Fiscal Rangers

DeSantis Election Crimes Commission vetting Amendment 4 signed petitions

Advocates for the FL ballot item Amendment 4 (abortion) got the ballot item certified earlier this year to be on the Nov. ballot. But now Gov. Ron DeSantis's Election Crimes group is asking several SOEs for copies of petitions signed by voters to support the Amendment 4 being on the ballot. Read more →

City of Leesburg, FL loses special magistrate hearing over residential development

The City of Leesburg, FL Commissioners lost a special magistrate's hearing regarding a developer litigation over Sunnyside Lake Landholding and planned construction of a 159-residence subdivision. Reading this article may give members an insight into how bad it can get when elected officials actually stand up to a developer proposal. Notice one of the contentious issues is the effect of the proposed development on local traffic where the traffic study said in my opinion "no problem here..." but City Commissioners believed the opposite. "Mayor Jimmy Burry also felt the roads were not adequate despite the traffic studies presented by the developer...". Residents need to hold Florida House & Senate members accountable until reform legislation is passed. Legislation is needed to require that affected cities or counties hire the Traffic Impact Study (TIS) engineers, not the developers. Here is a link to the Leesburg-news.com article. https://www.leesburg-news.com/2024/03/30/leesburg-commissioners-sidestep-costly-lawsuit-over-disputed-development/? And here is a link to the Sunnyside traffic impact study (TIS). Become familiar with them because in my opinion, they are biased toward the developers because the DEVELOPER, not the city, hires them for an "objective" study. Note: This TIS was published in Oct. 2019 or five years ago. A more current one may... Read more →

New Research Report on Florida's "Election Syndicate" of Democrat & China connected vendors

Pete Antonacci speaking recently about Florida election integrity before he died mysteriously. This devastating expose report below on Florida voting system loopholes is from researcher and data analyst Kris Jurski of The-Peoples-Audit.org who I have covered before and uploaded videos of him at Rumble.com/FiscalRangers. This information calls into question the "integrity" of Florida's voting system espoused by Gov. Ron DeSantis. Pictured is the recently deceased Director of the Florida Office of Election Crimes and Security, Pete Antonacci, who still has not been replaced. Is that "Office" all a shiny object to distract voters from the evidence shown below by Kris Jurski? WATCH the new Catching Fire News video linked below that features Kris Jurski and also READ the report below. Then use your anger to share this with others and call or email your Florida elected officials. Vance Jochim - FiscalRangers.com Published Oct. 14, 2022 ================================================= The webpage for this report is: https://www.fiscalrangers.com/2022/10/new-research-report-on-floridas-election-syndicate-of-democrat-china-connected-vendors.html Subject: Florida Election Syndicate With less than 30 days left before this crucial election, this video is a must watch: https://rumble.com/v1nsn8o-floridas-election-syndicate.html You would assume that Florida ballots, especially ready-to-mail ballots, were all done locally with the direct supervision of your local SOE, but you would be very... Read more →

Florida & Lake County, FL Election Fraud expert Kris Jurski on CatchingFireNews vlog.

IT Election fraud expert Kris Jurski explains on Catching Fire News how an analysis of Florida State and Lake County, FL election data shows possible thousands in unexplained or fake votes. Kris is a member of the Lake County, FL Election Integrity & Security Committee. Read more →

Florida 2020 voter registration database analysis shows questionable fluctuations. Did ERIC Cause it?

2020 Florida voter registration analysis and questionable fluctuations in different party registration volumes are shown in this 10-minute video of the Florida statewide voter registration database. Also, could there be a pattern of fake registrations? Speculation is that Florida's membership in "ERIC" may be the reason. Go to the Rumble channel to see the 10 minute video. Vance Jochim FiscalRangers.com Read more →

Updated! Tavares City Council denied a proposed SIXTY FOOT HIGH apartment building at HWY 19 & Lane Park Cutoff

The City of Tavares, FL is planning to approve (maybe) a (A) government warehouse development that would be removed from the Tavares property tax rolls, and (B) a humongous SIXTY FOOT HIGH 165 unit apartment complex that will generate almost 1000 road trips a day when the Highway 19 is at 98% of road "volume capacity". BOTH projects would MODIFY the existing zoning and density standards for the area along Highway 19. Read more →

Tell your Tavares, FL City Council members to allow citizen input at FIRST Readings of Planning & Zoning items

The City Council of Tavares, FL does not allow citizens to provide public input on "First Readings" of agenda items on Planning & Zoning or other issues, thus they cannot provide input until the next meeting and the FINAL "Second Reading". No other city in Lake County has this restriction, so citizens should demand that public input be accepted at First Readings. 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 →

Why Tavares, FL Taxpayers Don't get all the details on City Council decisions

The City of Tavares, Florida's City Council met yesterday, April 7, 2021. We describe how they are leaving important details related to Council decisions out of the online agenda packet, and they need to provide that online in the future. This is one of several Tavares practices that result in lower transparency than other Lake County, FL cities. Read more →

Masks Don't WORK in my opinion - This video explains a medical doctor's research

America's Frontline Doctors is composed of experienced medical doctors and researchers who provide FACTS about why masks are not safe and can be harmful. They oppose the Federal and Fauci recommendations to wear masks. Watch their video describing many sources of research which are eye-opening. You won't want to wear masks after watching this video. Read more →

Recall Florida is a new group focused on passing Florida legislation to allow Recalls of corrupt LOCAL City & County Officials

Florida statutes only allow citizens in 20 cities and counties to initiate recalls of corrupt local officials. A new group, RecallFlorida.com, is pushing 2021 Florida bills to correct that and allow citizens in ALL Florida cities and counties to recall corrupt local officials. 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 →

How Lake County, FL elected officials are flimflamming property taxpayers

A commentary in the Orlando Sentinel blasted most local City Councils and the County Board for trying to say they reduced property tax millage rates, but since they did not reduce them to the rollback rate, total actual taxes will go up significantly once those officials vote in September to NOT approve rollback rates. Confusing? Yes, so read my article and the linked commentary by Lauren Ritchie. Read more →

Liberty County, FL Supt. of Elections suspended by FL Gov. Ron DeSantis due to $40k fraud

The FL Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended an elected Supt. of Elections in tiny Liberty County, FL (near Tallahassee) for an alleged $40 in fraud (not voter or election fraud) AND Google search has suppressed finding any articles or news about it if you use their search engine. But, Bing found many recent articles. See my updates also. Read more →

What happens to local city and county cash flow if Florida cuts sales taxes like the UK just did to cope with the Wuhan Virus?

The UK just reduced their VAT, or national sales tax, to zero for awhile. What happens if Florida does the same, or the state government reduces tax revenues sent to local governments due to the Wuhan virus crisis? Will we go through layoffs and increased property taxes in Florida and Lake County? Read more →

Florida Government Misanagement Results in Excessive $7+million CEO income for taxpayer funded non-profit after contract abuse found

A small non-profit that received Florida taxpayer funds, the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV), refused to disclose spending documents for over a year. Then it was found they paid REALLY excessive income to the CEO, leading to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis initiating reforms and requiring reviews and oversights over ALL non-profits receiving Florida taxpayer funding. Read more →

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis needs to fix his convoluted Appointments Process

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis needs to clean up the obtuse appointments process he inherited. I really believe it was carried from a prior Democrat and is a deep state operation to only let insiders get information on openings, criteria and appointments. Did Charlie Crist holdovers design this clutterd system? See my video and recommendations to clean up the process. Read more →

Our Review of the Oct. 30, 2019 Tavares, FL Comprehensive Plan 2040 Workshop - lots of Agenda 21 stuff!

The latest workshop of the Tavares, FL Comprehensive Plan 2040 Committee was held on Oct. 30, 2019.  This overview is based upon my fiscal conservative, reduced taxation philosophy.  We provide a link to a video of the meeting, the agenda, relevant documents, the Powerpoint and our opinion on the bias in the meeting. Tavares area property owners beware. Read more →

Florida Standards (Common Core) Listening Tour skips Lake, Orange, Sumter, Polk & Marion County! WHY?

The Florida Dept. of Education is conducting a review of the Common Core based Florida Education Standards. They are having a listening tour in parts of Florida, but skipping Lake, Orange, Polk, Sumter & Marion Counties. Why? We provide links to information and the press release but have no answer why they are skipping those counties. But we include links where parents can go online and review the second draft of proposed new standards and submit comments. 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 →

Tavares, FL property owners should attend this budget workshop, or open your wallet for higher taxes

Tavares, FL residents need to read this about pending millage rate tax hikes at a City Council workshop on July 24, 2019 at 4pm. These issues of escalating taxes are affecting ALL city and county residents in Lake County and the rest of Florida. If you don't act now, then hold out your wallet for tax day. Read more →

More Lake County, FL Cities and government agencies need to provide Live or uploaded meeting videos!

Local cities and government agencies in Florida, including Lake County, FL, are reducing public transparency by removing most published documents, even for upcoming meeting agendas and staff packets, or annual financial reports or budgets. They are doing it to avoid nuisance lawsuits by roving bands of attorneys suing them for not spending thousands of taxpayer dollars to comply with Federal ADA laws related to "accessibility" for sight and hearing limited users. 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 →

The Process inherited by the new Florida Governor to process appointments is convoluted and non-transparent!

We created a watchdog blog video of the convoluted, confusing and non-transparent process used by the Florida Governor's Appointments office to find filled and vacant positions and apply for them. Watch it - it took us 44 minutes to explain the whole bureaucratic "we always have done it this way" process. 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 →

Transparency over local government meeting agendas, minutes, videos, etc. is being damaged by ADA compliance lawsuits

Local governments like cities are being sued because their websites are not completely designed to comply with ADA requirements that were written before the internet was created.  For instance, cities cannot post meeting videos if they don't incur the expense to provide captions that software for the blind or deaf can read and translate so they can understand it.  Thus the benefit of transparency for 97% of the populations are shut down for 3% who complain. Read more →

Wunderbar - the new Lake County, FL Court Clerk, Gary Cooney, has Appointed a new, QUALIFIED, Inspector General

Wunderbar - the newly elected Lake County, FL Court Clerk, Gary Cooney, has Appointed a new, QUALIFIED, Inspector General, Terri Freeman. 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 →

Lake Schools shorted $57-million since 2004 and Orlando Sentinel Editorial supports fixing it

Less affluent county school districts like the Lake County, FL School District receive less for schools than they pay in Florida collected education property taxes. This explains the problem and what to do about it. Read more →

Reputable Watchdog Group Report says "Florida Finances Slide Further into the Red" with a "C" Grade and shows Deceitful Practice of not funding $9-billion in Retiree Health Insurance Benefits.

The credible watchdog group Truth in Accounting just published their ratings of different state fiscal management ratings and Florida got a C. One deceitful practice used by Florida is to promise government employees big health insurance benefits, currently totaling over $9-billion, but NOT FUNDING it at all. Thus future taxpayers will inherit the bill for these unfunded benefits. Read more →

Florida Huckster State Practice #33 - $500-million South Florida Commuter Rail Contract Dispute Illustrates Poor Contracting Procedures?

Florida Huckster State Case #33 A Florida Commuter Rail Contract for $500+million was awarded using possible Crony Capitalism and Bid Manipulation politics There just seem to be weak standards for ethical contract selections procedures in Huckster Florida, especially in independent agencies in Florida. In this case, the deciding agency, the South Florida Regional Transit Authority (SFRTA - aka Tri-Rail) is also partially funded with Florida taxpayer funds. Suspicious methods were used to award a $500+million contract to a company whose bids were much higher than other competitive bidders who were deemed "ineligible". AND, back in 2011, SFRTA was tied up on a lawsuit over another $100-million contract dispute. Politico.com - Jan. 26, 2017 - " The winner of the South Florida Regional Transit Authority (SFRTA) contract operates Tri-Rail, a commuter rail service that runs on 70.9 miles of track between Jupiter and downtown Miami. The contract could be up a 10-year term." "The public authority that oversees a South Florida commuter rail service is set to award a more than $500 million contract to a company whose bid was tens of millions of dollars higher than its competitors, each of whom was deemed ineligible for the same technical flaw." "Officials... Read more →

15 Reasons why the Florida Legislature should reject Federally run refugee programs

The Florida House Children, Families and Seniors Sub-committee is holding a hearing on the refugee program on Jan. 26, 2017. I sent them the following list of reasons to reject Federally run refugee programs. Read more →

Voting Fraud Update: US Agency that certifies voting machines was hacked, Russian selling their logins

US Agency responsible for certifying voting machines is hacked and staff login credentials are offered for online sale by Russian hacker. Just another example of the loose systems used for US voting. 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 →

New Video: Republican Candidate Forum for FL Senate Dist. 12 in Lake, Sumter & Marion Counties

This is background and a link to a video of a Republican Candidate forum for Florida Senate District 12, held in Tavares, FL on August 3, 2016. The event was sponsored by the Lake County Republican Party, the North Lake Tea Party and the Lake Federated Republican Woman's Club. Video by Vance Jochim from the Lake County fiscal watchdog blog www.FiscalRangers.com . The candidate forums held by these groups are renowned for tough questions on conservative issues. Read more →

Conservative Jason Hoyt starts Florida PAC to fight solar industry corporate welfare & Florida Amendment 4

A new taxpayer advocate Florida PAC has been formed to fight corporate welfare, including efforts to get voters to vote NO on Florida Amendment 4 (2016) on the August 30 ballot which would give property tax exemptions benefitting just the solar industry. Read more →

Florida's Enterprise Florida Head bypasses procurement rules for favored vendor

Lax procurement rules were used to avoid competitive bidding for a speechwriter used by the head of Florida's economic development agency, Enterprise Florida. Read more →

Florida Division may have cooked work statistics to get better performance rankings

The Inspector General for the Florida Dept. of Business & Professional Regulation (DBPR) reported an audit of a department for cooking the books and submitting multiple work tickets for single work projects to inflate work statistics. The whisteblower also said inflating the numbers would increase rates paid by insured parties. We include the report excerpt and comment on the report and issue. Read more →

Education Journal investigation shows Florida State University waived admissions criteria for connected students

Following a University of Texas admissions scandal, the Chronicle of Higher Education published an investigation into admissions favoritism at 13 top public universities Sunday. They found Florida State Unversity to be dropping entrance admission criteria for connected students, and up to 40 times, connected leaders or alumni contacted the admissions office to "follow up" on specific admissions, unlike several universities which did not allow such actions. Read more →

Florida the Huckster State Update: Florida's Tourism Promotion Agency Refuses to Disclose payments to promoters

Florida has a tourism promotions agency, Visit Florida, funded with tax money that promotes tourism in Florida. They paid a rapper, Pitbull, to promote Florida tourism on his Twitter account, but will not disclose the payments. Here are links to an Orlando Sentinel article and editorial, and our comments. We consider this to be another example of Florida as a Huckster State, with low level oversight and transparency. Read more →