Tavares, FL June 17, 2018
Who will be running the Lake County, FL Courthouse administration after this November? We now will have a choice on the Nov. ballot for Clerk of the County Court.
What do you think about Lake County, FL Clerk of the Court, Neil Kelly, waiting until after the deadline for petition gathering to announce he was retiring?
Then he recommended an insider manager, Gary Cooney, to replace him without public dialog or a chance for someone to gather petitions and compete for his elected position. And, at Kelly's request, Gov. Scott gave Cooney the advantage by naming him interim Court Clerk after Kelly retires the end of this month.
This is what the Court Clerk did when Kelly was appointed before an election in 2007. Same insider tricks to avoid public discourse over who should run the Court Clerk.
I even had a senior insider who works in the Court Building ask if someone could be found to "look at things with a fresh set of eyes." Not me - I don't have the bucks.
I personally am aggravated because the Court Clerk controls the Inspector General function, and should be more aggressive in internal audits since a really good Inspector General left last year. But, magically, no results oriented performance audits of the County operations have been issued for several months. And, they don't make audit reports of the Court Clerk public.
I talked to Cooney at the recent Flag Day celebration and he didn't really seem supportive of an aggressive internal audit function.
So, happily, there is now competition for YOUR vote on the Nov. ballot as the linked article explains. A retired police Lt. from Tavares Police, Jason Paynter, has jumped in to the race, even though now he will have to pay over $8000 in fees since the petition card deadline has passed. However, Cooney, who has "loaned" his campaign $26,000, also will be paying the same fee.
Paynter has just filed with the Supervisor of Elections, and I spoke to him today and he is serious about running, and already has an election strategy manager. Keep in mind, he also had hardly any notice due to Neal Kelly postponing his retirement notice until just recently, so he has a lot of work to do.
The public will benefit from a serious contested election for the position. Paynter also said he is a Republican and a super voter for you conservatives (like me).
Let the election games begin. This could be the biggest controversial election yet in Lake County. For the first time in 30-40 years, we could have new blood, not an insider, running the County Court administration.