Hi, kids!

It’s time once again to turn a jaundiced eye toward the news and newsmakers of the day who, in my cynical opinion, either contributed to our quality of life or detracted from it in some significant way…

Volusia School Board Chair Jessie “Whackadoodle” Thompson

During my productive life in law enforcement, I found myself in some scary spots. Chaotic, confusing, and frighteningly dark places that left me with more questions than answers. 

That said, I can honestly report that I have never been anywhere more terrifying than our recent collective stroll through the haunted and horribly disturbed mind of Volusia County School Board Chair Jessie Thompson. 

Whoa.  I’ve seen some shit in my time, folks – but this takes the cake.  Hell, it takes the whole damn bakery… 

According to a disturbing report by Mary Ellen Ritter writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal this week, during the Moms for Liberty 2024 Joyful Warriors Summit in Washington D.C. this summer, our recently named Volusia County School Board chair Jessie Thompson apparently had something of a psychotic purge during a breakout session entitled “How to Work With Your School Board.”

While pontificating on behalf of something called the Florida Conservative Coalition of School Board Members – a klatch Ms. Thompson runs out of her home (?) – our new School Board chair “…made a disparaging remark about Deltona High School students, admitted to feeding false data to the board to get agenda items passed, and spoke at length about her poor relationships with fellow board members.”

Unfortunately, the weirdness didn’t end there…

In a video posted to social media by an outraged Deltona Mayor Santiago Avila Jr., Chairwoman Thompson is heard casting suspicion on Deltona High School graduation rates – while taking a cheap swipe at students she paints as intellectually inferior to fit her narrative:

“We have one high school, and I don’t mean to take anything away from students or parents, and it is a Title One school, so high-five for doing this, they had a 100% graduation rate last year — 100%.  Now, I’ve walked that school multiple times. I’ve met some bright students, and I’ve met some students that I wouldn’t trust filling up my tank of gas, so I find it really hard to believe that they graduate, and graduation is now turned into basically just handing out participation ribbons.”  

Then, Ms. Thompson showed her true colors…   

According to the article, Mayor Avila claims Ms. Thompson referred to District 5 School Board member Ruben Colón “…as a “tan gentleman” when discussing how he and other “super liberal school board members” respond to public comments from “liberal wackadoodles.”

“We have a tan gentleman who just, like, gets all puffy,” Thompson said. “He gets filled with pride because he is supported, and then that encourages him to do some more crazy nonsense. “Avila also requested Deltona residents to contact Thompson directly and ask for a public apology.”

For the record, while Mr. Colón and I rarely agree on the issues and politics of the day, in my experience, he remains one of the most friendly, accessible, and responsive members of the board – never afraid to explain district issues or defend his position – always open to constructive criticism.   

In perhaps the most bizarre (and disturbing) revelation from Ms. Thompson’s diatribe, she openly admitted to intentionally providing her fellow members with false information in order to pass certain items coming before the board – including a damning disclosure that she “…worked with our sheriff’s department to get something put into that contract, and then they voted to pass it without reading it through.”

Wow.

To her credit, Moms for Liberty-Volusia Chair Jenifer Kelly stated in the News-Journal she was “astonished” by the shocking revelations – creating distance from Thompson’s cringeworthy invective – explaining that her organization does not “support or agree” with Thompson’s comments as “Most of it is false.”

“Moms for Liberty-Volusia is absolutely disgusted and disturbed by her inappropriate comments about students and other board members,” Kelly said on social media. “We disavow any affiliation with school board member Jessie Thompson.” Additionally, Kelly noted that the organizer of the national conference did not consult her prior to scheduling Thompson and also that the local organization did not endorse Thompson as a candidate.”

After publicly describing her relationship with her elected colleagues as “I’m hated by the rest of my board, and I can deal with that emotionally. They’re not nice people,” Ms. Thompson took a moment to irretrievably sever any collegial relationship she may have developed with newly elected board members Donna Brosemer and Krista Goodrich, both of whom were candidates during Thompson’s odd breakdown in Washington:

“One’s running literally because she wants to do other offices, so … this is like a building block kind of thing, and she’s on vacation in Europe a lot, and so … I’m gonna reach out to her. I’ve started to feed her some of the things that are important to me, like teaching kids how to read … (and) send that olive branch out to her,” Thompson said. “And then the other one — I like the word ‘wackadoodle’ — She’s a little bit of a wackadoodle, not politically speaking, just like her own personal things. And she’s a, she’s a very power hungry young lady, but she’s not that young. But anyway, so I’m reaching out to her, too.”

Look, no one has been more critical of the Volusia County School Board and Superintendent Carmen Balgobin’s administration than I have.  In my view, the slow disintegration of stakeholder confidence in the board, the ham-handed maladministration, and the resultant exodus of students, teachers, and staff, is a disaster of epic proportion.

This is different.  And it has nothing to do with liberal/conservative values or democrat/republican rancor.   

If true, Ms. Thompson’s falsehoods and defamations are the antithesis of ‘how to collaborate with your school board’ and have weakened public trust in Volusia County Schools.

During Tuesday evenings School Board meeting, Thompson’s target, District 5 representative Ruben Colón, showed grace and restraint in expressing his disappointment – and received a mewling apology from Thompson (who’s not nearly as brash outside an echo chamber).

In turn, Mr. Colón was unanimously supported when he moved to revisit Thompson’s appointment as School Board Chair at the January 14 meeting.

Look, I dismiss Ms. Thompson’s half-assed mea culpa as a self-serving ploy to save face on the hot seat. 

Before the meeting, Ms. Thompson doubled-down on her offensive comments during her 15-minutes of infamy in an emailed response to WESH-2 claiming “Some are offended because I’ve pointed out that a tan guy is tan. And that some of our graduates aren’t up to an acceptable standard of intelligence. Yet they’re not offended that year after year kids are struggling to learn to read. And they’re not offended that prisons base the number of beds they need on 3rd grade reading scores.”

Bullshit.

In my view, it is time for this meanspirited half-bright to take her leave from the Volusia County School Board. 

With an annual budget now north of $1.5 billion, taxpayers, students, teachers, and staff deserve strong, ethical leadership chairing the Volusia County School Board – a true servant/leader we can trust to make complex decisions without fear of subterfuge, a personal agenda, or worse…

I nominate newly elected District 4 representative Donna Brosemer.

Now that Chairwoman Thompson has been exposed as a habitual liar, someone who has admittedly used deception to subvert the contracting and budget allocation process – a dimwit in pancake makeup who lacks the political, interpersonal, or negotiation skills to effectively legislate public education policies without creating a false narrative – it is time that those law enforcement agencies charged with defending the public trust (and public funds) open an investigation to determine the extent to which Ms. Thompson’s machinations and artifice have corrupted the system. 

Daytona Beach Sports Complex?    

Last week, Halifax area residents learned more about a nascent plan to construct a $185 million sports complex on city owned land west of I-95 off International Speedway Boulevard.

Yeah.  That city owned land…

Some Daytona Beach taxpayers I spoke with – who are already heavily invested in commercial real estate, the restaurant business, dirt mining, apartment complexes, aircraft manufacturing, logistics and warehousing, etc. – remain cautiously optimistic that an entity who is actually in the sports entertainment business might assume the risk on this one…    

According to a report by Eileen Zaffiro-Keen writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, the facility would include a 10,000-seat stadium, multi-use fields, courts, baseball diamonds, a swimming pool, ice rink, concessions, and associated amenities.  

“If the facility does come to be, the hope is Daytona Beach would become home to more than 100 sports tournaments each year – everything from basketball to gymnastics to baseball. Concerts could even be held on the property.”

Daytona Beach Mayor Derrick Henry thinks “It’s a beautiful idea,” but one that will require “a multitude of investors.”

“It’s a great idea to expand the local brand.” 

(What “brand”?  Did I miss something?)    

I found Mayor Henry’s quote about “investors” interesting, because an article by Andreas Butler in the Daytona Times published earlier this year dropped an interesting tidbit, “The city could impose a sales tax to help pay for the project…”

Really? 

Is that even possible? 

I’m asking, because anyone paying attention knows that we need every available tax dollar to begin sorting out the terrible infrastructure issues brought by malignant overdevelopment in Daytona Beach and beyond… 

(Find the Daytona Times piece here: https://tinyurl.com/3kv2f54e )

In a follow up by Zaffiro-Keen this week, Daytona Beach City Manager Deric Feacher listed several other possibilities:

“When asked Friday how the project could be funded, City Manager Deric Feacher listed several possibilities. He said tourism tax dollars could be tapped, and both local colleges and Volusia County’s K-12 schools could be partners.

The county government could also become a partner, and the city of Daytona Beach could take out a loan, Feacher said.

The city could also look into selling the Municipal Stadium property on LPGA Boulevard to a developer who might want to build houses there since the land is near residential neighborhoods, he said.

Professional athletes could also become investors, he said.

Feacher noted there could be a 10-20 year buildout, so the money could be put together over time.”

In addition, the Clearwater-based company that was paid $172,000 to plan the complex has suggested a “professional operator” run the facility, not the City of Daytona Beach.

According to reports, Daytona Beach Economic and Strategic Opportunities Director Jeffrey Brown said last week, “…the city would work to get the revenue from the tournaments they would host to pay for the cost of operating the facilities. 

(Wait?  Is Mr. Brown suggesting that the facility will pay for itself? Crazy talk…)

“We’re going to get as much funding from outside the city as we can to try to make this a smaller burden on the taxpayers,” and the next step in the process is for “city staff” to meet with “potential investors” to gauge interest in funding the facility…

Wait. The same senior “staff” that negotiated the purchase of that asbestos-laden house of horrors on Beach Street?

What could possibly go wrong? 

At this early stage, the concept appears to be just another pie-in-the-sky “public/private” partnership in waiting (you know, where public funds augment the profit motives of private interests), but the possibility gives us something to think about while we’re stuck in four cycles of a traffic signal on Boomtown Boulevard…   

Food for thought like, “When are Daytona Beach and Volusia County taxpayers ever going to be off the hook for funding the for-profit schemes of private sector interests?”  Or “When will our elected and appointed officials learn that there are ‘must haves’ and ‘nice to haves’?”

Time will tell…

Quote of the Week

At the shelter board’s regular meeting Monday evening, Executive Director Victoria Fahlberg said First Step still has about $120,000 coming in each month.

The financial uncertainty comes in the wake of a whistleblower complaint against First Step Shelter brought by three former employees about six months ago.

One of the employees quit shortly after the complaint was filed, and the other two were fired. The two fired employees have retained an attorney and are contemplating filing a lawsuit against the shelter.

The shelter board hired a local attorney to look into the whistleblower complaints. The attorney finished his probe months ago and filed a report, but the shelter board has not released the report.

Daytona Beach resident Anne Ruby told shelter board members at their meeting Monday evening that she has spoken to several County Council members, and they want to see the investigator’s report.

Ruby said she doesn’t feel the whistleblower investigation was thorough enough, and that it’s left “a big cloud over the shelter.”

–Civic Activist Anne Ruby, speaking truth to the First Step Shelter Board, as quoted by reporter Eileen Zaffiro-Keen in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, “First Step Shelter is 3 months deep into its fiscal year and uncertain on $400K in funding,” Tuesday, December 10, 2024

While I can be hypercritical of the errors and omissions of the Volusia County Council, in my view, one thing they ‘got right’ this year was withholding the $400,000 annual stipend taxpayers pony up to keep the enigmatic First Step Shelter program alive.

In my view, their hesitance in throwing good money after bad showed a level of fiscal responsibility that bunch isn’t normally known for…

Most agree that the needs across our region are simply too great to devote a combined $4 million in scarce public resources to a single entity every five-years, while a very visible segment of the homeless population who are ineligible or incapable of transitioning to permanent housing remain without services and outreach.

According to the News-Journal, “Now shelter funding is slated to be on the Council’s Jan. 21 agenda, forcing First Step Shelter to push through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays not knowing if the organization’s roughly $1.5 million budget has permanently lost nearly one-third of its funding.

The Daytona Beach City Commission also still needs to vote on whether to continue its $400,000 annual grant for the shelter, and the First Step Shelter Board has still not ratified its lease agreement to continue using the city-owned shelter building off of U.S. Highway 92 five miles west of Interstate 95. Both of those matters, however, appear to be headed for approval.”

Civic activist Anne Ruby is right – rocked by a still unaddressed scandal, the threat of possible whistleblower lawsuits, transparency issues, questions of financial irregularities, and maladministration – a very dark cloud hangs heavy over the First Step Shelter and its governing board.

Only the disinfecting light of day can change that.   

Sadly, it has become painfully obvious to anyone watching that this perplexing program will never stand on its own two feet, and our elected officials now have a fiduciary responsibility to taxpayers that demands a change in leadership at First Step before one more public dollar is allocated.

And Another Thing!

On December 29, Volusia County will celebrate our 170^th anniversary. 

One would think after that many years, we would have matured into a place where good governance holds more weight than the profit motives of speculative developers with a chip in the game?

I was contemplating our collective civic fate recently and was reminded of that famous scene from the Broadway play Billy Rose’s Jumbo, when Jimmy Durante – leading a live elephant – is stopped by a police officer who asks, “What are you doing with that elephant?”

Durante reply’s – “What elephant?”

That comedic exchange reminded me of the Volusia County Council’s reaction as flood victims continue to show up, en masse, and demand action from those they elected to represent their interests. 

Let’s face it, with Volusia now ranked as the most flood prone county in the State of Florida (seventh in the nation) the problem is getting harder to ignore.  But that hasn’t stopped our elected dullards in the Ivory Tower of Power at the Thomas C. Kelly Administration Building in DeLand from continuing to ignore the obvious and kick the can down the trail with frightening regularity.    

But I’m more than happy to keep pointing it out from my perch up here in the cheap seats…

Look, like Roosevelt said, no one likes to hear where the strongman stumbled, or how the doer of deeds could have done them better; however, in my view, external criticism is important to moderating an impassive, self-serving, and unresponsive bureaucracy.  

At best, I am a dilettante editorialist, at worst a blowhard with internet access – always musing on the motivations of those perennial politicians, influential insiders, and mediocre do-nothings that, in my view, are actively destroying our quality of life – clumsily plowing forward without a comprehensive vision for our future beyond the mercenary self-interests of their political benefactors.  

Over time, those figureheads on the dais of power have been conditioned to simply do as they are told, convinced that their senior staff are all-knowing soothsayers – “the truth, the light, and the way” – and any external input or criticism is never to be believed (unless, of course, they are paying a high-priced consultant to tell them what they want/need to hear…)

I take no pleasure in being the proverbial turd in the civic punchbowl.  Barker the Bitcher – the crusty curmudgeon with a jaded view, the pissed-off pessimist – always disapproving and disgruntled, tilting at windmills and challenging the perceived status quo.  

(That’s not true.  I relish the role…)   

Last week, after I took the Volusia County Council to task for their praxis of “public policy by ambush” – the art of deftly passing controversial off-the-agenda items with little, if any, public notice or input – (most recently limiting the public business meeting to just six-hours) I received a terse note from a powerful sitting politician taking me to the woodshed.

My high-powered critic accused me of ignoring the “truth and facts.” Charging that I am engaging in “character assassination” and being a “flat out bully.”

That’s rich…

This from a ranking member of that savage tribe who has routinely engaged in the worst form of political oppression, marginalization, and calumniation in suppressing Chairman Jeff Brower’s dogged efforts to urge definitive action on the most galvanizing issue of our time… 

Despite the heartburn this blogsite continues to evoke in our thin-skinned ‘powers that be’ – I plan to keep up this Quixotic pursuit of spouting one man’s jaded opinion on the issues of the day – neither always right nor always wrong. 

In my view, when it comes to the intrigues of “Fun Coast” politics and government, we desperately need an alternative opinion, a challenge to the sedating drone of a canned “media release” produced by some “public information” mouthpiece paid handsomely to spin the facts and construct a skewed narrative.

Especially now that our neutered watchdog of a local newspaper continues its transformation into a poor man’s Zagat’s guide…

While limiting public meetings to six-hours may reduce the Volusia County Council’s time on the hotseat – frustrated residents dealing with the personal and financial devastation of development-induced flooding are not going to stop demanding answers – nor should they.

And it is increasingly clear they are not going to accept the old “bureaucratic two-step” much longer.

For instance, last Thursday, Councilman Don Dempsey hosted a “town hall” in DeLand where outraged flood victims let anyone who would listen know they’re mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore.

According to an excellent report by WESH-2’s Gail Paschall-Brown:

“Volusia County Chair Jeff Brower was passionate as he spoke to residents who packed this town hall meeting Thursday night in Deland.

But he was preaching to a choir of folks who are sick and tired of being forced out of their homes or losing their livelihood due to floodwaters caused by recent hurricanes, relentless rains and development.

“There’s plenty of flooding, and with the development they’re trying to approve now going in, it’s only going to get monumentally worse,” Volusia County resident Mitch Adams said.

“We can’t continue to make those decisions and call it progress. We have to stop doing the things we know that are causing the problems,” Brower said.

The audience applauded.”

Most telling, according to the report, Volusia County’s Public Works Director Ben Bartlett fell back on Volusia County’s tired modus operandi of procrastination and bureaucratic foot-dragging – putting time and distance between the heat of the moment and what comes next.  

“What are some typical solutions you might see to come out of these studies? The first one is a traditional stormwater system, stormwater ponds to store the water during the event, gravity conveyance system to bring the water to the pond, and then some sort of gravity system with a positive outfall to take the water away,” Benjamin Bartlett said.

In my view, at the dawn of 2025, if Volusia County’s highly compensated Public Works Director, Growth and Resource Mismanagement Director, or any of County Manager George “The Wreck” Recktenwald’s senior coterie of incompetents still need more timewasting studies and analysis to address rampant flooding across the width and breadth of our region – we truly are in trouble… 

I’ve said this ad nauseum, but rather than confront the elephant in the room, our elected dullards stumble about in some stupor of conceit – unable to comprehend that We, The Little People are smart enough to understand that giving those inept senior officials who got us into this damnable infrastructure and flooding quagmire more time and money to figure a “solution” is the very definition of civic insanity.

That’s the uncomfortable truth no one in a position of power wants to address.

“What elephant?” indeed…   

No elected official who genuinely cares about the real needs of their long-suffering constituents should expect us to forgive, forget, and hand over more of our hard-earned money to those who have proven unworthy of our sacred trust.

In my view, it’s time we began that difficult discussion.

Volusia County.  Lowering the bar since 1854…

That’s all for me.  Have a great weekend, y’all!

Dear Barker’s View Readers:

Earlier this week my family suffered the tragic loss of a sweet and caring young man, taken from those who loved him far too soon.  I want to extend my deep appreciation for everyone who has kept my family in your thoughts.   

But I am not seeking your sympathy.  I want your help in preventing this far too frequent tragedy. 

Year after year, the “Fun Coast” marks one of the highest suicide rates in the state.  Last year, a shocking 119 people took their lives here in Volusia County – a grim statistic that equates to immeasurable loss for so many left behind.   

This Holiday Season if you are experiencing depression, mental health issues, substance abuse, feelings of hopelessness, suicidal thoughts, or know someone who is suffering, please reach out for help.

Confidential assistance is available by calling or texting the Suicide Prevention Hotline at 988 – or at www.988lifeline.org  – veterans can call 988 and press 1.    

“It isn’t weak to ask for help. It’s like using a flashlight when you’re lost in the dark.”

God bless & Merry Christmas, everyone.

MDB