Fiscal Rangers

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 →

Laura Loomer, candidate for US House Florida Dist. 11 - Meet & Greet, July 25, 2022 in Clermont, FL

Candidate Laura Loomer, running against incumbent Daniel Webster for US Congress District 11 (mostly Lake County, FL) gave a rousing speech during her Meet & Greet event at Clermont's River Church on July 25, 2022. We missed the first 10 minutes, but there were many standing ovations for the points she focuses on, such as the incumbent's low voting attendance records, lack of support of Donald Trump, etc. In my opinion, one failure of Webster was to vote for billions to be sent to the Ukraine, which was bad enough, but then there was no oversight requirement, thus corruption will run rampant over all the equipment sent to the Ukraine. Vance Jochim [email protected] Read more →

Lake County, FL watchdog blog FiscalRangers.com launches initiative to outsource city functions to control costs

Most cities in Lake County, FL keep escalating wage, benefit and pension costs each year, Thus this Lake County, FL fiscal watchdog is launching an initiative to demand cities start outsourcing various functions to control escalating costs. The day of constantly passing through 10% benefit costs and wages twice the CPI need to stop because increasing house valuations, plus high millage rates may cause some residents to lose homes due to excessive property tax bills. Most cities don't use performance metrics like businesses to identify excess spending, and that is needed also. Read more →

REDUCE YOUR Lake County, FL Property Taxes by 50% by buying property in a low tax Lake County city

Buyers of residential, rental or commercial property in Lake County, FL can SAVE 50% on property taxes if they pick the right, low millage rate city in Lake County. This article describes the 2020 millage rates for all 14 cities plus the unincorporated Lake County areas so you can decide to buy in a LOW or HIGH property tax location. Read more →

Is Your Lake County City FAILING to provide VIDEOS of tax decision meetings, hiding their decisions?

City Councils in Lake County, FL are RAISING taxes while claiming credit for reducing tax RATES. The problem is property valuations are leaping, and multiply them by barely reduced millage tax rates equals TAX INCREASES. We discuss this manipulation of public information by elected officials. Read more →

Clermont, FL Taxpayers protest City Council decisions and rampant development at City Hall

Citizens showed up at the Clermont City Hall on July 22, 2020 to wave signs and discuss issues with those passing by. Led by local Clermont watchdog Dani Page, the group waved signs for two hours. This is a 30 minute segment. Read more →

Lake County, FL Cities are Raking in your Property Tax Cash Up to 18% OVER the Roll-Back rate and not Explaining How Much

September is when Lake County, FL cities discuss and approve new millage and budget figures after property tax valuation reports are out. Most cities except two of 14 in Lake County are increasing millage rates above the "roll-back" rate, thus increasing tax bills to property owners. Read more →

Clermont, FL City Council meetings and issues are now covered by a new Facebook page: "InsideClermont"

A new Facebook page, Inside Clermont, covers the hijinks of the Clermont, FL City Council, including live videos of Council meetings. It was created by Clermont resident Dani Page who won a legal challenge when the City Council approved a 700 student charter school behind her back fence. Read more →

Clermont, FL City Council votes to spend taxpayer funds to appeal a legal decision they lost.

The Clermont City Council lost a legal action to allow a charter school to build on a five acre lot with terrible traffic issues and neighbor complaints. Neither city staff or the Lake County School District wanted the project approved. Now the City attorney convinced the clearly vague Council to approve an expensive appeal of the legal decision. Neighbor opposition leader Dani Page made a video of that meeting which you can watch. The saga continues at taxpayer expense. Read more →

Bad Roads & Traffic Jams in Lake County? Perhaps we need a #FixOurDamnRoads Initiative like Colorado!

Fed up with bad roads or traffic jams in Lake County or your city while officials spend mega-millions on: - new buildings, - splash parks, - interest payments to pay for non-infrastructure projects, - bike trails, - brick roads, - huge benefit increases including massive retiree benefits, - employee raises costing more than the cost of living, - staff time on private projects like Wellness Way, - "lifestyle" projects, - spending on downtown city projects more than road repairs, - social welfare programs, - free buses that lose money on every trip, - police radios ($18-million), - bureaucratic "required" studies, - huge parks, - trails, - lawsuits, - events and - local charities? Instead of cutting back on those, the Lake County Board (and cities) plan to hike your fuel taxes (it is coming). Everything else, it seems, is a priority over roads. In Colorado, citizens have formed a tax rebellion movement called #FixOurDamnRoads" and collected over 150,000 signatures provided to the Secretary of State. They demand the roads be fixed WITHOUT ANY TAX INCREASES Perhaps we need such a #FixOurDamnRoads program for Lake County. If you see a Lake Country traffic jam or bad road problems, take a picture... Read more →

Yippee! Lake County, FL & Three Cities try to increase efficiency by measuring performance metrics

Florida is home to the largest consortium of cities and counties tracking performance benchmarks, called the Florida Benchmarking Consortium. The Lake County government, plus three cities, Mt. Dora, Tavares and Clermont joined FBC last year (2017). The first annual FBC report showing performance measures for more than 30 members was just published in Dec., 2017 for fiscal year 2015-16 and they are in it. We review the overall program here, and will cover specific results in a future article. Read more →

Observations About Nov. 7, 2017 City Council Elections in Lake County, FL

Five cities in Lake County, FL are having contested elections for City Council members today, election day, Nov. 7, 2017. We reviewed candidate's contribution and campaign filing documents to identify clear Democrats running for these "non-partisan" positions and made some observations. Read more →

FiscalRangers.com 2016 Lake County, FL Election Recommendations AND RESULTS for the August 30 Primary Ballot

This is the FiscalRangers.com Guide to Recommended Candidates for local Lake County, FL primary elections held on August 30, 2016. Does not include cities or special districts. Read more →

Lake Countians: Tonight, Tuesday and Thursday are the Public Hearings to collect your feedback on selecting a new Lake Schools Superintendent

The Lake County School District Board has initiated a process to use a headhunter to find candidates for a new School District Superintendent for 2017.   This article describes three public hearings the week of August 15 to collect public input on attributes needed for the new Superintendent. Read more →

Lake County, FL Results of South Lake County Hob Nob Straw Poll - Aug. 10, 2016

Below are the results of yesterday's August 10, 2016 straw poll of Lake County voters at the south Lake County Chamber of Commerce Hob Nob last night in Clermont. You have to click the three images to see them in a separate window. It seems at least 435 straw votes were cast, but not for all positions. These votes should NOT be considered accurate or related to the population at large because more experienced or better funded candidates will swamp the event with free tickets to vote for their supporters. We know one candidate got many local retirement community supporters to vote just for them. Another issue is that unlike the real upcoming August 30 primaries, this Hob Nob let all party members vote without identifying themselves, thus their votes could distort what the true results will be when only single party members can vote for partisan candidates in their party. For instance, in this HobNob, many Democrats could vote for OR AGAINST a Republican and skew the results which would not be possible in the primaries. Then, there are some positions that are partisan, such as the "State Committeeman" which are for the Republican Party, but other party members... Read more →

Lake County and Cities Ignore warnings about Federal HUD AFFH program, but Colorado City Doesn't

The Obama Administration's HUD rolled out new AFFH rules in 2015 that reduce local control of zoning and reduce property rights. The AFFH (Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing) rules are new conditions for cities and counties to get HUD and CDBG grants. By accepting the conditions, city and county officials are agreeing to expensive AFFH rules where Federal rules would override local zoning and planning decisions. A town in Colorado has just rejected renewal of the HUD CDBG grants due to the AFFH rules, and they explain why in a letter to HUD. Read all about it and more about AFFH dangers in this FiscalRangers.com blog report. 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 →

Red light cameras are losing profitability for cities and are being removed

Tavares, FL May 20,2015 Red light camera update: Some cameras are being removed by cities who installed them because the State of Florida set longer times for yellow lights, and they aren't catching enough violators to pay the contract costs. Read more here: http://www.wtsp.com/…/more-red-light-cameras-yank…/27552271/ The Tampa Bay paper had a long series on all the problems with red light cameras which resulted in Florida setting longer yellow light times. We don't know how this affects the two local cities with them, Clermont and Apopka. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Red Light Camera Update: Broward County Judges Throw Out 24,000 Red Light Tickets

March 17, 2015 Tavares, FL Red Light Update: Two Broward County Judges yesterday threw out 24,000 red light camera traffic citations due to them not being personally processed by the Police, which apparently is required. Maybe Clermont and Apopka will shut down their red light cameras also? I hearby classify Red Light Camera systems as a FiscalFiasco and a process that is infused with "waste, fraud & abuse" by government officials. That is why I will rarely ever drive through Apopka or Clermont. Those things are sneaky, dangerous and COSTLY. (I have never been caught by one) VJ Read more →

FL House Rep. Larry Metz Provides Update on FL 2014 Legislative Session

The 2014 Florida Legislative session is over, and Lake County's FL District 31 Rep. Larry Metz held a community update meeting in Clermont, FL to describe wins and losses in the recent legislation session. Links to his Powerpoint and Video are included. 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 →