Fiscal Rangers

Economic Development Leaders in Lake County? Yes, we found one at Yesterday's Minneola Business Summit!

As I have watched various issues affect Lake County, it has become apparent that there is not much leadership among the elected Lake County officials regarding economic development. We don't have a County Mayor, so the County drifts along like a lame duck while the County Board argues over zoning a horse riding stable or suing a water company, or they take junkets to Tallahassee to finalize a 350 page Comprehensive Plan containing regulations that will require hiring NINE new staffers (per the study given to the County Board early last year) and will expand County legal liability if the County does not have staff to act on some of the regulations. But, at the city level we have staffers John Drury and Bill Neron sparkplugging Tavares with the support from their City Council, and carrying on a planning legacy from Nancy Clutts. We have County Commissioner Jimmy Conner pushing for fiscal reform, but the County Commissioners do not even have weekly or monthly status reports on the critical issues of jobs and economic development. We have School Board member Larry Metz analyzing impact tax increases and halting some planned tax increases (last year). There is the small business incubator... Read more →

DailyCaller.com Ranks Lake County as 99th Most Conservative Area in the US

Thanks to Matt Gowan for finding this. The online "political news" website has been listing the top 100 conservative areas in the US, and Lake County is listed as 99th.Go here to find out more... vj Read more →

Yelp.com - Hi Tech Way to Find Good Eating Places & Businesses in Lake County

Imagine an internet phone book with customer reviews of local Lake County businesses. Kind of like Amazon.com product reviews, but tailored for Lake County businesses. You can tell Lake County businesses are behind the technology bandwagon when most restaurants, etc. have not listed themselves on Yelp.com Yelp is a major player in rating eating, entertainment & business locations in major cities. So, the nearest big cities to Lake County are Tampa or Orlando. If you select Orlando, it shows lists of the top user rated eating and playing places, WITH a map to show where they are. But, I thought there weren't any listings for Lake County. But I was wrong - it just took a little experimenting. I went to a list of top rated restaurants in Orlando, and it showed a map with numbered pointers for each rated business. And, if I "dragged" the map so it showed the Triangle area of Lake County, the map revised its ratings pointers and showed top rated restaurants in that area. But, there were only a few. And, there wasn't ONE tire store listed for the area (take that, Ralph). For instance, here is a link where I went to the... Read more →

Sunshine Avoidance: How the Lake County Board Holds SECRET Meetings & Discussions

This is Florida "Sunshine Week", and you may have noticed some Orlando Sentinel articles about Florida Sunshine laws, transparency,etc. So, I thought I would write about County BCC SECRET Meetings not always disclosed on the Board's website: For instance, a few weeks ago, they had a 2 pm afternoon meeting for a negotiation discussion on the Firefighter's Union new contract, and it was not listed on the agenda. I only found out about it when someone mentioned it briefly at the morning Board meeting (which was in Clermont), and then I went to that meeting, which was attended by one TV camera crew and about 10 firefighters. But, the Board was not there, and had apparent individual meetings with attorneys from the County and the Firefighter negotiators were there. And, today I found where the Board had a SECRET meeting that among other things, discussed unplanned funding of a $100,000 FDOT program to expand the local "LakeExpress" Bus Service. But, that "Special Meeting" at 2pm was NOT listed on the website page for March 4th - instead, it said "closed meeting" and no time was posted. As a consequence, the public did not know that Jimmy Conner discovered that staff... Read more →

Niagara Water & Lake County Government Settle Lawsuits over Legal Costs

Niagara Water and Lake County Government settled their opposing lawsuits over legal costs in their recent fight over water permits. Read the Orlando Sentinel Article here (thanks to Jimmy Conner for telling us...): http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-niagara-lake-county-settlement-20100316,0,302390.story Read more →

Lake County School Board Decides to Delay (not Defer) Education Impact Fees, and Bad Budget News

The Lake County, Florida School Board decided at today's 2pm workshop to recommend that the County Board of Commissioners change an ordnance so that the collection date for education impact fees on NEW construction (residential or commercial - does not affect existing buildings or homes) would be changed from the date of permit to the date when the builder received a "CO" or Certificate of occupancy. Generally, it takes 6-9 months to build a house, and longer for buildings, so the effect is to delay the fee to the date when the building is complete and is ready for occupancy. (Note - the graphic is from the City of Lincoln Nebraska, which DOES have a clear explanation of Impact fees...) The one time estimated cash flow effect of the decision on the School district funding would currently be about $3-4.5 million. That is because our estimate of impact fees to be received for this year, based upon trend data provided by the School district staff, is about $6-million (way down from prior years). This proposal, initiated by School Board member Larry Metz, appeared to be a compromise from the original requested action from the County Board, which was to meet... Read more →

National Legal & Policy Center Tracks SEIU & Other Union Corruption Cases

We periodically read about union leaders running amok and stealing union funds or committing other transgressions. In 2009 and earlier, many unions like SEIU were found to be affiliated with ACORN. And, here is an organization, the National Legal & Policy Center, that TRACKS union corruption and crimes. Below is a link just to a search on the SEIU union, which is a national union, but they are the union for non-instructional workers at Lake County School Systems. The search report lists the pages and pages of listings of crimes committed by SEIU members across the country. No corporation would have such a track record among their branches or stores, but it seems the SEIU tolerates these antics and doesn't implement stronger policies and procedures to keep the crooks out. I don't have any evidence of wrongdoing in the local SEIU at the Lake County School District, but if I was a Lake County member of SEIU, would I be comfortable providing my support and dues to a national union with the constant problems listed at the link below? (or just go to www.nlpc.org and find the reports and search on SEIU ) http://www.nlpc.org/category/keywords/service-employees-international-union-seiu vj Read more →

Lake County School Board Member Larry Metz Responds to Biased Attack by Right Side of the Lake blog

FiscalRangers.com Central - Lake County, FL - Friday, March 12, 2010 by Vance Jochim Whooo boy, politics in Lake County are fun. This is an issue you won't find in the local papers - they rarely cover the juicy stuff. So, the "Right Side of the Lake" blog supported by Romac Lumber, sour orange and rotten orange lovers, many builders and written by Romac VP Don Magruder attacked incumbent Lake County School Board member Larry Metz (Republican) for nominating another Board member, and known Democrat, Cindy Barrow, to be Chairperson of the Board this year. That actually happened the end of last year, and since I attend most Board meetings, she has run the meetings fine without any liberal takeover. Since the School District Board member positions are "NON-partisan", this rarely is an issue on the School Board. And, since Barrow was already Vice Chair, it is normal, and courteous to nominate the Vice Chair to the Chair position the following year. As Larry explains below, Barrow was the most logical choice for the next Chairperson of this NON-partisan Board. Although some information about Barrow's liberal interests may be correct in the Blog's article, much of it is all outside... Read more →

Lake County School Board Impact Fee Decision Coming Up on Monday & As well as Our White Paper later

Lake County, FL - Tavares - Friday, March 12, 2010 - by Vance Jochim Last week on Monday, the School Board held a workshop where they discussed a request from the County Board of Commissioners (BCC) to defer 50% or more of education impact fees for 1-5 years. There was a presentation by the Director of Growth Planning, Harry Fix, and the Board asked for more information before they scheduled a joint meeting with the BCC. Currently, the handout from Harry Fix is not on the District's website, but I assume there will be one posted with added clarifications and facts after Monday's meeting. I was at the meeting, and have written a long overview of the issue, but I am holding it until after Monday's Special Board meeting at 2pm on Monday, the 15th. Once I see the added facts and get a few answers, I will post my article on this blog. It is already several pages long and is really like a white paper on School Impact fees, and covers viewpoints from several angles, including the builder's anger at the fee, and the current constraints the school board faces. There is no such overview on the website,... Read more →

Lake County Sheriff Should Request Performance Audits to Prevent $600,000 Problems Like in Maryland

We all like to think that police and sheriff departments are free from fraud, but in Maryland's Montgomery County (Annapolis), the County Inspector General (we don't have one in Lake County) found that questionable training programs for Sheriff and police employees cost the County $600,000 because they avoided central procurement systems and were issued without bid to companies that "had ties" to county police officers. As described in the Washington Post article below, it seemed the connected training firms enticed police and sheriff employees to sign up for courses of questionable quality by offering 80% or so off on brand name handguns like Glocks (see pictures), and then billed the county for invoices up to $59,000. But, I assume the training was also on employee time, so the cost was both time and the invoiced cost. This is the type of thing that can happen in ANY type of department, but here, it was the police and sheriff employees that incurred the questionable charges. Fortunately, the poor training programs were "outed" by the local Sheriff, which then resulted in an investigation by the Inspector General. We don't have an inspector general in Lake County. The "County Auditor" does not have... Read more →

Middle School Reading Video Musical on You Tube Motivates Kids to Read

Tavares, FL - All the time, I "read" stories on the internet about the reduction in reading by kids and young people. They rely more and more on getting current events information from TV, or internet videos. So, it was good to see today's Orlando Sentinel front page article on how Ocoee Middle School in Orange County (FL) created a 5 minute music video dedicated to reading. The video actually came out last December (see WESH-2 video story below), but then Oprah heard about the video and went to the school to film a segment, leading to the story in the Orlando Sentinel which is HERE. So, HERE is the actual 5 minute video on You Tube.Here is the WESH-2 story on the Reading video HERE. So, play the catchy 5 minute video and start reading more. If you know a school kid, have them watch the video. We have to get them hooked on reading blogs! vj Read more →

Florida and 14 Other States Selected in "First Cut" for Obama Administration's Education Race to the Top Funding

Updated Monday morning to include Orlando Sentinel link This is just a bulletin about this breaking news as of Midnight, Thursday, March 4. California was skipped from consideration for Obama's "Race to the Top" Education funding competition, but Florida and 14 other states, plus Washington DC were selected. This is the first round of selections, and interestingly, almost all the states selected are on the east coast, according to a map in the Orlando Sentinel this morning. But, don't be surprised if there is some frantic lobbying, and maybe other states are added to the finalist list. The Orlando Sentinel article is HERE, so read it or the other articles below for details. Now, the next step is for Federal grant reviewers to listen to representatives from each finalist state. Florida's proposal includes moving teachers more to merit pay and away from pay by seniority, which will be controversial among the teacher unions. But, this is also supported by Obama, so we might actually see it in our lifetimes. If Florida does end up being a winner, then we have to know whether Lake County's School District automatically shares in the pot or whether Lake County must compete to be... Read more →

Lake County Commissioners Vote 4 to 1 to Suspend Transportation Impact Fees for 12 months

I will add more from my notes tomorrow, but after listening to public input for more than two hours, the Lake County (FL) Board of Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to suspend transportation impact fees "on everything" which includes both residential and commercial construction, for 12 months. The dissenting vote was from Commissioner Elaine Renick, who wanted the existing fee to be reduced, rather that a complete suspension. Based upon all the input, which was 99% FOR suspending the tax, some speakers also said that it takes too long for design work on many projects to have the property completed within 12 months, so there seemed to be a consensus from the Board that it could be extended after reviewing the situation in 12 months. Efforts to roll back the suspension to existing projects was partly handled when Commissioner Jennifer Hill said four of the 7 applicable existing projects with deferral agreements had agreements that (I think) would apply to those four. Staff said the "lost" revenue based upon historical data would be around $2.3-3-million, and one speaker said that was the cost of one mile of road, so wasn't that significant compared to the possible positive effect on motivating... Read more →

Lake County Commissioners Vote 4 to 1 to Suspend Transportation Impact Fees for 12 months

I will add more from my notes tomorrow, but after listening to public input for more than two hours, the Lake County (FL) Board of Commissioners voted 4 to 1 to suspend transportation impact fees "on everything" which includes both residential and commercial construction, for 12 months. The dissenting vote was from Commissioner Elaine Renick, who wanted the existing fee to be reduced, rather that a complete suspension. Based upon all the input, which was 99% FOR suspending the tax, some speakers also said that it takes too long for design work on many projects to have the property completed within 12 months, so there seemed to be a consensus from the Board that it could be extended after reviewing the situation in 12 months. Efforts to roll back the suspension to existing projects was partly handled when Commissioner Jennifer Hill said four of the 7 applicable existing projects with deferral agreements had agreements that (I think) would apply to those four. Staff said the "lost" revenue based upon historical data would be around $2.3-3-million, and one speaker said that was the cost of one mile of road, so wasn't that significant compared to the possible positive effect on motivating... Read more →

Lake County Commission Meetings Now Online Starting This Tuesday at 9am

Commissioner Jimmy Conner first told us about this, but here is the Orlando Sentinel article describing the new service, which starts with the meeting tomorrow, Tuesday at 9am. So, try it. We aren't sure if the video will be available later, or if it is only available during the actual meeting time. I will post an update here on that issue. And, if you have problems, go to Jimmy's website HERE to get the contact info of the County IT department. This is great and another factor increasing the transparency of the meetings. Now, watch and see if the Board Chairman, Welton Cadwell, lets many people talk about the pending issue of Impact Fees. Normally, he cuts off signups at the start of the meeting, so new arrivals do not have a chance to provide public input. vj orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-county-commission-webcast-20100301,0,7420571.story OrlandoSentinel.com Click and watch: Government in action Lake begins offering live video stream of meetings By Christine Show, Orlando Sentinel 4:30 PM EST, February 28, 2010 TAVARES — If you want to see what happens at County Commission meetings but can't make it to the round courthouse, there's a new solution for you. Watch on the Internet. Starting Tuesday, the county... Read more →