Winter Springs fire-fee proposal angers residents glad to have ...

We paid a consultant to figure out that the Winter Springs government is broken? This fire fee is a farce. Great for Krebs that she saw the light, but too little, too late. Pssst, not so loud, someone will wake up Don Gilmore from his nap at the dias. And John Bush should be run from town on a rail.

McLemore as usual in his review by your writer once again is mealy mouthed about the situation. Winter Springs has a reputation of being the highest paid city management in all of Seminole County.

McLemore alone with his THREE tax paid retiremnt funds is a growing sore on the budget of the city, as is the mayor with all the giveaways for his, and to his so-called political friends. The city has made NO ATTEMPT to even consider slashing any of the excessive costs they incur because of just plain poor city management.

The fire department employess are still working on a 2002 contract that McLemore won't even discuss with them. He hates their union, and this is one of the reasons he wants to put the funding burden on the shoulders of the people so he can get away from dealing with the problem.

Sure Krebs and Brown were for the intial decease in the millage rate. They thought the city manager was being honest with the possiblity of slashing the budget in areas of excesssive spending -- of which there are MANY!

He lied, as the mayor lied in his letter of propaganda inserted in the city's newspaper the "Insider" paid by taxpayers. No one got paid to speaak up before the commission -- the mayor lied. They spend all kinds of money not needed just to quench their own egotistical thrists. Just look around the city at the waste -- and I mean waste in the name of egomainia ideas.

They all should be thrown out on the street with the rest of the working people in the city. That'd teach them a lesson. November will get rids of ywo of them -- Gilmore and Miller -- then the commission can send McLemore packing which they should have done years ago. But you see he had a "rigged" commission.

One commissioner even made a cool $2.4 million dollars while as a seated commissioner voting on their towncenter fiasco -- labeled by the Orlando Sentinel as a "Glorified Strip Mall" -- justly so! The property --- just across the street from that golden monument of ill advised planning and spending. Started 12 years ago --- and still not finished via the micro-managing of the current city manager.

He's HORRIBLE!

The City of Winter Springs didn't need to cut the taxes so far that couldn't fund the fire department. I don't think anyone in Winter Springs wanted that. If the City was not sure what the residents wanted they should have sent out a survey or put the options on a ballot. A small reduction in taxes would have been fine. A cut in wasteful spending would have been great. Maybe they need to look at turning the fire service over to Seminole County.

Laura Jones is from Winter Springs not Longwood. Laura Jones has lived in Winter Springs for over 23 years.

Casselberry is the next city that is about to rip off the taxpayer. Just look at how there mayor Bob Goff says why he is voting for this tax hike. Here is his website.

http://www.casselberrymayor.com/...

No new taxes. Cut the spending!!! And he wants re-elected. Good luck pal!

Well then, thanks to all you voters who voted for this tax change, thank you for alowing the governments in florida to bend us over their desks and **** us up the ***

After attending the last two city meetings one thing is very evident. Only two Commissioners listened to the residents that attended the meetings. There was no one who spoke at the meeting execept the Mayor, City Manager and three Commissioners that wanted this new fire assessment.
Why have public meetings with public participation if the commissioners are not going to listen. Some Commissioners seem to have thier own agenda.

This explains everything...
1)Per Sentinel, March 28, 2008: GSG's employees include Kevin Grace, former Seminole County manager.
2)Per Naples News, July 1, 2007: Government Services Group would offer any member of the association a 10 percent discount, and an additional
discount if four or more districts entered into a contract with the consultants, to draft special assessment documents,
Greenberg reported.
3)Camille Tharpe of GSG is hawking fire assessment districts all over Florida, not only do the get a big fee for consulting on the fee but get more when they administrate the district GSG put into place.
4)Commissioners Joann Krebs and Rick Brown...for the people....for the truth.
5)Commissioners Don Gilmore, Sally McGinnis, and Robert Miller...for Ron McLemore..puppets of power.

We've (our webite of PFGG) have been telling the people of Winter Springs for the past 11 years about this guy McLemore, and his previous ties -- due to his own lack of being able to manage a city --- thoise being his ties to his contacts out of south Florida --- "CONSULTANTS !

That's what Martin County FIRED him for -- his misuse of CONSULTANTS. That GSG group of money grabbers for the unscrupolous management for lacky city managers would have NEVER got a foothold in Central Florida if it hadn't been for their contacts in south Florida. Their logo even indicates the fact they are money hungrey. They're like vultures who follow incapable city management to bail them out of trouble with HIGH FEES to grab money from the taxpayers. I just looked at another nieghboring city's mayor's website -- he's up to McLemore's tricks.

The citizens owe this whole mess to themselves for voting these incompentant people to run their city. One only has to listen to the voice minutes of the city of Winter Springs when the lackies Miller & McGinnis sounded off. The people in the chamber laugh at their stupid remarks. Gilmore wasn't paying too much attention. This commissioner fell asleep, and the mayor (Bush) doesn't give a hoot -- he talks out of both sides of his mouth. This writer ought to know -- the man has lied many times to me alone. But he's (?) the PEOPLE'S choice? Not the good voters -- who didn't go to the polls.

One commissioner made a cool 2.4 million dollars off a project tied into their towncenter zoning -- called "Tiny Town" by the locals. Yep -- he tied in with a developer who went belly up in a condo venture -- RIGHT ACROSS from Tiny Town -- another McLemore micro-managed boondoogle.

Just look around the city of Winter Springs on all the empty condos/apartments for which owners will pay "fire taxes" for 100% occupancy. They're ALL attributed to the mis-management of city manager McLemore. That guy should've been fired ten years ago.

He's going to Europe in three weeks -- wanta' bet he doesn't look for another job. He has been looking every year since the first year of his employement in Winter Springs. In fact one year he used a city vehicle to travel to the Keys for an interview while his Jeep was being restored after his accident -- which he caused.

It's all on the -- www.peopleforgoodgovt.com ---site. Has been for years. Just put his name in the PFGG search engine, and wait for it to load. You'll get a long history of this city manager for the last 11 years.

PFGG's advise to the people of Winter Springs ---
PAY ATTENTION TO WHO YOU VOTE FOR IN AN ELECTION! You could get what Winter Springs has now -- garbage!

PFGG
Winter Springs, Florida

This is the same group that advised the City of Miami to adopt a fire fee - and which now is costing the City tens of millions owed in refund because the Florida Supreme Court found the fire fee to be a tax. And, someone ought to check into the ownership of the consultants - in the Miami example, one of the attorneys advocating engagement of his firm and the consultants also turned out to own 25% of the consulting firm doing the studies. So much for RFP's and other public procedures to ensure objectivity in making decisions. In the North Lauderdale decision, decided by the Supreme Court, the taxpayers believed their total tax obligations would decline when fire was moved from ad valorem to fee. Turned out they were charged thousands upon thousands more, and then the fees jumped in excess of their ad valorem taxes.