No election is more anticipated and important to the residents of Volusia County than the 2012 county and municipal seats up for grabs with qualifying in June, primaries in July and, if necessary, the general election in November. Because it's a presidential election cycle, with President Obama vying for re-election against likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney, voter turnout should be higher.
The voting public is turned of more than ever. As if the power elite didn't learn its lesson from the American Music fiasco of 2010, that led to the ouster of a college president and a $1.5 million deficit to that institution, taxpayers continue to get squeezed unabated. I'm no expert at the state of affairs in Daytona Beach, Deltona, DeLand, Port Orange or Ormond Beach, but I am keenly aware of scandal on two fronts in New Smyrna Beach: The Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority and the Community Redevelopment Agency.
With a host of unanswered questions surrounding the SVAA's finances, I have been unable to get county government's attention -- witness Wednesday's conference call between the county manager's office and the Daytona Beach News-Journal about whether 16- and 17-year-old lifeguards are suited to deal with beachgoers in danger of drowning.
The closest I got to County Manager Jim Dinneen Wednesday was an appointment through his secretary who squeezed me in for a one-hour 10 a.m. appointment Tuesday. That's five days from today. I have uncovered some troubling pending that goes far beyond Nicole Carni's salary. I won't reveal it here, but once I publish that segment in NSB News' investigative series, "Show Me the Money: New Smyrna Beach," some people are going to have egg on their faces.
Of course being that our operation is exclusively online with very limited resources, we are not taken seriously until the stories are published. The politicians and bureaucrats don't seem to recognize what the public can't get enough of and that's who has their hands on the tax money.
Reading this morning's News-Journal, the county manager's priority is a conference call with the News-Journal about whether underage lifeguards can handle people with "large frames." I didn't see any mention in the Daytona paper's big story about these teens dying.
Though teens have been making rescues dating back to the 1920s, this is what the News-Journal wrote in part as to why: County management, though, has grown uncomfortable putting minors in that position. Dinneen said many of the tourists who visit the beach have large frames, and asking a lifeguard who's still technically a child to pull a bulky adult from the waves could be a dangerous assignment. While the county hasn't actually studied the size of the average beachgoer today compared to decades earlier, Dinneen (rather reluctantly) said there's some anecdotal evidence to suggest the visitors are bigger than they used to be.
In the meantime,basic questions about the advertising authority scandal go unanswered. But because we're Internet news, the print media gets all the attention of county government. And because we're asking the tough questions and reporting what the finite few with their hands on the taxpayer pots of gold, we're portrayed as troublemakers.
It was the same thing with the Oak Hill police scandal last year. Our year-long intense coverage led to the firing of the city clerk/administrator and the closing of the police department, but we were battered in the process, even kicked out of a public meeting by a lunatic of a city commissioner who didn't have the guts to show up when the mayor apologized for the illegal action.
There was plenty of drama at Wednesday night's joint meeting of the New Smyrna Beach City Commission and the CRA, but you wouldn't know it reading the agenda-reporting style story in this morning's News-Journal.
When you see our videos, you'll see for yourselves how screwed up things are even as the mayor brags about the CRA streetscapes finished during his two-year tenure. You'll see how he offers an apology to CRA Chairman Jim Kosmas who had to pay back a $1,900 grant his CRA colleagues voted for him. And there's the apology from the mayor for the $20,000 grant CRA Chad Schilsky was forced to rescind.
Mayor Adam Barringer, however, makes no mention of his own role in piggybacking on Schilsky's grant for his own financial gain through his construction company.
And low and behold, Barringer's role is not mentioned in the News-Journal article while the story alludes to the two CRA members having been accused of "unwittingly violating ethics laws by benefiting from receipt of CRA grants in the past."
The "unwittingly" term came from CRA consulting attorney Mark Hall, who of course, was the attorney of record in previously stating the grants were proper. The one commissioner who couldn't or wouldn't challenge Hall is Jim Hathaway, a candidate for a seat on the county council in the 2012 elections. NSB News will explain why in an upcoming segment of its Show Me the Money series.
Our videos will also highlight some of the key players from the joint meeting who have connections to the SVAA scandal. Again, more in-depth explanation in upcoming Show Me segments. It will take us a couple of days to process the videos.
In the meantime, NSB News has to wait for Dinneen to satisfy the News-Journal, having given the newspaper public records denied to NSB News for that paper's Sunday edition on Carni, follow-ups with the News-Journal after Carni's firing Tuesday and, of course, the conference call Wednesday.
I do give the News-Journal credit for asking the Dinneen the obvious: Whether the "large-frame" swimmers is an excuse to remove the underage lifeguard girls from the adult male lifeguards accused of having sexual contact with them.
As for our ongoing Show Me segments, the county knows what we want answered. If the county manager can't free up his calendar sooner than five days, then the elected county council members can explain it to the public.
