Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Local Lake County Water Levels to Be Discussed tomorrow, May 31 in Leesburg

Updated:  To add longer letter from Diane Heitman about water level issues in the Superpond. vj

If you are concerned about the water levels in the "SuperPond" of Lake County, which are Lake Dora, Lake Harris, Lake Eustis, etc. then attend this 6pm Leesburg Meeting tomorrow night, May 31.   As you may know, Lake water levels have been dropping, partly because the St. John's River Water Management District turned off the water flow from Lake Apopka.  At the same time, until recently, dredging of Lake Beauclaire was also removing another 10 cubic feet per second (CFS) from the lakes.

Here is the info from Diane Heitman, who has been monitoring this - below the initial notice is an attachment for the meeting agenda, followed by a longer letter by Diane on the water issues in the Superpond.

vj

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Harris Chain lake level management public meeting May 31 in Leesburg

The St. Johns River Water Management District will hold a public meeting May 31 in Leesburg to discuss potential water level management options for the Harris Chain of Lakes.

The meeting will include an update on minimum flows and levels development, and will be an opportunity for the public to provide input.

The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. at the Paul P. Williams Fine Arts Center, 9501 U.S. Highway 441 in Leesburg.

The District's Governing Board will consider the proposed management options for the next year at a June 12 public meeting in Palatka.

Please pass on to all friends.

Diane Heitman

In favor of Waterfront Property Owners, Businesses and Municipalities who rely on our Superpond

Chain of Lakes for enjoyment, economy, employment and prosperity.

Feel free to call my cell:  352-343-8891

Below is the agenda

Download Agenda - Lake_Level_Mgmt_Public_Mtg_053112

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From Diane Heitman:

Please read, do you agree?

Here we are again, way below the desired lake level elevations.

Let's make it a goal to never have to apologize when the rains don't come; this is not about praying for rain; it's about planning for the lack of rain.

How can we improve reliability of our lake water levels? Do not let the water out unless conditions show that an impending flood maybe eminent. Base the new regulation schedule and minimum flows (cfs) on a dynamic (actual rain event) versus a static, academic, unsuccessful regulation schedule.

Nature gives natural fluctuation; let's preserve every drop of life giving water in our lakes.

History shows a 5 year drought cycle. We cannot manage the water levels based on a model; each year is different. Holding maximum water is critical for the economic future, navigation, access and quiet enjoyment of lakefront businesses, owners, events and municipalities of Lake County.

The Harris Chain of Lakes is designated by the Federal Government to be a navigable waterway. Low water levels are interfering with navigation.

The Dora Canal is too low. Business operators, the Sheriff boat and numerous individuals hit logs or don't have enough room for other boats to pass in the narrowed, now shallow canal, causing damage and/or the need to replace expensive propellers.

Challenges with lower lake levels and being unable to navigate our waterways to businesses, public docks & residences are causing serious issues with jobs and financial security to our friends here in Lake County.

Year round waterfront attractions and events generate multitudes of economic prosperity, sales taxes & benefits to all of us. These benefits are being jeopardized by lower lake levels.

Our boathouses are high & dry; either land locked and/or we are forced to remove the boats to storage elsewhere. Neighbors are mowing the grass 30' from their sea wall out into the lake without getting their feet wet; ain't good. Waterfront property owners are highly taxed; they expect and should have continuous access to the federally navigable waterways. This benefit is unavailable during low lake levels; property values decline; however, taxes don't reflect this loss.

We feel great empathy for our Northern friends that have bought here as seasonal waterfront property owners.

During their time away, their tax dollars continue to work for us here. Why would seasonal, lakefront property owners come here without access to their boating enjoyment? Many of their boats are now landlocked in their boathouses and cannot be used until water levels increase.

We locals are forced to apologize to our family, guests and tourists who may have planned up to a year in advance to come here and enjoy our now compromised lakefront resources.

Some of we, older Americans, are challenged physically to manipulate our boats with the lower lake levels. Luckily, Mt. Dora, Tavares and Eustis have provided floating docks; however, the local business man such as Boondoggles & Hurricanes can't count on us being able to step up, out and off the boat. Instead of quiet enjoyment of recreational boating; extreme manipulation is faced as undesired; hence, not worth it; hence, loss of business.

Consumers don't come back or cancel plans with low water experience.

Let's make it a goal to never have to apologize when the rains don't come; this is not about praying for rain; it's about planning for the lack of rain.

Thank you for your support of our restoration and water management with an emphasis of maintaining and storing water for the use during drought years.

Diane Heitman

In favor of Waterfront Property Owners, Businesses and Municipalities who rely on our Superpond, Chain of Lakes for enjoyment, economy, employment and prosperity.

Feel free to call my cell: 352-343-8891

 

 

 

vj

Broward County, FL Inspector General Issues First Report and blasts County Economic & Small Biz Development

The new Broward County Inspector General just issued a report blasting the total mis-management of a County run small business certification program designed to give County contracts a local preference. Only local government could create a $750,000 fiscal fiasco like this (or State or Federal Government.).

I can't stop - there is a basic management rule cited by Ronald Reagan - "Trust but verify", but these county managers trusted, but didn't verify the vendors' true eligibility for local government contracts.

Best quotes:

“The OIG determined that at least $750,000 in public funds, and in all probability a lot more has been misspent as a result of gross mismanagement by the OESBD,’’ Scott said Friday. “Our office is going to work with county government to make sure this doesn’t happen.’’

In one instance, the Inspector General found that a county vendor, Everytrade International Company, was awarded 37 county contracts worth nearly $750,000 since June 2007. At least 35 of those contracts required the vendor to be certified as a Small Business Enterprise, which gives the designated company exclusive access to certain county contracts and preference in the procurement process.

But according to the Inspector General, Everytrade International is actually a brokerage with negligible business space, no inventory, no warehouse and no full-time employees other than its owner, Jose de la Riva Aguero.

And more:

The Inspector General’s report also singled out Norman Taylor, director of the county’s OESBD for improperly certifying brokers to participate in the SBE program.

“The OESB has failed to develop suitable guidelines addressing certification requirements for applicants; failed to ensure that those guidelines which were established were fairly and consistently applied to all vendors; and ignored evidence that brokers were exploiting their SBE certifications,’’ the report states. “In addition, the OESBD’s documentation and record keeping practices have been inadequate, further hampering enforcement and oversight of the SBE certification process.’’

Read the details here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/16/2549235/broward-inspector-general-finds.html 

This kind of reminds me of the Lake County fiasco regarding house renovation grants when the "program manager" was left unsupervised and gave grants to relatives, out of county vendors, etc. 

The Broward County Administrator should also be held accountable for not making sure that proper management control processes were in place, and verified.  But the article doesn't mention any such sanctions. 

vj

 

 

 

Reduced Foreclosure Data for Florida and Lake County IS Misleading

Tavares, FL - July 29, 2011 - The press has been reporting reduced foreclosures for Florida and Lake County.  For instance, the article below from the local "Right Side of the Lake" blog talked about an improving economy, and cited the following:

• According to RealyTrac, one out of every 167 homes in Lake County is in some form of foreclosure procedure, which is still too high, but foreclosure activity is down 59 percent in the four county Orlando metro area from the previous six months.

You can read the entire article here:

http://lakecountygov.info/2011/07/21/lake-county%E2%80%99s-economy-may-be-turning/

The problem with using statistics or economic data, is that you have to understand how it is calculated.  For instance, some US economic data showing improvements have been reported to be modified and manipulated by the White House to distort what is really going on.

But in this case of Foreclosure statistics for Florida and the US, you need to know that due to former Attorney General Bill McCollum's investigations earlier last year, they found that foreclosure processing firms were LYING about conditions they approved in writing as support for foreclosures.  As a consequence, the main processors were accused of falsifiying records for banks and owners of foreclosed homes, and the foreclosure PROCESS in Florida ground to a halt as lawsuits were filed, banks were forbidden to process foreclosures, etc.

You can read about that issue HERE as quoted from the Wall St. Journal in Florida Trend:

"Foreclosure filings down across state, nation

Foreclosure activity has fallen throughout the country, slowed by paperwork problems rather than an improvement in the market. During the first six months of 2011, 84% of U.S. cities with populations of 200,000 or higher posted declines in new foreclosure activity, according to a study released by RealtyTrac. Florida has fallen off the leader board almost entirely for foreclosure filings. While Florida cities claimed nine of the top 20 spots for cities with the most foreclosures last year, the only city to make the top 20 so far this year is Cape Coral at No. 12. "Florida is the most visible example of the effect of procedural and paperwork delays on the foreclosure market," said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac."   (See full text below)

The result is that prospective foreclosure cases have been sitting in the pipeline and building up a big backlog.   But that doesn't show up in normal statistics reports, thus the media reports that foreclosures are down, when they really still are building up, but just not moving through the pipeline until lawsuits and procedures are resolved.

So, don't always believe data reported by the media if they don't understand or explain the underlying components used for the calculated statistics.   Thus, if your Realtor tells you to buy now because foreclosures are down, know the real situation...

vj

Here is the full text of the Wall St. Journal article from HERE:

• July 28, 2011, 2:01 PM ET

Foreclosure Filings Down Across the Country

By Wesley Lowery

Getty Images

Foreclosure activity has fallen throughout the country, slowed by paperwork problems rather than an improvement in the market.

During the first six months of 2011, 84% of U.S. cities with populations of 200,000 or higher posted declines in new foreclosure activity, according to a study released today by RealtyTrac, a real-estate research firm. Foreclosure activity slowed in 178 of the nation’s 211 metropolitan areas when compared with last year.

Of the country’s 20 largest metro areas, Seattle was the sole market to post an increase in foreclosure activity, with 1 in every 98 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing, up 10 percent from the first half of 2010. “Foreclosures have slowed down not because of a recovery of the market, but simply because of procedural delays,” said Rick Sharga, senior vice president at RealtyTrac.

Florida has fallen off the leader board almost entirely for foreclosure filings. While Florida cities claimed nine of the top 20 spots for cities with the most foreclosures last year, the only city to make the top 20 so far this year is Cape Coral at No. 12. “Florida is the most visible example of the effect of procedural and paperwork delays on the foreclosure market,” Mr. Sharga said. Las Vegas and Phoenix were number one and two on the list.

The foreclosure process has been under scrutiny since the fall when some banks temporarily suspended foreclosures to handle “robo-signing” allegations, in which employees were accused of approving legal documents without properly reviewing them.

As The Journal has reported, banks have dumped many law firms they felt were incapable of handling the large dockets of foreclosures, or were implicated in the robo-signing controversy. And finding new law firms to review foreclosure cases is time consuming, delaying the flow of many of these properties onto the market.

West Coast cities make up the bulk of the list of top metros for foreclosures, with California, Nevada and Arizona accounting for all but four of the 20 cities with the most foreclosures. (RealtyTrac’s report includes documents filed in all three phases of foreclosure: default, auction and real-estate owned.)

In addition to slower foreclosure rates, falling new- and existing-home prices keep some buyers from snagging discounted foreclosure properties. Without being able to get equity on their current homes, many are choosing to stay put.

Home prices remain down across the country, off 4.5% in May when compared with the year-earlier period, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city index. “Until pricing comes back, the move-up market is dead in the water,” Mr. Sharga said. “Which means fewer people will be purchasing foreclosed properties.”

Visit the WSJ website to see their "heat map" of foreclosures for the country.

vj

What Should Local Voters do When their Elected Officials Have no Initiative?

Tavares, FL - June 24, 2011 - I went to a meeting recently where about 20 concerned local residents (not the Tea Party) were gathered to discuss why their area was not improving economically.  Their businesses were slowly declining and nothing much was happening.   There was a lot of griping about the lack of action by the local elected officials and the manager of their local area (not the County).  

After lots of discussion, they came to the conclusion their elected officials were part of the problem by not pushing the manager to establish measurable economic development objectives and implement them.

It seems that one local high flying city does that, and their success is aggravating others without positive economic leadership.

As always, I threw in my suggestion that foreclosures were a big part of the problem.  Since I have not been able (yet) to get the Lake County County Commissioners to set up an action plan, I suggested this group add it to their list.  I think it got lost somewhere during the discussion about trees.

But, there were some heavy hitters from local bigger businesses, and the consensus resulted in the plan to do a survey and get feedback from local residents about their feelings on the local government "progress".  Then, to take that survey (assumed to be nagative)  to the local elected official's meeting and demand

US Federal Reserve Prints Money - Here is YouTube Video Explaining this Fiasco

This is a great, but depressing video cartoon that explains "Quantitative Easing" which is liberal speak for "printing money" which will cause inflation.

You may have read that the US Federal Reserve will "print" $600-million dollars in new money to buy bonds...which is a practice known for causing inflation.

 

This video explains this messy technique and the problems it causes...

Here is the URL on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k 

   

 

Announcing the Tavares Business Incubator for Lake County Entrepreneurs

Tavares, FL   August 16, 2010

Not long ago, I established a new business, Sunshine Medical Tourism, LLC.   I actually formed it in 2008 after six months of research, but shelved it due to the economy.

Anyway, I started it up two months ago, and I am in a new office at 921 West Main in Tavares, at the corner of HWY 19.   We are just down the street from the County Admin Building.

Separately, I had been following the UCF-run business incubator in Leesburg, and had talked to them and the City of Tavares about forming one in Tavares using the spare offices in the building I rent.   I even proposed we could be a branch office for the Leesburg Incubator, since their offices are full.    Incubators are office facilities with experienced business coaches for new, startup businesses.   The emphasis is on growth, then they move into their own offices in 18 months.  These are common in California.   UCF has established a number of them