Silver Lake–revisited

MoonHowler

I went out to Silver Lake with a friend today.  I love Silver Lake.  I have some wonderful memories involving Silver Lake. There is always something to see.  Today the treat from nature was about 80 water turtles lined up along logs, sunning themselves.  Way cool.

However, the County just hasn’t done right by Silver Lake, even with cute little turtles.

Let’s start by driving in to the lake area.  The road going in is just dreadful.  Pot Hole City.  I thought I was going to break an axle.  I thought that Rainbow Riding was supposed to keep the road upgraded until you pass their property.  If that is the case, they have failed.  That is the worst part of the road.  The rest isn’t any great shakes.  It needs to be graded  and re-graveled.

Part of the road is closed off.  There might be a good reason but the public hasn’t been told.  The cones don’t really limit access.  Cones can be moved.  Why is that part of the road closed?

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Why Rainbow Riding Should Not Receive Over $200 Grand of Tax Payer Money

Elena

UPDATE:

(Paraphrased from the Sheriff)  The you-know-what is hitting the fan.  A confidential memo has been leaked from Angela Horan.  Athough the Resolution is on the Agenda, the County Attorney will advise that the current Resolution cannot be approved.  Apparently, having a conflict of interest makes it too difficult for Supervisors to perform their duties? Well, DUH!  That’s why we call it a conflict of interest.  Head on over to Nottingham (with an N not an F, Corey) and get the gory details.

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Apparently, Rainbow Riding is “set” to receive 211,000 dollars of carryover money, ie. taxpayer dollars this coming Tuesday.

The county board has already committed to spending $2.3 million on specific projects which were dropped from the budget in April. Peacor specifically mentioned the Rainbow Riding Center, a therapeutic horse-riding program on county-owned land in Silver Lake. It is set to receive $178,000 to pave its parking lot and other improvements, on top of $33,000 it received in April.

Rainbow Riding attracted attention because its former leader is married to Supervisor Wally Covington [who tried to give it $100,000 from his office account in November] and some felt it hadn’t gone through the same budget review as others. Peacor disagreed with that, saying it was fully examined by the board, and provided a service more cheaply than the government could.

Allow me to recap, to date, the tax payer investment of a very small non profit that serves a hundred  people or so.

First, Rainbow Riding,  at no cost, leases 45 acres, valued at approx 976, 000 thousand dollars annually.  Due to this lease,  Rainbow Riding was able to sell their own land, subsequently putting several hundred thousand dollars in the “bank”.

We also know, from their most recent 990, Rainbow Riding has over $800 THOUSAND in cash.

For the past two years, they have recieved approximately 33,000 dollars through the annual budget.

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