Michael Blake on Campaign Finance: Lesson # 2
How to be a candidate happily riding down the slippery slope of questionable campaign contributions...
Michael Blake is using slimy tactics to accept several contributions from a person's or company's various other companies and reporting them separately to bypass the $500 cap limit per person or corporation. Yes, this scheme by Blake is lawful by Florida's warped standards, but by appearance it smells unethical.
1) Blake received five (5) checks for $500 each for a total of $2,500 from the various James Doran Companies (JDC) at 216 Seven Farms Drive in Charleston, South Carolina on 01/10/06 including one check from Adairsville Holdings LLC at 1051 Johnnie Dodds Boulevard in Mt. Pleasant South Carolina. A web search of the corporation rendered nothing, but a search on the Mt. Pleasant address produced this instead of the company Blake claimed on his campaign treasurer’s report:
James Doran Company (Winter Springs town center developer)
1051 Johnnie Dodds Boulevard, Suite H
Mount Pleasant, SC (South Carolina) 29464-3100
Note -- James Doran, incorporated in Georgia but listed as the registered agent in South Carolina, is the developer of the very private but very publicly tax funded Winter Springs Town Center. But now Doran is hiding behind its new name Tuskawilla Associates LLC for the town center parcel. Funny something else is hiding is the 2005 property and tax records for Capital Green LLC, Doran’s name last year that used to be on the public records, is now missing from the Seminole County Property Appraiser and the Tax Collector’s websites.
Is Blake helping to hide these public records or to let Doran operate tax free? No wonder the City Manager was touting how much the town center is brining in on its 2006 property taxes. When you go from zero to anything, of course, it is an improvement.
It is a true comfort to Winter Springs taxpayers that according to the public record Capital Green paid no property taxes in 2005 and that its land had absolutely no value. Of course the County could not give a plausible answer as to how it derived taxable value for the parcel last year when no sales data was posted on the property appraiser website last year. Hey if you don’t have a sale, you don’t get taxed. ( The Tax bill below is a VERY questionable document? )
2) Blake received these $2,0000 worth of contributions from the Hattaway's at 840 Waterway Place on 04/12/06:
3) Blake received two (2) checks (a total of $1,000) from Citizen's Bank of Oviedo President Richard H. Lee, and his Lee Ranch along with an in-kind contribution from Citizen's Bank ($235). FYI --- Lee Ranch is a huge cattle ranch in east Seminole County. Blake has also received many contributions from the Oviedo farm and citrus families who stand to make a financial killing in east Seminole County if Blake gets elected. Of course all those developers and attorneys that have contributed to Blake’s campaign would love to get their hands on those rural lands.
Just picture more Winter Springs’ Barclay Reserves (aka Belfaire, aka Battle Ridge development) littered all over eastern Seminole County. You know Blake voted on the morphed Battle Ridge/Belfaire/Barclay Reserve development. You notice how a name changes in Winter Springs when the project is associated with utter failure? Kind of like Commissioner Sally McGinnis changing the name of the Winter Springs Town Center to Winter Springs Downtown.
4) Blake received several monetary contributions that total over $2,000 from the various City of Winter Springs cronies of his like:
· Mayor John F. Bush
· Commissioners Robert S. Miller (one from him and two through his wife)
· Sally McGinnis --- (one or two through McGinnis' husband; it's hard to tell because it seems Blake booked the same contribution twice)
· Don Gilmore (one)
· Joanne Krebs (one)
· City attorney Garganese $1,000 dollars @ $500ea -- (one from him and one from his law firm)
· City manager McLemore $1,000 dollars @ $500ea (two checks, but they were returned…did they bounce?)
It is evident that the raises the commission gave themselves is going to such a worthy charity case. Those Winter Springs officials must want Blake elected so he can fulfill the city's expensive wish list because it never seems to have the money to do things itself. Also, helping the city to push new developments around, over, and under the county government and the Florida Department of Community Affairs is another good reason the city commission wants Blake at the county level.
5) Blake didn't get any contributions from County Commissioners Carlton Henley, Bob Dallari, Brenda Carey, and “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out” Randy Morris who are all endorsing him. Did Blake have to pay them for those endorsements?
Well -- with Blake’s shady campaign dealings there is bound to be one, two, three, four, five or more contributions that lead to his dirty political maneuvers.
So stayed tuned for Michael Blake on Campaign Finance: Lesson 3 a searing comprehensive study that links Blake to a land deal in Winter Springs that he not only help to orchestrate but to lead his choir of strange political bedfellows to sing along with him against better judgment.
( This publisher can think of one -- his buddy -- ex-commissioner Mcleod made a cool $2.4 million dollars while seated as a commissioner on HIS project. Blake backed him ALL the way! )
We can only promise one thing ......... that reading lesson will be pure satisfaction for readers on a very large scale!
(The below included document is a very questionable document ---- once again pulled by the City of Winter Springs ---- involving the "mis-use" of your tax dollars.)
