Giant of a man remembered: Carl Reynolds dies

BEACON FILE PHOTO
Always politicking — Carl Reynolds, center, greets Volusia County Sheriff Ben Johnson, left, and Beacon columnist Phil Buford, during an event in 1999. Reynolds died Sunday, June 21. His son, banker Dick Reynolds, noted the significance of the day, the summer solstice, for a man who loved to keep his eye on the weather. Carl Reynolds frequently reported temperatures and rainfall for news media.

Funeral is Friday at Lankford

By Al Everson
BEACON STAFF WRITER

posted Jun 24, 2009 - 12:43:37pm

"There were giants on the earth in those days," observed Paul Harvey, giving a new meaning to the verse in Genesis referring to the era before the Noachian flood.

The observation applies to Carl Reynolds, a devout and unrelenting opponent of overtaxation, government waste and mismanagement. He kept up his protests until age and aging slowed him down.

Reynolds passed away June 21. He was 94. A memorial service is 11 a.m. Friday, June 26, at Lankford Funeral Home in DeLand. The family will greet friends beginning at 10 a.m.

"He died on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year," said his son, Dick Reynolds. "He had a very diverse and successful life, a happy life."

As active as he was as a government critic, Reynolds was strong in his support of his community and its newspapers.

"There's a fellow who spent years and years benefiting his community," said friend Tanner Andrews of DeLand. "If it were not for him, we would not have our hospital today. He found the land, and he funded the petition drives to get the [Hospital] Authority established. He was involved in a lot of other things, too, but I think the hospital will be his most lasting legacy."

"Government is off limits, out of bounds and out of control," Reynolds told the County Council on numerous occasions in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as anyone listening to Radio Free Volusia, a talk show on the now-defunct WXVQ in DeLand.

He was a faithful listener and caller to the public-affairs program, and he often used the airwaves to repeat the message he delivered to elected leaders.

"They've got the money," Reynolds often said, referring to government and its coffers. "We don't need more taxes."

Reynolds was the last of the die-hard veterans in Volusia County's Charter War, which culminated in a special countywide referendum June 30, 1970.

"The charter failed in the unincorporated area," Reynolds reminded anyone who would listen.

Nevertheless, the home-rule charter, which replaced the old County Commission with a council-manager type of government, went into effect Jan. 1, 1971. The first County Council hired Dr. Thomas Kelly, of Montgomery County, Md., as Volusia's first county manager. Both the County Council and Kelly became targets of Reynolds' criticism about unresponsive government, bureaucratic expansion and rising costs.

"The people of Volusia County are being financially raped," Reynolds sometimes said.

Reynolds was a sort of Renaissance man: a farmer, banker, businessman, political activist. Born in Georgia, Reynolds moved with his parents to DeLand in the 1920s. He saw and experienced the Depression, World War II and the postwar boom that brought steady and increasing growth to Central Florida.

His interest in agriculture made him a founding member of Florida Citrus Mutual, the association of grove owners.

Blinded as a result of an auto accident, Reynolds did not let the disability stop him. Despite the handicap, he remained able to comprehend government finance, especially tax matters.

"His mind is like a steel trap," said Ross Golden, a longtime friend of Reynolds and the president of We the People, a government watchdog organization to which Reynolds proudly belonged.

Reynolds was an outspoken advocate of prudence in public spending and budgeting, and he was a fierce foe of new taxes or increases in old ones.

"I'm opposed to the 1-cent sales tax," Reynolds would tell anyone willing to listen to his monologue on the ballot proposition that ultimately failed in a referendum in 1992.

Reynolds was a frequent attendee at meetings of the County Council, the School Board and the West Volusia Hospital Authority. The DeLand City Commission was also not off-limits or out of bounds for Reynolds, who lived just outside the city limits.

For years, neither he nor his old friend, Grover Ashcraft, let pass an opportunity to sound off to elected bodies about the "squandering" of tax dollars. The two served as a sort of team of consultants ready and willing to give free advice to local governments on how to spend — and how not to spend — taxpayers' dollars.

So outspoken was Reynolds that he touched not a few nerves of the decision-makers. On at least one occasion, County Council Chair Pat Northey ordered Reynolds removed from the chamber for his sharp criticism of the county government.

He could also show himself to be a Southern gentleman, even to those who did not always agree with him. Without provoking any qualms about ethics, Reynolds once gave large tins of Georgia peanuts to council members.

A one-time newsboy, he was an unflagging supporter of newspapers, the watchdogs of local government. He celebrated the founding of The Beacon in 1992 and rarely missed an opportunity to thank Beacon staff members for their work.

Sometimes Reynolds took his concerns about questionable public policy and spending to the state Capitol in Tallahassee. He attended meetings of the governor and the Cabinet and visited state lawmakers. Reynolds knew many of Florida's leaders on a first-name basis, and he did not hesitate to scold some of them for not measuring up to his standards of fiscal responsibility. He once related to the County Council how he had told Gov. Lawton Chiles a few days earlier to cease his calls for higher taxes.

"I said, 'Lawton, you ought to have your fanny kicked, and if you'll turn around right now, I'll kick it for you,'" Reynolds said, recalling his rebuke of a man he had known for decades.

So well-known and respected was Reynolds that the Florida Senate gave him a special proclamation for his contributions to agriculture and civic involvement. For his 88th birthday, U.S. Rep. John Mica had a U.S. flag flown over the Capitol in Reynolds' honor, and presented it to him in 2002. The same year, the Volusia County Council he so often criticized proclaimed Carl Reynolds Day in his honor.

Reynolds was a lifelong Democrat. He refused to change his party affiliation, even as the party moved away from his own political convictions. Until he became too ill to be away from his home, Reynolds was a regular at the monthly luncheon meetings of the West Volusia Republican Club.

To those who knew him, Reynolds will be missed. His passing leaves all of us a little poorer.

— al@beacononlinenews.com

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