Lake takes aim at millions for firehouses

Boondoggle

Finally a county that is looking to INCREASE pubic safety instead of DECREASING it. Hooray for Lake County! Now....how to get the other counties/cities in Florida to do the same thing?????

Finally wrote:

Finally a county that is looking to INCREASE pubic safety instead of DECREASING it. Hooray for Lake County! Now....how to get the other counties/cities in Florida to do the same thing?????

It is obvious you are suffering from rectum cranial inversion. They don't give a rat's butt about public safety. If they did they would not let Gary Kaiser pull off the $30 Mil radio scam without putting it out for bid. How's that working for them? Where are they going to get the money to rebuild the South Lake County Sheriff's sub-station they paid over $5 Mil for? Maybe they will take up a collection from all those inmates doing the free labor on it. Oh! maybe they will sell that great investment they have in the Prestige Concrete Plant property due to the stupidity and mismanagement of the know it alls. All they want is "mo money, yo money" to blow on their pet projects for their little cronie friends and contractors. Its all about the money. Obama send money now, we don't care what the project title is, just send the money.

People that live in the county can't expect to have the response times as the urban areas. People state they live in the country to get away from the city folks. Slower response by the Sheriff and Fire departments are to be expected than are found in the urban areas of the county.

Be careful Brain Dead - you are going to make Lauren mad at you.

I wonder just how many new Fire Stations could have been built and how many of the 15 Public Safety Department employees who were just fired jobs could have been saved if compeditive bidding practices had been used in the purchase of the new Public Safety Radio project?

How badly could that $20,000,000 lost is needed right now.

I hope our county leaders and county staff are learning something from this.

Be careful on any of these "stimulus" funds. It appears they come with a lot of gotchas!!!!

Clark wrote:

Be careful Brain Dead - you are going to make Lauren mad at you.
I wonder just how many new Fire Stations could have been built and how many of the 15 Public Safety Department employees who were just fired jobs could have been saved if compeditive bidding practices had been used in the purchase of the new Public Safety Radio project?
How badly could that $20,000,000 lost is needed right now.
I hope our county leaders and county staff are learning something from this.

All they are learning right now is that the rats are ratting each other out. It always amazes me how the biggest crooks rat out the little ones so they can get the best deals. Too bad the honest workers have to suffer for the greed of these
organizers. Hopefully some good will come of all this. Good honest people should not have to suffer this plight. The difference between the Governor of South Carolina and most of these local politicians is a simple distinction of the caught and the uncaught. If they know they don't deserve the public trust, they should all resign and save the public the embarrassment of their demise.

I live in a rural area. Just because we prefer the country as a place to live does not mean we should wait longer for our fires to be put out. When we first moved out here in 1995 we had a Volunteer Fire Dept, a Firehouse still remains now used as a community center. They dismantled our Fire Department, took the trucks, took the equipment , everything. WHY? County felt there was not a need. Now they are seeing they can not keep up with the emergencies out where we are by sending a department from so far away. We have alot of accidents due to winding country road , and carless driving, house fires, forest fires, etc. We have alot of elderly, retirees, Winter our Snowbirds migrate to our area, this is also when soace heater, fireplaces, etc. are cranked up. We need a Department back in our immediate area. Had they left the equipment, our community would have manned our own Fire Department.

Memaw - I sincerely hope that the county leadership recognises that Astatula could use better coverage, and correct past errors..

I hope you get a firehouse just as nice as the one in the Lake Gem area...(It's a real beauty compared to our old Butler buiding we have in Mount Plymouth)

I also HOPE they put out the purchase of the new firehouse, and the buying of the fire equipment to FAIR and OPEN bidding practices (not like the way they bought the new radio system). I will give them EXTRA points if they look around and IF they need more trucks... to see if they cannot find some good USED equipment to see if they can't save even MORE money.

Of course I have to ask the question... You just let 15 Public Safety Department employees go a month ago... Some with lots of experience and time with the county. If you have to build new stations and staff them - how will you afford the new people? Will you bring back the fired folks? Where WILL you get the money if we are having to build a brand new courthouse to go with the new multilevel parking garage and tax offices?

Commisioners - we are not the federal government. We cannot print money.

WARNING - mad voters approaching election time! Prepare to dive! Dive DIVE! DIVE!!

I am so funny sometimes!

This is a boondoggle to create more Firemen jobs. If the county is growing, and cities are expanding, the city fire depts should be handling the increase and the County fire dept should be reducing in size. The same for the Sherrif. If the elected officials wanted credibility, they would insist on a study that showed how unincorporated county land is SHRINKING, thus why build any more County facilities that only cater to shrinking area? Do an analysis of the savings if the County PAID some of the city fire depts to cover the nearby unincorporated areas.
vj
www.FiscalRangers.com

Clark wrote:

Memaw - I sincerely hope that the county leadership recognises that Astatula could use better coverage, and correct past errors..
I hope you get a firehouse just as nice as the one in the Lake Gem area...(It's a real beauty compared to our old Butler buiding we have in Mount Plymouth)
I also HOPE they put out the purchase of the new firehouse, and the buying of the fire equipment to FAIR and OPEN bidding practices (not like the way they bought the new radio system). I will give them EXTRA points if they look around and IF they need more trucks... to see if they cannot find some good USED equipment to see if they can't save even MORE money.
Of course I have to ask the question... You just let 15 Public Safety Department employees go a month ago... Some with lots of experience and time with the county. If you have to build new stations and staff them - how will you afford the new people? Will you bring back the fired folks? Where WILL you get the money if we are having to build a brand new courthouse to go with the new multilevel parking garage and tax offices?
Commisioners - we are not the federal government. We cannot print money.
WARNING - mad voters approaching election time! Prepare to dive! Dive DIVE! DIVE!!
I am so funny sometimes!

Curious-Did they purchase the new radio system using the State Contract rather than bidding ?

This grant money maybe only allocated for Fire & Safety or something simular and can only be used towards building and equipment. Maybe someone could find out more about the grant for us here bloging. I know with the school board a lot of allocations for positions were lost, but we are building a school. It is all about where and how the moneys are allocated. Use or Loose it?

Memaw wrote:

This grant money maybe only allocated for Fire & Safety or something simular and can only be used towards building and equipment. Maybe someone could find out more about the grant for us here bloging. It is all about where and how the moneys are allocated. Use or Loose it?

Memaw - what worries me about "grant" money is that this was the excuse I heard from one commisioner.... Not to worry about the expensive radio system... because we were getting "grant money" ....

Well for a $34,000,000 radio system... the only grant I heard of was from Congressman Cliff Stearns...(thank you sir) who awarded the Public Safety Deparment a $225,000(?) grant towards buying that system...

Not that great a deal considering the overall cost of the system.

As for how the system was bought... I do not remember if they piggy backed on an existing state contract... or what....
My complaint has been all along that the bidding was restricted to ONE favored bidder... excluding all other competent bidders in the process...

And again I say.... Lake County COULD have still chosen the bidder they really desired... But by allowing more than one bidder to participate.. the overall price could have been much much lower. Other counties DID this a saved a bundle (millions!). But of course this is water under the bridge now. It is bought and installed and undergoing testing as we speak. Hope it works good!

HurricaneCharlie

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1246231349866...



http://blogto2010.blogspot.com/

Clark wrote:

<quoted text>
Memaw - what worries me about "grant" money is that this was the excuse I heard from one commisioner.... Not to worry about the expensive radio system... because we were getting "grant money" ....
Well for a $34,000,000 radio system... the only grant I heard of was from Congressman Cliff Stearns...(thank you sir) who awarded the Public Safety Deparment a $225,000(?) grant towards buying that system...
Not that great a deal considering the overall cost of the system.
As for how the system was bought... I do not remember if they piggy backed on an existing state contract... or what....
My complaint has been all along that the bidding was restricted to ONE favored bidder... excluding all other competent bidders in the process...
And again I say.... Lake County COULD have still chosen the bidder they really desired... But by allowing more than one bidder to participate.. the overall price could have been much much lower. Other counties DID this a saved a bundle (millions!). But of course this is water under the bridge now. It is bought and installed and undergoing testing as we speak. Hope it works good!

If it was purchased using the state contract most counties will let a local vendor with the exact same equipment meet the price.I am surprised you don't have the answers to the purchase of the equipment if "millions were wasted."

Procurator wrote:

<quoted text>If it was purchased using the state contract most counties will let a local vendor with the exact same equipment meet the price.I am surprised you don't have the answers to the purchase of the equipment if "millions were wasted."

Hey Pro, This is Lake county. We invented political corruption. there was once a movie about a white politician by the name of I think Johnson. Some dude by the sam name took over ihis politican race sings included, He happened to be black. Funny thing about the movie, it started with a Lake county Florida tag. No state bid involvement. No bidding process period. lake county commissioners agreed to pay 34 million just for the radios. They put down 24 million in cash and borrowed 10 million (check 12/04/07 LCBCC online) Problem is this did not cover all the tower sites and, they had to wait until the TV changeover for the airwaves to become available. Brains and dollars do nto mix well in Lake Co. Probably millions went under the table as usual. Lake Co government screwing the taxpayers as they have for many decades. Its a family tradition. Except the families have changed a little bit.

Watch instead of a standard building plan the county will pay millions extra to make each and every fire station unique. Just so that our self declared "heros" can feel special while the sleep half of their tough two day per week job. Bend over taxpayers the government still does not have a clue.

Of course not it take an overpaid government worker to spray water on a fire.

Memaw wrote:

I live in a rural area. Just because we prefer the country as a place to live does not mean we should wait longer for our fires to be put out. When we first moved out here in 1995 we had a Volunteer Fire Dept, a Firehouse still remains now used as a community center. They dismantled our Fire Department, took the trucks, took the equipment , everything. WHY? County felt there was not a need. Now they are seeing they can not keep up with the emergencies out where we are by sending a department from so far away. We have alot of accidents due to winding country road , and carless driving, house fires, forest fires, etc. We have alot of elderly, retirees, Winter our Snowbirds migrate to our area, this is also when soace heater, fireplaces, etc. are cranked up. We need a Department back in our immediate area. Had they left the equipment, our community would have manned our own Fire Department.

your funny TAX PAYER.. the fire stations built today are made to withstand the storms and bad weather we have in lake county.. you can't expect a service to run out of a tin box like the stations that are up and running now.. im sure YOU would be the first person down town complaining that your local fire station was closed down due to inclimate weather..it sounds to me some one couldn't be a fireman so they decide to play down the fireman

A Taxpayer wrote:

Of course not it take an overpaid government worker to spray water on a fire.
<quoted text>

every city in lake county is on the verge of being bankrupt.. there is NO WAY they can handle the call load. they can't even run a call in their own city with out the help of the county. its just a matter of time before the county will have to provide fire services to the cities. by law when a city can no longer provide a service. THE COUNTY must pick up the slack

Vance Jochim wrote:

This is a boondoggle to create more Firemen jobs. If the county is growing, and cities are expanding, the city fire depts should be handling the increase and the County fire dept should be reducing in size. The same for the Sherrif. If the elected officials wanted credibility, they would insist on a study that showed how unincorporated county land is SHRINKING, thus why build any more County facilities that only cater to shrinking area? Do an analysis of the savings if the County PAID some of the city fire depts to cover the nearby unincorporated areas.
vj
www.FiscalRangers.com