46 Volusia County Craziness

With the National Politics on the scene, all the time, it's getting a little crazy to talk about local politics.
But I'm looking at it now and saying it's time once again, to focus on Volusia County Florida.
So let us start with the subject everybody really talks about when they talk politics, lowering taxes.

SB TRUTH

Now when I was running for office, and in office, my premise was to lower taxes every chance I got. But I haven't seen that much of the latest rounds of attempted taxation here on the citizens of Volusia County.

If at anytime anybody ever brought up a request for a half cent sales tax issue, I immediately said I'm not interested in that issue.
I can just see the sales of pitchforks and torches going up as some anyone even thought about bringing up the subject of the half-cent sales-tax.

Yet, At the beginning of this year we went through a round of a, special vote to raise our sales tax a half penny, where in the words of the county chair Mister Ed Kelly, the information is right here as he waved his piece of paper around.

But to be honest, I do not think there was any information on that piece of paper that would have swayed the vote one way or the other.

The citizens do not want it, they don't trust the government with spending the money appropriately, and it would be a failing issue.

Once again I was right.

The vote failed, and we did not raise the sales tax.

SB FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE

While I was in office, I was absolutely against a property tax increase

The real facts of the matter are this, we pay the second highest millage rate in taxes in the state. Fact.
And by the way the county officials, bureaucrats, will argue that point to the ends of time. But they are wrong.

SB SURELY YOU ARE NOT SERIOUS

After a year-and-a-half of constant fighting and fighting and fighting, I was finally able to reduce the millage rate on Volusia County Properties.

I even was able to speak with some of the other taxing authorities in Volusia County, like the three Hospital authorities, and was able to get one of them to reduce some of their millage rate, although I really think they were going to do it anyways. I'll take the win.

To be quite honest, and this is coming from a past politician, the best person to spend your money is you.

A prime example is our school board in Volusia County, 995 million dollars in the budget.
That equates to roughly, $15,500 annually spent per child in Volusia County for their education.

That means they're 63000 students in Volusia County just a foot note.

If we're spending $15,500 per student per school year, we should be cranking out some Geniuses would you not think?

But some of our schools are failing, they're getting F's, and D's, on their annual report cards from the state. It's a very sad situation indeed.

Of course that $15,500 per student goes to pay for the schools, school buses, teachers, principals, Vice principals, school nurse, excetera, excetera, excetera, excetera on infinitum ad nausea.

But that does not negate the fact, that the school board of Volusia County has almost 1 billion dollars to spend for the education of our children. Apparently they're not spending the money wisely!

SB BE AFRAID

So this is part of the taxation thing that's going on all around this County.

Pay taxes on the properties, pay taxes on our tags for cars, the sales taxes when we buy something, they tax your water, they tax everything except for the air you breathe, and if they could find a way to do that we would be paying a tax for that.

Plus in the very near future, our County taxes are going to go pay for the homeless shelter debacle. This Grand Hotel they're building out there across the street from the county jail, the one that is supposed to not draw homeless people here, Oh no, its a way to help them get back on their feet.

There's got to be another way. And I fought to find a different way to do this versus building a multimillion-dollar Taj Mahal for homeless people.

Who by the way will get better food than we give our own children, better Healthcare than you or I can get from any insurance company, and all the free stuff they can carry in their little grocery carts as they walk away from the homeless shelter, as they vacate it every morning.

Oh yes they will have to leave the facilities in the morning, go back to their street corner and beg for money or whatever they're begging for, only to return so they have a nice clean dry warm place to sleep at night.

Maybe that situation should change a little bit and I think I might come up with a plan for that in the near future, just throwing that out there.

So why do I bring up these issues?

Because the local politics are starting to heat up.

SB RUMBLE

People are starting to put their names on the ballot to run for elected positions in Volusia County.
Of course the old man Ed Kelly, the self-proclaimed patriarch of Volusia County, is looking to run for re-election.

His Challenger Jeff Brower is coming up right behind him.

The questions we have to ask ourselves are now.

We need to educate ourselves on the history of our elected officials, and what they say on the campaign Trail or what they have said on the campaign Trail in the past.

Look at their history and are they ready to start to fulfill the promises they make us.

We need to weigh these against the claims and Promises being made to us by those who are not in office, and are running for office.

Are they fulfilling their promises to us, or are the new people making promises they can actually keep?

By far most of the promises made in the past, have not been kept.

Every year for the past three years our taxes have been raised in accordance to what is suggested by the county staff.

Under the direction of the present County chair, cars have been not allowed to park on certain sections of the beach

Deals that were made during my tenure on the County Council, which I had a feeling would not be able to be kept by these businesses trying to make them, those deals have been thrown to the Wayside and the new regime has just gone willy-nilly allowed the big money donors to dictate what happens in Volusia County.

They all promised to be ultimate conservatives, save you money, do what's right for the communities, help out the citizens of Volusia County.

Unfortunately their actions have been more like liberals, giving away the farm, voting to build and support a useless homeless shelter, and to fight the will of the people when we passed Amendment 10, the county staff is still trying to file a lawsuit to change the will of the people of this state.

And why are are they doing all this, it's a simple answer folks.
Just follow the money.

SB MONEY

With the passing of amendment 10, the county manager loses a lot of his authority when it comes over the offices of the Sheriff, County Clerk, Department of Elections and it creates the elected office of tax collector.

That last reason takes all Financial power away from the county management.

Plus it also takes the authority away from the investment account that the Volusia County has, with over 500 million dollars in it, and gives that responsibility to that elected official. And that elected official is answerable to the people of the county.

You see our County Manager, County attorney, and as a matter of fact all staff, are not answerable to the citizens. The manager and county attorney are only answerable to the County Council.

And the County Council cannot get involved in matters of employment, Personnel, or day-to-day operations of any Department in the Volusia County Government.

Yeah. County Council is buffaloed every two weeks by staff members who give them information, just enough information, to get the issues passed.

Its time to wake up my fellow citizens.

SB ROOSTER

So we need to look into our elected officials as I've said, find out who is voting for taxes, who is voting to throw our money to the wind for example to fund homeless shelters, who is really taking cars off of the beach so now you have no place to park your car on a nice weekend when you want to just spend it with the kids frolicking in the waves of the world's most famous beach.

The time has come my dear friends and fellow citizens, that we become empowered, and take our government back which was guaranteed by the Constitution to be run by We the People.

Go to your meetings of your parties, go to the Keys meetings at PLDRC, County Council meetings, Water Management meetings, all the meetings at the County Council is at and ask them the questions, that I can almost guarantee you they don't have a good answer for.

When it came to water issues on the Intercoastal Waterway, are County officials said no we won't support this. Even though the organization that had a plan was not asking for money just an endorsement so they could get grant money.

Even though a private organization came to Volusia County and said I want to make a movie commission, which will bring literally billions of dollars of tax revenue into Volusia County and make us the new place for everyone to want to make a movie. The County Council said no.

SB STUPID IS

It is time for us to go to that voting booth, and start to vote in the people that will actually get the job done. We don't need any adversarial discussions, or fighting, or name-calling done on a dias.

We need our elected officials to start doing the will of the people! Because we are their bosses.

We put you there, we will take you out of there. In other words folks it's time to do your research, find out who's going to do what, who is the best person for the job, and start to vote by using a little common sense