The Below Article will take you back to the year 2000 !

Fuzzy  Math,  Funny Money,  and  Let’s  make  a  deal !

        Why did the City of Winter Springs go to referendum asking the citizens to pass a bond issue to purchase a $3.5 million piece of land for recreational activity?   At first glance, citizens should be glad that Winter Springs now has the Parker property next to Central Winds Park to alleviate its dire need for recreational land.   However, upon closer inspection, the citizens should denounce City leaders for out-and-out poor vision and planning.   The bond is the culmination of the City officials' pillaging the taxpayers’ pantry right from under their noses.    For shame!

        The City has used fuzzy math and funny money to take money in and wash it out…all hidden from citizens' view.   How has this happened?   By playing the game --- "Let’s Make a Deal."   Who’s playing the game?   Our City leaders and carpet bagging developers.    Who are the losers in the game?    The people --- who don’t even get to play --- the Citizens of Winter Springs.   Why can’t citizens play the game?    Because they are not supposed to know the game is even being played!

        It’s documented that Winter Springs officials have cut deals with developers.    Instead of setting aside a certain amount of open or recreational land per housing unit in a development as required by law, the City accepts a fee per unit from a developer instead of setting aside the land.   What you have on one hand is a development with little or no open space or recreational land; and on the other hand, you have a City government taking in funds for its game of "Let’s Make a Deal".  

        On the surface, this may be a sweet deal for the City as a means of collecting money to purchase recreational land.   However, when you match what has been taken in to what actually has been paid out for viable "recreational land", you will soon see it’s all a scheme.   The City has not used this "fee-in-lieu" money to buy usable recreational land in the city.   No, it’s been used to continue luring developers into the City’s game of "Let’s Make a Deal".

        The magic number for a deal in the City of Winter Springs’ game book (don’t call it a journal, because it has nothing to do with legitimate accounting) has been $33,000.    Why the  $33,000 dollar figure?  

        In an August 11, 2000 letter written by Chuck Pula, Director of Parks and Recreation, he paints the picture of the City’s dire need for recreational land and suggests that the City set up a recreational impact fee to collect funds from developers instead of requiring the recreational space in the development.   In the letter, he recommends a standard fee to be set at $300 per lot.

        In this same letter, Mr. Pula states that the proposed 110-unit Belfaire subdivision (formerly known as Battle Ridge), would pay the City $33,000.   On August 25, 2000, a favorable response from Mr. Raymond Bradick, President of Sunbreeze, Inc., the developer of Belfaire, was received by Mr. Don LeBlanc a former City consultant.   The letter indicated that Sunbreeze, Inc. would pay $33,000 when the building permit was obtained instead of setting aside recreational land or open space in the Belfaire subdivision.

        Isn’t it puzzling how accommodating the City is with a developer of a land parcel that was annexed into the City under controversial circumstances?   It makes you wonder if these enticements were in place before the City annexed the land into Winter Springs.   You can bet the City of Oviedo and Seminole County would like to know the answer to that question.

        Now the question is: How would the $33,000 go in the City accounting books?    Go back to Summer 2001.   At a City commission meeting, the City Manager was discussing a land deal with a commercial developer for a strip of land between Oak Forest and the Town Center façade called Avery Park.    The deal included the City giving the developer a $33,000 tax credit for the piece of wetland that would be turned over to the City.    At last!    The $33,000 surfaces in the middle of a swamp --- oops --- wetland!  

        Well, there is plenty of water in that wetland to launder the $33,000 that the City just miraculously found to extend the tax credit.   And, it just so happens to be the same amount of money that was taken in from the Belfaire deal.   What a pretty picture we have!   How many more deals like these were made in the last few years and where has the money gone?   It certainly did not go to help pay for the Parker property.

        Why did the Citizens have to foot the bill for the $3.4 million Parker property?   Well, first off, the City shot itself in the foot when it rezoned the Parker property to the designation "Town Center" about four years ago.   This action escalated the land value so high that not even the City could buy the Parker property when it needed it.   Now, if you take that $300 per lot "recreational" impact fee mentioned in the Belfaire deal, then over 11,650 developer lots would need to be assessed to raise the funds to buy the Parker property.   Where does the City of Winter Springs have 11,650 lots to develop in the City limits?

( THE PARKER PROPERTY IS THE SAME PROPERTY THE CITY TRIED TO GET THE STATE OF FLORIDA TO BUY FOR THEM AT ------- $1.3 MILLION DOLLARS.   THE STATE REFUSED! )

        The City is using the recreational impact fee, not to collect money for purchasing land, but for cutting deals with landowners and developers to attract them into the City limits.   It all comes at the expense of the unknowing taxpayers of Winter Springs.   In addition, the actions of the Winter Springs' officials have been to the detriment of the City of Oviedo, which has been losing land parcels designated in its future land use plan. 

        Do you know how far east Winter Springs City limits have expanded?   The East boundary doesn’t stop at SR 434 and the Greeneway, but well Eastward…you would think you were in Oviedo.   Do you know how it came to be that land east of the Greeneway and north of 434 was annexed into the City limits?   Well, it probably took a lot of "green" promises to Oviedo landowners for the annexations to occur, but for sure, it took a few votes by the City Commission to make it reality.

        Next time you see your Commissioners or City Manager, ask them about the cost of the pending legal settlement with the City of Oviedo and Seminole County because of Winter Spring’s imperialistic practice to seize land parcels from Oviedo for annexation into Winter Springs City limits.   Before you ask your questions, be sure you know the definition of the word "*enclave", it is a word at the heart of this dispute and one that our City Commissioners love to toss around.   Too bad they don’t even know what the word means.   Of course, their lack of knowledge is costing taxpayers…again.

**Note; ( "enclave" - a territory surrounded or nearly surrounded by the territory of another country or municipality. )

        If you think City staff is somewhat to blame for making these deals, think again.   Directives and agendas come from the top-down, not vice versa.   Employees only do what they are told to do…or else.   The blame goes higher than the staff level and it points right to the City Commission and the Office of the City Manager.   Why didn’t City Commissioners and the City Manager plan for the explosive growth in this city?    Do they not have a 5-, 10-, or 20-year comprehensive plan somewhere?   Why did it take a citizen's initiative to demand that a viable piece of land be purchased for recreation?  

        City Commissioners and the City Manager have been so narrowly focused on their grand vision for the non-existent Town Center, that they have mortgaged the City to the hilt.   They will make whatever deals are necessary to get the Town Center off paper and into reality, thereby securing a legacy for themselves.    Even the City Manager's contract is based upon the completion of this project -- (it's in the City Manager's negotiating meeting tapes).

        City officials are spending taxpayer money like spoiled, rich children.   How serious do City officials take the City’s finances when two of the five Commissioners did not even show up to vote on the 2002 budget?   Even the City Manager was absent for that meeting.

        Citizens are becoming increasingly aware of the City’s fiscal mismanagement.   Any citizen who has seen their 2001 tax bills will quickly notice the 6.5% millage rate increase for City taxes from the year before.   What is more disturbing about the increase is how rapidly it rose.   The current 2001 millage rate of 3.7708 is close to what the millage rate was in 1994.    What is so bad about that?   Over the course of six years, the City lowered the millage rate yearly to its lowest level of 3.5400 mills per thousand dollars of assessed valuation in 2000.

        Why does it take six years to lower the millage rate by 6.5% and only one year to raise it 6.5%?   Desperate times require desperate measures.   It takes money to play the game of "Let’s Make a Deal" with developers, especially those with interests in the Town Center.    Maybe if City officials knew what they were doing and did not play politics by lowering the millage rate and overspending at the same time, Winter Springs citizens would not have had to tax themselves more for the $3.4 million Parker property, plus pay a 6.5% tax increase, all in the same year.

        It’s time for the madness to stop and for City officials to own up to their failure in leading Winter Springs into the 21st Century on solid financial footing.   A good place to start is to remind City officials that they are elected to serve citizens’ interests, not developers’ interests.

        A good way to bring the madness to an end is to initiate an independent investigation of the City’s Community Development and Planning practices, and to demand an independent audit of the City’s financial records.    It is certainly long overdue.    It may be time for SOME people to go!

"We haven't raised taxes in 10 years"

(A Taped Quote by City Manager McLemore.)

to view letters referenced above click -  here !

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