Fiscal Rangers

FL House Dist 26 Candidates Addie Owens & Mike Levine on Video

Lake County, FL Republican Residents in North-West Lake County need to know who is best for them by watching this video.  These are the two leading candidates in the elections for FL House Dist 26, 2024. Read more →

Tom Vail - Candidate Video for Lake County, FL Supervisor of Elections -Tavares, FL - Feb. 16, 2024

March, 2024: Tom Vail is running for Lake County, FL Supervisor of Elections against incumbent Alan Hays. This post included links to a full video of Tom Vail on both YouTube and Rumble speaking at the headquarters of the Lake County, FL Republican Party HQ in Tavares, FL on Feb. 6, 2024. Read more →

Routine Yard Waste pickup in Lake County, FL areas has been delayed due to Hurricane Ian'

Here is info on why Lake County, FL yard waste haulers are not picking up routine yard waste - Oct. 13, 2022. Read more →

Two Lake County, FL Election Hob Nobs hold election straw polls this week in Clermont & Leesburg

Tomorrow, Monday, Aug. 8th, 2022 and on Tuesday, Aug. 9th, there are two election "Hob Nobs" run by local Chambers of Commerce to let the public meet and greet all local election candidates and to vote for them in a straw poll that is administered by the Lake County Supv. of Elections. We provide details and encourage Lake County, FL voters to attend and "vote" in a straw poll to support their favored candidates. Read more →

Homeschooling? Thinking about it for any reason?

Here is the site of the Florida Parent Educators Association (FPEA) which has all sorts of info, and is holding its annual conference in Orlando in May 2022. Bookmark it to send to others when they discuss this later. Lake County, FL schools are pretty well run, but you never know when an alternative is needed to government-run schools such as when you are across the border in Orlando. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Got Septic? New Distributed community Septic System discussed at Lake County, FL Board meeting March 22, 2022

Got Septic? If you have a septic tank or considering a replacement, or buying a new home outside city limits, you need water and sewage connections. A new "Septic to Distributed System" method for new homes and small developments (50 homes per system) that do not have direct access to city sewage systems was discussed at yesterday's (Mar. 22, 2022) Lake County Board meeting. You can watch the tab 30 agenda item meeting video by going to the Lake County website, clicking and scrolling to about 1 hour, 55 minutes and watch it, plus you can click the agenda tab and scroll to tab 30 to see the agenda documents. This new system was solicited by the Lake County Board to reduce pressure for developers to annex into cities and approve HIGH-density homes to justify costs for city proviced sewer pipelines. Instead, they found a vendor ( http://www.onsyte.com/ ) that can provide small, stand-alone, more advanced community septic systems. They also had an earlier presentation by the vendor several months ago. They were the only ones to respond to a request for proposal. They are not discussing mandating these for older homes with septic tanks (at this time). Both Lake... Read more →

Seven Issues Needing Attention by the Lake County, FL Legislative Delegation - presented Oct. 6, 2021

Yesterday, Oct. 7, 2021, the five member Lake County, FL State Legislative Delegation met in Leesburg, FL to hear requests for action and concerns from the public and local agencies. Over 50 people, representing themselves or organizations spoke for 3-minutes each before FL Senators Dennis Baxley (chair of the event) & Kellie Stargel, plus House Reps Anthony Sabatini, Keith Truenow, and Brett Hage. Many speakers also sent documents to support their pitches which were given to the panel in 3-ring binders. You can also visit the legislative member's local office and probably be able to review their copy of the binder (call first). Here is the initial list of the first 50 speakers and their topics prepared by Aline Guy in Rep. Keith Truenow's office. About 4-5 were no-shows, and about 3-4 were walk-ins (not on the agenda) and signed up to talk. Download 2021 Lake County Legislative Delegation AGENDA You can view the video of the entire event by Sunday, Oct. 10 at my YouTube "FiscalRangersFlorida" channel. I will post the specific link here when I have it uploaded. You can link to specific sections or use extracts as long as you credit the source link and give credit... Read more →

Will your local City or County agency be hit with ransomware like Baltimore, costing $18-million?

Will your local city or county government agency get hit with ransomware like Baltimore, MD and then their School District a year later? Read this and pass it on to your local government council or board to educate them and ask for a public hearing on whether they are vulnerable or not. Read more →

Caveat Emptor when buying a manufactured or mobile home in a Florida park where you pay lot rent

Owning a mobile home in Florida on leased or rented lots is dangerous and we describe some reasons why. The industry and the Florida legislators need to take action against mobile home park owners who are bullies and harass and threaten mobile home owners so they give up and leave so the park owner can take over the home and sell or rent it for a profit. Read more →

Don't Vote Early - Wait Until You See who mails out nasty mailers, then choose

Lake County Voters should delay their voting in the Lake County primary elections until closer to the final voting day. They need to do that to see if anyone sends out negative mailer hit pieces that may see unethical or inaccurate before finally deciding who to vote for. We point out two candidate races where negative mailers have already been mailed out, and who in our opinion "might" be advising them. Read more →

Doug Shields is running for Lake County, FL County Commission and here is our video.

This introductory video of Doug Shields, candidate for the Lake County, FL County Commission, District 1 was made at the Lake County Republican Party HQ on July 31, 2020 during their periodic "Coffee with the Republican Candidates" event. Mr. Shields is running against incumbent Tim Sullivan, and he has mailed out controversial mailers attacking Sullivan that Sullivan has rejected as being inaccurate. Candidate Sullivan has issued a rebuttal HERE. We don't like hit piece mailers so you need to see the rebuttal also. Doug's official candidate website is: https://shieldsforlake.com/ His Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Shieldsforlake/ Campaign email: [email protected] Look for other Lake County, FL area election candidate videos on this FiscalRangersFlorida YouTube channel. Additionally, you can find news on the elections and other Lake County government agency watchdog issues on our FiscalRangers.com blog and on our FiscalRangersLakeCounty Facebook Group. Video by Lake County, FL Fiscal Watchdog blogger Vance Jochim of FiscalRangers.com. The short link to this video is: https://youtu.be/_IfGLfNquOY Length of video is: 29 minutes Read more →

Lake County, FL listed as one of 10 Florida Counties to suffer most downturn due to Chinese Virus

An Orlando Weekly article cites a study saying Lake County, FL is one of the 10 Florida Counties that may suffer the most bankruptcies from the Covid-19 crisis. Read more →

Orlando Sentinel's Scott Maxwell asks that voters monitor LOCAL elections as much as National elections

Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell encouraged taxpayers to attend local city council and other local agency meetings to monitor what they are doing, and also monitor who are the best candidates for their local government agencies. Here are my additional ideas for reform of City Councils and policies. Read more →

Residents living on Lake County, FL Canals - read this about funding for needed canal dredging

Residents on private canals in Lake County, FL need to read this. A new funding process is being considered by the Lake County Board to allow residents to tax themselves over 10 years to fund needed dredging of their canals. Read more →

Groveland, FL City Council video uploaded after adopting budget of $69-million

The Groveland, FL City Council met on Sept. 16, 2019, approved a new budget and millage rate, and covered routine issues. We provide an overview of the covered issues and a link to our video of the main City Council meeting. No riots or public demonstrations occurred! Read more →

The new Lake County 2019/2020 Property Tax TRIM Notices are Out - and you need to analyze them

The 2019-20 Lake County, FL property tax TRIM notices are out. We provide an example and some analysis, and tips how to analyze YOUR rates to understand if hidden increases are included. Read more →

MedMen Medical Marijuana Pot Growers in Eustis, FL Anger Neighbors Over Excessive Industrial Noise

MedMen Medical Marijuana Pot Growers in Eustis, FL Anger Neighbors Over Excessive Industrial Noise Read more →

A Florida homeowner's guide for coping with surprise real estate developments next door.

Florida homeowners may be blindsided by developer requests for questionable projects next to them like the proposed 4-story rental apartment complex on the shores of Lake Saunders near Tavares, FL next to the single story, single family residences. So we created a 36 minute Florida Homeowners guide to the land development process to understand how to make your voice heard or oppose outlandish land use developments. Read more →

Federal & Florida ADA Compliance laws are wrecking local government transparency and incurring huge costs

Tavares, FL March 11, 2019 Federal and Florida regulations on compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA) are causing excess costs and reduced public transparency over local government meeting videos, agendas, budgets and even annual financial reports (CAFR's). Essentially, some scummy lawyers found that ADA requirements can be interpreted to require that any local government has to provide online information in a format that can be read by ADA software tools used by the disabled, such as vision limited or hearing limited. Apparently, the tools use screen "scanning" to find text or picture captions that can then be converted to audio so the disabled can "read" or "hear" the online information. We wrote an earlier story about this in January 2019 HERE, after the Orlando Sentinel published a story about it. It contains more about the scummy lawsuits, so I did not repeat it here. The Jan. 6, 2019 Orlando Sentinel story is here. And very few local governments have the funds to revamp their websites and file systems to comply with the lawsuit demands. Now, a city like Orlando could afford to get the software and modify all their files so they can be read by the ADA tools,... Read more →

14 Big Hairy Ass Goals for Lake County, FL Legislators - presented at Legislative Delegation Jan. 15, 2019

The five members of the Lake County, FL Legislator's Delegation met today, Jan. 15, 2019, to hear public input and funding requests from perhaps 35 local groups, government bodies and individuals. I gave them a list of 14 Big Hairy Ass Goals (BHAG) to consider implementing. Read more →

The new Villages residents of Fruitland Park continued rants at the City Council about budgets & taxes at the Sept. 27th meeting

The Fruitland Park, FL City Council had two required annual budget and millage hearings which resulted in many complaints from new residents of The Villages within City Boundaries. This contains an overview of issues and links to videos of the two meetings. Read more →

FiscalRangers.com Publisher files for the "At Large" Seat on the Lake County, FL Water District Board

Lake County, FL Fiscal Watchdog blogger Vance Jochim has filed to run for the "At Large" seat on the Lake County Water Authority Board (LCWA). Jochim has written the local Fiscal Watchdog blog, FiscalRangers.com for 12 years. Read more →

Who will be running the Lake County Court Clerk function after November?

At the last moment, a new candidate filed to run for Lake County, FL Court Clerk vs a favored insider who was named by the retiring Court Clerk AFTER potential candidates could collect and submit petition cards to qualify for the ballot. Instead, the new candidate will have to pay over $8000 in fees to qualify. We tell you all about it. Read more →

Lake County, FL Bad Roads - Increased Impact Fees on Tomorrow's County Board Agenda

Traffic and road conditions are getting worse in Lake County. We talk about some of the issues, and how some more funding may be on the way if the Lake County Board starts the process to increase road impact fees on new construction. Read more →

TODAY - How to ask your Florida legislators for FREE STUFF, or maybe some agency oversight!

Visit today's Town Hall of the Lake County, FL state legislators to ask for FREE STUFF, or just ask for fiscal Sanity and new or less legislation to improve life and transparency and oversight in Florida and Lake County. Read more →

Important new Scientific chemical element discovered - Governmentium aka the "Critical Morass"

Tavares, FL 32778 Dec. 18, 2017 This improtant scientific news is from Cathy Holden on Facebook: Subject: New Chemical Discovered The heaviest chemical element yet known to science A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Governmentium". Governmentium has 1 neutron, 12 assistant neutrons,75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2 to 6 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads... Read more →

Lake County Republicans Recommend NO on Nov. 8 Ballot Initiative to "Renew" 40 year old 1 mill North Lake County Hospital District tax

The election ballot for Nov. 8, 2016 for Lake County, FL will contain a referndum item that asks voters to vote Yes or No to continue the 1 Mill North Lake County Hospital District property tax for another 10 years. The Lake County Republican Party held a forum of proponents and opponents of the ballot issue, and members voted over 2/3 to recommend a NO vote on the ballot. This article describes the issue and forum in more detail with links to the formal resolution to vote NO, the REC press release, video links, etc. Read more →

Pictures & videos of Lake County, FL Republican candidates assembled for Flag Day and speeches

Many Republican candidates for elected office showed up Saturday, June 25, 2016 to make speeches and talk to voters during the Flag Day celebration held by the Lake County Republicans in Tavares, FL. We posted pictures and videos will soon be uploaded to YouTube. Read more →

Lake County, FL Legislators Delegation Summit - Dec. 9, 2015, Leesburg, FL

Every year the five Lake County, Florida Legislators hold their annual Lake County Legislators' Summit to hear three minutes of public input from local agencies and citizens. Yesterday, Dec. 9, 2015, they held the annual meeting for three hours with 53 speakers. They use the input to set their priorities for the upcoming Florida legislation session that starts in January, 2016. Read more →

10+ Reasons to Vote AGAINST Lake County, Florida's $800-million "Infrastructure Sales Tax" Referendum on Nov. 3

On Nov. 3, 2015, the ballot in Lake County, FL will have a referendum asking voters to renew an existing one penny sales tax for another 15 years that will generate between $450-800-million in taxes. The funds will be for capital spending like buildings or computers or vehicles and split in thirds for each of these three groups: 1) Lake County government, the 14 cities in Lake County, and the School District. This article covers 10+ reasons to vote NO on the referendum and conditions needed to save taxpayers $100-million plus by prohibiting use of bonds to run up government debt. 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 →

Lake County, FL Legislative Delegation to hear agencies, public and Common Core Opponents on Dec. 2

Tavares, FL Nov. 27, 2014 Lake County, FL has five FL legislators who are on the Lake County Legislators Delegation, and they are having their annual open public hearing in Leesburg, FL on Dec. 2 at Lake Sumter State College in the Fine Arts Auditorium at 1-5pm (NOT the Magnolia room). If you can, I encourage you to attend the meeting to see your local FL legislators and how they react to the issues proposed by public input speakers. Except for campaign forums, this may be the only time you see some of them. They are" Rep. Larry Metz, Chair and organizer of this delegation meeting Rep. Jennifer Sullivan (just elected) Rep. Marlene O'Toole (Villages area) Sen. Alan Hays Sen. Dorothy Hukill Historically, these annual meetings were normally held during the day to hear a parade of local government agencies plea for funds or legislation. In recent years, other citizens have shown up to get 3 minutes of public input time before the delegation to make a pitch about an issue, or support another speaker. Here is an earlier Delegation forum on Jan 4, 2013 chaired by Alan Hays. I will video the meeting and upload the video to the... Read more →

Property Rights Reduced by Lake County, FL Centrally Planned Land Development

Lake County, Florida's Board of Commissioners is considering a New Urbanism "South Lake Sector Plan" development where government planners will damage property rights and decide which land owners get increased value for development rights versus losing property owners who will be locked into Agricultural or Environmentalist demanded Conservation areas of much lower value for the future. Read more →

Florida Septic Tank Owners Under Liberal Con Artist Assault Again - You must ACT to keep yours

Environmentalists are trying to assault septic tank owners with more junk science. They have filed a questionable Florida Senate Bill SB 1576 which needs to be stopped in its tracks. Once again, they don't provide facts to justify an assault on property rights or septic tanks. All their arguments are emotional. Read more →

Tavares Should Reject Questionable "Earth Hour" for March 23

Tavares, FL - Monday, March 4, 2013 Note: The Tavares City Council meeting is this WEDNESDAY, March 6 at 4pm. We posted the wrong day in an earlier version. Note: A version of this article was also published on www.WatchDogWire.com HERE. EARTH HOUR Exposed: An open letter to the Tavares City Council regarding Wednesday, March 6th''s agenda item Tab 5. Officals of other Lake County Cities and agencies should also read this. The City of Tavares will have a City Council meeting Wednesday, March 6th, at 4pm where an agenda item (Tab 5) will ask the City Council to approve an "Earth Hour" participation on March 23. It sounds fairly benign, asking them to turn off city lights in and around government buildings for one hour (about 8:30 pm) on Saturday, March 23rd. Additionally, I looked at the calendar, and on that day, the Antique & Classic Boat Festival is in full force in Tavares and turning off city lights might be disruptive. However, the request is based upon a letter from a member of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) that sponsores Earth Hour, an international environmentalist group which receives funds from member donations, corporate donations AND the US Federal... Read more →

Officials Attend 4 hour Lake County FL Eco-Tourism Summit on North Lake Apopka

Mount Dora, FL (Lake County) - Feb. 8th, 2013 Yesterday, the Lake County Board of Commissioners Chair Leslie Campione hosted a 4 hour "Regional Summit on Land Issues Impacting the North Shore of Lake Apopka". The main reason was to disclose plans for developing the North Shore of Lake Apopka (partially in Lake county plus Orange County) into an "eco-tourism" attraction, AND to discuss issues affecting those plans caused by a planned expansion of a nearby "Orlando North Airport", located on Long & Scott property. The Lake County and Orange County governments have been discussing these issues for months due to the proposed airport expansion which would cross County borders and affect local bird populations due to "bird strike" situations. Below is the two part agenda. View this photo - Agenda cover View this photo - Agenda with speaker names and topics Here is the press release: http://www.lakecountyfl.gov/media/news_releases/news_release.aspx?id=2047 You can see our three part VIDEO of the event at our Youtube "FiscalRangersFlorida" . The first video is here: http://youtu.be/9snmO6VVFv0 (Note: Part 2 & 3 are in process of downloading - probably not active until tomorrow - Sunday). See Orlando Sentinel article by Steve Hudak here: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/orange/os-lake-apopka-north-shore-summit-20130208,0,5073878.story See the Daily Commercial... Read more →

Bravo to Citizen Fighting City Hall

This is an example of a Sebring, FL citizen fighting to stop a local city government blunder. We hope she prevails. http://www.newssun.com/Opinion/edt-011313 vj From NewsSun.com Admiration for a citizen standing up to power Some of you may be tired of reading News-Sun stories about Gingerlee Mitchelllindo's fight with the city of Sebring. She is trying to save her retention wall. We, on the other hand, not only think our coverage is warranted, we think the community should be paying attention, even getting involved. To briefly recap: Mitchelllindo's property, a small single house, is opposite the Sebring Middle School at 503 Center Ave. In 2009, with the construction of Sebring Parkway Part II, Center Avenue was reconfigured and widened for a safer entrance into the middle school and to feed into the Parkway. Properties along the affected areas were surveyed. As a result of the survey, the city judged Mitchelllindo's retaining wall encroached on the city's right-of-way by about a foot. However, when succeeding surveys were done, none of the results were exactly the same. Mitchelllindo insists when she built the wall in 1996, she stayed within the line set by the surveyor, who happened to be Buddy Whitlock. Whitlock went... Read more →

Stupid Government Mistakes: Polk County overcharges residents for garbage pickups by $1.46-million

Jan 14, 2013 - Tavares, FL Apparently, starting seven years ago, Polk County, FL staff used an incorrect method that resulted in providing incorrect, sometimes vacant addresses for garbage pickup to the local waste services firm they had on contract. This blunder went on for seven years, and the County overcharged residents $1.46-million over the 7 years, and then paid the funds to the waste services firm. Now the County is trying to get the waste provider to pay back the funds even though the County made the mistake.Teh Board is trying to blame the vendor for the issue, but that is like trying to get an employee to pay back excess paychecks due to a blunder by staff, especially 7 years later. My experience as an internal audit manager for 18 years is that both government and companies many times has low level staff make decisions without oversight or performance audits and these things go on for years. At Nissan Motor Corp., staff used the wrong formula to set reserves for auto warranties, and they over collected the reserves by $1-million. Once the mistake was found by internal audit, that $1-million went right to the "bottom line". Good luck...... Read more →

Our Take of Yesterday's Lake County Legislators' Delegation Forum & Video Posted

Leesburg, FL - Jan 5, 2012 Yesterday, Jan. 4th, Lake County's three Florida Representatives ( Larry Metz, Bryan Nelson & Marlene O'Toole) and two Senators (Alan Hays & Dorothy Hukill) held their annual "Lake County Legislators' Delegation" meeting to listen to "pitches" from over 20 people from different government and other agencies asking for funds, legislation changes or other Florida State Support for their issues. The publicity for the meeting was so bad that hardly any members of the public attended. Details on meeting locations were confused with three different sites being described by different people. Agendas were stacked at the side and there was no table to greet attendees or get their names to send out follow up documents. I only found out about the meeting in the morning and had to cancel a dental appointment to attend. Hardly any members of the public or press attended. The only member of the press there was from Lake Sentinel. The picture shows you what I mean - this was halfway through the meeting after first speakers all left. If taxpayers and conservative groups don't attend these types of meetings and make their positions known, don't cry when nothing is done.... Read more →

Orlando CFO Screws Up and Awards 8.7-million Contract WITHOUT Competitive Bidding

Tavares, lake County, FL - Thursday, Dec. 20,2012 The City of Orlando CFO, Rebecca Sutton, signed a major software contract for $8.7-million without requiring any bids on the new software project. Then she flew with several other staff members to Las Vegas using $20,000 in City funds to announce the contract at the software developer's conference. All this without any bidding. The Orlando Sentinel provided many details HERE. (Note - READ the comments, which are more blunt than I am). I was a software developer for seven years, and before that I was an internal audit manager in large firms like Nissan, ARCO (the oil company) and the County of Los Angeles. A big red flag to an auditor is lack of competitive bidding, called sole sourcing, for large contracts. The Orlando CFO completely skipped that process because some sales people got to her and convinced her there was no need for competitive bidding. YOU NEVER DO THAT IF YOU ARE A PROFESSIONAL. You always go through the bidding for several reasons: - The competitors ask questions and flush out details or issues you did not consider. Picking just one vendor allows them to snow you with only favorable features... Read more →

FiscalRangers Watchdog to Host Sept. 6th Public Meeting to Explain Coming LOCAL Lake County Property Tax Rate Hikes up to 72% & Understanding TRIM Notices

Tavares, FL - Sept. 2, 2012 - News and local government issues for Lake County, FL by Vance Jochim Updates Sept 4: Added section 10 to "homework" section that includes links to FL Dept of Revenue guides that most taxpayers never see. Added section 11 for email from Lake County Republican Party to Tax Authorities recommending NO increase in millage rates. This Thursday, Sept. 6, 6-8pm, FiscalRangers.com, a blog on local Lake County Florida Government Fiscal issues, will host a FREE property taxpayer public meeting at the Tavares Civic Center, 100 E. Caroline St., Tavares, FL to explain how and why your property taxes or rates are going up, and tips if you want to appeal your property valuations, lost exemptions, etc. You should have recently received your TRIM notice showing new valuations, changes in exemptions, proposed changes in millage rates, etc. Have you heard that many local Lake County tax "authorities" like cities, Lake County and various special districts are RAISING the millage rate used to calculate your property taxes? Even though your property tax valuation may be dropping, those authorities want to tax you as much or more as last year, so they are increasing your property tax... Read more →

Are Lake County Commissioners Harming Property Values by Ignoring Pleas to Remove Sustainable Development Restrictions?

Tavares, FL - August 16, 2012 All Lake County Property Owners should read this. This week was eventful in Lake County because of the Florida primary elections, which we covered earlier. However, it was also eventful for outing the sustainable development movement and the UN Agenda 21 implemented by the American Planner's Association (APA) in many LOCAL government regulations, including Lake County. Readers know we have written a white paper on Agenda 21 located at www.tinyurl.com/HaltAgenda21 . It includes many links to explanatory online videos, articles and the Republican National Committee (RNC) resolution "exposing" Agenda 21 and its affects on property and other rights. This week two property rights events happened at the Tuesday meeting of the Lake County Board of Commissioners, and then three events happened at last night's meeting of the North Lake County Tea Party to support the idea that Agenda 21 & "sustainable development" initiatives may be banned in Florida to protect property rights, like they did in Alabama. At the bottom of this article are some very specific suggestions for property owners. A. What happened at the Tuesday Lake County Board Meeting? 1. "Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP)" - The Lake County Board on Tuesday ignored... Read more →

Lake County Mobile Home Owners Losing Out on $3-million State Funded Retrofit Program to Reduce Hurricane Damage

Tavares, FL - Dec. 9, 2011 - Lake County may be losing out on a State funded program to retrofit tie downs for older mobile homes to reduce damage from hurricanes. Newer mobile homes have much stricter tie down requirements, and the retrofit is to upgrade older homes. Apparently, there is a program funded by the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe fund for about $3-million, and Lake County residents never get a chance to make use of the funds. Their "contacts" page is HERE. It pays up to about $1600 for contractors to refit older mobile homes with more tie-downs and "stabilizer" bars to reduce the possibility of the home shifting during high hurricane winds. Well, we WROTE an article on just that problem in Lake County after the tornadoes two years ago, and it is HERE. I had asked the County building inspector at one damaged mobile home park if they had any inspection standards for older homes to recommend improved tie down methods used in more recent mobile homes. She said they did not. NOW, the St. Petersburg Times has written an expose HERE on the secretive program (2020 update - this link no longer works) and exposed that the... Read more →

Updated Jan 15th: Lake Dora water flow from Lake Apopka shut off by CAT People at St. Johns River Water Management District

Updated Jan. 15, 2012 to include Fox Orlando interview link to their website. Updated Jan 9, 2012 after the meeting: The Lake County public hearing of the St. Johns River Water Management District meeting was held Jan. 5th to discuss water level management practices affecting Lake County lakes. Our update with conclusions and our recommendations are in section PS8 at the bottom of this document. (Several updates added to section PS8 with the latest on Jan 9th). Links to local media articles on this meeting also added to section PS8 thru 1/9. The ST. John's Board is having a Baord meeting in Palatka on Jan. 10th to decide their actions, and we will post a NEW article. Tavares, FL - Dec. 27, 2011 (Updated 4pm, Jan. 4th) - Water levels in Lake Dora & downstream lakes are dropping due to actions to completely shutoff water flow to them from Lake Apopka. Alien CAT People working at the St. Johns River Water Management District started shutting off water on Dec. 8th from Lake Apopka to Lake Dora and all Lake Countians should get organized. (True, except for the CAT reference (:-)) ) A public hearing for Lake Countians has been scheduled... Read more →

Lake Appraiser and Lake County Tax Collector Improve Transparency over Tax Authorities

Tavares, FL - Oct. 2, 2011 - FiscalRangers has achieved an improvement in transparency over tax authorities listed on property tax notices. We recently heard at a meeting of the North Lake County Hospital District that a taxpayer had a terrible time finding out what that Hospital tax on their property was about. She looked at her Tax Trim notice from the County Appraiser, Ed Havil, and the Tax Notice from County Tax Collector Bob McKee, and the only information for the Hospital District tax was the location and date of the final hearing to approve next year's taxes. No phone, no email, no address and no website was provided. Sure, she could call either office and they could provide a phone number, but no info on what the tax was or phone number listed on the notices or on the two agency websites (we thought). In contrast, if you look at THIS Wisconsin based website, it focuses on improved transparency over taxes there. And, if you visit THIS website from Milwaukee County, you find they have provided a "Milwaukee County Accountability Portal" which "allows the publci to view detaild data on SPENDING by Milwaukee County Government. And, look at... Read more →

FiscalRangers Call to Action: STOP Gov. Scott from Applying for SNEAKY, Liberal Federal Grant

Update 1pm Wed - added more details from Kathryn Sutherlin about the high amount used for administrative expenses and lying about budget numbers. Also, the email for Gov Scott doesn't work, and you have to wait a long time for Scott's office to answer the phone. Update 4pm: We added the official press release from the California Office of Early Learning which says it was SIGNED yesterday, but another source says it might not be a done deal. Keep tuned. Tavares, FL - Oct. 19, 2011 - Today, Wednesday, is the SURPRISE Deadline for Florida State government to apply for A STEALTH, SNEAKY Federal Grant that will over regulate one Florida industry, Child Care. I am asking you, based upon the request of a credible Lake County volunteer and the inforamtion below, to CALL Florida Governor Rick Scott TODAY to HALT any action for Florida to APPLY for the grant. Phone call and email details are below. The $100-million grant proposal ( Race to the Top - Early Learning Challenge ) from a Florida State agency, the Florida Office of Early Learning, is an application for a STEALTH grant using Nancy Pelosi type hidden agendas and lack of details to... Read more →

Excessive Salaries of North Lake Hospitals Compared to Orlando Expressway Authority

Tavares, FL - Oct. 8, 2011 - Actually, we aren't comparing the salaries, but discussing the relevancy of high salaries paid to managers running the two local Hospitals, Leesburg and Waterman, when taxpayers are asked to subsidize their non-profit PRIVATE corporations with $8-12-million of taxpayer funds. The North Lake County Hospital District extracts $8-12 million per year from local property owners for corporate welfare payments to the Hospitals, but there are no salary caps until the hospitals give up the 40 year subsidies. Only two hospitals(a third gets a small share) receive the hospital, while all other local clinics that provide similar services have no ability to apply for or receive payments, which is anti-competitive. Efforts are underway by Florida state Rep. Larry Metz to revamp the regulations for the District to define spending rules, remove the "entitlement" feature of only giving the money to two hospitals (which they claim is for indigent care, but no rules specify that) rather than all clinics providing such services, and also require the first ever referendum and voter approval on the tax for many taxpayers. We have advocated that the Board members of the District, and the Florida regulations establishing the District should... Read more →

108 Miles of Lake County Roads Belong to the Cities - so who pays for Maintenance?

Tavares, FL - June 25, 2011 - Yup - here is another stupid Lake County government Fiscal Fiasco. If you are a County resident, would you be mad if you found the County was using YOUR tax funds (mostly sales taxes, not property taxes) to repair and maintain ROADS within city limits, and city resident taxes are not being used for the repairs, even though they LIVE or WORK on the street? Are you in a city, paying city property taxes, and the nearby road and sidewalks are not repaired because the City tells you "that is up to the County". The CITY should be doing the repairs using your property taxes or sales tax revenues they get (or other sources). It seems that a number of cities keep growing by annexing neighborhoods and businesses. That means the CITY gets the property tax at CITY tax rates (usually higher than the County), and the properties go off the tax rolls of the County Government, reducing their revenues. That is normal. Note: I if you know someone who should read this, please forward this to them, and ask them to LIKE our "FiscalRangers" Facebook page. But, what came out at recent... Read more →

Florida House Re-districting Update & How to Provide Input

Updates: I will add links below to articles about redistricting as I find them (June 22): I received this from the North Lake TEA Party Patriots on the process to decide new Florida House district lines that will be used for the next 10 years in elections. I think it is important information, and gives you information on providing input regarding the formation of new House Districts for Florida. Right now, I don't know that much about what advice to give, but I do know if at all possible, Districts should be compact and follow city or county lines, rather than run across multiple districts making it hard for cities or counties to have an impact on local elected officials. Minorities will claim that compact districts may reduce their clout, while others want compact district lines that follow city or county lines to make representation easier for the new Representatives. HERE is an Orlando Sentinel article on the redistricting. HERE is a list of public meetings in central Florida, including one in Orlando (July 27) and one in the Villages (July 13). UPDATE June 22: HERE is an article on how a redistricting public meeting went in Florida's panhandle area... Read more →

Congressman John Mica's Lake County Transportation Summit a Bust

Tuesday afternoon, Congressman John Mica, supporter of the Sunrail, gave one day notice to about two dozen local County officials and government staff for a meeting to discuss transportation issues in Apopka at the offices of Florida Atlantic Railroad, the firm that runs trains up the old our of repair and unmaintained CSX railroad track from Orlando through Mount Dora, Tavares and to Eustis. Lake County cities and the County have already agreed to pitch in taxpayer money to fund an $18-million reconstruction of the rail line, to be called the Orange Blossom Express. The State kicks in $13-million, and local agencies along the rail line will kick in the rest, and all have apparently agreed except Apopka, which "still has questions". I expect this to be a done deal, so it is not contingent on Sunrail being approved. We issued an earlier FiscalRangers.com alert that the meeting could be a plan to lobby for Sunrail. But our speculation didn't cover what really happened. I went to the meeting, along with about 2-dozen officials and several other "real press". Mica's staff ignored me and didn't even ask me to sign the email list! When everyone introduced themselves, and I said... Read more →