I hate to split hairs, but The Daytona Beach News-Journal got one wrong this week. 

A headline announcing an informative article by Sheldon Gardner erroneously read, “Volusia Council to seek $4.5M from state in Ormond Beach fuel facility fight.”   

Trust me.  The Volusia County Council had nothing to do with this…

Last week, in an off-the-agenda ambush, our slack jawed elected representatives learned the news at the same time their blindsided constituents did when Deputy County Manager Susan Konchon “threw a curveball” and announced that Volusia County would be working with state Rep. Tom Leek and the county’s lobbying firm to seek a $4.5 million appropriation, apparently to bribe Belvedere Terminals into agreeing to an “alternative site” for the proposed 13-million-gallon fuel terminal in Ormond Beach.

Speaking from the dais during a discussion of Volusia County’s 2024 legislative priorities, Konchon dropped the bombshell, “It is necessary to help prepare an alternative site with, say, utilities or road infrastructure to relocate the facility to a more appropriate place than its current site.”

Wait. 

Why would those faceless bureaucrats who work in virtual anonymity in the bowels of the Thomas C. Kelly Administration Building seek millions in public funds to provide utilities and infrastructure for Belvedere Terminals – a private company whose CEO, we learned this week in a disturbing piece by Cheryl Smith in Treasure Coast Newspapers, “…has had criminal and financial issues, including two bankruptcies and a conviction for bribing a public official, according to court records.”?

I mean, why aren’t county bureaucrats seeking state funds to improve Volusia County’s wholly inadequate public utilities and transportation infrastructure as malignant development continues its inexorable spread? 

And why were our elected representatives (once again) left out of the loop by their staff?

Before it was decided by a behind-closed-doors wave of a bureaucratic wand that Volusia County would appropriate public funds as a potential incentive for a foreign owned railway and bulk fuel supplier (both Belvedere Terminals and the Florida East Coast Railway are subsidiaries of mining and infrastructure giant Grupo Mexico) from relocating to Hull Road in Ormond Beach – that decision should have been openly discussed, with time for public input, and voted on by those we elect to maintain the checks and balances over county government.

You know, the same elected representatives whose ignorance and inaction got us into this mess in the first place…

In my view, city, county, and state government should use all legal and legislative means necessary to stop this potential disaster from being built adjacent to thousands of homes, a sports complex, and the municipal airport. 

But recent ploys – such as the use of public funds to lease or purchase the property in perpetuity – or spending $4.5 million in taxpayer money on a weird corporate welfare scheme to underwrite the fuel facility somewhere else is a slippery slope.

For instance, since 2017, Grupo Mexico has more than doubled its metal melting capacity in Peru after environmental regulations were loosened – that is about the same time the company announced an expansion of its profitable oil-by-rail business, building at least three terminals in Mexico.

To take things to the extreme, anyone want a commercial copper smelter here in our backyard unless Volusia County ponies up a lucrative sweetheart deal for the next developer?     

A slippery slope indeed…

In my view, Volusia County bureaucrats are taking us down an extremely dangerous rabbit hole – and this latest intrigue, concocted in a backroom in DeLand, deserves a second look from state representatives and regulatory agencies.