Tavares, FL (Lake County) | Sept. 5, 2014 | by Vance Jochim
Be sure to read our recommendation at the bottom to attend the Sept. 9 County Budget 5pm hearing.
The Lake County Board (Welton, Jimmie, Sean & Tim, but not Leslie) wants to raise your property millage tax rates up to 18%. Once again, the Daily Commercial posted another front page article citing spending WANTS from local County fire officials while not talking to anyone with an alternative, or talking to taxpayers about the merits of adding more spending or people to the staff.
http://www.dailycommercial.com/news/article_edbbdce4-f44e-5d9d-a2d6-67a5d1520d89.html
That technique is called "spot" reporting, aka LAZY reporting where only one side of an issue is presented. The focus was on an emotional issue and no actual comparative statistics were demanded by the reporter. Is there peer reviewed documentation to support 2 or 3 fire fighters at a fire station? What about an analysis of idle time between fire calls, or that many fire and accident incidents have multiple vehicles show up to maybe hype the incident response numbers? How do we compare to other peer counties and not ones selectively chosen to make us look worse?
This is another in a Daily Commercial continous series supporting government tax SPENDERS with hardly any comments about reasons NOT to hike taxes or that the cites spending wants are not needed.
Clearly, the Daily Commercial wants taxes to be increased without publishing any dissent in the articles.
In this case, the Lake County fire department and union want to add a supervising position to every firehouse because over a FIVE year period, there were THREE close calls. Read the article, then our comments below:
And here is the expanded comment I posted "for approval" so it may or may not appear on the Daily Commercial website - sometimes they take days to approve a comment, which is why there are very few comments:
So there were THREE close calls in FIVE years and that is the reason to add another person to each firehouse?
Once again the Daily Commercial only talks to government officials who want to raise taxes and spend more money without talking to others for alternative info. The reporter could have researched all the emails sent by taxpayers to the Board to describe reasons NOT to increase taxes.
Or they describe emails like I get saying why were five fire engine vehicles at one tiny fire? I personally have pictures of a car accident where SEVEN different fire and EMS vehicles showed up when only EMS and maybe one cop car were needed. In my opinion, they all show up to increase their "incident response" numbers to justify positions that may not be justified.
Why doesn't the Daily Commercial do "man in the street" articles getting opinions from taxpayers about issues like this?
When they cite 3 cases, why not compare it to the actual total of thousands of fire calls over the same five years where no safety problem occurred. NOT doing so is a failure to provide the proper statisical perspective on the issue.
Why not compare this demand to add a supervisor to every call (which increases union revenues) to the practice in the remodeling industry where they use "lead carpenters" and the ONE carpenter makes decisions with guidelines (protocols) to call for supervisors?
The volume of supervisors is not warranted for two man teams.
The Daily Commercial needs to talk to taxpayers rather than just tax spenders.
Currently, the Daily Commercial doesn't do any work to demand better spending justification, or even google search for other alternatives to spending more.
What to do about vaguely justified tax hike pleas?
As a former corporate internal auditor and anti-corruption expert, I am getting tired of all these emotional pleas published by the Daily Commercial without sound statistical or factual basis or discussion with alternative viewpoints from big spenders.
Taxpayers need to attend and give public input of their opinions on the tentative 18% (or less) County property tax increase (see your property tax TRIM notice) at the Tuesday, Sept. 9th budget hearing at 5pm in the County Administration building on Main in Tavares.
Ask the Board why they WON'T approve reinstatement of Impact Fees on new construction for Transportation or Schools, but WILL increase the property taxes of everyone.
Then also attend the second required public hearing at the same time and place on Sept. 23rd.
Vance Jochim
FiscalRangers.com
