A lawsuit has been
filed by Marilyn Bainter and
- Bob McKee, as Tax Collector of Lake County, Florida;
- Ed Havill, as Property Appraiser of Lake County, Florida;
- the North Lake County Hospital District;
- Leesburg Regional Medical Center, Inc.;
- Florida Hospital Waterman; and
- Lifestream Behavioral Center, Inc.
and served on Patricia A. Sykes-Amos, Registered Agent for North Lake County Hospital District for the review of the Board of the District. An Answer is required 40 days from the date of service of January 8, 2010.
I don't have time right now to review and write the details, but Marilyn has been working on this for months in conjunction with a Constitutional Law attorney.
Marilyn's point (summarized by me, which may change) is that the District's formation was unconstitutional, and according to Marilyn, the current District was "formed" illegally in the past, so has no right to collect funds, and the Constitutional officers were sued because they are part of the tax collection process and should have researched the legality of the District. Her attorney agrees.
We have posted numerous articles on this blog about Marilyn's fight to improve accountability for how funds collected for the Hospital Tax District are spent. I have posted my opinion that the regulations did not provide any acceptable contract requirements, and basically let the two hospitals receiving over $11-million in tax funds spend it any way they want. Yes, they have financial audits, but their is no "Program" audit of exactly where the funds go, which means they could be spent on anything.
Attempts to get State Senator Carey Baker and Legislator Alan Hays to get legal opinions on the constituionality of the District's formation failed. Baker passed the request to Hays, and Hays delayed the request, then sent a poorly worded request that avoided the issue, so the Attorney General rejected the claim because of the poor wording (in our opinion).
You will have to wait until later today when I can sit down and write more.
vj
