It has truly been a wacko year. I don’t know where to begin.
• We lost an excellent State College President – wrong place, wrong time and unfortunately where “The buck stops."
• We lost a Show Business “Icon” prepared to bring millions of dollars to Daytona State College in potential new student tuition and thousands of new faces as students, teachers, and supporters of the performing arts.
• We let a “Silver-Tongued Devil” talk our Daytona Beach city fathers into “Rebranding” a community that for more than 75 years has been known for autos, speed, bikes, beach, boogie, breasts, booze, babes, Black Spring Break, etc.
• $366,000 of invoices remained unpaid as of this date to small town vendors who provided services to the American Music Festival.
•$1,600,000.00 is owed to our local State College by the Foundation headed by the above mentioned “Silver-Tongued Devil”.
• We have allowed one local self-appointed leader in our business community to literally control a incestuous Board of Directors of two separate State tax supported institutions –
• A “For Profit” hospital in central Florida will take over a “Not for Profit” tax supported hospital in New Smyrna Beach.
• The CEO of the above local hospital walks with a $1million-plus retirement package after initiating and walking through a "secret" merger with a for-profit affiliation, taking place outside of the Sunshine Law which is in place to allow public disclosure of events affecting the public's’ interest and tax dollars.
• East Central Coast Florida lost the London Symphony which for many years made a summer home in our area because of the fallout from the re-branding..
• New ownership has taken over our local metro newspaper, putting over 400 journalists, writers, photographers, political cartoonists, editors, out of work.
• When we went to the polls to vote, it was a matter of who we were "not" going to vote for rather than who we
"were" going to vote for.
• Unemployment in Volusia County hovers at around 10%.
Every one of the above would take several thousands words to describe thoroughly. I won’t attempt it at this time, but will in the future.
For those of us and to all of you who survived 2010, good luck in 2011 and to repeat the “motto” of the '60s: “Keep the faith baby."