisela did, and we all know what the end result of that was. Mr. Johansson would be wise to take the advise of the great essayist and philosopher George Santayana which states that he that does not learn from the mistakes of the past is doomed to repeat them over and over again. Hopefully Mr. Johansson will take heed of this wisdom and not go the way of Greg Kisela by supporting the kind of serious baggage that Mr. Neff represents.
.
Neff didn’t even apply for the Utility Director position. He applied for Public Works Director. The 2 candidates that were selected for Utility Director both turned down the offer. Then came the Neff appointment. Staff did not support this selection but did support the others that turned down the opportunity. Had someone checked his references and checkered past he would certainly still be unemployed.
Actually, Steven Miller was the number 2 committee choice by admission of David Harden but was never offered the job. There were three vetting committees, the public utilities senior management team, Donna Stienebecks department head team, and Harden himself. After the first candidate turned down the job, Harden bypassed Miller and went straight to the second choice who subsequently turned down the job also. Miller was blacklisted by someone in the city politic. Harden harvested Neff as the reject from the Public Works selection and a called in favor from Joe Forte his I.C.M.A. buddy. Everyone on the public utilities vetting committee signed a statement and submitted it to Harden that they believed Neff to be the least desireable candidate and went on record as strongly recommending that he would not be selected. I think someone is getting ready to post that official document.
Jake inherited this clown, let’s see how long he keeps him in the circus.
I hear Jason Yarborough needs a second in command in Lake Helen. This would be a great opportunity for Neff. With Jason’s mentorship Neff could gain through osmosis all of the leadership skills that Yarborough possesses. He could then move on and perhaps find a position as a city manager for a city like Harbor Oaks, Favorita, or perhaps even Cassadega.
Karma, believe in it. Sometimes takes time but ….
Congratulations guys. I’ve known Steve Miller and his super intelligent crew for many years. They work so well together and have accomplished so much, brainstorming projects and making the Port Orange Water Plant the very best and always looking for ways to better it.
Steve always gives credit for any accomplishment to his co-workers and his department runs like a well oiled machine. So my question is why is this Johnny-come-lately, Mr. Neff marginalizing their efforts? Neff’s own work history doesn’t pass the sniff test as far as I’m concerned.
I say give this guy a decent pay raise, elevate his pay grade and let him continue to run his department in the excellent manner in which he has done for so many years.
Our current utilities director fits the same mold as the last two directors. He, like those previous directors came to the city unprepared and unqualified for the job. He came into a situation where the previous directors had left their baggage hanging over the department and brought more of his own. He saw that some areas of the department are not up to par and other areas were doing good such as water plant operations and maintenance, despite lousy upper management. If you have been following this situation those are the two areas that he has focused his attacks on. People like that see these people with great knowledge, experience, longevity, professionalism and work ethic as a threat through some perverse sense of paranoia. They then proceed to attempt to tear them down, divide and conquer and indoctrinate the younger and/or lesser employees and misguidedly mold the workplace in to what they think it should be. Instead of utilizing the talented people and get them to rally around fixing the problems, they take the things that work well and break them.
All I can say is were the hell is the do nothing city council on this? Shame on them for letting this go so far.
The council just sits there like a bunch of bumps on a log
Unfortunately, the Council deals with the City Manager whom they hired. They are not suppose to deal with rank and file employees. Now if they express to Jake that this guy is an idiot then maybe more will happen.
Concerned your factually correct observation fails to disclose that the Port Orange can and must amend its Charter to provide for elected representative oversight regarding the Hiring, Evaluation and Termination of key employees.
Previous Managers right here in Port Orange covered for and failed to terminate under performing department directors in the past. That should be unacceptable to every member on Council.
I know it is to me.
Ted,
I understand you want more oversight but I for one don’t believe that Council should have that power. My reasoning is very simple. What happens if you don’t like the person? Are you going to move to fire him/her just because of that? What if you have a “friend” who needs a job are you going to use your influence to get them that position? I know that you and most people running for council will say no but let’s be honest allowing council to “force” which is what you want to happen a Manager to dismiss someone is just not a good policy. If you are going to go to this type of oversight how much more money are you going to ask for? This will be more work for council to go over information and work together to make sure that all are all on the same page.
What you want if a Mayor form of Government so let’s go ahead and call it what it is.