Winter  springs  currently  fighting  a  lawsuit  for  their  aggressive  annexation  procedures  and  practices.   City  Attorney's  fees  are  the  only  winner  in  this  fiasco  !

                                A lawsuit brought against the City of Winter Springs by Seminole County and the City of Oviedo, well kept from the City's agendas, is the questionable methods/practices of annexation.    This lawsuit is presently in the County Courts, which is a long and drawn out lawsuit.

             2/06/06 -- Longwood city manager John Drago has the City of Longwood endorsing his buddy McLemore's fight in the courts.    Evidently the citizens of Longwood are not aware of their city's desire to annex, and build high-rises to the sky in their city.    Why else would Drago do this other than to maybe help out his former employer Winter Springs CM McLemore?  

It's going to COST taxpayers in the long run.

                In the City of Winter Springs is an aggressive movement to annex all the property they can to bring in more revenue to the City coffers to cover the outlandish spending of the current Commission prompted and promoted by the City Manager.    Many times he has stated, from the dais, the need to increase the population of the City to support the merchants in the "Tiny Town" shopping center.

                The devious way this concept has crept into the City's taxing system has long been felt by the current residents of Winter Springs.    That involves the extremely high taxes, gradually passed by the Commission, on services within the City.    That would be the increases of taxes on your phone bill, electric bill, water bill, cable TV bill, cell phone bill, and the whopping increase this year on property taxes.

                All these increases are needed for the spending frenzies of the past seven years.    PFGG has repeatedly inform our readers not only of that spending, but the "First Place" distinction the City of Winter Springs holds ---

                With the taxing plans cleverly placed over the years, what the City Manager needs now is properties to pay those high taxes to cover his spending habits.    How do you get that?     You give developers tax breaks to build condos, low income apartments*, multi high density housing*, and acres of concrete on which to build up the commercial* base in the City.   For that to take place ---- YOU ANNEX !

                There's a story behind the "Low Income Apartments".   It started with a developer who wanted to place the development to the north of "Tiny Town".    The City Manager didn't want his "Tiny Town" marred with the development of low income housing.    So he came up with an alternate plan.     Commissioner McGinnis objected to that term.    She changed it to "affordable housing".    A rose by any other name ---- is still a rose!

                The City Manager came up with a plan to have this development placed on the $3,000,000.00  "golden white way" --- SR434, between the golf course and the Golf Villas apartments.    Not only that the City is kicking in $150,000 (cash from the general fund) to assist the developer in obtaining a tax break/write-off for the project.

                There is, however, some ploy tied to the $150,000 dollars.    When another project (Wagner's Curve) is approved, assuming in around three years that developer will pay back $250,000 to the City for their "professional" sports complex.    However, their was no written contract in the package to that effect.  That WAS known as the "Big Con Bond" known as the Parker Property referendum.    That was for practice fields, not organized sports.   The City just got a $1.9 million dollar grant for the sports complex, but the City has, once again, failed to tell the taxpayers how much that grant cost them.

( When the City receives such a grant they must match or exceed that amount. )

                As for the commercial developments, many concession have been, or are being made to increase commercial revenues.    For trees torn down the developer puts money in the charade called "The Tree Bank".    Gas lines, for lower operational costs to the commercial properties, are being run at the taxpayers expense.

                But the granddaddy of ALL is the Avery Park/Tuscawilla Office complexes.    Not only was $33,000.00 used to buy swamplands from the developer (they couldn't build on them), but the OVERHEAD  power lines were buried along the Tuscawilla Road development at the taxpayer expense.    That cost thousands of dollars, and is the only road with the power lines buried in front of the complexes to appease the developers. 

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