Fiscal Rangers

Chrome Users alert: Lake County Government and City of Eustis are using obsolete technology that is less secure and will not let Chrome browsers view online videos

I just sent this to the Managers of both organizations. This is a technical issue and anyone who uses Google's Chrome Browser will encounter this problem when trying to view online videos on many sites if they are using obsolete technology no longer supported by Chrome. This is a major technical issue where your some local government websites are using obsolete website "plugins" to show videos that no longer is used by the Chrome Browser, which has more users than any other browser. The agencies use third party applications to store and show videos of meetings. These do NOT work in Chrome when trying to view a video from the agency website. Chrome is now on version 43. As of version 42, they stopped "supporting" NPAPI technology to show videos. NPAPI is used in Microsoft Silverlight and Java plugins for videos The reason is the browser industry has moved to HTML 5 and this issue has been known for years. Here is the Google Chrome Help Forum article on this issue . They have links to several other earlier articles warning about the dropping of NPAPI plugins for Chrome. This problem does not affect the Lake County school meeting videos... Read more →

Press Tip: Regarding Daily Commercial failing to deliver newspapers - a Facebook user chimes in

Facebook The last two days (out of 8) I got my Daily Commercial, but here is a comment from a Facebook user about her missing papers.Papers are still not getting delivered to subscribers, or are late. Since the DC took on a contract to also deliver the Orlando Sentinel, USA Today and Wall St. Journal, deliveries are a hit or miss.I wonder when the ADVERTISERS are going to catch on and demand refunds for all the missed deliveries. There must be something in the air that causes this. Last Friday the County failed to pick up recycling for my entire neighborhood. Naturally, no one answers after Friday afternoon, but they finally made the pickup Monday around 10am. You would think the County would ensure they used a waste pickup firm that tracked and would know when the missed an ENTIRE neighborhood. Perhaps they all need to go the Disney’s training course on customer service like the Tax Collector’s staff does. Here is another Facebook user’s experience with the Daily Commercial “customer service”. Vance Jochim Renee Lewis tagged you in a post. You can choose if you want to add it to your timeline. Remember: Posts you hide from your timeline... Read more →

Tax Wars Start - County plans for renewing "penny sales tax" take hits from Right Side of the Lake Blog

Tavares, FL June 13, 2015 The Lake County Board, School Board and 14 local cities all want you to approve a 15 year renewal of the expiring 15 year penny sales tax. The issue will be on the November ballot, costing $440,000 (or I heard $900,000 at the Board meeting) to hold the election just for this issue. Today, like Vesuvius erupting, the old Right Side of the Lake blog, written by Don Magruder, erupted with many reasons to vote NO on the tax. Several of the reasons are correct. However, the School District and the Cities would be hurting if they each lost their 33%, or about $10-million per year for each of them. I also believe the vote should take place in 2016 during the regular election, and not in a special election costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. My Opinion - followed by link to Right Side of the Lake blog article My first argument against the sales tax renewal is that the school board (Rosanne Brandeburg), at least one city (Eustis) and possibly some County Board members are planning to SELL the future tax revenues in bonds to enrich attorneys, bond salesmen, construction firms and leave... Read more →

Obama's HUD program moving forward to integrate low income residents into wealthier communities

Tavares, FL June 12, 2015 The Obama administration and HUD have been moving the "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule " forward. It will require some 1250 cities to do a study and enact programs to rebalance ethnic percentages among richer communities that do not have a desired percent of low income people. Here is Kelly on FoxNews describing it in a 9 minute segment. The regulations would apply to roughly 1,250 local governments. http://thehill.com/regulation/244620-obamas-bid-to-diversify-wealthy-neighborhoods Are you ready for Section 8 welfare rental voucher recipients to be moved into your neighborhood? I wrote about this over the last two years as the rule was moving from proposal to comment stage. It is coming closer to implementation. In the past, they bused low income kids to wealthier schools, but now the Feds plan to hold Federal funds hostage from cities unless they force integration of low income folks into wealthier neighborhoods. I will be waiting to see which Lake County cities are on the "target" list. Of course, once the initial 1250 cities are "integrated", look for more to be affected. That is how liberal programs work. The first indicator will be when specific cities or communities (i.e. The Villages?) are added... Read more →

Online petition started by "Lake County Safe Schools Initiative" activists to change School District elections to single district and not county wide elections

The Lake County Board is paying over $900,000 to have a single issue November ballot in Lake County to get voter approval for renewing the penny sales tax for another 15 years. Because of that, a local group of angry School activists, the Lake County Safe Schools Initiative, (click here for their Facebook page ) has created an online petition HERE to get the School District Board to change School Board Member elections from County wide to single district elections. You can read the resolution, why the website creators want change, and go to a page to sign the online petition. As of tonight, only five people have signed it. Most publicity is on the above website or by email. I was cut off from the Initiative website after trying to correct facts posted there by unnamed administrators. The purported purpose is to make it easier and less costly to run. But you have to wonder what is the REAL reason for doing this. It seems that changing to district only school board elections would result in inter-district warfare, with each district focused on their own priorities and not overall County priorities. It also makes it easier for special interests... Read more →

Nevada has approved ESA (Educational Savings Accounts) for any and all students and parents will get $5,000/year to spend. Will this happen in Florida?

As more and more parents and citizens catch on to the public school implementation of Common Core, they are pressuring State legislators to provide school choice. Well, now ANY student's parents in Nevada can pull their kid from public schools and get $5,000 per year for homeschooling , etc. I know the cost per child in Florida is over $7,000 but watch for this - as the article says, Nevada approves $5000 K-12 school choice program for all students. Parents get $5000 in a "educational services account" (ESA) debit card account to pay for "educational services". "Pioneered in Arizona in 2011, education savings accounts allot a certain amount of public money for parents to educate their children. Money can be spent on private school tuition, textbooks, tutoring, and other educational expenses." "ESA programs in Arizona, Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi are only available to students who fall into particular demographics, but Nevada's is touted as the first universal ESA program available to any student who's spent the previous 100 days enrolled in a public school." I would like to point out that for each student switching to school choice, the state saves not only the annual teacher cost, but buying computers,... Read more →

Tomorrow, Monday, you can hear expert John Casey in Mt. Dora speak during lunch about how Al Gore's Alarmist Global Warming & Climate Change is a HOAX.

This is information the main stream media ignores. Instead they publish Global Warming Alarmist syndicated articles from the AP without any balancing input from skeptics like below. Tomorrow, Monday, you can hear John Casey describe the REAL reason why "climate changes" and he dismantles the "Global Warming" hoax (like promoted by AP science writers and Al Gore). He spoke at earlier meetings about his book Cold Sun, and now has a new book out, Dark Winter. Below is the meeting invitation for Mount Dora, FL at lunchtime for tomorrow, June 8 at 11:30 pm. . The lunch is organized by the Golden Triangle Republican Women's Club, and is in the Country Club of Mt. Dora AT the Country Club. Ask Betty for more details if you intend to go. RSVP by Monday 9am to Betty Hensinger at 352.267.5028: Below the invitation, I have added some links to videos about the Global Warming Hoax and a prior speech by Casey in Orlando. =========================== John L. Casey, president, Space and Science Research Corporation, will talk about his latest book, "Dark Winter" at the Golden Triangle Republican Women's Luncheon Monday, June 8th at 11:45 a.m., to be held at the Mount Dora Country... Read more →

Daily Commercial fails to deliver newspapers for four days due to new delivery contract

Tavares, FL June 5, 2015 Lake Countians: This information is updated from a memo sent to some recipients yesterday. Update: Today, Saturday, June 6, my paper is missing again for the fifth day. The Daily Commercial is really botching up every newspaper's credibility. I got through to an operator at 7:45 am and they will deliver it later. - The Daily Commercial just got a contract to deliver the Orlando Sentinel, Wall St. Journal and USA Today, plus their own subscribers. - For four days (Update: Now five days), hundreds of subscribers (unverified) did not get their newspapers. - I was one of them. - Problems include lack of planning to hire enough delivery couriers, and changing delivery routes to confuse existing couriers. - The circulation phone number for reporting missing papers is overloaded and put people in endless loops where they could not talk to a staffer or even leave a message. Puppy dogs are even sad when they can't read their newspapers. For the last four days, many Lake County subscribers to the Daily Commercial, Orlando Sentinel, Wall St. Journal and USA Today have not received one or more papers. I called to DC Publisher Steve Scaggs yesterday,... Read more →

Florida Muslim "CAIR" group leader arrested in child sex sting in Lake County, FL

A local member of CAIR, the Council for American-Islamic Relations, was arrested for driving to a sting to have sex with a 12 year old. Most of the press has not mentioned that, so we have the details. Read more →

Common Core Update: APUSH (AP US History) Curriculum lambasted by 55 scholars

I told you earlier that the new APUSH was bad. Read about it here in the National Review. "55 distinguished historians, Americanists, and education specialists have issued a powerful condemnation of the College Board's revisionist history." Here is the 3-page June 2, 2015 letter published and signed by the scholars. All their names are listed, and their titles. "We wish to express our opposition to these modifications. The College Board's 2014 Advanced Placement Examination shortchanges students by imposing on them an arid, fragmentary, and misleading account of American history. We favor instead a robust, vivid, and content-rich account of our unfolding national drama, warts and all, a history that is alert to all the ways we have disagreed and fallen short of our ideals, while emphasizing the ways that we remain one nation with common ideals and a shared story." And, HERE is a column by Peter Berkowitz from today supporting the scholars' critical analysis of the College Board's "revisionist" US History curriculum. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Federal Government Issues New Ethanol Standards for Fuel & other rules

Tavares, FL June 2, 105 WE are against ANY ethanol in gasoline, but we are still stuck with 10% due to corn industry lobbying that benefits form methanol production. Ethanol DOE damage older car engines as well as outboard motors, lawnmowers, etc. I have to get ethanol free fuel at Harris oil in Mt. Dora to prevent damage to my boat's outboard engine. BOO Iowa! So, read the details here about all the new standards - at least they are not requiring E15, or 15% Ethanol because car manufacturers told the feds they would not honor warranties on existing vehicles in they were forced to run on 15% ethanol. Read more →

Lake County Property Values jump average of 5.8% with Groveland up 19%

Tavares, FL June 1, 2015 The Orlando Sentinel says that Lake County's property values spiked up an average over 5% and Groveland property values jumped 19%, while Leesburg stayed at 1.1%. This is a reason that the Lake County Board must roll BACK the property tax rate to the rate used TWO years ago before Jimmy Conner, Sean Parks and Welton Cadwell bumped up County property tax rates by 14+%. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

This page rates how the Presidential Candidates will reduce immigration

Tavares, FL May 31, 2015 Concerned about illegal immigration or refugee programs and how they will compete for Americans for jobs? Here is a great tracking report that rates the positions of the announced Presidential candidates on controlling immigration. Only one candidate, Rick Santorum, got an "A:. Vance Jochim Read more →