Tavares, FL
While looking at the Lake County Elections Dept. page of local candidates, we found that Jimmy "Chainsaw" Conner had filed to run for Lake County Elections Supervisor.
Read this entire article to understand the seriousness of this issue.
Until recently, Conner was campaigning for re-election to the Lake County Board, and showed his signature prop of a plastic chainsaw to imply he cut taxes. However, many angry citizens pointed out he had instead RAISED taxes by 14% two years ago, and he had also championed the campaign to renew the 1 penny sales tax by browbeating County suppliers for contributions.
The citizens pointed out also that in Oct., 2015, he collected $50,000 in campaign contributions, mostly from a DEAD lady, out of county contractors, attorneys and land owners all apparently expecting future approvals related to the South Lake Sector Plan (aka Wellness Way). The interesting thing is the South Lake Sector Plan is NOT in Jimmy's District, but he is hitting up relevant vendors for contributions. What are they expecting in return?
Word is that Conner suggested that his replacement on the Board be appointed, and should be T.J. Fish, current head of the MPO (Metropolitan Planning Office), since "TJ is really good at spending funds without higher level approvals". Conner was referring to the recent Inspector General audit disclosing that the MPO budget was mismanaged. Never mind that Conner and the other four County Board members were also voting members of the MPO and failed to ensure proper financial discipline over MPO. This blog author has many times told the Lake County Board they lack strong financial direction because they lack their own Accounting Controller. Instead, they rely on the separate Court Clerk's accounting department for accounting services, but their staff do not provide fiscal oversight over the County operations, or apparently MPO.
Jimmy was also the Board Liasion to the Lake County Historical Society when a scandal broke about mis-management of their funds, and Jimmy walked away from them without getting involved to solve their problems. Like the recent MPO debacle, the accounting office at the Lake County Court Clerk performed accounting duties but did not exercise any financial oversight on them or the MPO, leaving a void in financial discipline, even though County taxpayer funds were partly used for both organizations.
Bullying of Women: Conner was blasted in the local press and a blog about his bullying women.
Click HERE for the Daily Commercial article, and
HERE for the Right Side of Lake article, or
HERE for Mandy Wettstein's op-ed column about Jimmy bullying women, and
HERE for our Feb. 4, 2013 YouTube video of him berating fellow board member Leslie Campione.
Conner was Chair of the Board in 2015, and also initiated at the Oct. 20, 2015 board meeting the effort to reject a staff recommendation (tab 13 in the agenda) for a lobbyist to be hired after staff and a procurement committee spent many hours selecting and recommending a different firm. Conner started the effort to override standard competitive procurement procedures to select Gray Robinson, a favored firm. You can watch a video HERE (scroll to 12:52 in the video) how Conner pulled the item for discussion and initiated the vote to ignore the professional staff recommendation Funny thing - if you look at Conner's list of contributions on the Lake County Supt. of Elections website for the exact same month, Oct. 2015, you will find he received a $250 contribution from Lauren Carmody (entry 93), who is the wife of Christopher Carmody, who works at Gray Robinson (I called the law firm and verified that). So there is no cronyism, apparently.
Taxpayers point out Conner always supported the Sheriff's office, and did that by approving their $60-million budgets without ever requesting conditions like a public budget hearing for them, or for them to undergo periodic performance audits, or even to post detailed budgets online like the County and School Board do.
Conner is rumored to have responded to critics by pointing out he has done nothing wrong. "Florida doesn't have a law against cronyism...". "I feel the blog "Right Side of the Lake" is picking on me, and I decided to move up the political chain".
Due to the above criticisms, Conner said in twitter tweet that "I feel my skills at fundraising should be used for helping voters in Lake County by running for Lake County Supt. of Elections". Outgoing Senator Alan Hays, also running for the same post, was aghast.
Conner plans to attend a lecture on how to obtain contributions from voting special interest groups. He also announced a plan to build a $14-million Elections Facility, buying all new voting machines, ipads, mainframe computers, handmade Brazilian wood desks and a customised Mercedes long chassis limousine with a portable voting booth for VIP's and campaign contributors. He is having a campaign fund raising event soon. We wonder which vendors will be asked to attend.
"Please don't let him run again for School Board," said one School administrator. Conner was known for soliciting campaign contributions from out of county vendors who provided construction and other services to the School Board.
A supporter of Conner said "but that's the way Lake County works... pay to play".
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