"Flooding washes away debt" was the title of the article that ran Sunday in the Hernando Times. The title should have read "Taxpayers get hosed in deal with Emergency Management". Hernando County Emergency Management director, Tom Leto purchased a property in foreclosure, located at 5291 Tropical Point in Hernando Beach, from John Parrott for approximately $214,000 more than the market value. Mr. Leto's stated his reason for buying this, and other repetitive-loss properties by saying, "We must do our part to mitigate the risk". Mr. Leto went on to say in this article that Hernando County citizens receive a bonus for buying up this swamp land with bonus points awarded by FEMA for our flood rating.
Where did FEMA get this money to buy private property and take it off the tax rolls? Our wallets, of course. Has anyone checked the substantial rate increases in their flood insurance premiums this year? My flood insurance has gone up 185% over last year's rate, without even filing a claim.
Mr. Leto stated the deal was fair amount for John Parrott, according to the rules of the grant, but said "we didn't want him to leave with money in his pocket." Maybe Mr. Leto should leave real estate transactions to the professionals because he didn't leave any money in our wallets either...
1 comment:
Maybe it took a lot of overtime hours for Mr. Leto's secretary to figure out this scam. Paid administrative leave??? Now that more information is comeing out about the EOC operations, maybe this would be a good time and wise for Nicolai to review vacation and sick hours of director's/middle manager's compared to their actual time off. Most will show 100's of hours on the books, an impossibility, especially if they were required by HR to claim actual time off. This scam has gone on long enough. Remember,these unused/accrued hours will be paid in full compension when those people leave employment.
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