March 9th District Meeting Should Be Interesting

 I received the notification email yesterday from the District Manager's office confirming the next meeting of the WVID Board of Supervisors for 11 am on Thursday, March 9th in North Port City Hall. The agenda items for this meeting include discussions of the "soft gate" gated community entrance procedures, and the "Trim Sheet" for the proposed Atlanta Braves spring training facility. This same "Trim Sheet" must be reviewed and approved by Sarasota County, City of North Port, and WVID before the project can move forward. The full agenda and meeting book for this meeting can be found at http://westvillagesid.org/documents/.

It looks like IslandWalk will be the only "hard gated" community in West Villages for many years to come. Gran Paradiso and the three new Mattamy Homes subdivisions being created now are all to be "soft gated" communities. A hard gated community has roads and gate house features that where built with developer money and not using public debt financing. Soft gated communities on the other hand have roads and gate house features that were constructed using public debt money. Therefore, the gated entry and main roads in soft gated communities must be open to the public so anyone can enter these communities without restriction.

Next week is also early voting for the North Port City Commissioner Seat 4 Special Primary Election with the actual election held on March 14th. Those of us living within the West Villages and who are registered voters should have received their sample ballots by now.

I would like to take this opportunity to endorse Jill Luke for this election and recommend her to you as the next City Commissioner for District 4. Jill is a small business owner in North Port and for the 6 years that I've known her, she has been actively involved in city civic affairs and with the Chamber of Commerce. These special primaries are usually poorly attended by voters and in many cases just a few votes can swing an election one way or the other. Hence my endorsement and request that you take the time to get out and vote in this election. I believe Jill will be a strong supporter of the West Villages and a stabilizing influence on the City Commission.