Tanner Andrews,
P.O. Box 1208,
DeLand, FLA 32721.

Volusia County Council,
123 W. Indiana Ave.,
DeLand, FLA 32720.

Chairman and Members:

Greetings from a man who washes his own car! I’m a little damp from the spash out of the bucket. The County Council is all wet from Adventure Landing.

Be warned: this letter contains gratuitous insults. The only excuse I can offer is that our County Council has earned them all; if anything, I am shipping short weight on the abuse. Fortunately, other people will be pointing, laughing, and jeering: some of them may wait until November, while others will enjoy a few jokes at your expense this spring.

Yes, the County Council has given some hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent relief, for a five-year total of $650,000, to the owner of a Daytona tourist trap named ‘‘Adventure Landing’’. It might better have been named ‘‘Money Flying’’, ‘‘Arrington’s Folly’’, or ‘‘Taxpayer Soak-Down’’.

The only thing you can count on is that it won’t be called ‘‘Borrower Who Promptly Repays Loans’’. I don’t know whom you think you are fooling by calling the give-away a ‘‘loan’’. If I take a fist-full of quarters, and roll them down the nearest storm sewer, I’m more likely to get them back with interest than you are to see the money ‘‘lent’’ to Randy’s Reckless Adventure.

Our public money was given away based on the usual protests of poverty. People were staying away in droves; the county manager had not provided the agreed-upon weather; the business plan wasn’t working; the ocean was too near and drawing potential customers; the corporation had suffered a brain siezure and would be down for the next twenty minutes; the parking lot wouldn’t accommodate limosines; they hired Mark Van Fleet and he loaned all their money to a bank in Vanuatu; aliens had eaten their homework; &c. You choose. Anything except incompetent or crooked water park operators will do.

In fact, Mr. Levinson’s brain wasn’t working that day, perhaps because he left it out in the trunk. He managed to forget about his limo outside! I guess he thought he had walked from Daytona. No wonder he felt poor and tired: he thought he had been working hard and had endured a long walk in the hot sun.

When he finished explaining how poor he was, and you suckers fell for it, he planned to hop in his limo and ride off into the sunset. Sort of like the Loan Arranger, except without Tonto or actual repayment terms.

I bet you Council members would feel a lot prouder of yourselves if no one had found out about the limo. Better still, if no one had found out about the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars given away. No doubt it didn’t help that some wise guy has dubbed Mr. Levinson’s impoverished corporation ‘‘Limron’’. Appropriate: instead of ‘‘crooked-E’’ in Texas, we have crooked-L right here!

As you may have read in the papers, a large accounting firm was busy shredding documents for that impoverished corporation out in Texas. I hope the County Council demanded that Limron have the same quality of service, so that no one will find out where our tax dollars actually went.

How many of you have read the audited financials? OK, how many of you at least suspected that there were audited financials? Hmmm, well, how many can at least spell ‘‘financial statement’’? OK, well, how about ‘‘deadbeat’’? ‘‘Poor’’? The letter ‘X’? At least you can loudly vote ‘‘aye’’ whenever someone proposes to dump public resources into another dumb idea in Daytona.

I have a better idea: in the future, instead of doing stupid things, where you have to live in fear of being found out, why not do the right thing? When a limosine liberal pulls up to cry poverty, you should turn down his pleas for more corporate welfare.

A brief digression, if I may. I drive an older-model high-milage used car. This month, I am paying a few thousand dollars in quarterly installments on my property taxes. After this payment, I shall no doubt be reduced to cadging change under the ‘‘run around in circles’’ sculpture in the county building.

If I arrive driving the beast and explain how I need the money, will you rebate some of my taxes? If I hire a limo, will you rebate a larger amount because (after hiring the limo) I am even more poor? How much will you give me if I drive myself in a nice, shiny Cadillac?

If you aren’t going to give a break to a legitimate tax payer, why should you give away tens of thousands to a tourist trap owner from outside of the County?

Sincerely,



Tanner Andrews

PS: This letter is also available on the web:

http://www.payer.org/county/vc0201.html

CC: Randy Levinson % Doug Daniels, Esq. / 523 N Halifax Ave / Daytona 32118


Posting of this letter is a paid political advertisement provided by

Tanner Andrews, P.O. Box 1208, DeLand 32721,
independent of any campaign or committee.

from @(#)vc0201.txt 1.0 23-Mar-2002

proc with @(#)hmac.ta2 1.1a 01-Jun-2000