Admittedly, Tuesday’s The Right Side of the Lake on the Mt. Plymouth-Sorrento Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) was longer than most, but it told a story of an area of Lake County which is on the cusp of major change. The decisions made by community leaders over the next few months will have huge ramifications for a generation, and it will determine a direction: Either prosperity or poverty.
Also on Tuesday, the MetroPlan Orlando voted 17-2 to approve the $1.66 billion Wekiva Parkway, which will have a massive effect on the Mt. Plymouth-Sorrento area. Eventually, 75 percent of all the traffic now going through those cities may be diverted. Everyone hates traffic. But face it; traffic makes property more valuable and acts as a catalyst for investment. Two critical points about traffic counts: First, traffic counts are the reason many businesses locate to an area; secondly, traffic counts are a reason why in America there are thousands of deserted little towns after major highways were built in the 1950s and 1960s.
One way or another, the Mt. Plymouth-Sorrento area will change when the Wekiva Parkway and the re-alignment of SR-46A occurs. Either the community will approve the proposed CRA and come together to develop a niche growth strategy; or the area will continue to spiral into blight with plummeting property values. The reason why there is no middle ground between the futures of prosperity or poverty? In a word – financing. The financial meltdown of 2008 totally changed the rules on appraisals and financing. Lenders will not invest in business interests which do not have value.
Some on the old East Lake Citizens Council have visions of creating a walking downtown area, which would cater to those who enjoy the daytrips to neat boutiques and bistros. Others hope to establish a more traditional old Florida cracker downtown. In either case, most believe that the area must brand itself with a niche growth strategy to keep the area viable, and not just a rundown convenience store stop on the new parkway.
The business leaders and owners of Mt. Plymouth and Sorrento also understand the importance of the CRA to the area, and their own viability. This week, the East Lake Chamber of Commerce approved a resolution in support of creating the Mt. Plymouth-Sorrento CRA (Click to view resolution). This is another sign that the community is coming together and recognizing the real challenges it is facing with the new Wekiva Parkway.
There are many questions that must be answered about the future of Mt. Plymouth and Sorrento, but one answer that cannot be accepted any longer is “No”. “No” from the anti-growth, extreme environmental movement is no longer an option if this area is to survive economically. A vigorous debate between the residents and business owners needs to occur to determine which revitalization and niche growth model should be implemented. Right or wrong, the option of doing nothing is not plausible. The deck, which was already stacked against the area, has just had more cards added to it.
Local East Lake resident Clark Morris, who has been actively working to improve his community, made the following observation:
WE need a nicely designed town center (they all fought this during Linda’s tenure)…..We need to find a way to get our Mount Plymouth Golf Course open again (it is killing our property values – looks like a REAL dump!). We need some decently designed and placed PARKS and TRAILS….. We need a Community Building or something to help re-establish as a community again…. BUT the opposition has got us just where they want us… dead in the water….
Keep in mind the picture that Clark Morris paints in the here and now. Can you imagine the area after the Wekiva Parkway and realignment of SR46-A occurs? Mt. Plymouth and Sorrento need a plan for the future, and they need a CRA in place to finance that future. Don’t let anyone from the anti-growth/ extreme environmental movement kid you, the decision for the future is now. Will it be prosperity or poverty?
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.
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Don’t know where all that book keeping stuff come from, maybe it has to do with the commissary who knows, but it appears you have never seen Billie Jo Bates falsefied overtime records. Maybe she learend from CO Threat the biggest violator of fradulant overtime. (Thirde Degree Felony) We have them and you are welcome to see them. It amounts to thousands of taxpayers dollars stolen and just like everything else he covers up Borders covered this up too! When you choose to invoke GOD please do so by asking him to forgive these criminals of the crimes immediately after they confess, are charged with the crimes they have committed and repent of thie sins.
Looks like the polliticking is on as this publication stated week before last. Glad to see this former blogger understands the “no such thing as friends at lcso, only pawns to be used for career advancement. friends are willing to give up everything to help, even their job if need be. friends are forever.”
And, by the way sheriff’s are not really every four years; they can be taken out in a heartbeat for criminal activities a whole lot less than Borders has connitted over the years. It’s just that they have this little cacoon of protection they think. That cacoon is going to burst soon and the worms will come crawling out. When all is said and done and the total culture of corruption is incarcerated and the cases resolved then and only then will honesty and morals return to Lake County government!
billie jo bates is not and has never been an accountant at the lcso. she is the records supervisor at the jail. i have known her twenty years, she wouldnt steal an egg from under a hen. god will judge those of you who lie or repeat unfounded rumors. thou shall not lie, thou shall not bear false witness. i know it sounds kinda corny to talk about god in this day and age, but god never changes. he still means what he says in the bible. im not a big fan of the lcso either, but i will not stand for trampling on innocent people. i can tell you that sheriff borders and his command staff have hurt billie jo bates’ family as much as anyones. no such thing as friends at lcso, only pawns to be used for career advancement. friends are willing to give up everything to help, even their job if need be. friends are forever, sheriffs are every four years.
The rumors around here Friday was that Borders is thinking about closing the (PIO) Public Information Office and putting them back on the road. Apparently Borders thinks he’s getting way to much unfiltered public information on the streets for free already. Lauren Ritchie is going to take over the PIO job for free, she’s already working more for him than she does the mullet wrapper. The old saying use to be you get what you pay for but that’s not working to well for the boss. He’s paying some people to do the talking (as long as he can control what they say) and he’s paying some of people to keep quiet; and it seems like they are getting confused as too which position they sposed to be playing.
Actually if people really knew what is going on at the Lake County Sheriff’s Office they would demand Gary Borders and others of his employee’s be immediately arrested and placed in the Lake County Jail!
Borders covering up a little fraud here and there. Billie Jo Bates fiasco, he has give her enough overtime to make up for what she stole but she hasn’t paid anything back. If you are in the click you can do no wrong. That’s why Borders protects Gary French. Lee Piper and Robert Myers and plenty of others. They are his boys. His boys can do no wrong. Speaking of Robert Myers;
What is the outcome of this investigation into court deputy Robert Myers lying to have his girlfriend arrested and fired? Myers told everyone that would listen around the courthouse that Sheriff Borders told him in the hallway that he had better lie and say it was Douglas that caused the fight and scratched his face because if she came in and filed a complaint against him it would be him going to jail and losing his job. Myers said Borders told him make up your mind it’s either her or you. Myers also told everyone that he didn’t even write the sworn statement that he now says was a lie. Myers said Sheriff Borders had Corporal Evan Rosenstein write the victim statement for Myers and immediately had Lieutenant Pelton proceed to call Douglas in off the road and arrest her. As the previous blogger said FDLE determined that the affidavit that got Douglas arrested was a lie. Myers admitted he lied. What he probably didn’t admit is he didn’t write the lying victims statement to begin with; it was written on the orders of sheriff Borders.
August 27, 2011
TAVARES — Court security deputy and former bailiff to Judge Mark Hill- Robert Myers has resigned amid an internal probe that focused on conflicting statements he provided to law-enforcement officials investigating a domestic-battery allegation in order to effect the arrest and subsequent firing of his girlfriend Robin Douglas in 2010.
Myers, 43, who began his career as a jailer under then chief jailer Gary Borders in1995, submitted a letter to now Sheriff Gary Borders, saying he believed his resignation “to be in the best interest of the Sheriff’s Office and myself.” The letter made no reference to the internal probe or a separate domestic-battery charge he faces.
Myers had been on administrative leave from the department since June, when he was charged with battery, accused of striking his live-in girlfriend Robin Douglas, a former deputy, at their home in Weirsdale The Lake sheriff’s administrative probe was related to a different alleged battery — in which Myers accused Douglas of pushing and scratching him, an incident that led to her arrest and dismissal from the Sheriff’s Office.
Myers later recanted his sworn statement when questioned by an official with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s Criminal Justice Standards & Training Commission, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. John Herrell said. SO, WHY WAS ROBIN DOUGLAS NOT REINSTATED WITH ALL BACK PAY AFTER HAVING BEEN DEFRAUDED AS A RESULT OF A CONSPIRACY BY HER EMPLOYING AGENCY?
When is Gary Borders going to release the outcome of the internal investigation into Robert Myers lying to cause the arrest and job loss of Robin Douglas? NEVER, because it is Borders who concocted the whole idea to begin with! The facts are all there right before your eyes!
This is so true, there are many employees who are afraid to speak up because of what will happen to them. I remember they fired a employee back in 2010 because that thought he was untruthful, even after three sworn witnesses confirmed his story and he passed a polygragh. This employee had a clean record with not as much as a single complaint. Needless to say that employee was completely cleared by FDLE and when FDLE contacted Lake County they had no comment. The funny thing is not more then a week after that Deputy Gary French choked his wife in Mt Dora and made the Channel 9 news and was simply transfered to the Jail. What people don’t know that Deputy French had a long history of violence prior to Choking his wife out over a Playstation. Many people don’t know that Sheriff Borders hid that fact that Billie Joe Bates, the Sheriff’s Office accountant was caught stealing thousands of dollars from the Sheriff’s Office and was simply told to pay the money back. She still works there and was given a pass by Sheriff Borders to commit Fraud and Grand Theft. If people only knew what really went on there they would vote Borders out.
We welcome Captain Carpenter and wish him good luck in his endeavor. Rumors on the street say he’s not the only high profile challenger making plans to run for sheriff of Lake County.
First and foremost we certainly hope Sandy Carpenter has a full understanding of the job at hand. A naive person would be inclined to believe they were simply throwing their hat in the ring for a political race against an incumbent who normally has some clout for simply being an incumbent. Even though Sandy is a long time Lake County resident his law enforcement career has been in Orange County where we are sure they have their good ole boy system as well and cut their insiders deals and such as well. But since the departure of Rotty Crotty the new county mayor has made it quite obvious she’s not in the good ole anything click. She would never have been elested here in Lake County. They fix everything around here.
Until around 2004 the real honest, voting, bill paying taxpayers of Lake County had no idea what a culture of corruption had been incubating right under their noses. As this obvious existence of organized corruption began to unfold day after day and the movement began to incur resistance, things got really bad.
This publication is right about “a real split in Lake County’s law enforcement community” exists, but this has nothing to do with Sandy Carpenter per se. The split has been ongoing and growing since the day Gary Borders was thrust into this job. People with morals and ethics are not blind and stupid. They don’t like what they see and hear around here. Many here have hung on praying for an end to this nightmare and just like so many have said over and over about the republicans vying for president; any one of them would be better than Obama. Recently things around the office have been more akin to the on goings at a mortuary, sad and quite. We have all seen for a fact the causes of rumors just like the those on the streets for years about Borders lifestyle. We know when people lie about lifestyles they will lie about anything else, herein lies the ethics problem. People don’t really judge lifestyles anymore and we know that was not an issue in the last election and shouldn’t be in this one either. However, lying goes to ethics and who should be more ethical than the chief law enforcement officer of Lake County? We hope Sandy Carpenter understands that. The main cause of the “real split” in this agency is the sheriff’s relationships with dozens of male employee’s and the obviously sick attention he pays to the young men coming through the academy and such. This is a serious problem in his life and now we know it always has been. We hope two things for Sandy Carpenter, we hope he does his homework on the Lake County political powerhouse of one Bob McKee and finds out who really runs this county and makes it tick, and we hope he does his homework on the affinity Gary Borders has for young males. He can start by looking into Borders 20 plus years involvement at the Green Isle Boys Ranch and his obstruction of justice in the brutal rapes of the last 5 victims reported on November 21, 2009 (LCSO case number 09 191988). Maybe Mr. Carpenter should do some homework in Osceola County. Contact Capt. Jack Pate, Jr. / 3328 Countryside View Dr. St. Cloud, Fl 344772-7056 – Phone: 407-957-6730 and former Osceola Director of Juvenile Alternative Services Valerie Bache Novak who now resides at 911 North Orange Av Unit 416 Orlando, Fl 32801. Maybe a good old fashioned interview with a couple of ex-wives one of which is the current St. Cloud Mayor Rebecca Borders would be fruitful also. While you are there see if you can find out what happened to Jeremy.
Few if any people in public office have the baggage being carried by Gary Borders. The sad news is he is not the only one here in Lake County with a “shoddy” past. The others always seem to circle the wagons and run interference for each other. The public only needs to check the online contributions and expenses reports to track where they money comes from and where it goes. Friends helping friends. We certainly hope Carpenter is here to do the right thing no matter how many toes he has to step on or who he has too put in jail. If he is not and is nothing more than a replacement sheriff for the culture of corruption because “the sheriff” has become too hot of a potato, Lake County just like the USA if Obama wins again will be taking a fast slide into the pits of hell. We can’t take any more of this lying, abuse and cover ups and we shouldn’t have too!
No matter what else he does Sandy Carpenter needs to understand these people will “fix” these races. If he does not understand this he will be standing there at 7:05 pm on primary night looking at the results and scratching both ends at the same time.
Howey Under the Cover Peeking Out