Lake County Fiscal Rangers

Action Alert regarding Lowered Water in Lake Dora, Lake Harris & Lake Eustis

Dec. 18 Update #2:  Commissioner Campione says she may move the discussion on the water issue UP to the front of the meeting if many people show up to discuss it.  That means, be there at 9am - and I assume she MAY allow public input.  vj  Sun. 10pm

Update Dec. 18 - Added info that we confirmed that this issue WILL be discussed at the Tuesday 9am meeting of the Lake County Commission, but it will probably be at the end of the meeting during the Commissioner "Reports" section, usually after 11am.  We still do not know if public input will be allowed - return here to find any updates Monday afternoon.

Dec. 16, 2011 - Send this to any other Lake County resident concerned about dropping water levels on local lakes like Lake Dora, Harris, Eustis. 

The Issue:  The St. John’s Water Authority is restricting the amount of water flowing from Lake Apopka to upstream lakes like Lake Dora, the Harris Chain, etc.

Lake Apopka is the source for most water in most of our other Harris Chain lakes.   It is considered, however, to be one of the most polluted lakes in Florida.

The St. John’s Water District has a Board of many people who are environmentalists and who do not live in Lake County.  It is NOT the same as the Lake County Water Authority, which has no authority over rivers and lakes.

I attend many local government agency meetings, but not this one, but I know local officials who are on this Board.

One cited reason they are restricting Lake Apopka’s outflow to the other lakes is that

Lauren Ritchie Skewers Leesburg Stealth Program to Blow $30-million Plus on Smart Meters

Tavares, FL - Nov 20, 2011

Leesburg City's attempts to blow through tax money on a smart meter boondoggle has been covered several times in Lauren Ritchie's columns.   It seems it is easy to be the City Commissioners to consider such programs - so be warned - it could happen to you:

Read Lauren's article from today's paper AND read all the comments first HERE.

Here is my comment posted on the website, including "bonus" comments not on the OS site:

Lauren is right. (egads...)!

Leesburg City Manager Jay Evans seems to be practicing methods to ramrod staff supported spending or policy programs through elected official boards much like socialists teach city planners to do for "green" programs really designed to remove property rights.  He seems to use the "Delphi" fake consensus technique of holding meetings with no formal votes and one sided facts to get "public support".  He hides or downplays or delays the true costs (or any costs), allows last minute contract modifications to increase benefits to the contractor, fails to go for public bids again after making significant changes in the contracts, provides one sided back door information to apparently lazy elected officials using emotional pleas.   Another commenter compared this debacle to the County incinerator system, but there was also the Motorola contract.  The Leesburg taxpayers will get screwed for years if they don't wake up.  The biggest problem in Lake County is failure to elect SMART officials who challenge staff on boondoggles like this.  And, then there are all the YouTube videos about smartmeter data uses to violate privacy & radiation hazards of the smart meters.  Lauren hasn't covered that, but radiation leakage is much higher from those meters than cell phones.  But, we all need a tumor to make life interesting.  Leesburg residents could be recognized from odd lumps in their heads.

And, here are some more of my comments since the Sentinel has a limit on words:

- Doesn't the method of pushing this smart meter system through the Leesburg City Commission seem just like how Obamacare was pushed through Congress?  I always say we don't have to just look at Federal government for spending boondoggles because the same situations occur every week someowhere in local Lake County government agencies (or Districts, or CRA's).   Just recently, the Lake County school district floated a $6-million LOAN to finance an energy upgrade system through a division of a utility company because the staff AND Board failed to budget adequately for maintenance over the last several years.  GEE, do you think government staff go to classes held by bond and municipal financing guys on how to push these spending programs past the voters and elected officials?  

- As Lauren says, the program can run $30-million or more (I don't have the details) but I am betting that NOWHERE does Jay Evans, or the Board, if they approve this, say they personally will make up losses if costs are exceeded.  That is one of the problems with government managers, they benefit from poor cost forecasts to justify programs (like SunRail) but RARELY are around when the real numbers come in.   Lake County almost needs a citizen's action committee to verify all budgets, cost justifications, program costs over $1-million, etc. and this is a good example.

- Smartmeters are a favorite of socialists, because they allow collection of data on your energy usage, then later government can use it to force you, or fine you if you use certain energy types during the day.  This is step one in socialism 101.   The real objective is not to "possibly" let YOU adjust energy usage to lower cost times, but to establish a system of central control to force you to follow socialist defined energy usage limits in the future. 

- Socialists don't care about how much of taxpayer funds are used for costly programs like this, since a side benefit is it gives more power to government, or large "public-private" partnerships like utilities that ARE subject to government control.   Socialists want you to depend on government and regulations rather than free will, and smart grids enable their future control of you energy usage. 

- Smartmeters send collected data to central servers using cell phone like devices that have more radiation emissions than cell phones.  Just do a google search on "Smart Meter radiation" and you will find many articles and videos on the issue.  Here is just ONE article.  So, just the issue of health effects is probably enough reason to kill the smart meter program.

- The cost of solar panels keep dropping.  Imagine if it soon becomes cheaper to finance a solar installation on your house and disconnect from the Leesburg power system.  Then I bet the CIT?Y is guaranteeing the bonds or future revenues to GE for the smart meter system, and will RAISE the rates to remaining users as others start disconnecting from the system.  Or, the unrecovered cost will be shifted to general property taxes like the water processing plant boondoggle in one of those South Lake County cities.  

- Please protect all of us from staff driven spending boondoggles by government agencies.

vj

 

FiscalRangers Event Alert: Florida Republican US Senate Candidate Craig Miller to "Work" for four hours in a Tavares, FL Tire Store on THIS Monday, Sept. 26 between 11am to 3pm

Tavares, FL – Sept. 24, 2012 - One of the four Republican candidates for Florida US Senator, Craig Miller, will be in Lake County, Florida THIS Monday, Sept. 26^th, to “work” for four hours at a local Tire Dealer in Tavares, FL.

Miller calls these events “Miller on Main Street” where he works in REAL jobs for four hours to get feedback from citizens.  The picture shows an earlier event when Miller worked in a local gunshop, A.W. Peterson Gun Shop in Mount Dora

Miller and the other Republican candidates are running to replace incumbent Democratic Florida US Senator Bill Nelson.

The public, press and local officials are invited to visit the shop to meet Miller, have him check their tires (or more…) and lobby for issues.

Miller’s campaign website is http://miller2012.com/  .

Here is his webpage on his “Miller on Main Street” workday program.

Miller has been visiting different businesses in Florida and this one in Tavares, Lake Tire & Auto, is owned by local radio personality and conservative political pundit Ralph Smith.  Smith has a radio program on WLBE AM 790 on conservative political issues and arranged the visit during this week’s Presidency 5 campain conference in Orlando.

Smith has a Facebook page HERE.   Here is what Lake Tire & Auto owner Ralph Smith posted on his Facebook page:

Monday between the hrs. of 11 AM and 3 PM, we are going to have GOP Senate candidate, Craig Miller performing manual labor at Lake Tire & Auto in Tavares. He will sweat, get dirty and get tired working for me(He'll be tempted to quit). But it will pale in comparison to the heavy lifting and getting his hands dirty he'll have to do in DC to clean up that cesspool, if elected. As my Gov. says, as of 11 AM Monday Craig, "Let's get to work"

The Google map location of Lake Tire in Tavares, FL is HERE.    The address is 812 W. Burleigh Blvd (HWY 441), Tavares, FL at the “Triangle” fountain area at the intersection of Highway 19 going south.

Everyone is invited.  Refreshments and Republican and conservative political hyperbole will be freely available.

 

 

Lake County Sheriff Discovers New "Prisoner Assisted" Method to Make up Budget Shortfalls

Tavares, FL - August 3, 2011 - The Lake County Sheriff's department made ABC news this week when some inmates in the Lake County Jail found a way to scam the phone system used for inmate phone calls.

One inmate discovered a way to earn refunds from incomplete phone calls and made enough money to pay his bond and leave jail with a check for $50+ .

Since the Sherrif, Gary Borders, is being asked to reduce spending to offset County budget shortfalls, maybe they should continue this contract and let the prisoners work on a new prison work detail to figure out another scam and split the earnings.   They already use prisoners for work details to cut grass..  clearly they should be using them for more intellectual earning projects.   Maybe online gambling?  Maybe working reverse Nigerian email and phone scams on Nigerians?  

Time for a brainstorming session...

http://abcnews.go.com/US/florida-inmates-scam-jail-phone-system-make-money/story?id=14179653#.TjityOmSPCc.facebook 

vj

Lake County Impact Fees - Should they be VARIABLE based on distance to infrastructure?

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In Lake County, our impact fees for new construction of houses and commercial buildings are fixed based upon sq ft and property type. 

The impact fee revenue is used to pay for added roads, schools, fire stations, and parks to handle the increased population. 

However, the impact fees are FIXED bacause there is no variable rate based upon distance from existing schools or defined population or commercial centers. Thus someone who develops a 400 unit housing development in a town near an existing school pays the same as someone who creates a new development in the boonies, 25 miles from existing schools or towns.  The distance means that the County must build new schools and roads to handle the distant population.  

It seems to me that environmentalists want town centric development, and land owners, development attorneys, certain lumber yard owners and builders want the ability to create developments anywhere in Lake County, and not pay ANY impact fees.  They want to shift the cost of new infrastructure to ALL taxpayers by using gas taxes or increased general property taxes (which subsidizes the profits of the developers, in my opinion).  See Scott Maxwell's column in the Orlando Sentinel HERE.

The current method of fixed impact fees does not reward a developer for creating new projects NEAR existing schools and towns, which would reduce the need to build roads, schools, parks, fire stations, etc. 

We need a method to establish variable impact fees based upon the REAL cost of creating distant developments vs those that are created near existing infrastructure.   That would create an incentive to reduce sprawl, and make environmentalists and growth control people happier while also allowing developers to build anywhere, but absorb more of the infrastructure cost by doing so.

Thus a developer of "in-fill" properties in existing population or commercial areas would pay much less than those who choose to build 20 miles away from existing infrastructure.

Do you readers know of any County in FL or elsewhere that uses variable impact fees based upon distance from existing infrastructure?

Update:  5:45 pm same day:  I found a website of a national group that researches impact fees all over the US - it is at www.ImpactFees.com .    They also just issued a 6-page report saying that reducing residential impact fees in FLORIDA had little impact, and the number of building permits still dropped.  The study did NOT include Lake County, and it used the analysis period of Jan. 2008 to July, 2009 which was before Lake County approved a waiver of transportation impact fees. The report includes some very interesting tables of results for several counties in Florida.  Read the report or download it from HERE. 

Leave comments.

vj

 

 

Economic Development Leaders in Lake County? Yes, we found one at Yesterday's Minneola Business Summit!

As I have watched various issues affect Lake County, it has become apparent that there is not much leadership among the elected Lake County officials regarding economic development.  We don't have a County Mayor, so the County drifts along like a lame duck while the County Board argues over zoning a horse riding stable or suing a water company, or they take junkets to Tallahassee to finalize a 350 page Comprehensive Plan containing regulations that will require hiring NINE new staffers (per the study given to the County Board early last year) and will expand County legal liability if the County does not have staff to act on some of the regulations.

But, at the city level we have staffers John Drury and Bill Neron sparkplugging Tavares with the support from their City Council, and carrying on a planning legacy from Nancy Clutts.

We have County Commissioner Jimmy Conner pushing for fiscal reform, but the County Commissioners do not even have weekly or monthly status reports on the critical issues of jobs and economic development.

We have School Board member Larry Metz analyzing impact tax increases and halting some planned tax increases (last year).

There is the small business incubator in Leesburg, pushed by a local staffer and supported by Leesburg City and UCF, etc.  

But, now someone has acted to push the economic development front for Lake County...and he is from Minneola...

On Thursday, I attended the "Boss Summit" or Business Summit  ( see http://www.thebosslink.com/ ) at the Minneola City Hall - I squeezed it in between setup for the Antique Boat Show in Tavares and an election launch event for a local election candidate.

About 100 or more people were there yesterday afternoon to see a large panel of players in economic development - mostly from the Disney Entrepreneurial Center (DEC) in Orlando, plus others.   They discussed financing sources, minority assistance programs, sources for help with business plans, marketing research, import/export services, etc. 

And, the featured speaker was from DEC, and he had the crowd listening to every word.   Except for the very poor audio and acoustics, the event was a success with several "booths" to provide info to budding entrepreneurs, and the panel discussion.

But, was the event started by our County Government leaders or Economic Development Director?

No.

It was started by a City Council member from Minneola, Victor Ortega, who made individual calls to DEC, the County EDC Director, and several others, to get them to hold this summit and get off the dime (my term, not his).   And, it only took 4 months, but the 4 hour event finally took place.  

Ortega, with support from James Spencer ( from UCF and site manager for the Leesburg Incubator) pushed the potential attendees to come, and they finally did, and the panel discussion was led by Shelly Weidenhamer, Director of Business Development for the Metro Orlando Economic Development Commission.   If you run a firm with 10-100 employees, you are classified as a "second stage" organization and you learned about new "Economic Gardening" programs designed to help such businesses ramp up growth.

One blatant inconsistency was that the meeting used a website provider with an office in Orlando, and main operations in Peru.  Thus, the website was apparently outsourced to Peru.  So much for 100% local content.

After the panel discussion I had a chance to talk to Spencer about establishing a "branch" of the Leesburg incubator in the Tavares or Eustis area, and we will chat about how to do that next week. 

The only area that could have been improved is more specific information on financing alternatives to bank lending.  Tom Popieski of BankFirst did a good job of explaining the lending environment from the perspective of Commercial Banks, but there was no talk of angel financing, and other alternatives like Private Placement Memorandums (PPM's).  For instance, most "SBA" loans are for real estate backed loans, and not working capital, and alternatives were not discussed.

But Ortega's vision resulted in this BOSS Summit ( or Business Owner's Success Summit) to rouse the entrepreneurs there.

Minneola? - Who knew? - the new center of entrepreneurship for Lake County!

Thanks Victor, for the leadership.  Someone needs to focus on the big economic picture for Lake County.

And, I can start the rumor here - there might be a job hunting club forming for the Triangle area, and also a technology entrepreneurs group, and maybe even an Angel financing group.  And no one from the economic leaderless County Government is involved.  Stay tuned.

vj

Here is the Daily Commercial article about the Boss Summit

(Warning:  The Daily Commercial website insists on launching LOUD audio for video commercials as soon as you open the webpage, so don't look at it at work - if you know the DC people. tell them about their dumb internet ad audio blasts, and they are not welcome.)

DailyCaller.com Ranks Lake County as 99th Most Conservative Area in the US

Thanks to Matt Gowan for finding this.

The online "political news" website has been listing the top 100 conservative areas in the US, and Lake County is listed as 99th.

Go here to find out more...

vj