Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Is Lake County School Board Candidate Plagiarizing Campaign Platform Ideas?

Tavares, FL - July 29, 2012

A candidate for Lake County School Board, Cheryl Thomas, appears to be using much of the same campaign platform wording as another former School Board candidate in Virgina, and gave it to the Orlando Sentinel for publishing.  Should a School Board candidate be apparently plagiarizing another website and providing that as original campaign platform content to the Orlando Sentinel?   Shouldn't we expect the candidate to be able to write their own original campaign platform information, and would we want someone on the School Board defining policy who plagiarizes ideas?  Is that fair in politics, but not school test taking, and what do you think?

Cheryl L. Thomas is running for Lake County FL School Board District 4 against incumbent Debbie Stivender and opponent Thuy Lowe.   The position is non-partisan, but she is a Democrat opposing the other two who are Republicans.

We sent her an email and left a phone message using the contact information on the Supt. of Elections website, but they were not returned by our deadline.

Thomas has a website here:  http://www.thomas4lakecountyschools.org/   

She also was recently interviewed by the Lake Sentinel staff of the Orlando Sentinel.   Under the heading "Platform" she submitted the following information to

Agenda 21 & Sustainable Development Update - San Francisco Regional Group Proposes Vehicle Miles Traveled TAX

Tavares, FL - Jul. 30, 2012

Agenda 21 & Sustainable Development Update:

Environmentalists (actually socialists acting as environmentalists) in the San Francisco Bay area have pushed through a stealth requirement without public hearings to implement a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) TAX by next year in the Bay area. 

http://www.halfwaytoconcord.com/mtc-sneaks-vehicle-miles-traveled-tax-one-bay-area-plan/

They have been aggressive in rolling out many restrictive land use procedures to push people into high density villages. Now they used subterfuge to

Indiana Democrats Charged with Multiple Felony Election Fraud Counts

This FoxNews.com item is from April, but it talks about how leaders in the Indiana Democratic Party intentionally setup a process to FORGE signatures on petition cards used to justify adding Barack Obama to the ballot for the Democratic primary in Indiana in 2008.

So, every time you hear a Democrat say there is no voter fraud and we don’t need Voter ID, and we don’t need to spend the time to verify registration documents, petitions or votes, send this to them… there was also collusion by Democrats on the St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office.  Many Democrats were involved in this.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/04/02/4-indiana-dems-charged-with-election-fraud-in-2008/#ixzz222Z9L657   

From FoxNews at the above link.  Please note that at the end of the article, FoxNews is asking readers to report voter or election fraud to voterfraud@foxnews.com .

4 Indiana Dems charged with election fraud in 2008 presidential race

Felony charges related to election fraud have touched the 2008 race for the highest office in the land.

Prosecutors in South Bend, Ind., filed charges Monday against four St. Joseph County Democratic officials and deputies as part of a multiple-felony case involving the alleged forging of Democratic presidential primary petitions in the 2008 election, which put then-candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Indiana ballot.

The officials are accused of taking part in a scheme to fake signatures and names on the primary petitions needed to run for president. Court papers say the plan was hatched by local Democratic Party officials inside the local party headquarters.

Among those charged is the former long-time chairman of the St. Joseph County Democratic Party, Butch Morgan, who allegedly ordered the forgeries. He was forced to resign when the allegations were first made public last October, even though his lawyer, Shaw Friedman, told Fox News at the time that Morgan did not do anything wrong.

The St. Joseph County Board of Voter Registration's Democratic board member, Pam Brunette, Board of Voter Registration worker Beverly Shelton and Democratic volunteer and former board worker Dustin Blythe also face charges.

According to affidavits, St. Joseph County Voter Registration Office worker Lucas Burkett told investigators that he was part of the plan that started in January 2008 "to forge signatures on presidential candidate petitions instead of collecting actual signatures from citizens."

The documents state that Burkett told investigators that “he was heavily involved in St. Joseph County political activities with the local Democratic party," and that "he had, in fact, personally forged several such signatures," and had attended meetings at the local Democratic party headquarters, where it was agreed to forge the petitions. Morgan, the County Democratic Chairman, allegedly "instructed Mr. Burkett, Pamela Brunette, Beverly Shelton, and Dustin Blythe to forge ballot petitions for presidential candidates," and that "all of them agreed to follow these instructions" by copying names and signatures from old election petitions.

According to affidavits, Burkett told investigators it was his job to "forge petitions for candidate Barack Obama," Shelton "was assigned to forge petitions for candidate Hillary Clinton" and Blythe "was assigned to forge petitions for candidate John Edwards." When Edwards dropped out of the race at the end of January 2008 and Burkett refused to continue the forgeries, Morgan allegedly ordered Blythe to then forge petitions for Barack Obama.

Indiana State Police investigators identified a total of 22 petitions that appeared to be faked, yet sailed through the Voter Registration Board as legitimate documents. The signature of the board's Republican supervisor, Linda Silcott, which is required for legal certification, appeared to be rubber stamped on the documents. She told investigators that she did not remember signing or authorizing her rubber stamp to be used.

Silcott also told investigators that she recognized the handwriting on the alleged forged Obama petitions as that of Blythe's.

The South Bend Tribune and independent political newsletter Howey Politics Indiana have reported that a handwriting analyst concluded last fall that Blythe's handwriting matched some of the alleged Obama fakes. When Fox News caught up to Blythe as he left the Voter Registration Board last November and asked him if he forged any signatures or faked any petitions, he repeatedly replied, "I don't have anything to say."

The case raises the possibility that the president's campaign and that of Clinton’s, could have been legally challenged in Indiana if the alleged forgeries were discovered during the race.

Under state law, presidential candidates need to qualify with 500 signatures from each of Indiana's nine congressional districts. Indiana elections officials say that in St. Joseph County, which is the 2nd Congressional District, the Obama campaign qualified with 534 signatures; Clinton's camp had 704.

But the signatures, which were certified by the elections board, were never challenged. If the number of legitimate signatures for Obama or Clinton fell below the legal requirement of 500, they could have been bounced from the state ballot. Reports have previously put the number of phony signatures for both candidates at about 150, but state investigators plucked names from the petitions at random and cited only 20 individual alleged forgeries as part of their case. They say their investigation of the petitions continues.

Multiple voters, including Indiana's former Democratic Gov. Joe Kernan, told Fox News that their names and signatures were phonies.

"That's not my signature," Charity Rorie told Fox News as she sat in her kitchen in Mishawaka, Ind.. The mother of four was stunned that her name and signature, and those of her husband, appeared on one of the Obama petitions. She said they "absolutely" were fakes and was troubled that personal details such as their address and birthdays were also included.

"It was shocking," she said. "Why did they do that, and where did they get it from?"

"I did not sign for Barack Obama," Democratic voter Robert Hunter told Fox News as he stared at the Obama petition that included his name and purported signature supporting the candidate. While he observed that the scrawl looked "very close" to his real one, it was not.

"I always put 'Junior' after my name, every time... there's no 'Junior' there," Hunter told us. "I don't like anybody using my name for anything other than myself."

"It's scary," Charity said. "A lot of people have already lost faith in politics and the realm of politics and that solidifies our worries and concerns."

As for Burkett, a 26-year-old lifelong Democrat, "he is the whistle-blower in this," his lawyer, Andrew B. Jones, told Fox News.

"Lucas really is the hero in this situation. He is someone who stood up for good government, and has cooperated with the state police and will continue to do so."

If you suspect voter or election fraud where you live, tell the Fox News Voter Fraud Unit: voterfraud@foxnews.com

Vance Jochim

Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Chief Fiscal Watchdog

Volunteers Searching for Ways to Improve Local Government Fiscal Management, Efficiency & Effectiveness

PO Box 1042

Tavares, FL 32778

Mobile:  352-638-3578

FiscalRangers@comcast.net

www.FiscalRangers.com   

TWITTER:  @FiscalRangers 

"FiscalRangers" page on Facebook

YouTube:  NEW 6/2012 - Videos of local political candidate forums and other meetings, like North Lake County Hospital District & Lake County Legislators' Delegation annual forums    -  visit the youtube channel "FiscalRangersFlorida" 

CLICK HERE to see recommended internet links related to Local Lake County government fiscal issues.

 

 

 

 

Lake County Republicans Approve Resolution for County to Eliminate Onerous Septic Tank Regulations

Tavares, FL - July 25, 2012

Last night, the Lake County FL Republican Executive Committee (REC) voted unanimously to approve a resolution to be presented to the Lake County Board of County Commissioners recommending they eliminate a regulation requiring frequent Septic Tank inspections in Lake County.

There was a law that required all Florida Septic Tank owners to have expensive inspections every five years and other restrictions, and it was reduced in coverage by the Florida government to only apply to counties that had "First Magnitude Springs" and Lake County has one single spring called Alexandria Springs in north County.    However, County governments are now allowed to OPT out of that regulation if they want, so this REC resolution is asking the Lake County Board to do so.

Thanks go to REC member Andy Dubois for doing the research and presenting the resolution.  No one in the REC was AGAINST the resolution, and no one spoke against it  since the benefits were obvious. Former Lake County Commissioner Catherine Hanson described the history of the regulations and how excessive they originally were.  (Note - The resolution was not a surprise - it was emailed to all members 2-3 weeks before the meeting, following REC rules for presenting resolutions.)

Basically, existing regulations require repairs for any non-working septic tank, and as they said "the need to repair them would be obvious" when the "effluent" or contents seeps out on the lawn or into the house plumbing.  So why have mandatory, costly inspections instead of only acting when obvious repairs are needed?    This is a "green" program that has run amok since

Lake County Board Initiates Process to Raise Property Tax Millage Rates up to an average of 8.2%

Tuesday, Jul. 24, 2012 - Tavares, FL

The Lake County Board of Commissioners met today, and voted 4 to 1 to initiate the process to RAISE property millage rates by up to an average 8.2%.  Jimmy Conner dissented.   Funds collected for the general fund will be generated by a millage rate increased by 7.41% while the millage rate for funds to payoff bond debts for a Public Lands Program approved in a referendum in 2008 by 70% of the voters was a whopping 72% increase (from .1101 mill to .1900 mills).  The Board is following state law in submitting ads and proposed maximum millage rates now, so you have to tell them what you think or they could approve the maximum millage rates discussed below.

Staff and the Board claim this tax hike is not a tax hike because property values are dropping this coming year by 5.9%, so they are increasing millage rates to generate just about the same dollar revenues as they received this year.

I don't know about you, but if the normal process of generating revenues would result in a drop in taxes of 5.9% using the prior millage rate, but instead, officials increase the millage tax rate to generate the same revenues as last year, even though property values DROPPED, that to me is a tax increase.

Read the memo I sent the Board this morning, and the attached two schedules to see

Richard Riker on the Mayhem Created by recent Board Meeting of the North Lake County Hospital District

Tuesday, July 17, 2012  -   Tavares, FL

Guest column from Richard Riker on the recent July 10th meeting of the Board of the North Lake County Hospital District.  I added the images.

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It was July 10th 2012, at 5:30 in the county commission chambers in what is referred to as the round court house in Taveres Fl. that the most recent meeting of the North Lake Hospital Special Taxing Board occurred.  As agreed in the previous meeting Commissioner Marilyn Bainter, the only member of the board who volunteered to help in any way, arranged for a representative of the WellFlorida Council to speak to the board in order to initiate a dialogue that could result in that group doing a similar study, as they did in '93, of the health needs of Lake County. 

The presentation was well worth listening to, but it seems the board chairman Ken Carpenter  thought it was well worth ignoring because he jumped right in where he left off at the last meeting. Like Chicken Little who ran around worrying that “the sky is falling” Commissioner Carpenter continued to run around, if only symbolically, worrying  “how do we find an auditor”.  He examined  this subject for the next hour and a half, making the total amount of time spent on this one issue in the neighborhood of  four hours. 

During the hour and a half of this excruciating examination of who and how the audit would be done Commissioner Carpenter offered what he called his ideas on the subject in the form of a written document which he read.  My polling the audience after the meeting found many were of the opinion he had not written it, he probably depended representatives of the hospitals to write it for him.  This was quite evident when he didn't even know what the acronyms in the statement stood for. 

When he called the meeting to order his first order of business was to state that no comments from the audience would be accepted.  This did not turn out to be the case for time and time again during the meeting he called on hospital administrators and employees in the audience to give their opinions.   If you did not represent the hospitals you were not allowed to speak. 

Here again we find this board representing the hospitals not the tax payers of Lake county.  Instead of implementing the legislation and requiring the hospitals to conform to it, the board is doing everything in its power to see to it that the hospitals get the lions share of our taxes by attempting to tailor the legislation to the hospitals requirements.

   The hospitals say they need our tax dollars even though each year they show large multi-million dollar profits on their 990 forms.   Their claim that they need our tax dollars is repudiated by this fact but what of the smaller clinics in the county.  The new  legislation governing the District opens the door for our tax dollars to be put to work financially helping the smaller clinics who are not part of multi-million dollar private corporation like the hospitals.

Further, if this present board were truly working for the betterment of the residents of Lake they would have jumped at an opportunity to engage with the WellFlorida Council  but maybe doing so isn't in the best interests of the hospitals.

Richard Riker

(Richard attends many local government Board meetings including the School District Board and the NLCHD).  He can be reached at ric545@power1.com  .

More on Lake County MOEDC Boondoggle - Channel 9 TV Orlando Interviews FiscalRangers

Tavares, FL   -  July 3, 2012

Vance Jochim

We recently published an article on the MOEDC (Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission) receiving payments of $288,000 or more each year from Lake County, but providing 1/3 the return on investment received by the other three counties funding MOEDC.  MOEDC claims Lake County received a payback of $1.38 per $1 spent with MOEDC, the same chart shows that the four county region received a payback of $4.37, much more than Lake County.    The article is HERE.

Yesterday, FiscalRangers was interviewed by Orlando Channel 9's Berndt Petersen about Lake County Commissioners paying around $280,000 or more to the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission while separately planning to RAISE taxes this coming year by RAISING property tax millage rates.  At some point, they need to cut spending more by dumping the $1.5-million subsidy for Lake Express, the $288,000 for the MOEDC and get the Sheriff to reduce his budget in line with other County operations which reduced theirs over 40% while he only cut his spending by about 10-12% in the last five years.  The Sheriff now gets 60% of every dollar in the County budget.  

Here is yesterday's Orlando TV 9 video report:   http://www.wftv.com/videos/news/lake-county-program-to-recruit-new-businesses/vccLb/  

The Contract with MOEDC is VERY Embarrassing, VAGUE, IMPRECISE, and impossible to audit.  The Lake County Legal Department, The Board of Commissioners, and County Manager should be embarrassed over how bad the contract is.  I was a corporate and government auditor for 18 years, and audited contracts up to $600-million in size, and this type of contract would never be accepted by corporations I worked for. 

The terms of the contract are so vague they cannot be audited even if MOEDC spent our money for trips to visit the set of the next BAYWATCH TV show.  Only government would do this with taxpayer funds...

As a bonus, we just received a copy of the FOUR year contract ( 2009-2013) between the Lake County Commissioners and MOEDC, which is attached here:

Download 2009-2013 MOEDC contract

Our Review of the Contract:

Article 1 - Services to be Performed

- The contract cites vague, general services where nothing is specific.  For instance, it says "promote the agency to the motion picture industry" but doesn't say how, or promise certain metrics for the funds received.   In other words, they could stand on a corner and wave a sign saying "Please film in Lake County" and would meet the contract terms.  That is ludicrous.  By the way, in our prior article, we included a Powerpoint given to the BCC by the MOEDC recently,  and it included a slide showing 434 film production days in the area, but they did not mention any film days for Lake County.

- The services section says MOEDC will serve as a contact point for realtors and others interested in economic development.  That is a duplicate of the Lake County DEPARTMENT of Economic Development which has three regional specialists and a new website and program for working with people or firms interested in moving or starting business operations in Lake County.

- "Services to be Performed" include vague terms like report, coordinate, promote, serve, provide, monitor, without any measurable or specific performance metrics.  Most contracts I have seen have specific deliverables, but Lake County doesn't specify any.  So, is the Lake County legal department to blame, the County Manager, or the Commissioners for accepting such wishy washy terms???  

- MOEDC promises to maintain an office and an Economic Development Director in Lake County, but where is the office?  About two years ago, MOEDC switched duties of their region Directors to be industry experts, thus we may not have received much direct focus since industry emphasis was apparently in Orlando, not Lake County.

Article II - Payments

- Lake County pays MOEDC $1 per capita, which is apparently more than at least one other county that negotiated lower fees.  Since we get the lowest "return", why isn't Lake County negotiating lower fees???

TERMS - Terms for each year start on Oct 1 to Sept 30 of the following year.  These terms match the fiscal year of the County.

Termination:  Either party can terminate the agreement with 30 days notice.

Master agreement:  This is apparently a boilerplate agreement used by Lake County as supplement to vendor contracts.  It provides for the ability for the Lake County "Comptroller" or designee to AUDIT the  MOEDC spending to determine compliance with the contract.  As a former government and corporate auditor, the terms are so vague in the main MOEDC contract that there is nothing to audit except the paragraph requiring them not to discriminate based on sex, etc.   This type of vague contract would have been rejected by any professional internal audit group if asked to pre-approve it.   Since there are no terms that tie performance measurements to payments, Lake County can't even audit how MOEDC spends the money to ensure the correct portion is actually spent to benefit Lake County.   The Lake County legal department should have NEVER approved such a vague contract.  It means that like the separate regional Workforce Development Commission, MOEDC could spend ALL our money on CAPES for kids that said "Move Your Business to Lake County" , and we could not object, since the contract is so vague.

Audits:  The above master agreement says Lake County has the right to audit the programs.  Has that ever been done?  I haven't seen it mentioned in four years.  How about a "value" or performance audit to determine if the promised jobs actually occurred and if they were at the salary level promised.

Annual MOEDC Action plan for 2009-2010  -  This was part of the above contract, and we have requested the more recent annual plans.   There is NO discussion explaining how any prior plan was met.   Normally, in REAL business, you always have the prior year's planned budget or metrics compared to ACTUAL measurable results, then compared to the new year's plan.  You also calculate the percent that each line item is out of the total for each column.  That way you can see how the new plan compares both to the prior year plan and actual numbers before approving it.  However, only in government would they drop all indication of RESULTS and not provide prior period plans & results.   Again, this plan uses many vague terms like "Maintain our investment in Search Engine Optimization" but no specifics on what that means or specific performance targets related to Lake County.  It does say they will "participate" in specific trade shows, but they do not describe the show attendance or results from prior year "participation" in trade shows.   Thus there is no incentive to actually get leads or set a target to get them.  Without a target lead count and conversion to actual visits, you can't tell if the trips are boondoggles or effective.  Also, there are no metrics to show prior results affecting Lake County vs the spending in other Counties in the plan.

Conclusion:

The Lake County commissioners need to cancel this vague contract and either use the money to pay down debt or reduce planned millage rate hikes, or give it to the internal Economic Development Dept. to expand their much more specific programs to benefit Lake County.  The Lake County legal department should be embarrassed about processing such a vague contract.

Until Lake County revises any MOEDC contracts to be more specific and measurable, I will consider any MOEDC efforts to be boondoggles.

 

Vance Jochim

FiscalRangers.com 

 PS:  If the link to the Channel 9 video doesn't work, you can find our copy of it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9mtbP-xFac&feature=youtu.be