- December 4, 2025
At the Oct. 1 Daytona Beach Commission meeting, Commissioner Stacy Cantu said the city should own up to mistakes instead pointing fingers.
“People make mistakes. I make mistakes. If you make a mistake, you just say I'm sorry, and tell the residents I'm sorry, and you move on, and you fix your mistake,” Cantu said. “You don't keep blaming other people for our own mistakes.”
Cantu, the Zone 4 representative, was referring to the situation in the LPGA-area Mosaic neighborhood, where residents have been dealing with faulty sidewalks for the last two years. The issue first came up in a July Daytona Beach City Commission meeting Assistant City Manager Public Infrastructure Andrew Holmes said the city is responsible for the repairs to some of the sections of sidewalk.
The repairs will cost around $1 million, Holmes said in July, and the city will still need to budget for the repairs and find funding.
Since then, Daytona Beach has been working on resolving the issue alongside the developer ICI Homes. City Attorney Benjamin Gross said the city is working ICI Homes on finalizing an agreement for repairs and should have
“We basically have a final agreement,” Gross said. “My expectation is that agreement will come to you for approval of the next commission meeting.”
Cantu took issue with statements made that former City Manager Jim Chisholm reduced performance bonds for some Mosaic sidewalks without city inspectors checking them first. Bonds are held in trust to guarantee work is completed by a developer and are reduced with the completion and inspection of construction work.
Cantu said that was not the case, at least on the Mosaic project.
“I actually looked up all these sidewalks, all the inspections passed,” Cantu said. “I have them [the reports]. I got tons of them. The inspectors signed off and passed these.”
Cantu said she did a public record request regarding the Mosaic sidewalks and was told “records were lost.” But, she said, she went online to find them herself.
In July, Holmes told the commission that the city was legally responsible to repair specific sections of the sidewalks. Cantu found memos sent to Chisholm in 2019 from Holmes, then the Public Works director, requesting Chisholm reduce the performance bonds for the completed sidewalk work in the Mosaic 1A and 1B subdivisions.
“The reductions in the bond amounts are a result of large portions of sidewalk that are completed and accepted by the city,” Holmes’ memo read. “The City Engineer has reviewed and approved these amounts.”
Chisholm approved a reduction of the 1A performance bond from $342,736.16 to $322,844.74 – a total of $19,891.42 – and for the 1B bond from $320,860.90 to $304,427.17 – or $16,433.73.
Another memo, this one from 2022 was sent from current City Manager Deric Feacher to ICI Homes Vice President of development Dick Smith notifying ICI that the the “required sidewalks for the subject subdivision have been constructed to the point in the amount of the performance bond from $322,844.74 to $6,457.00 is hereby approved.” City engineer Jim Nelson was copied on the memo.
That was a reduction of over $316,000, just for subdivision 1A’s sidewalks. A similar memo to Smith from Feacher notified of 1B’s performance bond reduction from $304,427.17 to $6,089.00 for completed sidewalk work.
Cantu said she was not there to defend Chisholm or be his protector. The city may not have done anything to the sidewalks themselves, but its inspectors signed off on the work, she said.
The city is “absolutely responsible for this,” she said.
“What is right, is right,” Cantu said. “You don't blame someone that is not here when he didn't sign off on these things.”
The people responsible need to be held accountable if they are not doing their jobs, Cantu said, and the city needs to watch its mistakes more closely.
“The city was very, very messy, and now the residents have had to pay for it,” she said. “Our residents that don't even live in Mosaic, are having to pay for this mistake.”
