Lady Lake FL Town Commissioners cut trash runs to only 1, hear PACE financing program, discuss drones and building heights

Lady Lake, FL - Oct. 19, 2019 - by Vance Jochim

I visited the Lady Lake, FL Town Council tonight, Oct. 19 - video to be posted on my YouTube channel in 1-2 days.

 

Notable issues were the PACE pitch, asking the city to approve the PACE financing program for local home improvement contractors. In my opinion, it is a sub-prime financing scheme to sell home improvement projects to homeowners with equity and BAD credit, so they are at risk of losing their home if they don't keep up payments. If you search on "PACE lawsuits" you will find mentions of many lawsuits and Better Business Bureau complaints. Fortunately, the Town Commissioners only approved a commercial PACE program for later approval. In my opinion, the PACE program is a way to offer financing for questionable "Green" projects like Solar to naive homeowners where the COUNTY Tax Collector is used to collect annual payments. Story to appear later this week.

 

Also, they have a new Interim City Manager and gave him a wage bump of $1500. Outgoing Lake County Commissioner Tim Sullivan was there to make a pitch to be the interim City Manager but they were already committed to having Growth Manager Thad Carrol as interim City Manager.

 

Interesting fact - they approved a building height waiver of 45 feet for a developer project and Town Commissioner Dan Vincent raised the issue of whether they notified the Federal FAA about the new, proposed building height. Apparently drone operators like Amazon rely on reported building heights and are crashing into higher buildings not reported to FAA.

 

The City's trash hauler, Waste Management, requested and was approved to change from TWO trash runs to just one combined trash run. Apparently, China is not buying recycled waste anymore and there is no return on investment, so both Villages and Lady Lake residents will only have to put trash in one barrel and not use the separate recycling program anymore. I find it interesting that Waste Management said there is no cost difference to the city, while they are ELIMINATING and entire, separate run of trash trucks with drivers. The Town Commissioners and staff barely questioned why there wasn't' a cost reduction from only one trash run vs two trash runs. The trash will be burned up in the Covanta system that generates electricity. That is the waste burning system PAID FOR BY LAKE COUNTY TAXPAYERS, but the County government was dumb enough to not retain ownership after 20 years.

 

Lady Lake has the second-lowest property tax millage rate in Lake County and homeowners should congratulate the Town Commissioners. Their millage is just 3.39 when high tax cities like Tavares are at 6.9 mills.

 

Well known government public input master, David Serdar, also gave public input.

 

Perhaps as the result of the LOW millage rate, the two Town Commissioners up for elections, Anthony Holden and Paul F. Hannon, had no opposition. Perhaps other Lake County City officials should take heed.

 

Vance Jochim

FiscalRangers.com 

Oct. 19, 2020