When New Smyrna City Manager John Hagood got up from his seat and walked about 15 yards to the elevator on the third floor of the Utilities Commission where the City Commission meets, a song from Three Dog Night popped in my head.
"One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do Two can be as bad as one It's the loneliest number since the number one No is the saddest experience you'll ever know Yes, it's the saddest experience you'll ever know `Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do One is the loneliest number, worse than two It's just no good anymore since she went away Now I spend my time just making rhymes of yesterday... "
Hagood, a proud man who had given 29 years of his professional life to this seaside community, left his thick agenda notebook behind.
This chapter in his life is over. But don't feel too sorry for him. He'll collect his regular paycheck through September and then after that, another $290,000 in salary and other compensation over the course of 15 months.
Not a bad payout for a city servant whose years in public administration, culminated less than three years ago as city manager, having opened his first door here three decades ago as an accountant.
We go to these meetings and there's a lot of grandstanding, a lot of finger pointing, quite frankly, a lot of complaining. But the business of city government trudges forward.
While a select group of people come to city meetings complaining about the cost to the taxpayers, firefighters go to emergency calls, the cops continue to patrol the streets and occasionally chase after bad guys while other municipal employees cut grass and sweep the streets. Still others inspect buildings, officiate youth sports and still others manage shuffle boards and golf tees for the older crowd.
Welcome to New Smyrna Beach's largest employer, a living, thriving entity unto its own. And while the same two-three men get up and complain at every meeting and threaten recalls, elected leaders do what they feel they must do any way.
And the reality is the public at large just isn't involved and to a larger extent, even clueless. Heck, they don't even know who the players are.
To prove my point to my good friend and Web site colleague, Peter Mallory, I surveyed the entire restaurant at Ruthy's Kozy Kitchen one breakfast morning a few weeks back. Not one person -- patron or waitress -- could name the mayor or any of the commissioners. Not one.
And Thursday afternoon, I went to the tag office to renew the registration for my Audi TT, and only one of the two dozen people waiting for their number to be called could name the mayor and that was only because this customer had received piano lessons from her.
Most of the other customers thought the mayor was a man. And none of them could name the other four commissioners -- Randy Richenberg, Jack Grasty, James Hathaway or Lynne Plaskett.
I take that back. There was actually a second person at the Tag Office who knew the mayor -- Bouchelle Island resident William Kolesczar.
He's the former Orlando police chief who showed up at a budget meeting last September with 200 of his neighbors and threatened to take action against all five elected officials in the form of voter recall or putting up canidates agcandidatesm at election, if they didn't pare $1.1 million from Hagood's proposed budget.
"If you've got the vote, you win," he said at the time. "If you don't got the vote you lose."
They caved that night -- every one of them. And all this so Kolesczar could save a measly $3 on his tax bill. While $800,000 of those cuts were absorbed by reserves in city finances, Kolesczar made his point that spending cuts can be made without catastrophic results, at least when there's a healthy reserve. Several months later, Richenberg made his peace, saying he was "ashamed" and felt bullied by Kolesczar's in-your-face approach. Since then, others commonly referred to as "gadfllies," a journalism term for those who come to meetings to thump their chests and be heard, have had their 10 minutes of fame.
The most recent was Bob Tolley, a resident who complains at virtualy every meeting. He got his name on the agenda to discuss the city manager's "performance." Naturally, this made for great theater, and Tolley was licking his chops. He had everyone's attention at one point, his jaw hanging open, feining surprise after Richenberg admonished Hagood for admitting to "taking the gloves off" when Tolley called him a "fraud." In fact, Tolley even read a Webster's dictionary definition of the word "fraud," saying Hagood fit it to a T, with the exception of the part referring to committing the act for financial gain.
Tolley was all too proud to make it known at City Hall that he took down the city manager, even though Hagood's fate had been in the works for several months. Tolley even let it be known that City Attorney Frank Gummey was going to be bagged the same night as Hagood, but he was "advised" by others to take care of one at a time. If all of this sounds like a bad script to a mob movie with hit-men, it is. And worse.
Gummey, like Hagood, has a "sweetheart" of a contract that guarantees him $400,000, even if the commission even brings up the discussion of canning him, similar to a clause Hagood waved at the commissioners over the past few months when they expressed dissatisfaction with his performance. In fact, just a couple of months ago, the commission stopped short of firing Gummey after a spat he had with a Utilities Commission attorney over legalese. The Utilities Commission was so offended it recruited high-priced attorney Clay Henderson to reiterate to the city, the Utlities Commission's legal standing, which was never really in question.
Gummey didn't exercise his clause and for first-term Mayor Sally Mackay, who broMcKayie that ultimately kept Gummey in place, she has coined the phrase "disconnect" to describe the political bickering at meetings.
Still, the commission has shown it can work in great harmony for the greater good of others as it did Tuesday in voting unanimously to keep fire department Lt.Randy Wright, whose job was in jeopardy due to September's budget cuts. And when the commission voted unanimously to promote Reshediat to interim City Manager, another song popped in my head called "One" by U-2 with its refrain:
Did I disappoint you Or leave a bad taste in your mouth You act like you never had love And you want me to go without Well it's... Too late Tonight To drag the past out into the light
We're one, but we're not the same We get to Carry each other Carry each other One...
Have you come here for forgiveness Have you come to raise the dead Have you come here to play Jesus
To the lepers in your head
Did I ask too much More than a lot You gave me nothing
Now it's all I got We're one But we're not the same
Well we Hurt each other
Then we do it again
You say Love is a temple
Love a higher law
Love is a temple Love the higher law
You ask me to enter But then you make me crawl
And I can't be holding on To what you got
When all you got is hurt
One love One blood
One life
You got to do what you should
One life With each other
Sisters Brothers One life
But we're not the same We get to Carry each other
Carry each other One...life
One