If the City of Minneola were a private business, it would probably file bankruptcy; there is probably no other municipality in Lake County in worse financial shape. Mayor Pat Kelly is very concerned about the future health of his city, and he is very troubled that the Minneola City Council is poised to increase property taxes and add a fire assessment fee without any community input. Yes, no input from the community because Minneola’s citizens are not attending council meetings.
Minneola’s financial future was literally flushed down the toilet when in 2006 the city built a $20 million water treatment plant that can only serve about 10% of the city. The anticipated growth necessary to make the water treatment feasible never materialized, and in the current economic environment there is not much hope for relief anytime soon. Big spending former Mayor David Yeager put Minneola’s economic cart before the horse on the water treatment plant, pay raises, and other wild ideas, which have financially crippled the city.
Mayor Pat Kelly said, “Technically we’re broke,” and he points out if the $15 million long-term debt on the water treatment plant had not been reworked by the state’s Department of Environmental Protection in April the city would have been out of business.
Mayor Kelly notes the city was running a significant budget deficit under former Mayor David Yeager. After Kelly’s one year in office, the city had a balance budget and was able to put $83 in reserves. In his second year in office, Kelly hopes to put $700,000 in city reserves, but is quick to point out that it has only been made possible by the favorable restructuring of the loan by the state and is not due to any improvement in the city’s financial health. This year’s relief on the water treatment plant debt is a one-time event, as the state predated the loan and gave the city a huge break on this year’s debt service. Mayor Kelly points out that some on the council seek to reverse his austerity measures, such as staff wage cuts, because they see a few dollars in the bank – he warns this is very dangerous. A city that is on the verge of bankruptcy has no business trying to cover its employees’ 3 percent state mandated retirement cost.
According to Mayor Kelly, the city council appears to be emboldened to raise the city’s property tax millage rates and add fire assessment charges because no one from the community is showing up for meetings to voice opposition. The council is poised to raise property tax millage rates from 5.4 to 6.9, a whopping 27.7% increase, and add a $175-$200 fire assessment fee to every home, plus a larger one for businesses within the city. Mayor Kelly said, “One little strip mall in the city would pay $5,000 in fire assessment fees.”
The City of Minneola is facing a $1 million budget shortfall, which the city council believes can be made up by a $360,000 reduction in debt service; $200,000 savings in services from the Sheriff’s Department; and $440,000 worth of increases in property taxes and fire assessment fees from the taxpayers. Some of the council members support increasing the pay of city workers and the non-consolidation of higher grade employees, which leaves a tax increase as the only option. Mayor Pat Kelly believes otherwise – that spending should be slashed because the citizens of Minneola have no more to give.
The City of Minneola is facing a very uncertain future in light of the U.S. debt downgrade; soft economic numbers; and, a water treatment plant, which is burying the city not only in debt payments but operating costs. If the economy remains bad for many more years there is a real possibility that Minneola will have to declare bankruptcy.
Whatever the future holds for the City of Minneola, no one knows, but one thing is for certain – the citizens of Minneola need to start participating in the process or they will see massive tax increases. The only alternative for the city of Minneola is to slash spending, and it is shame that current local leaders must deal with such difficult decisions created by past administrations; however, each leader sought election to their position – it’s time to make hard decisions.
According to Mayor Pat Kelly, the next workshops and meetings to discuss the upcoming budget and possible tax increases will be held on August 9th, 23rd, and 30th at 6:30 p.m. at Minneola City Hall. Mayor Kelly is appealing to the community to attend these meetings and let your voices be heard before it is too late.
For those in the Minneola area, please forward this newsletter to everyone on your email list or go to our website at www.lakecountygov.info where you can quickly post it to your Facebook page. It is time for the citizens of Minneola to get involved.
The Right Side of the Lake is a publication of Citizens for Better Government, L.L.C., and if you would like to comment on today’s column please go to our website www.lakecountygov.info or www.therightsideofthelake.com. This newsletter is free to all who would like to subscribe, and we encourage you to send it out to everyone on your mailing list. If you have information or a topic you would like us to cover please email us directly at lakecountygov@lakecountygov.info.
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Read the contract Minnneola has with the Lake Sheriff! His services provided are supposed to be audited and if he does not provide the services called for in the contract any services he failed to provide shall be subtracted from the gross amount of the contract! Where is the city bean counter? He was $300.000. shy on services for budget yeard ending September 30, 2010 and now we have just ended budget year 2011. Last year he was hopong ya’ll were to stupid to find it! Around the first of 2011 he was billing you for a supervisor he was not providing! Check it out! He sure won’t come running south waving the checks at you!
To: Check The Ledgers
I have been to a couple of the council meetings and I can tell you that no one on the council wants to spend any reserves, I’m not sure where you are getting your information. I know the city manager, Mr. Johnson as his staff worked very hard on a budget. As a spouse of a city employee, they did not receive ANY raises and the 3% that they gave up hopefully they will get back. I also know that they spend many hours at the city because they all want to help out. Also, you said that the Sheriff’s office “owes” the city $300,000 but from what? I think the mayor addressed you and asked for more information on your accusations of the overage with an address you could have sent him. I know there is a councilwoman looking into the budget and the charges but I don’t know what has come of it yet.
WOW! you make it sound like Mayor Kelley is the only one on the council who cares. Let’s talk about the “Big” raises the employees received, 3% to cover the retirement, HMMM why wasn’t the 10 to 35% pay cuts from last year mentioned? Be fair in your reporting. at least 3 employees lost their homes due to pay cuts, at least two employees are paid less than the poverty lineat least one employee quit because he say no future in staying with the City, 4 Directors are gone and have moved on to better jobs, as employees quit or fired they are not being replaced, so their work goes to the one that are staying to help the City through these trying times, other than pay cuts, benefits are being cut so higher deductibles are being paid, one employees spouse had a stroke due to trying to cut her medication i half because they couldn’t afford to take it when needed, there are many things going on in the City that you didn’t report. It’s as though you didn’t do any research and just listened to one side of the story. What about the council not being able to get a second on a motion for them taking a 10% pay cut, I thought leadership started at the top. The “Whopping” tax increase you say the council is proposing is less than the amount the property tax is going to be reduced. and you always want to talk about the wastewater plant, I might be wrong, but I think Mr Kelley was on the council and voted for it.
So if you want to be fair about your journalism look into the whole story not just what Mr kelley wants you to hear.
The only thing that has saved this Council is the fact that property values keep going down! The average taxpayer pays attention to the total $ amount of their tax bill, and, unfortunately, this year’s tax bill is lower than last year’s for many folks. With most people not understanding (or caring about) all of the little details on the tax bill, an increase in the millage rate goes unnoticed by most. So, very few get fired up about the ridiculous increases we have seen over the years to pay for Yaeger’s (and other former council members’) pet projects!
I don’t know what the ramifications are of the City filing for Bankruptcy. I am not sure that any of us want to find out.
Council members: Being an elected official requires some selflessness. You are not in your position, because the Minneola citizens want you to do what is best for you! We want you to do what is best for the City. You all have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for the City! Often times, this means you must make difficult and uncomfortable decisions. If this is not something each of you can do, then you should resign your seats now.
I for one will dump my house to foreclosure if the taxes go up so high that I can no longer afford the house. I will never buy in this area again and will be sure to make it known that others should not as well.
If Minneola raises taxes so much that I can no longer afford my house, I will dump it into foreclosure and add to the already massive number that are in the area. You will loose that tax base and increase the deficit even more. good luck in the future
Name says: ~ “Citizens of Minneola you can either pay for what you need or do without”
August 19, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Spoken like a true Obligard! Sounds like the same words that come out of the mouth of Mt. Dora Chief Scoggins mouth. “if you don’t like the way I run things the run me off!”
This is nothing more than one of Gary Borders spinners trying to intimidate the good people of Minneola! Take the up on it let them go to hell and take their contract with them! They know Minnieola folks have inside information on their billing schemes!
Citizens of Minneola you can either pay for what you need or do without. Tell the council what you do not want to pay for like city staff, police, fire/rescue, sewerage, water, code enforcement or politicians. You can live in Minneola or move out. We can look at out tax bills and compare them to past years to see what the council is doing. Percentages or mil rates do not tell the story. You can go to the budget meetings and the Mayor can explain what is going on or we can get our information from the bloggers who skew the information. You can believe in our form of government and participate or you can complain after the fact. This is America and you have choices if you chose to participate.
Pat, First read the contract. It calls for an accounting of the services provided and any and all overages to be returned to the taxpayers of Minneola. The sheriff pads things, and if someone doesn’t follow his accounting closely it is padded every time! In this years budget he was charging Minnneola for a supervisor not there. Someone caught that and brought it to their attection but the billing is still there. Check with Lewie Wise, if she is a mind too she can shed a lot of light on this subject! One thing for sure she don’t lie! That’s why she doesn’t work at the LCSO anymore. Sounds like Minneola has a bean counter or someone on their end that is protecting the sheriff instead of double checking services billed against services rendered!
I think that “taxed” blogger has it right about a lot of elected officials aligning themselves with staff! By doing so they have allowed “staff infection” infection to spread to all these entities!
We can provide you these facts from last year. Someone had better be looking at the entire 2010-11 budget year accounting because September 30, 2011 it’s time for another settlement date!
It amazes me that no one has “the facts.” I’ll give you some facts! First of all, no one knows what the fire assessment fee will be for the residents and the businesses of Minneola UNTIL an assessment is actually completed. Second, it doesn’t sound like the employees of the city of Minneola will be getting a raise, it sounds like they will be getting their “paycuts” back that were taken away from them last year and several employees resigned. In regards to Kevin McClung’s comments, if you want to live in Clermont, by all means, pack up and go. If you don’t support Minneola, go live somewhere else. It sounds as though you want to be there, so go. Do you think that by having Clermont “take over” that we’re not going to pay even more? Really? More for Police coverage (& they have a union), higher taxes and lots of other “increases” because of them “taking over.” Sorry…that’s not the solution. It sounds as though Kevin, you want to live in paradise and not pay for it. How do you suggest we get paradise? Go to UCF.com and you can get an education.
As a small business owner in Minneola (a small insurance agency and small apartment complex) implementing a fire assessment fee is not what Minneola needs to do. To the contrary of some council members, Minneola is made up of small Mom and Pop businesses and assessing us a large $5,000 fee may help them with their budget, but it will put our budgets out of business. Business is not able to support such a fee.
I have an answer to all Minneola’s problems, it is simple, boost property values, lower our taxes, business would expand all along highway 27. That simple solution is: Ask the City of Clermont to annex the City of Minneola. It is that simple, Clermont could take over the police, fire and utilities and everybody wants a Clermont mailing address anyways, right? Problem solved!
Dear – Check the ledgers
I keep hearing about the overcharging by LCSO, but city staff and LCSO says there is nothing there. Can you please provide more info and I will follow up. My Address Is PO Box 311 Minneola FL 34755.
Thank You
Somehow we got to the point where most city councilmen and county commissioners obligate themselves to the entities staff rather than the majority of the people they are supposed to represent. So it might not make any difference how many people show up to the meetings though they should go witness that which is at work. Any of these elected officials that are supporting circumventing the 3% mandated contribution by increasing salaries are definitely not working for the taxpayers. For one thing, it costs more than the 3% to make this up with increased salaries due to taxes,insurances and retirement plans. For another, it is a total disregard to the spirit of this mandated 3% contribution, which was to cut taxpayer’s expense to begin with. Tavares is a prime example of one of these governments gone wild. The entire Tavares council needs to go in light of their recent actions. It is hard to believe the extremes they will go to escape a paltry 3%.
They are claiming they can save $200,000. from the sheriff’s contract. Last accounts the sheriff still hadn’t refunded them the $300,000. overage from the budget year which ended September 30, 2010. Now just next month he’ll have another budget ending! So does he owe Minneola more overage from 2011 as well? Also, did the Mayor notice the sheriff was overcharging them as far back as January for a supervisor he was not providing? Kind of like padding the bill!
This Mayor is doing us a good job but as the story says he’s got a lot of council member that not only want to spend the reserves but, just like Yeager they’ll spend them before they get them if they get a chance! The sheriff’s Minneola operations need some close scruitny just like everything else he does!