Fiscal Rangers

Weekly Update on the UN Agenda 21 "sustainable development" Publications & Videos for Week ending Friday, Jan 25, 2013

Tavares, FL - Jan. 23, 2013 There is so much coming out on Agenda 21 that I plan to send out a weekly update on the resources describing the dangers of UN Agenda 21 programs being rolled out in cities, counties, states and the Federal government. If you own property, you need to understand and watch for the symptoms. Agenda 21 is a very well documented, long range, stealth “sustainable development” program from the United Nations (mostly made up of socialists and communist countries) to radically move the US and world to a “One World” socialist type of government. See information at my fact sheet on Agenda 21 if you want a long list of links and details: www.tinyurl.com/HaltAgenda21 It is not a “conspiracy” theory since everything is well documented and here are some resources to become educated. 1. Dr. Mike Coffman – Agenda 21 Presentation for New Hampshire Legislators – Coffman has many videos on YouTube about Agenda 21. Like John Anthony above, this presentation was to some New Hampshire legislators on Jan. 22, 2013 (this week) and is very good and factual. He makes it clear who is funding Agenda 21 in the US, and who is helping... Read more →

Recap of Yesterday's North Lake County Hospital District (FL) Board Meeting

Tavares, FL - Jan. 25, 2013 The Annual Meeting of the North Lake County Hospital District (FL) was last night. See the video: http://youtu.be/F5gLnQwi4uk The agenda is below, with our comments in yellow, and you can see prior minutes and some documents at their official website at: www.northlakecountyhospitaldistrict.org . You can see ALL posts about this Hospital District on this blog HERE. NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE NORTH LAKE COUNTY HOSPITAL DISTRICT ON JANUARY 24, 2013 LAKE COUNTY BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS ROOM 5:15 P.M. Pursuant to House Bill 1299, Laws of Florida, the Chair of the Trustees of the North Lake County Hospital District calls an Annual Meeting of the Board of Trustees to transpire on January 24, 2013 at 5:15 p.m. in the Lake County Board of County Commissioners Room, 315 W. Main Street, Tavares, Florida. General matters of the business to be considered are as follows: AGENDA 1.Call to Order 2.Roll Call 3.Presentation and approval of minutes of the meeting of the special meeting held on December 17, 2012 <<< These minutes are on the District website 4.Financial report - audit presentation <<<< These should be on their website soon. 5.Presentation... Read more →

Highlights of Tomorrow's North Lake County Hospital District Board Meeting

Tavares, FL - Wed., Jan. 23, 2013 Tomorrow, the Board of the North Lake County Hospital District is having their annual meeting in the Lake County Round Administration building on Main St. in Tavares at 5:15pm. People interested in how they spend their $8-million + in property tax collections should attend, as well as representatives of any qualified medical clinics that want to learn how they can qualify for indigent care reimbursements. The "pig" logo represents the current practice of allocating most of the District's funds to two more costly local hospitals and not other qualified clinics that provide indigent care. Their website contains this notice (below) AND a copy of the prior Dec. 17, 2012 meeting minutes is on that same webpage which you can download. http://www.northlakecountyhospitaldistrict.org/home/ The website also has an updated contacts section and now all five Board members have background information (no pictures!) The same agenda from the website is below. The Board will not provide any attachments BEFORE the meeting, so we don’t know exactly what will be discussed. Issues on the Agenda - Notice that they are planning to discuss “proposed changes to House Bill 1299” which is the legislation passed last year that... Read more →

Highlights of Tomorrow's North Lake County Hospital District Board Meeting

Tavares, FL - Wed., Jan. 23, 2013 Tomorrow, the Board of the North Lake County Hospital District is having their annual meeting in the Lake County Round Administration building on Main St. in Tavares at 5:15pm. People interested in how they spend their $8-million + in property tax collections should attend, as well as representatives of any qualified medical clinics that want to learn how they can qualify for indigent care reimbursements. The "pig" logo represents the current practice of allocating most of the District's funds to two more costly local hospitals and not other qualified clinics that provide indigent care. Their website contains this notice (below) AND a copy of the prior Dec. 17, 2012 meeting minutes is on that same webpage which you can download. http://www.northlakecountyhospitaldistrict.org/home/ The website also has an updated contacts section and now all five Board members have background information (no pictures!) The same agenda from the website is below. The Board will not provide any attachments BEFORE the meeting, so we don’t know exactly what will be discussed. Issues on the Agenda - Notice that they are planning to discuss “proposed changes to House Bill 1299” which is the legislation passed last year that... Read more →

Highlights of Tomorrow's Lake County Board Agenda Items

Tavares, FL - Monday, Jan. 21, 2013 This posting was sent out first to our email list. Tomorrow’s Jan 22nd Lake County Board Agenda can be found here http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/home.aspx . – click the highlighted “Agenda” for the 1/22/2013 BCC – Regular Board Meeting & Zoning. That will take you to the “Agenda Items & Files” tab of the online agenda. Notice there are several tabs at top. To see the normal agenda you can print, click the tab button at the top of that web page labeled “Agenda”. They are using new software which is terrible, so allow time to wade through it. The meetings will be in the round County Administration building. The morning meeting starts at 9am and the budget workshop at 1:30 pm. Highlights: - Afternoon Budget Workshop: There is an AFTERNOON 1:30 pm workshop to discuss budget issues for: “animal services, outside agencies (any outside agency that the County gives money to), and economic development. “ The Agenda, under section XI. At the END of the agenda, only says “Budget Workshop” and intentionally does not disclose which departments are covered. We got the above description from the Board’s staff last week. There also are no attachments.... Read more →

Lake commissioners want sheriff to cut budget - FOX 35 News Orlando

This is an older, July, 2011 interview of me by Tracy Jacim at Fox Orlando about the Lake County's Sherrif's budget, but it is still true for this upcoming 2013/2014 fiscal year. There are no public hearings on his budget, the budgets are not posted to his website ( https://www.lcso.org/bureaus/FINANCE/ ) and there are no monthly or quarterly financial reports for his department that are posted. Lake commissioners want sheriff to cut budget - FOX 35 News Orlando.' Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Bravo to Citizen Fighting City Hall

This is an example of a Sebring, FL citizen fighting to stop a local city government blunder. We hope she prevails. http://www.newssun.com/Opinion/edt-011313 vj From NewsSun.com Admiration for a citizen standing up to power Some of you may be tired of reading News-Sun stories about Gingerlee Mitchelllindo's fight with the city of Sebring. She is trying to save her retention wall. We, on the other hand, not only think our coverage is warranted, we think the community should be paying attention, even getting involved. To briefly recap: Mitchelllindo's property, a small single house, is opposite the Sebring Middle School at 503 Center Ave. In 2009, with the construction of Sebring Parkway Part II, Center Avenue was reconfigured and widened for a safer entrance into the middle school and to feed into the Parkway. Properties along the affected areas were surveyed. As a result of the survey, the city judged Mitchelllindo's retaining wall encroached on the city's right-of-way by about a foot. However, when succeeding surveys were done, none of the results were exactly the same. Mitchelllindo insists when she built the wall in 1996, she stayed within the line set by the surveyor, who happened to be Buddy Whitlock. Whitlock went... Read more →

Stupid Government Mistakes: Polk County overcharges residents for garbage pickups by $1.46-million

Jan 14, 2013 - Tavares, FL Apparently, starting seven years ago, Polk County, FL staff used an incorrect method that resulted in providing incorrect, sometimes vacant addresses for garbage pickup to the local waste services firm they had on contract. This blunder went on for seven years, and the County overcharged residents $1.46-million over the 7 years, and then paid the funds to the waste services firm. Now the County is trying to get the waste provider to pay back the funds even though the County made the mistake.Teh Board is trying to blame the vendor for the issue, but that is like trying to get an employee to pay back excess paychecks due to a blunder by staff, especially 7 years later. My experience as an internal audit manager for 18 years is that both government and companies many times has low level staff make decisions without oversight or performance audits and these things go on for years. At Nissan Motor Corp., staff used the wrong formula to set reserves for auto warranties, and they over collected the reserves by $1-million. Once the mistake was found by internal audit, that $1-million went right to the "bottom line". Good luck...... Read more →

Lake County Commissioner Responds to Orlando Sentinel's Ritchie Riotous Rong Rant

Tavares, FL - Sun. Jan 13, 2013 by Vance Jochim - FiscalRangers.com About two weeks ago, Orlando Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie (see picture, left - hard to find) published a two part Ritchie Rant attacking the motives of the Chair of the Lake County Commission, Leslie Campione. (Note: Send this to all your friends who care about Lake County's economic progress and want to understand the improvements being made by the current County Board vs Rants by Ritchie) So, now is the time to discuss it, since the Sentinel published Campione's short response today in the Sunday Lake Sentinel (link is further below). Leslie took the high road and didn't use personal attacks. Here are the links to two parts of Ritchie's Rant. Each of them has more than one page. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-lauren-ritchie-lake-commission-chairman-20121230,0,2924698.column http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-lauren-ritchie-county-commission-goals-20130102,0,5837081.column And, here is today's response opinion piece by Campione (her picture is at left - easy to find): http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-lk-my-word-leslie-campione-20130111,0,342709.story And, here is Campione's full length list of goals that Campione gave Ritchie. It IS kinda long and some goals lack clear metrics, but you never saw this from prior chairs Hill or Cadwell. Download Campione-2013-goals-5 AND, just to show how long Campione has been working on IMPROVING... Read more →

Lake County Fails to Invoice Pet Owners for $500,000 to $1-million in Annual Fees

Tavares, FL - Jan. 9, 2013 Normally, I support any reduction in taxes as a general principal. But, what if you paid $2000 in annual property taxes, then found the County Tax Collector was not issuing tax bills to all the residents of the Plantations retirement community? Or, you were a law firm partner and found staff was not billing clients who graduated from Eustis High School? Would you be mad? Well, Lake County did just that until a recent audit report described in the Daily Commercial. They were not invoicing pet owners for State required pet license renewals or failure to get tags. And, if they had fees like surrounding counties, they could have collected $500,000 per year at least to offset costs of the Animal Services Dept. And, if a pet was found without tags, they only issued warnings and not citations that resulted in fines. The result is another estimated $531,000 lost. Since the Animal Services Dept. is funded with over $1-million from the general fund which is mostly funded by your property tax funds, all homeowners are paying to highly subsidize pet owners and animal services rather than just pet owners paying the costs for Animal... Read more →

Tonight - Agenda 21 Expert Karen Schoen to Speak at the Villages Tea Party Meeting

Mon. Jan 7, 2013 Sorry for the late notice. I just got this today. Karen Schoen is the person behind the proposed Agenda 21 bill (one version) to be filed as a bill in the Florida legislature this quarter. If you cannot go, I will make a video and post it on my Youtube channel FiscalRangersFlorida by tomorrow afternoon. Download 2013-01-07 Agenda 21 Meeting Notice <<< Word file Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Vance Jochim Lake County Fiscal Rangers Chief Fiscal Watchdog Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness PO Box 1042 Tavares, FL 32778 Mobile: 352-638-3578 [email protected] www.FiscalRangers.com TWITTER: @FiscalRangers "FiscalRangers" page on Facebook YouTube: NEW 6/2012 - Videos of local political candidate forums and other meetings, like North Lake County Hospital District & Lake County Legislators' Delegation annual forums - visit the youtube channel "FiscalRangersFlorida" CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues. Read more →

Highlights of Tomorrow's Lake County Board Meeting AND Budget Cut Discussions

Tavares, FL – Jan. 7, 2013 Tomorrow, Tuesday Jan 8th, the Lake County Board will have a TWO part meeting. The first session is the normal 9am Jan. 8th Board meeting, with the agenda here. You should look at just the agenda which contains links to any attachments (not all agenda items have attachments), or download the full packet which contains all the attachments in one huge non-indexed pdf file. If you open these links during the actual meeting times, you can see a streaming video of the meeting in a box in the upper left: http://lakecountyfl.suiteonemedia.com/web/home.aspx The SECOND Meeting session is 1:30 pm in the same County Round building in Tavares on Main St. and is a Budget Workshop for the “Public Resources Dept”, and is described on Tab 28, which is in agenda section XI (of the packet only – it IS NOT SHOWN in the “Agenda” linked document). It is for the 1:30 pm Budget Workshop for the Public Services Dept. However, there are no attachments for this meeting, so you have to watch the staff presentations to learn who they propose will be chopped next fiscal year. (which could change monthly). - Parks & Stormwater MSTU... Read more →

Tavares, FL based G&T Conveyor to be shut down, laying off up to 125 employees.

Jan 5, 2013 - Tavares, FL Apparently G&T Conveyor in Tavares, which makes conveyor belt systems for businesses like airports, is owned by a parent company, and their operations will be merged into a "sister" company with similar products in Utah. The article explains that all 125 employees will probably be laid off by late summer. My suggestion to the management team, having been in a similar merger situation, is to find a competitor and see if they will hire the entire team. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/lake/os-gt-conveyor-closing-20130104,0,2512316.story vj Read more →

Fitch Rates Lake County School Board an A+ bond rating JUST Before they decide to refinance $90-million in bonds.

Tavares, FL - Jan. 5, 2012 This rating actually came out on December 20th, but I just found it today. This was before the School District Board decided on December 31 to refinance another $90-million in bonds without any competitive bids. That means they sole sourced a bond consultant and approved the deal without any competitive bidding. Fees described in the online agreement were over $500,000. I can't explain the relevance of the rating, but the analysis seems interesting. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20121220006225/en/Fitch-Rates-Lake-County-School-Board-FLs VJ Read more →

Our Take of Yesterday's Lake County Legislators' Delegation Forum & Video Posted

Leesburg, FL - Jan 5, 2012 Yesterday, Jan. 4th, Lake County's three Florida Representatives ( Larry Metz, Bryan Nelson & Marlene O'Toole) and two Senators (Alan Hays & Dorothy Hukill) held their annual "Lake County Legislators' Delegation" meeting to listen to "pitches" from over 20 people from different government and other agencies asking for funds, legislation changes or other Florida State Support for their issues. The publicity for the meeting was so bad that hardly any members of the public attended. Details on meeting locations were confused with three different sites being described by different people. Agendas were stacked at the side and there was no table to greet attendees or get their names to send out follow up documents. I only found out about the meeting in the morning and had to cancel a dental appointment to attend. Hardly any members of the public or press attended. The only member of the press there was from Lake Sentinel. The picture shows you what I mean - this was halfway through the meeting after first speakers all left. If taxpayers and conservative groups don't attend these types of meetings and make their positions known, don't cry when nothing is done.... Read more →