This past Tuesday was
another meeting of the West Villages Improvement District Supervisory Board.
Meetings are now held at the IslandWalk Event Center, which has certainly
increased public attendance. To open, the District Manager, Todd Wodraska,
introduced himself and clarified to those in attendance that these meetings are
for the board to conduct business. Basically, these are business meetings which
the public is invited to observe and make comment.
When the forum was
opened for public to make comment regarding items not on the agenda, naturally,
the first item to come up was asking about a traffic light at the community
entrances. It was explained that this is not a WVID ability or responsibility.
The responsibility for installation lies with the developers (Lennar and
Pulte), and they are not holding back either. They need the FDOT to give them
the 'go ahead' in order to begin the work. The FDOT has not approved the
installation of the traffic light as the previously conducted warrant study did
not meet criteria to allow for a traffic light. Warrants need to be in place
before FDOT will approve. Unfortunately, a severe enough accident will trigger
automatic warrants, but until that time, it doesn't meet their criteria.
With that said, to
push the issue forward trying in trying to avoid a tragedy, it is recommended
that all residents contact the sector FDOT office and/or our local State
Representative's office. Contact them once, or even daily if you have time, and
share the information to get your neighbors to do the same!
FDOT website says that
they respond to public requests in this area..."The District Traffic Operations
Offices respond to written letters from the public, civic organizations,
businesses, etc. requesting the need for a traffic signal to be installed or
modified" (Website Link). Maybe we should flood them with letters or a petition? Our DOT district
contact Information:
1.
District 1 Secretary, Billy Hattaway, 801 N. Broadway Ave. , Bartow, FL
33830-3809, Phone: (863) 519-2300
PETITION link Change.org
Petition
I have shared this
information here, Facebook, Nextdoor, and asked the two community associations
to forward to residents as well. Let's together push to get this done. There is
nothing more that can be done by our district or the developers until FDOT says
ok.
Back to the meeting
notes...
A question was also
asked about the expansion of River Road. The district funded West Villages
Parkway in order to alleviate some of the congestion. (from another meeting...The
County needs funding to move forward, and their latest grant request was
denied. We are waiting on the County for that.)
The minutes of the
last meeting were approved with a noted typo to be changed, then they delved
into the regular business items on the agenda. The first item was an agreement
for lease between the WVID and Main Street Ranch Lands. The offices moved from
a trailer on the property to Thomas Ranch Welcome Center which does not provide
the same storage space. So, the new office and keeping a storage space required
a new lease agreement amounting to $14000 per year.
The district then
brought up consideration of application for a new unit of development. This is
to be 900 new homes in the Northeast section of the district, along West
Villages Parkway North of US41. The development partners are petitioning to
issue bonds for development at this time. This will require more frequent
meetings for a while to organize the finance aspect. The permits have already
been obtained and clearing has begun for this project.
The board accepted
two appraisals each for two parcels of land to be acquired by the district. The
first is a 60 acre tract that is to be later donated as a site for a school.
The appraisals came back at $4.5 million by Bass & Associates and $5.4
million from Integra Realty. The second parcel is the SCF access road amounting
to about 5 acres. The appraisals were $273k by Bass and $710k by Integra. Some
residents at the meeting questioned the rationale for and necessity of
purchasing the privately owned tract of the SCF access road. The district
engineer said that it is uncommon for a district public access road to remain
privately owned.
The sod replacement
project is almost wrapped up now. A couple of cars ran off the road which
caused additional repairs to be required. The Valley Crest bill is still
outstanding.
Request was made to
authorize a topo study in order to continue sidewalks along 41 on both sides.
The emergency pump
repair for irrigation is complete and went smoothly. It was explained that the
district runs short on irrigation water every dry season. A new pump was put in
that is sunk lower to increase utilization ability from the irrigation lake
behind the welcome sign.
Crepe myrtles are
being cut back (for the first time ever), and you could hear collective
approval and relief from many of those in attendance. They are working with
Valley Crest on winter trimming. And, the pedestrian node on WV Pkwy should be
complete by the next meeting.
The next scheduled
meeting is March 8th at 11am.
