By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                When a facility like Regional General Hospital in Williston looks more like a hayfield than a medical facility due to neglect, it’s good news when someone shows up unexpectedly to cut the grass.

            On Wednesday, a woman riding a zero-turn mower turned up and began cutting the waist-high grass and weeds on the hospital property as people in cars and trucks drove by watching with interest.

            No one in city government was sure whether the woman was hired by the hospital owner to clean up the facility’s unsightly appearance in advance of next Tuesday’s city Board of Adjustment meeting.

            In a late development, Spotlight learned the hospital lawn was mowed Wednesday by Jack’s Land Service as a goodwill gesture. Williston Timber had mowed the hospital lawn at a much earlier date for the same reason.

            The owner is facing code violations for allowing the hospital grounds to grow up in grass and weeds. Williston City Council President Debra Jones said the owner was sent a notice of the Board of Adjustment hearing.

            City council members on Tuesday, Oct. 19, discussed their serious concerns about the poorly kept hospital grounds. One of the options discussed was using city work crews and supervised inmates to mow the grass.

            Mayor Jerry Robinson placed the hospital on the council agenda for discussion. City Code Enforcement Official Wayne Carson cautioned the board that the hospital is privately owned and the city couldn’t legally mow the grounds using inmate labor supervised by city employees.

            Jones said residents have been complaining to her about the tall grass surrounding the hospital. She didn’t blame them. She said the grass is so tall around the hospital helipad that the fence around it isn’t visible.

            “It probably hasn’t been mowed in more than a year and a half,” she said. “You can’t even see the fence of the helipad. It’s bad.”

            Jones assigned city staff to research ways to get the property mowed. City Attorney Scott Walker said he would talk to the necessary people to understand what could be done. He said the city could always seek an administrative court order that would allow the city to mow it.

            The overgrown grass was of great importance locally due to the eyesore factor, but the property is also caught in federal asset freeze resulting from a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint alleging that Complete Business Solutions Group Inc., the company that apparently took ownership of the hospital this year, is involved in fraudulent activity. Jorge Perez and his business partners sold the hospital to Complete Business Solutions for $100.

            Jones said the transfer of ownership appears to be questionable.

            “They actually transferred the property from one company name to another company name, but if you look at the property appraiser website it was a $100 transfer, so you know it was a shell title. I mean it was still the same company. They just transferred one name to the other.”

            The SEC announced on July 31, 2020, that it was filing an emergency action to obtain a temporary restraining order and an asset freeze to stop an alleged fraudulent scheme that raised nearly a half-billion dollars from an estimated 1,200 investors nationwide.

            According to the SEC’s complaint, “spouses, Lisa McElhone and Joseph W. LaForte orchestrated a scheme to raise investor funds through unregistered securities offers for the cash advance company they control, Complete business Solutions Group, Inc. doing business as Par Funding.”

            The Levy County Tax Collector’s office is facing a different set of issues with the hospital. The tax collector’s office was asked to stop a tax deed sale of the hospital, according to Tax Collector Michele Langford. She said an attorney from South Florida who represents the people that bought the hospital from a foreclosure sale – a receiver – asked for a halt to the tax deed sale.

            “They wanted the tax deed sale to stop. We had never encountered this before, so we contacted our attorney to tell us what to do, so we pulled the tax deed sale and stopped it,” she said. “I see where the SEC is investigating these people, so it’s turned into a mess. From what I read they were running a scam.”

            “As far as we are concerned, we have pulled it from the tax deed sale and we cannot do anything with it until we are told to do so,” Langford said. “The court is going to have to tell us when we can release it and put it up for sale. It’s got to go through a court hearing.”

            She said a lot of people have shown an interest in the hospital property. One was a doctor from South Florida. Another was an investor. She said if her office hadn’t been forced to stop the sale, she believes the sale would have been successful, “but it never got to go to sale.”

            “It’s a shame it’s going to sit down there and deteriorate and it could be used for so much more, but my hands have been tied for now. I have to just sit and wait for the court to say what can be done,” she said.

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City of Williston Regular Meeting October 19, 2021; Posted October 20, 2021