Fiscal Rangers

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 →

Our video interview with Keith Farner, re-election candidate for Lake County Water Authority (LCWA)

Keith Farner is running for re-election for the Board of the Lake County, FL Water Authority (LCWA). This is our overview and link to our interview video. Read more →

Florida's FWC announces plan to treat two Lake County, FL lakes for aquatic weed control

Florida state staff announced treatment for invasive water plants on Lake Yale and Little Lake Harris in Lake County, FL. We include their official announcement and treatment maps. Read more →

Concerned about Water Quality in Lake County, FL's 1200 named lakes? Read this.

Get some info on water quality of lakes in Lake County, FL. The Lake County Water Authority had a meeting and among other things discussed reasons for Algal blooms in Lake Minneola. 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 →

Conservative websites are being shut down by the big website provider, Wordpress.com

The big, international website provider, Wordpress.com, is censoring free speech and shutting down conservative websites without notice. Conservatives and businesses should beware of using Wordpress due to that practice. Read more →

Tavares, FL City Council April 3, 2019 Meeting & the Great Debate over Dumpster Enclosure Rules. See our video.

We reported on the April 3, 2019 meeting of the Tavares, FL City Council, plus a link to our video of the meeting. See the description for topics and links. Highlights were gripes about not allowing public input on upcoming development proposal hearings, update on the Tavares Performing Arts Center and the Great Dumpster Enclosure Debate. Read more →

Hydrilla Treatment Priorities for Lake Harris Chain of Lakes in Lake County, FL Discussed April 2, 2019

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission (FWC) held a public meeting on April 2, 2019, in Tavares, FL for citizens to "vote" on areas to receive priority treatment to control Hydrilla in the Harris Chain of Lakes in Lake County, FL. Citizens added colored dots to maps of the lakes to indicate priority treatment areas. This video includes the full meeting and we listed all the questions and answers during the Q&A session. Read more →

Today's Lake County, FL Board gets earful about St. John's River Water Management District plans to move 250,000 truckloads of sand.

Tavares, FL July 10, 2018 Today, I was at the Lake County Board meeting, and tab 39 was a big discussion about whether the St. John's River Water Management District would be allowed to start moving sand from a conservation area they own in Lake County resulting an estimated 330,000 truck trips over 5 years or 200-250 truckloads a day on two minor road used by residents. After many public comments by affected residents, the Board voted to decide on an ordinance at a future meeting that would NOT allow trucks over 10 tons to traverse either of the two rural roads which are not designed for such heavy traffic. Lots of cheering. This whole fiasco came up because the SJRWMD Board decided to authorize selling the sand to make $1.4-million while (according to residents) decimating wildlife, quiet, road safety, etc. I gave public input about the little known fact that the LJRWMD is a multi-county regional system where Board members are appointed by the Governor (not elected) and Lake County has NOT had a representative on their board since the 1970's. Two insiders told me it was because high political contributors got the positions and apparently no one in... 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 →

Fish Kill in boating canal behind my house in Tavares, FL

The recent cold weather caused a fish kill in this canal off Lake Dora, Tavares, FL Read more →

Liberal Hypocrisy over Sewer Line Spills vs Septic Tank Safety is Exposed

Liberals keep attempting more regulations on septic tanks, but they don't want to talk about the huge amount of water quality damage done by broke sewer lines and spills harming surface water. In this commentary, septic tank defender Andy Dubois comments about the damage from sewage spills which causes more harm to water supplies than septic tanks. Read more →

Video of Common Core Opponents Ripping into Lake County Legislators' Delegation Forum

Common Core Opponents Rip into Lake County, Florida's Legislators' Delegation Forum at a 3-hour meeting in Leesburg, FL on Dec. 2, 2014. A total of 35+ public input speakers presented different issues to the Legislators, with about 10 of them opposing Common Core in Florida. Read more →

Florida Septic Tank Bill SB-1576 Update - A Badly written bill approved by first committee

Tavares, FL March 21, 2014 Tallahassee Update - Springs Protection Bill SB-1576 Update regarding septic tanks Scroll down to see a report from Dan Peterson of the Coaliton for Property Rights on what happened yesterday to Florida Senate Bill SB-1576 that requires septic tanks be connected to sewer systems when near Category 1 Springs like Alexander Springs. You can see my earlier article on this here: http://tinyurl.com/nja88bd I am told the “science” used is junk science, and the first Committee, run by Senator Dean who filed the bill, approved it. So now it moves to the Agriculture Committee. So, contact Dan Peterson at [email protected] if you want updates on the bill. Also, I tried to READ the bill, and it is horrendously written and hard to understand. Senator Dean and others must have gone to the Nancy Pelosi school of writing Obamacare bills, because it seems intentionally to be poorly written so no one will know what is in it. I used to audit contracts and grants up to $600-million in size and most were written clearly, but why does the public and legislature accept such writing atrocities. When Ronald Reagan was President, I remember two of his cabinet members... 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 →