CRA blight: Holly Hill Rum Festival gives way to Ormond Beach Celtic Festival

 

Holly Hill Rum Festival / Headline SurferHeadline Surfer photo by Henry Frederick / The crowd was scant at the Holly Hill Rum Festival eight days ago at the Farmers Market. Despite $1,400 in CRA taxpayer monies used by the city to promote the event, less than a hundred people showed up.

DAYTONA BEACH -- The next use of CRA funds to tackle blight comes with this weekend's Ormond Beach Celtic Festival, promoted, of course in the "Go 386" of the Daytona Beach News-Journal, recipient of advertising dollars to promote such events.

We don't yet have the taxpayer amount allotted to this alcohol-fueled event.

A week ago, Holly Hill tackled blight with its "Rum Festival," promoted with $1,400 in CRA funds, according to City Manager Jim McCroskey. Less than a hundred people attended the four-hour event. The CRA funds actually went for mailings to promote the event to the citizens, he said.

Before that, New Smyrna Beach tackled blight with CRA funds for the "Fat Tuesday" drunkfest on Flagler Avenue in New Smyrna Beach, celebrating Mardi Gras.

And before that, New Smyrna Beach tackled blight with the New Year's Eve bash on Flagler, complete with fireworks that lasted three minutes. That same night, Daytona Beach, also held a New Year's Eve block party on Main Street, 20,000 strong including children, to watch an electric-lighted beach ball drop to ring in 2013. Alcohol was served right in the middle of the street in portable bars.

There are multiple forces at play in trying to ensure the Volusia County Council doesn't take away the rights of municipalities to tackle blight. Our sarcasm can't be emphasized enough.

We'll know in early June whether the council members cave to the demands of municipal politicians like New Smyrna Beach Mayor Adam Barringer, an admitted DUI offender in his younger days, who led the $60,000 city commission vote in CRA funding last fall for boyhood friend Dave Fernandez's Flagler Avenue bar, Traders, and another $1.5 million-plus in alcohol street parties and bar improvements over the past four years.

And while the News-Journal continues promoting these events of blight and receiving advertising revenue, Headline Surfer continues covering them.

It's all about the power and influence; the advertising that brings promotional press. We don't see any of it. Those who dislike us like Barringer, hide behind overpaid administrators like City Manager Pam Brangaccio at $125,000 and City Attorney Frank Gummey at $210,000-plus.

Barringer is no stranger to CRAs and abuse of public monies, two years ago appointing another friend, Chad Schilsky, to the CRA and then piggybacking on a nearly $20,000 grant Schilsky sought for his own restaurant, with construction work from Barringer Construction.

Brangaccio, Gummey and Barringer stopped talking to us once former longtime City Commissioner Jim Hathaway lost the dist. 3 county council race in November to Deb Denys. 

Barringer and the CRA provided plenty of CRA advertising for the weekly Observer newspaper owned by former Chamber President Bob Lott and his wife, Michele, before they closed up shop; and last year sought and were granted bankruptcy protection for upwards of half a million bucks to creditors. They even ran the Observer out of their Edgewater home before that, too, was lost in the bankruptcy. 

Barringer and the city manager dismiss us as bloggers, but it's the mayor, the city manager and the city attorney, who are now being investigated by the Florida Commission on Ethics for a "private" retirement dinner for Hathaway before Thanksgiving at of all places, Barringer's wine-bar restaurant, SoNapa Grille, There, the mayor, the city manager, the city attorney and their insider friends -- 46 in all -- dined with up-front costs paid for with a city credit card.

It was Hathaway, running for higher office, who turned a blind eye during the Schilsky affair, because his son, fresh out of law school, was hired by the private law firm of the CRA's then-consulting attorney Mark Hall.

Barringer, who boasts of being a Republican, openly supported the candidacy of Hathaway, a Democrat, over the Republican Denys. He even wrote a blog in our newspaper supporting Hathaway.

As it turned out, the CRA grant for Schilsky was determined to be illegal and Schilsky rescinded it, though he ended up paying Barringer Construction out of his own pocket. Schilsky was compelled to sign a letter by Brangaccio and Gummey that he didn't even write, agreeing not to accept the grant.

And then there is the respect factor. Barringer, with his doctorate degree in Leadership from Capella University sarcastically shook New Smyrna Beach cop Ralph Hunnefeld's hand and calling him a "pr-ck" because he wouldn't let him cut through a barricaded side street with his "Barringer Construction" pick-up truck before the start of the city's Christmas parade.

As you'll see with our upcoming "Show Me the Money" investigative reports, including our myriad videos, the municipalities crying the loudest to leave CRAs the way they are, are double-talking politicians like Barringer and their well-ddressed city managers like Brangaccio and attorneys like Gummey. This is the same mayor the mayor with the multiple traffic-related "warnings," but no longer receiving actual tickets like he did before his 2009 election.

It will be interesting to see in June if Denys and the other County Council members stick with the restrictive CRA plan provided by Jim Dinneen that actually addresses blight or if it will end up watered down like the alcohol flowing from the tap at Cra-beautified bars like Traders at taxpayer expense.