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:

A Lack of Strategic Vision Compounds Perpetual Problems on Daytona’s Beachside

Last week, in a disturbing report from WFTV-9’s investigative journalist Demie Johnson, Daytona Beach residents were shocked to learn of the city’s surreptitious plan to acquire a commercial restaurant and adjacent property at the corner of A-1-A and Main Street. 

The purchase was apparently negotiated without the knowledge of the City Commission or the Community Redevelopment Board…

According to the report, city redevelopment officials planned to use Main Street CRA funds to purchase the building currently housing the Cruisin’ Café and neighboring lots for a reported $4.3 million.  

The “deal” is said to have been two-years in the making…

Unfortunately, it appears the secretive nature of the proposal blindsided the elected officials and CRA advisory board; a humiliating look for a City Commission wracked by lingering questions of the city’s financial stewardship amid various internal audits into potential waste, fraud, and abuse.

During the discussion, commissioners rightfully asked for another appraisal of the property – and more information on the city’s negotiations and future plans for the Main Street CRA – before taking the matter up at a meeting in March. `

As I understand it (and I’m not sure anyone does), the city’s redevelopment staff wants to raze the active restaurant as a means of removing a “blighted property” from the area (in my view, the equivalent of throwing an extremely expensive deck chair off the Queen Mary…)

According to reports, the interim plan is to turn the corner at the epicenter of our core tourist area into a multiuse park, using converted shipping containers to house food, entertainment, and other vendors, including the creation of 100 additional parking spaces in the area.

While listening to the CRA meeting, my underlying concern mirrored that of others who questioned the city’s long-term vision for Main Street and other blighted areas of our beachside.

This isn’t a law enforcement problem.  The Daytona Beach Police Department has worked diligently to target specific problem locations, improve safety, provide high visibility patrols, weave unobtrusive safety and security measures into the streetscape, and enhance quality of life.  

Unfortunately, without something to fill the resulting vacuum, their efforts are akin to pushing back the tide…   

Perhaps now is the time to try something different in the Main Street area?

For years, I have touted the positive change that can only happen when “economic development” types finally admit the patchwork approach isn’t working and stop doing the same thing over, and over again, while expecting a different result.  

Then having the courage to take a different tack.

Positive change occurs when city officials seek outside intervention, using proven urban planning, revitalization, and reinvention experts to establish a comprehensive vision for blighted areas working in collaboration with residents and stakeholders. 

That requires having the courage to stop the hoops, hurdles, and bureaucratic micromanagement then allow artistic urban designers the space and flexibility to create something special.

Whenever my wife and I travel, there are specific attributes in the places where we long to return – vibrant city centers, a distinct sense of place, eclectic eateries, bars, and entertainment venues, creative districts, gardens, and greenspace – well-thought communities with a unique civic spirit that can be felt in places like Charleston, Thomasville, Georgia, Winter Park, Raliegh, and Georgetown, South Carolina. 

Places that have built upon their regional culture and natural attributes, embraced those things that make the community unique, then use creative techniques to plan and build great streets with mixed-use commercial/residential space that complement the focus area, rehabilitate and infill surrounding neighborhoods, emphasize historic preservation, and enhance the local character with placemaking entrances, flowers, greenery, trees, and well landscaped streetscapes.

Rarely do these things happen organically.

They require inclusive strategic visioning, focused planning, and professionally managed implementation by a proven outside firm committed to partnering with residents, entrepreneurs, and creators at each step in the process.  

Just as blight can metastasize, so can urban revitalization and revival. 

With the right set of eyes, our core tourist area can become a sought after beachside village complemented by the revitalization of Main Street, returning the attractions and amenities that once made the World’s Most Famous Beach a global destination, and finally put a stop to the hangdog humiliation, hopelessness, and frustration that has crippled large swathes of the Halifax area for far too long.  

In my view, that doesn’t happen by wasting $4.4 million to eliminate a single eyesore, create a few parking spaces (for what?), while removing a valuable parcel from the tax rolls – especially without a viable plan for “what comes next” – beyond converted shipping containers and more of the same…

It’s Time to Let Volusia Vote on The Future of Clean Water Protections

During a recent discussion regarding the modification or elimination of Volusia’s venerated ECHO and Forever programs, arguments ranged from we may need to put wells on conservation land a hundred years hence, to the hackneyed refrain We, The Little People are too stupid to understand what we were voting for, and fanning fears that the program(s) have become too expensive for families suffering from Florida’s affordability crisis. 

I’m not sure why, but it appears some believe that legislatively prohibiting the practice of ‘toilet to tap’ (the disgusting process of converting reclaimed sewage into drinking water) – to include the strategy of injecting what is colloquially known as “poopy water” into the Floridan aquifer – is somehow mutually exclusive of other conservation programs.

It isn’t. 

In my view, we can (and should) have diverse conservation and protection programs working simultaneously and symbiotically to safeguard what remains of Florida’s fragile ecology in the face of malignant sprawl.

Unfortunately, when you consider the strong emphasis the Florida Department of Environmental Destruction has placed on its “potable reuse” program – a process defined by the state as the augmentation of a drinking water supply with treated wastewater – you can bet the revolting idea of turning treated sink, laundry, shower, drain and sewage waste into a potable water source to accommodate more, more, more growth is a very real option for those compromised shills in Tallahassee. 

Because I regularly bare jaded witness to the chameleon-like qualities of our local politicians – I see where they might perceive a transactional benefit in lending their support to a charter amendment banning ‘toilet to tap’ in exchange for repealing the perpetuity provisions of Volusia Forever.

For reasons I don’t fully understand (except to say strange things happen when an election is looming), earlier this month, several sitting Volusia County Council members and other area politicos – who I wouldn’t describe as “friends of the environment” – have publicly expressed support for the charter amendment banning ‘toilet to tap.’ 

My skeptical belief is our newfound “environmentalists” on the dais are secretly betting the issue will be a moot point the minute the Florida legislature preempts water quality and quantity regulations to the state – or they have inside information on changes to voter-approved conservation programs that will alter the concept of “perpetuity” to allow public infrastructure to be built on “protected” lands (no doubt to ensure concurrency for adjacent growth and density)…

Let’s hope my cynical instincts are wrong.

Regardless of the political motivations of our newly supportive elected officials in Volusia County government and the municipalities, it has been a long and valiant fight by local water quality advocates/environmentalists who see banning the disgusting process as essential to preserving our future health and water supply. 

In October 2022, the topic got so adversarial that a previous council took a formal vote forbidding Chairman Jeff Brower from even mentioning ‘toilet to tap’ at a public meeting… 

His “colleagues” said Chairman Brower was just being “political.”

Sound familiar?

Thanks to a strong push by civic activist Greg Gimbert and his intrepid grassroots advocacy Let Volusia Vote, there is growing community support for prohibiting the reuse of treated wastewater – either as potable water or injecting it into the aquifer – unless the process is voter-approved.

Earlier this month, Chairman Brower said, “There’s very few people that are excited about injecting cleaned-up sewage water into our aquifer,” making it clear that his support for a legislative prohibition on ‘toilet to tap’ hasn’t changed since he was administratively bound-and-gagged on the issue three-years ago…

According to an article by Jarleene Almenas writing in the Ormond Beach Observer last week:

“County Councilmen Troy Kent and Don Dempsey voiced support for a charter amendment, and the council unanimously voted to direct staff to bring back information and a legal analysis on the issue.

“I’m in favor of letting the local people vote, because once they put that stuff in our drinking supply, we’re trusting the government science, and I don’t feel comfortable with that,” Dempsey said.” 

Council members will now wait for more information on what is legally and legislatively possible considering the prevailing winds in Tallahassee – that degenerate house of prostitution – where our “elected representatives” are busy gifting their political benefactors in the real estate development industry carte blanche to build when, where, and what they want by neutering the concept of local governance and Home Rule.

I hope you will lend your support to this worthwhile effort to protect and preserve our water quality, and the health of our children and grandchildren.  For more information on the charter amendment petition, find Let Volusia Vote at https://www.facebook.com/letvolusiavote  

Clean water is the most important legacy we can leave for those who will come after us.  I encourage everyone to sign the petition when it becomes available.

Quote of the Week

“When did it become the school district’s responsibility to decide for the taxpayers which nonprofits it would support and which it wouldn’t? Why are taxpayers in Edgewater or Ormond Beach contributing to a nonprofit in DeLand that will benefit almost exclusively DeLand residents.

If the school board was so anxious to rid itself of this property, why wasn’t it offered to the City of DeLand at some fire-sale price and allow them to arrange PAL use?

And this is not the first time such a donation has been made by the school district. In 2024 the school district donated six lots to nonprofit Homes Bring Hope to build affordable housing for six school districts employees, according to a September 2025 press release. These lots were in Daytona Beach near Bethune-Cookman University and Daytona State.

Would these lots not have been attractive to either university to purchase for future expansion, thereby recovering some taxpayer funds. The press release also begs the question “is our school district paying its employees so poorly that they require affordable housing?” I worked for Volusia County schools for 13 years; no one offered me or any of my colleagues affordable housing.

This (sic) point of this letter is not to question the validity or purpose of the nonprofits, but rather to bring to taxpayer’s attention the carelessness with which the school district, and by virtue of their votes on these donations the elected school board, are handling taxpayer assets.”

–Ormond Beach Resident and Volusia ECHO advisory board member Doug Petit, as excerpted from his editorial “Donating school property,” the Ormond Beach Observer, Monday, January 26, 2026

Call me a sentimental sap, but there was a time when residents could expect that those we elect and appoint to serve our community would steward our hard-earned tax dollars to provide effective and efficient public protection, ensure safe potable water, maintain adequate transportation and utilities infrastructure, educate our children, enact and enforce local ordinances that protect property values, conserve our natural places, and enhance our collective quality of life.

Perhaps naïvely, in my view, we have a right to expect those who accept public funds to serve in the public interest will maintain the integrity and value of publicly owned buildings and facilities and ensure a return on our investment when the asset no longer serves a public need.

Many years ago, local governments patented a technique I call “strategic neglect” – a malicious practice that withholds preventative maintenance and basic upkeep at certain public facilities – allowing them to rot in place until they reach such a deplorable state of dilapidation that demolition and replacement become the only viable option.

Unfortunately, the City of Daytona Beach recently used this unwritten negligence and abandonment policy to inflict irreparable damage on the historic City Island Recreation Center, a building erected in 1943 as a dance hall to entertain American service members during World War II.

That important piece of Halifax area history is never coming back – no doubt to be replaced by another city-owned commercial property that will succumb to the tragic start/fail/start/fail/start/fail cycle that continues to haunt much of Downtown Daytona.

Then, there is the problem of government entities and taxing districts simply adding aging or so-called “superfluous properties” to an arbitrary “surplus list” – which they feel authorizes bureaucrats to randomly decide which publicly-owned assets will be sold (often for pennies on the dollar), which will be given away, and who will be the beneficiary of this governmental largesse…

In November 2025, the unilateral donation of a 75-year-old gymnasium and adjacent property to the Deland Police Athletic League by Volusia County Schools raised the ire of taxpayers who are tired of the gross mismanagement of public assets by those charged with their stewardship.

According to Florida statutes, following an “educational plant survey,” a school board may dispose of property deemed no longer necessary for educational purposes after taking “…diligent measures to dispose of educational property only in the best interests of the public.”

To his credit, Mr. Petit made his thoughts known to the Volusia County School Board earlier this month – explaining that, as a taxpayer, he should decide which non-profits he prefers to donate to – and he doesn’t need the School Board making those decisions for him.

In addition, Petit advised the “…district should refrain from donating our property and make every effort to recover tax dollars whenever possible before they cut a program, an employee or make an appeal for more money.”

According to a recent report by Mark Harper writing in The Daytona Beach News-Journal, “School Board member Donna Brosemer said she had similar questions about donations and had asked the district’s general counsel, Gilbert Evans, to look into establishing a policy on future donations. She questioned whether a school district partner or an organization that doesn’t have a direct relationship to the educational services the district provides would qualify under the law.”

Of course, other board members – like the always exasperated Jamie Haynes – suggests the donation to the Deland PAL is an excellent way of serving the needs of children after the school day ends.

According to the News-Journal, “That organization allows our students to go there after school every day, get tutoring help, also participate in clubs and activities, things they may never have an opportunity to do,” Haynes said. “They do cooking classes, they play sports outside.”

Volusia schools wasn’t putting any money into the old building, leaving PAL in an increasingly worsening condition without the ability to do anything about it. That’s how the plan was hatched to donate the building to the organization, allowing it to repair the gym and improve the grounds, Haynes said.

“I am very disappointed that individuals would think this is not supporting our children,” Haynes said. “This is 100% supporting our children, and every day, I would vote the same way again.”

What Ms. Haynes and some of her “colleagues” fail to understand is – regardless of the potential benefit to area non-profits – this property represents a publicly-owned asset, one bought and paid for with our hard-earned tax dollars.

In my view, the ultimate disposition of these “surplus” properties should not be determined by the arbitrary whims of administrators who subjectively remove our collective land and facilities from the open market and gift them to preferred charities in the absence of clear, fair, and equitable public policy.

And Another Thing!

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

–George Orwell, 1984

You don’t need the deductive reasoning of Hercule Poirot to deduce the trends and similarities in how local governments are actively working to silence opposition, gaslight constituents, position themselves as the “burning bush” of community information, and fight against what omniscient insiders in the “Ivory Tower of Power” describe as “misinformation.”  

The all-knowing bureaucracy is right, and the ignorant hoi polloi are wrong.

If being gaveled down and escorted out of a public meeting by law enforcement at the command of the chair, or having your social media content “monitored” by the Special Thought Police from some “public information office” doesn’t have a chilling effect on your willingness to speak out, then they will threaten to sue your eyeballs out (using your own tax dollars) if your refuse to cease and desist…

Some local governments are creating a sanitized echo chamber where citizens – from whom all political power derives – are expected to sit quietly while those we have elected to represent our interests engage in verbose oratories, petty bickering, and use parliamentary gymnastics to routinely delay, obfuscate, and procrastinate serious issues of civic concern for waterlogged Volusia County residents. 

Don’t take my word for it. 

Watch what passes for a Deltona City Commission meeting, any Orange City Council meeting conducted by Mayor Kellianne “My Name is MAYOR!” Marks, or an episode of that long-running tragicomedy that is the Volusia County Council and come to your own conclusion if public input is welcomed and considered where you live.   

The pernicious practice of silencing criticism now includes openly berating unpaid citizen advisory board volunteers for speaking their truth to power.  Publicly destroying their character and reputation with defamatory accusations and labeling them a “liar,” as these egotistical tools paint themselves as the heroes in their own counterproductive political theater…

Not so coincidentally, last week, Jason Volez, a candidate for Florida State Senate District 8, received a stern “cease and desist” threat from Deltona City Attorney Gemma Torcivia through her law firm, TG Law. 

As an outspoken critic of the City of Deltona’s perpetually troubled water utility – a problematic treatment, distribution, and billing system that is almost universally panned by its disgusted consumers – Mr. Volez has repeatedly sounded the klaxon on dangerous “forever chemicals” that have been detected in Deltona’s potable water supply.

In addition, Volez stands with the clean water advocacy Let Volusia Vote, and has vehemently opposed the City of Deltona’s plan to inject reclaimed water into the Floridan aquifer.  A practice many believe will result in widespread and permanent contamination of our collective water source.

That strong criticism by a citizen/candidate expressing a view counter to the official storyline didn’t sit well with embarrassed officials at Deltona City Hall…   

So, they used the full might and treasure of the City of Deltona to silence Volez – wielding the city attorney’s office like a cudgel, describing his views as “objectively false, unprivileged, and defamatory” – publicly besmirching his message while sending a chilling warning to any citizen who dares speak out on issues of community concern using follow our edicts and “govern yourself accordingly” intimidation.

I guess even voicing concerns about the very water our children drink is verboten.

If this tactic sounds familiar, it should…

Last fall, during a meeting of the New Smyrna Beach City Commission, thin-skinned Mayor Fred Cleveland openly fumed over social media posts he found offensive, which resulted in City Attorney Carrie Avallone dutifully (if not unconstitutionally) sending a letter on official letterhead to Volusia County Council District 3 candidate Bryon White – an candid opponent of overdevelopment and its effects on our natural places – demanding that he “correct or remove” statements critical of NSB officials from social media.

You read that right…

Perhaps more frightening, during a rambling diatribe against anyone who expresses a viewpoint different from those espoused by city spinmeisters – Mayor Cleveland ominously asked if one of the city’s two Public Information Officers could “monitor” the social media posts of residents and “set the record straight” with anyone who “berates” city officials or tries to “further an agenda.”

Yeah.  I know…

I suspect Mayor Cleveland’s rampant paranoia and willingness to silence critics with the full force of government isn’t an original thought…  

In my view, this increasingly blustery bullying sounds like a well-choreographed effort to push back against dissent, criticism, and citizen participation – probably concocted by one of those mutual admiration societies, leagues, committees, and councils of confederated local governments – typically comprised of elected officials who consider their vanity far more important than our constitutional protections.

Our right to speak our minds on matters of public concern is not subject to the filter of hypersensitive politicians, their highly compensated public mouthpieces, or anyone else – and taxpayers should not be expected to subjugate themselves to some monarchical edict handed down by egomaniacal hacks with a persecution complex.

This election season I urge you to ask questions of candidates.  Determine who they plan to serve – We, The Little People, or their own self-interests – research the records of perennial politicians, educate yourself on issues of local concern, then vote your conscience. 

Elections have consequences…

That’s all for me.  Stay warm this weekend, y’all!