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…

The Miller Lake Twenty-Three – A Demand for Justice in Orange City

Waterlogged residents throughout Volusia County cheered the news that twenty-three current or former property owners in the Miller Lake (formerly Miller Pond) area of Orange City have filed a lawsuit alleging that Volusia County and ten commercial property owners failed to manage stormwater drainage systems contributing to devastating lake flooding. 

According to a report by Sheldon Gardner writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, “Attorney Jack Taylor, of the law firm Morgan & Morgan, is representing the plaintiffs. The firm filed the 234-page lawsuit, including attachments, in Volusia County Circuit Court.”

In the preamble to the legal action, Taylor asserts “This is a case about property rights, mismanagement of stormwater infrastructure, and the consequences of development without accountability.”

That’s powerful.  Especially when so many property owners across the region have had their lives repeatedly upended by the effects of development-induced flooding.

In addition, the Miller Lake residents have filed a notice of tort claims against Volusia County for “mismanagement” of the lake, alleging that the county’s bungling “…has led to the rise of stormwater, persistent flooding, and damage to homes near Miller Lake.”

According to the News-Journal, “Plaintiffs bring this action to stop the continued intrusion of stormwater, to repair the harm already caused, and to reinforce a basic principle of Florida law: one property owner may not use another’s land as a drainage basin.”

For their part, to further isolate our county government from those it exists to serve, Volusia County officials circled the wagons in a canned email to the News-Journal, “Unfortunately, we cannot comment on current, pending, or threatened litigation matters.”

Bullshit.

In April, Spectrum News 13 reported that residents of the Miller Lake area are still experiencing the impacts of Hurricane Milton some seven months after the event.  Inundation that resulted in a drastic rise in lake levels that blocked access to their homes, rendered potable water wells useless, and left their property submerged in standing water.

Last December, during a townhall meeting to address the concerns of flood victims in West Volusia, county officials spewed more hot air – more of the strategic procrastination that has become their tired modus operandi – with Volusia’s Public Works Director Ben Bartlett falling back on more timewasting studies to tell everyone what they already knew:  

“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.”

We understand the basics of how a stormwater system works, Ben. 

So what do you plan to do about the ones that are overwhelmed due to massive overdevelopment and no longer serve their intended purpose across the width and breadth of Volusia County?

And how did we get in this disastrous predicament to begin with?

For the record, last month, the Volusia County Council finally got around to approving water-engineering studies of four areas in DeLand – that’s five months after Bartlett’s announcement – when they voted to hire a Texas consulting firm (?), to analyze stormwater issues and recommend workable solutions.

If history repeats (and it always does here on the “Fun Coast”) any “recommendations” resulting from the $828,010 in grant funded studies will be wholly ignored and quickly forgotten – but another year of foot-dragging inaction will have passed under the transom…   

Why is that?  

Perhaps these are questions Mr. Bartlett and other senior members of County Manager George “The Wreck” Recktenwald’s coterie of enablers, and those elected puppets on the dais of power will be asked under oath as the Miller Lake lawsuit progresses? 

To add insult, in coming months, Volusia County taxpayers are going to hear of a pernicious plan hatched by something called the “sustainability subcommittee” of the Volusia Knights of the Roundtable – a political insulation consortium of county and municipal elected officials – that will suggest a 2026 referendum to increase our sales tax ostensibly to pay for “stormwater and flooding” solutions. 

In January, after the Volusia County Council’s obstinate “Old Guard” callously suppressed an attempt by Chair Jeff Brower to implement a temporary building moratorium until desperately needed infrastructure needs could be met, we learned in a News-Journal report:

“At-Large Representative Jake Johansson pointed out that the Volusia County Elected Officials Roundtable, which brings together cities and county leaders, has formed a subcommittee that will address flooding concerns. Johansson is serving as co-chair.

He talked about the importance of collaborating with city leaders on issues like a moratorium.”

Instead of “addressing flooding concerns” as promised, it appears all Jake the Snake Johansson and his fellow tone-deaf knights could come up with is raising taxes on goods and services for every man, woman, and child in Volusia County? 

I don’t know about you, but with Volusia County’s budget now topping an astronomical $1.3 billion – I think we’ve all given enough of our hard-earned money to the same blundering dullards who got us into this mess in the first place… 

Folks, this isn’t about flood control – it’s about another revenue source for this horribly bloated bureaucracy.  

I commend those inundated homeowners in Orange City and their intrepid team at Morgan and Morgan for standing up to those do-nothings in the Ivory Tower of Power at Volusia County government and let them know there is some shit we won’t eat.

In my view, it is time for victims of overdevelopment and bureaucratic ineptitude to hold those who knew of the devastating consequences of fill-and-build sprawl, and did absolutely nothing to mitigate it, legally and politically accountable for their strategic negligence.    

Clash of the Titans – The Sound of Distant Thunder

Things turned ugly this week when Florida’s State University Board of Governors morphed from a pro forma rubberstamp into the role of interrogators on Tuesday as they dug deep into the political leanings and past practices of former University of Michigan president Dr. Santa J. Ono, who was recently selected by unanimous vote of the University of Florida Board of Trustees to assume the 14^th presidency of UF.

It was the first time in history that the 17-member Florida Board of Governor’s failed to approve the leadership recommendation of a university’s trustees… 

Normally, I could care less – the only thing that kept me out of college was high school – but Ono’s appointment was publicly supported by several of our local “movers-and-shakers” who draw a lot of water in Volusia County…

According to a report this week in FlaglerLive.com, “Tuesday’s 10-6 vote was a major rebuke to the UF Board of Trustees, which last week unanimously selected Ono for the post, and trustees Chairman Mori Hosseini, an influential Republican donor with longstanding ties to the state university system.

Ono, an immunologist who recently stepped down as president of the University of Michigan, drew fierce criticism from high-profile conservatives inside and outside of Florida for such issues as his past embrace of diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs, as well as his handling of on-campus protests following the 2023 attack by Hamas in Israel.”

Find the rest of FlaglerLive.com’s article here: https://tinyurl.com/y5vsay4t

In recent weeks, conservative critics have slammed Dr. Ono’s nomination – including Donald Trump Jr., who took to X last month to lambaste UF’s “decision-makers,” and referred to Ono as a “woke psycho” – partisan denunciations that ultimately led the governing board to block Ono’s appointment earlier this week.

Regardless of the reasons (or rhetoric) Ono’s controversial nomination set up a clash of the titans involving some of our area’s heaviest hitters – including the heaviest of the heavy, our High Panjandrum of Political Power Mori Hosseini – who chairs the University of Florida’s Board of Trustees – and former Florida Speaker of the House Paul Renner, who was among those leading the charge against Dr. Ono’s appointment.  

In addition, influential local insurance executive Charlie Lydecker – in my experience a good guy and member of the State University Board of Governors (who also served on the UF presidential search committee) questioned the intensity of the board’s withering interrogation of Ono.

“Critics’ probing of Ono was so intense that it sparked heated pushback from Lydecker, who said the Board of Governors was intended to “ratify, up or down” a selection unanimously made by UF’s trustees.

“This is not a court of law. I’ve been on this board for five, six years, and we have never used this as a forum to interrogate and in this case, it feels to me patently unfair,” Lydecker said. “Candidly, this process does not feel fair to me.”

According to FlaglerLive.com, Mr. Hosseini also questioned the board’s motivations and “…called the skepticism around Ono “heartbreaking” and pointed to former President Ronald Reagan’s metamorphosis from a Democrat who supported unions to one of the nation’s most beloved Republicans. He said the Board of Governors needed to rely on UF’s trustees, who stepped in after questions were raised about former UF President Ben Sasse’s short tenure.

“The board of trustees are there as a backstop. So if this man doesn’t do what he says he’s going to do, we’re there. We’re your boots on the ground … That is the basis of this board of governors and yet you all decided today is the day we’re going to take somebody down,” Hosseini said.”

Adding to the intrigue, during the discussion, board member Eric Silagy – past chairman, president, and CEO of Florida Power & Light – asked Mr. Hosseini (who was conspicuously seated next to Dr. Ono) about “a number of detractors in this process” who may have been sniffing around the UF presidential post themselves…

“Who on the board of governors wanted to be president of the University of Florida?” Silagy asked.

“Paul Renner,” Hosseini said, sparking an immediate response from the former House speaker.

“I did not initiate that,” Renner said.

Renner said a UF trustee asked him about the presidential post.

“I contacted the governor’s office. I was told to go talk to Mori Hosseini, and he said he wasn’t interested, and that’s the end of it,” Renner said. The conversation took place before DeSantis appointed him to the Board of Governors in February.

“Under no circumstances, would I serve at this time at the University of Florida,” Renner said.

Whoa.

For his part, it appears Dr. Santa Ono is now damaged goods as his critics tout the board’s vote as “a massive win for conservatives,” while progressive academics around the nation chide him for playing the politics of appeasement and “selling his soul” to secure the UF appointment.

As one gloating University of Michigan professor still sore about Ono’s attempt to jump the Blue State/Red State gulf put it, “Karma caught up with Ono…”

Governor Ron DeSantis didn’t openly oppose Dr. Ono’s appointment – choosing instead a delicate tightrope act between his biggest donors/supporters and Ono’s equally influential detractors. 

But once the deed was done, Gov. DeSantis took a short victory lap in the form of a post on X by newly hired state staffer Jordan Schachtel:

“Santa Ono is OUT. The Florida Board of Governors has voted to Reject Ono as President of the University of Florida. 

Florida has voted to reject wokeness, DEI, CRT at our flagship university.  Go Gators!”

According to a report by NBC News, the rejection of Ono “…put DeSantis in a thorny political position, and it was a notable outcome in a state Republican ecosystem generally defined by donors and influential figures’ getting their way.

One of DeSantis’ longtime biggest political supporters — Mori Hosseini, the billionaire chair of the University of Florida Board of Trustees — strongly backed Ono’s bid to become president of the state’s flagship university.”

Something tells me that won’t soon be forgotten, and that distant thunder may well be the rumble of war drums…

Look, I don’t presume to know the behind-the-curtains dynamics at play in Tallahassee, Gainesville, and beyond (and I really don’t care) – but influential donors/insiders like Mr. Hosseini aren’t accustomed to being told no – or publicly humiliated by a politically appointed board of governors.

In my view, this sets up a classic power struggle that is ripe for serious repercussions during an already strange time in Tallahassee…

Stay tuned.

Quote of the Week

“The Palm Coast City Council is moving forward with two of the three impact fee studies, one of which will increase the fire service fee by 117%.

The council is reviewing the impact fees for transportation, fire service and parks and recreation. At the June 3 council meeting, the council unanimously approved the first of two votes raising the fire service and parks and recreation fees. The transportation fees were sent back for more revisions, which will reviewed on June 10.

Vice Mayor Theresa Carli Pontieri said it is the council’s job to make sure its position is legally defensible if the council is going to increase the impact fees at such high rates.

“We have to make sure that we are buttoned up every which way to Sunday on this,” she said.  “And I just don’t think we’re there yet.”

Typically, Florida law prohibits increasing impact fees by more than 50% of the current rate but once every four years and increases must be phased in over a two- to four-year period. But the state statute does provide an exception, if a municipality proves there are “extraordinary circumstances.”

–Reporter Sierra Williams writing in the Palm Coast Observer, “Palm Coast Council votes to increase developer-paid fire service fees by 117%,” Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Florida residents don’t hear much from real estate developers.  

For the most part, their lawyers, lobbyists, and elected shills do the talking for them…

Unfortunately, you and I are shut out of the discussion – silenced by the roar of bulldozers churning acres of greenspace into a foul black muck, the acrid odor of splintered hardwoods burning to ash, and the resultant dust storms that blow across the denuded landscape – all before construction of more, more, more zero lot line cracker boxes “starting in the mid $300’s” begin to blanket the land.

Oh, on occasion We, The Little People kick and bitch – approaching that wall of silence comprised of our elected representatives – our fears falling on deaf ears blocked by wads of campaign donations and the subliminal return on investment that accompanies each dollar. 

And the lucrative status quo prevails…

But if you want to see what an angry hornet’s nest looks like, just mention the concept of a temporary building moratorium until infrastructure can meet demand – or suggest an increase in impact fees to pay for needed improvements – then look out. 

Suddenly, the development community mobilizes, literally building a steel curtain around City Hall, and begin broadcasting stories of the economic Armageddon that would result from even a tap of the brakes on growth. 

Complete with tall tales about how raising impact fees to reduce the burden on existing residents would actually result in homeowners paying more in the long run…

My ass.

On Monday, ahead of a vote by the Palm Coast City Council to increase impact fees for transportation, fire service, and parks and recreation, a cast of development-friendly mouthpieces took to the airwaves on WNZF Radio’s “Free for All” talk show.  

Former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner (boy, he gets around, huh?) – who apparently retained his role as a shameless developer shill – used the forum to tell flashlight under the chin scary stories of what happens if developers are required to pay their fair share for the impacts of growth:  

According to the Observer report, “Renner said “dollar for dollar,” impact fees are passed on to the new homeowners, “artificially” increasing the property’s cost. That higher home value then likewise will increase the property assessments of surrounding homes, eventually leading to current homeowners paying more in property taxes, he said.”

Meanwhile, spinmeisters from the Flagler Homebuilders Association tag-teamed with Renner, claiming the studies Palm Coast relied upon to establish the “extraordinary circumstances” necessary for the more than 50% increase were “full of holes,” comparing them to “Swiss cheese,” and crying the Poor Mouth Blues over increased construction costs.

Admit nothing, deny everything, make counteraccusations, eh?    

To her credit, Palm Coast Vice Mayor Theresa Pontieri brought a modicum of common sense to the discussion by pointing out the burden already borne by existing taxpayers:

“Current Palm Coast residents will also feel the effects if the fees aren’t increased enough, either, she said. According to the recreation impact fee studies, she said, increasing the fire service fees just 50% would mean the city would need to recoup $3.9 million over 10 years from current residents to make up the difference. 

“You’re just moving it from one column to the other,” she said. “We know we’ve got expansion related costs. And expansion related costs should weigh on the shoulders of the people that are coming in more so than the people that are already here.”

And the beat goes on…

And Another Thing!

…before it is an honor, leadership is trust; Before it is a call to glory, Leadership is a call to service.

…before all else, forever, and always, leadership is a willingness to serve.

—Father Edson Wood, OSA, Chaplain, United States Military Academy

The first week of June…  Wow, how time flies. 

In two months, Good Lord willing, I’ll turn 65 and officially become a senior citizen. 

A Florida Senior Citizen.  The worst kind….

As a pending geriatric with my productive life behind me, I now look back on so many wonderful memories of a lifetime spent in public service with a small municipality – the privilege of doing work worth doing for people who genuinely appreciated the effort. 

I wouldn’t change a minute of it.

This week, our local news was filled with the shining faces of high school and college graduates receiving their diplomas, the culmination of a journey that began in earliest childhood, now preparing for the great adventure of ‘what comes next.’

From the precipice of old age, by squinting hard enough, I can look back into the murky distance and remember that special time in my life when anything seemed possible, and I never regretted my decision to serve a small community, and all the trials, errors, blunders, and triumphs of overcoming significant challenges for the greater good.  

After all these years, I still believe in the importance of ethical, responsive, and transparent public servants working to ensure essential service delivery and good governance. My hope is that some of today’s altruistic and enthusiastic graduates will answer the high calling to public service – devoting themselves to a cause greater than their own self-interest.  

In my beloved profession of law enforcement, we continue to experience a nationwide crisis of recruiting and retaining qualified officers.  In my experience, it has never been easy to find candidates with the innate attributes necessary for the difficult, dangerous, and demanding work – now made worse by the gross villanization of law enforcement in the wake of hyper-politicized events across the nation. 

I’m not going to lie; as police administrators, we’ve brought some it on ourselves… 

It’s a hard dollar, and it always will be. 

Those who serve in law enforcement with honor, courage, and a personal commitment to protecting their communities remain my personal heroes and they have my enduring love and respect.

In my view, another growing civic crisis is the quality and caliber of those standing for local elective office on the various city and county councils, commissions, and boards that make important policy decisions that affect our lives and livelihoods and allocate our hard-earned tax dollars. 

In my view, those with the impulse to serve, a fire in the belly, that was once a hallmark of community involvement have largely been replaced by head-nodding sycophants with a proclivity for quid pro quo transactional politics. 

An institutional (and individual) willingness to serve the highest bidder, rather than the personal instinct to improve the quality of life, well-being, and economic prosperity of their neighbors.   

The problem isn’t limited to local governments.

The sordid stories out of Tallahassee exposing the machinations of state legislators, and scandals that now reach the Governor’s office and the Florida Attorney General, are increasingly prevalent and corrosive to the public trust. 

At the federal level (as is our luck), United States Rep. Cory Mills, who represents the 7^th Congressional District stretching from areas of Daytona Beach to Apopka, is now widely mocked as the “most corrupt Congressman in America…”  

Sadly, it appears the personal qualities of leadership, integrity, and selflessness are now seen as impediments to the lockstep conformity required to further the greed-crazed wants of their political puppeteers at all levels of government.

In the decade since I retired from municipal service, many things have changed, while some traditions, both good and bad, remain. 

In my view, the proliferation of a skewed campaign finance system that allows uber-wealthy “King makers” to conspire with horribly dysfunctional partisan political committees to hand-select malleable candidates – then underwrite their campaigns with massive donations from the various businesses and entities under their control – has completely compromised local elections here on Florida’s “Fun Coast” and beyond.

Add to that the vicious knife-fight that passes for modern political races – an unrestrained blood bath of dirty tricks, scandalous insinuations distributed on those infamous “glossy mailers,” gross distortions presented as fact, and cruel character assassination – shameful tactics that result in the personal and professional destruction of anyone who dares challenge Volusia’s “Old Guard,” and you begin to see why elective service in these parts is not for the faint of heart…   

Once elected, their likeminded “colleagues” – politicians often supported by the same donors and special interests – convince them that the elected body should be a clubbish, homogenized, and well-choreographed echo chamber, where protected (and highly compensated) senior staff create public policy behind closed doors, and the elected officials are expected to rubberstamp it.

To enforce compliance, the compromised majority begin passing rules and “civility ordinances” to silence dissent on both sides of the dais, while strictly enforced conformism ensures the outcome of votes when everyone starts thinking alike.    

Absurd “rules” that permit our elected officials to stare catatonically into space like stone gargoyles – refusing to even acknowledge the presence of taxpayers who approach the gilded dais of power – let alone answer their questions and fervent cries for help.    

Fortunately, there are a few with the courage to stand for their constituents, demonstrate independence, and buck a compromised system that abhors individualism and free thought. 

For their resistance, these bold public servants who hold firm to their campaign promises are marginalized, maligned, and see their every idea and initiative crushed under the boot of those slavish loyalists who are passionately committed to preserving the stagnant status quo. 

Perhaps a new generation of aspiring servant-leaders – those who have seen the environmental atrocities and civic claustrophobia of overdevelopment, the corruption in plain sight, and the bureaucratic subservience to the profit margins of well-heeled political insiders – will rise and vow to return public confidence and respect to our government institutions through adherence to highest standards of integrity, transparency, and service over self.   

I hate to say it, but we’ve made a mess of things.

Now, it’s up to those who come next…

As policy analyst, educator, and former dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University reminded in his essay on civic participation, Reviving the Call to Public Service, in a thought by Margaret Thatcher on the fate of the Athenians:

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”

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