Fiscal Rangers

Is Lake County School Board Candidate Plagiarizing Campaign Platform Ideas?

Tavares, FL - July 29, 2012 A candidate for Lake County School Board, Cheryl Thomas, appears to be using much of the same campaign platform wording as another former School Board candidate in Virgina, and gave it to the Orlando Sentinel for publishing. Should a School Board candidate be apparently plagiarizing another website and providing that as original campaign platform content to the Orlando Sentinel? Shouldn't we expect the candidate to be able to write their own original campaign platform information, and would we want someone on the School Board defining policy who plagiarizes ideas? Is that fair in politics, but not school test taking, and what do you think? Cheryl L. Thomas is running for Lake County FL School Board District 4 against incumbent Debbie Stivender and opponent Thuy Lowe. The position is non-partisan, but she is a Democrat opposing the other two who are Republicans. We sent her an email and left a phone message using the contact information on the Supt. of Elections website, but they were not returned by our deadline. Thomas has a website here: http://www.thomas4lakecountyschools.org/ She also was recently interviewed by the Lake Sentinel staff of the Orlando Sentinel. Under the heading "Platform" she... Read more →

Agenda 21 & Sustainable Development Update - San Francisco Regional Group Proposes Vehicle Miles Traveled TAX

Tavares, FL - Jul. 30, 2012 Agenda 21 & Sustainable Development Update: Environmentalists (actually socialists acting as environmentalists) in the San Francisco Bay area have pushed through a stealth requirement without public hearings to implement a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) TAX by next year in the Bay area. http://www.halfwaytoconcord.com/mtc-sneaks-vehicle-miles-traveled-tax-one-bay-area-plan/ They have been aggressive in rolling out many restrictive land use procedures to push people into high density villages. Now they used subterfuge to include a New VMT or Vehicle Miles Traveled TAX on drivers. The surface argument is to help fund things like the environment, but the background reason, as explained very well in this article is a LONG RANGE plan to increase costs on commuting and single family home owners to force them to move into "walkable" communities which are controlled by the government. Our own Comprehensive land use plan in Lake County and the MPO 2025 (or 35) Transportation plan contain many of the initial restrictions that already exist in California that could violate property rights by reducing land values without compensation. Read the article and understand what the American Planner's Association, the United Nations and other groups are trying to roll out around the US. That is... Read more →

Indiana Democrats Charged with Multiple Felony Election Fraud Counts

This FoxNews.com item is from April, but it talks about how leaders in the Indiana Democratic Party intentionally setup a process to FORGE signatures on petition cards used to justify adding Barack Obama to the ballot for the Democratic primary in Indiana in 2008. So, every time you hear a Democrat say there is no voter fraud and we don’t need Voter ID, and we don’t need to spend the time to verify registration documents, petitions or votes, send this to them… there was also collusion by Democrats on the St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office. Many Democrats were involved in this. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/02/4-indiana-dems-charged-with-election-fraud-in-2008/#ixzz222Z9L657 From FoxNews at the above link. Please note that at the end of the article, FoxNews is asking readers to report voter or election fraud to [email protected] . 4 Indiana Dems charged with election fraud in 2008 presidential race Felony charges related to election fraud have touched the 2008 race for the highest office in the land. Prosecutors in South Bend, Ind., filed charges Monday against four St. Joseph County Democratic officials and deputies as part of a multiple-felony case involving the alleged forging of Democratic presidential primary petitions in the 2008 election, which put then-candidates Barack... Read more →

Lake County Republicans Approve Resolution for County to Eliminate Onerous Septic Tank Regulations

Tavares, FL - July 25, 2012 Last night, the Lake County FL Republican Executive Committee (REC) voted unanimously to approve a resolution to be presented to the Lake County Board of County Commissioners recommending they eliminate a regulation requiring frequent Septic Tank inspections in Lake County. There was a law that required all Florida Septic Tank owners to have expensive inspections every five years and other restrictions, and it was reduced in coverage by the Florida government to only apply to counties that had "First Magnitude Springs" and Lake County has one single spring called Alexandria Springs in north County. However, County governments are now allowed to OPT out of that regulation if they want, so this REC resolution is asking the Lake County Board to do so. Thanks go to REC member Andy Dubois for doing the research and presenting the resolution. No one in the REC was AGAINST the resolution, and no one spoke against it since the benefits were obvious. Former Lake County Commissioner Catherine Hanson described the history of the regulations and how excessive they originally were. (Note - The resolution was not a surprise - it was emailed to all members 2-3 weeks before the... Read more →

Lake County Board Initiates Process to Raise Property Tax Millage Rates up to an average of 8.2%

Tuesday, Jul. 24, 2012 - Tavares, FL The Lake County Board of Commissioners met today, and voted 4 to 1 to initiate the process to RAISE property millage rates by up to an average 8.2%. Jimmy Conner dissented. Funds collected for the general fund will be generated by a millage rate increased by 7.41% while the millage rate for funds to payoff bond debts for a Public Lands Program approved in a referendum in 2008 by 70% of the voters was a whopping 72% increase (from .1101 mill to .1900 mills). The Board is following state law in submitting ads and proposed maximum millage rates now, so you have to tell them what you think or they could approve the maximum millage rates discussed below. Staff and the Board claim this tax hike is not a tax hike because property values are dropping this coming year by 5.9%, so they are increasing millage rates to generate just about the same dollar revenues as they received this year. I don't know about you, but if the normal process of generating revenues would result in a drop in taxes of 5.9% using the prior millage rate, but instead, officials increase the millage... Read more →

Richard Riker on the Mayhem Created by recent Board Meeting of the North Lake County Hospital District

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 - Tavares, FL Guest column from Richard Riker on the recent July 10th meeting of the Board of the North Lake County Hospital District. I added the images. ============================================================ It was July 10th 2012, at 5:30 in the county commission chambers in what is referred to as the round court house in Taveres Fl. that the most recent meeting of the North Lake Hospital Special Taxing Board occurred. As agreed in the previous meeting Commissioner Marilyn Bainter, the only member of the board who volunteered to help in any way, arranged for a representative of the WellFlorida Council to speak to the board in order to initiate a dialogue that could result in that group doing a similar study, as they did in '93, of the health needs of Lake County. The presentation was well worth listening to, but it seems the board chairman Ken Carpenter thought it was well worth ignoring because he jumped right in where he left off at the last meeting. Like Chicken Little who ran around worrying that “the sky is falling” Commissioner Carpenter continued to run around, if only symbolically, worrying “how do we find an auditor”. He examined this... Read more →

More on Lake County MOEDC Boondoggle - Channel 9 TV Orlando Interviews FiscalRangers

Tavares, FL - July 3, 2012 Vance Jochim We recently published an article on the MOEDC (Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission) receiving payments of $288,000 or more each year from Lake County, but providing 1/3 the return on investment received by the other three counties funding MOEDC. MOEDC claims Lake County received a payback of $1.38 per $1 spent with MOEDC, the same chart shows that the four county region received a payback of $4.37, much more than Lake County. The article is HERE. Yesterday, FiscalRangers was interviewed by Orlando Channel 9's Berndt Petersen about Lake County Commissioners paying around $280,000 or more to the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission while separately planning to RAISE taxes this coming year by RAISING property tax millage rates. At some point, they need to cut spending more by dumping the $1.5-million subsidy for Lake Express, the $288,000 for the MOEDC and get the Sheriff to reduce his budget in line with other County operations which reduced theirs over 40% while he only cut his spending by about 10-12% in the last five years. The Sheriff now gets 60% of every dollar in the County budget. Here is yesterday's Orlando TV 9 video report:... Read more →