June 2017, Land Owner's Annual Meeting

This annual ritual meeting was held at North Port City Hall on June 8, 2017. Surprise....the two supervisor seats up for re-election were won by the two incumbents. They were the only candidates for each seat and the master developer has over 6,000 votes to cast for whomever they want to be elected. You and I only have one vote - per household - for our tiny 1/4 acre of land ownership. All above board and legal. Read the state statute if you don't believe me.

Now next year (2018) will be different. One of the five seats on the WVID board is held by someone elected by the registered voters residing in the district at a general election. That seat has been held by Bob Rossman from IslandWalk and his four year term will be expiring next year in June. Bob has told me that although he has enjoyed his time on the board and that is has been a wonderful experience, he will not be a candidate for re-election in 2018.

SO....any civic minded person interested in being a part of the future development of the West Villages should start considering running for this seat in 2018.

Contact the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections office for more information. If you do not plan to solicit or accept campaign contributions then the registration process and paperwork is very minimal and the filing fee is only a few bucks. The ONLY requirement is that you be a US Citizen. One does not even need to live in or even be a registered voter in the district to qualify!!! Heck, one of my kids from North Carolina or New Jersey could run for this seat.

When can we expect to have more than one of the five supervisor seats filled by a resident (registered voter) elected person? Probably another 4 or 5 years at least. The state statute governing STD boards has a sliding scale that matches the percent of "urban development" within a district to the number of approved, publicly elected supervisors. We got our first seat when there were more than 500 registered voters living within the WVID boundaries. That was easy.

The next trigger is 25% of urban development with the district. When Bob was elected, we were at around 3% "urban development". The district Engineer estimated today that we are only around 12 to 13% "urban development" now. Search this blog for other "GENERAL ELECTION" labeled posts to get the full story on how this system works.

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.

Special District Meeting - February 2, 2017

This special meeting of the WVID Board of Supervisors only had 3 agenda items; 2 of them related to the ongoing, exclusive negotiations with the Atlanta Braves for moving their spring training and other operations to Sarasota County. The other item was the appointment of a new supervisor to fill the unexpired term of a supervisor that resigned last month. Both the outgoing and incoming persons were more or less selected by the master planner (its totally legal; one acre, one vote and they own an overwhelming amount of the acreage in the district).

Resolved: the district will enter into a formal pre-development financing agreement with the Braves whereby the Braves agree to reimburse the district for all expenses related to the preliminary siting, design and permitting of the proposed new stadium complex.

Resolved: Marty Black will be the district's negotiating representative for ongoing talks between the Braves, county, city, state, and district.

Before adjourning the special meeting, Mr. Black gave some additional information about the planned stadium project:

• It will include a multi-story hotel. Number of rooms not disclosed but it will be a commercial enterprise, separate from the "public" portion of the stadium complex.
• It will include 40,000 square feet of Braves sports medicine and rehabilitation services. Also a private, separate from the public portion of the stadium, business, It will employ 70 people and the Braves will use this facility for their major and minor league players from around the world.
• There will be paved, paid parking for about 700 vehicles, with adjacent, grass field parking for another 1,000 or so vehicles.
• In addition to the West Villages Parkway access to the new stadium, current plans also call for another access road that connects to US 41 as well. No mention of the alignment for that road.
• Funding for this project will come from multiple sources. Mr. Black stressed that there would be no increases to existing property owners WVID taxes. Just like any other new village added to the West Villages, only the residents (Braves team) will be responsible for repayment of any public debt for this project. That debt will be retired by using the annual lease payments paid by the Braves for using the complex (30 year lease I believe?).

Mr. Black also briefly talked about the Village D Retail/Commercial plans. He expects another 6 months or so for plan and permit approvals, and for construction to start sometime in the Fall of 2017. He said over 50% of the currently planned retail space is already taken by letters of intent from interested businesses.

A contingent from Gran Pardiso brought up the need for a pedestrian/bicyle/electric vehicle overpass to connect Villages A and B to the new Village D retail/commercial area. Mr. Black again stated that this was a village developer (Lennar or Mattemy) issue and not a district responsibility.

Village D, Neighborhood Meeting, 01/10/17

Tuesday, January 10, 2017. Main Street Ranch Land Partners hosted a neighborhood meeting to present the preliminary Village Pattern Plan for the new Village D retail, commercial, residential future development. Comments from the public were received after the presentation and will be "considered" as possible revisions to the plan which is next scheduled to be presented to the North Port City Planning Board sometime in March 2017. Retail/commercial development will be done along the south side of US 41 with single family and multi-family residential development in the southern portion of this 620 acre subdivision area. Multifamily structures could run to 4 stories with a proposed maximum height limit of 120 feet. Some of the multi-family units adjacent to the retail commercial area may be built as mixed use structures with the retail/commercial space on the ground floor and residential units on the upper floors.

There were a number of constructive comments and concerns voiced by the public during this meeting. Most noteworthy were:

• Would these residential subdivisions be hard gated or soft gated? No direct answer was given.
• Residents from Gran Pardiso asked that the planners consider a pedestrian/golf cart friendly overpass or tunnel that would provide access from the north side of US 41 to the south side where the new retail/commercial development is proposed. The planners were again non-committal in there responses.
• Would the new entrances to this subdivision be regulated by new traffic lights or round-abouts? Planners stated that since the IslandWalk/Gran Paradiso intersection had just been approved for a traffic light, it was their understanding that all other intersections would also get traffic lights.
• When questioned about the timing of traffic light installation the planners said FLDOT was the decider of that question and stated that typically the FDOT wants to see traffic count data to justify a light. Many in the audience thought that installation of traffic lights should be done as part of the initial development.
• I asked about what consideration had been made for irrigation water to support this new subdivision since we are already experiencing difficulty in getting enough water now for just the two existing subdivisions (IslandWalk and Gran Paradiso). Planners response was that they were well aware of these irrigation water issues and that adequate planning was being done.

Percent Urban Development Map - January 2014

The district is required by its controlling State Statue to prepare this map, and to update the map "at least" every 5 years or sooner. The "or sooner" is language in the Statute and for a fast growing development like ours, the percentage of urban development is increasing rapidly. Just compare the January 2014 map with what is going on today (December 2016) to see just how much has changed. You may click on the map image shown to see a larger, printable version of the map. The bottom line is that in January 2014 the then District Engineer who prepared this map stated in his report, "The evaluation establishes that approximately 2.42% of the overall area of the West Village Improvement
District (WVID) meets the criteria for designation as an Urban Area under Florida Statute 189.4051."

So, why is this important? Special Taxing Districts like ours are overseen by a Board of Supervisors which are "elected" initially by the land owners in an annual "election" held every June using a one vote per acre (or part of an acre) basis. So, on day one, the district general developer owned all of the land...there were no home owners yet. So, all 12,000 or so of their "votes" were cast for the folks they wanted to see in charge of managing the initial $130 million or so of public bond money debt being used to develop infrastructure for the new district. That was way back in 2005 when the district was first organized.

I have extracted the supporting narrative and methodology used for preparing this map from the REGULAR BOARD MEETING, FEBRUARY 25, 2014 meeting book for you to view and print as a PDF document.

The West Villages Improvement District is chartered under Chapter 189, Florida Statute by special act of the State Legislature. The state department responsible for oversight of Special Taxing Districts like ours has prepared a simple to ready handbook that summarizes the provisions of the statute in easy to read language.

Over time, many new homes have been built, and each new home owner family now can have one "vote" in the land owner's annual election of new Supervisors, and for every 5 or so of these new families, the general developers get one less vote. (each lot is less than 1/4 acre so 5 homes would occupy about one acre). So, say you wanted John Doe to be elected as a supervisor at the next election to better represent your interests as a home owner. Well, you could cast your 1 vote for him at that annual land owner's election in June, and the general developers would cast there 10,000 or so votes (1 vote per acre owned) for whoever they wanted to be the next supervisor. Who do you think will win that "elections"?

The Statue does provide for the eventual take over of the Board of Supervisors by the actual home owner's. The initial seat on the board for a local, popularly elected Supervisor comes fairly early in the process when there are more than 500 registered voters living in homes in the district. That happened back in late 2013 and in a special version of the annual Land Owners Meeting in June 2014, Mr. Bob Rossman (IslandWalk home owner) was elected by popular vote of the registered home owners in the district.

Now, the other four seats on the board are tied by the Statute to the percentage of urban development within the district. Hence, the importance of this map and also the how and when that the map is updated. The schedule of popularly elected seats for the Board of Supervisors is spelled out in the State Statute as:

Change in Developer

Major events at today's WVID meeting. Fourth Quarter Properties has sold out to a new developer. Their name was mentioned once during the meeting, and I didn't get it. The meeting had to recess for about an hour and twenty minuets to wait for the closing to conclude. Four of the current Supervisors promptly resigned, and four new Supervisors were nominated and elected representing the new Developer.

This means that taxes and assesments that have been in arrears to the tune of about $4 million will now be paid, and the WVID bond debt should be brought current. It also means that maybe now there will be some progress on the Publix shopping center in the near future.

The next board meeting is scheduled for June 24th at the IslandWalk club house for 11 am. General election voting is open from 8 am to 11 am on the 24th, also at the IslandWalk club house for the first popularly elected Supervisor to the WVID board. The next few months should be interesting!!!

Supervisor Election Date CHANGED!!!

At its Tuesday, February, 25, 2014 meeting the WVID Board of Supervisors will discuss and most likely approve resolution 2014-01 which will establish the June Land Owners meeting as the election date for the first popularly elected Supervisor to the board. Previously, the WVID had stated that the election would be held in November as part of the general election ballot. No date or location has been set yet for the Land Owners meeting; but it is typically held on the last Tuesday of the month, or on June 24th in 2014.

Interested candidates for the supervisor office must now REGISTER with the Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections between the 67th and 71st day preceding the election date. In this case, that would be during the week of April 14th, 2014. The candidate declaration is made by completing a simple form, a sworn loyalty oath, and the payment of a $25 registration fee to the Supervisor of Elections.

A copy of the draft resolution may be downloaded here. Anyone having interest in this election process or in being a candidate for the office should strongly consider attending the February 25th meeting of the WVID held in North Port City Council chambers at North Port City Hall starting at 11 am.

Election Date Changed to December 10th

The first date was not available at the IslandWalk club house due to a large holiday party already scheduled. At today's meeting of the WVID, the Board of Supervisors set the NEW date for the Referendum Election as:

Tuesday, Dec 10, 2013, from 1:30 to 5 pm

at the IslandWalk club house

The elections WILL NOT be conducted by the county Supervisor of Elections. Rather, the WVID staff will be the ones conducting the election. Only a simple majority vote of those "qualified electors" that cast ballots is need to decide the question:

Should the next Supervisor be elected by popular vote?

Mark your calendars. Tell your neighbors. There will be NO absentee or proxy voting allowed, so plan to be there in person and cast your vote!

Referendum Election Date Set!!!

The Board of Supervisors set the date for the Referendum Election as:

Tuesday, Dec 17, 2013, from 1 to 5 pm
at the IslandWalk club house

The elections WILL NOT be conducted by the county Supervisor of Elections. Rather, the WVID staff will be the ones conducting the election. Only a simple majority vote of those "qualified electors" that cast ballots is need to decide the question:

Should the next Supervisor be elected by popular vote?

Mark your calendars. Tell your neighbors. There will be NO absentee or proxy voting allowed, so plan to be there in person and cast your vote!

Commissioner Jim Blucher to Visit IslandWalk

Copied from email sent to all IslandWalk residents on 10/4/10:
(Commissioner Blucher is seeking re-election on November 2nd)

Mark your Calendars:  We have incumbent Commissioner Jim Blucher coming to address IslandWalk residents on Monday, October 11th at 11 a.m. in the Capri II Club.  Please RSVP so that we have enough seating.

Sue Champagne
Islandwalk at the West Villages HOA

Know Your Candidate Debate

Thursday, October 14, 2010, 6:00 - 7:30 p.m.
North Port City Hall - Commission Chambers

Vision North Port, Inc., ( www.visionnorthport.com ) will host the Know Your Candidate Debate in collaboration with the North Port Area Chamber of Commerce.  As much as we all would like to pretend that we don't live in North Port, we do.  The only way to survive and grow is by becoming an active part of the local city political process and scene.  As "outsiders", we can't affect the process.  By becoming "insiders" we can make our voice heard, and, as the population of WVID increases over the years, our concerns will become the city's concerns as well.

Know the candidates, know the issues, VOTE ON NOVEMBER 2nd !

Tower - Yates Debate September 30th

In the race for North Port City Commissioner for Seat 5:
Thursday, Sept. 30 - The North Port Investors Meeting will host a Debate 11:30 am - 1 pm  with North Port City Commissioner Seat 5Candidates Linda Yates and Fred Tower. The meeting is open to the public and will take place at the Family Table Restaurant in North Port  (14132 S. Tamiami Trl. North Port, 423-0473). For details contact Russ Smith 223-8159.

Linda Yates to Visit IslandWalk

I have copied and pasted this from an email sent today by Sue Champagne to all IslandWalk homeowners:
Candidate Linda Yates will be here to address the homeowners of IslandWalk on Thursday, September 30th at 2 p.m. in the Capri II Club.  Everyone is welcome to attend.   We appreciate your RSVP so that we have enough seating set up in advance.
 
Candidate Yates is running for Seat # 5.   her platform is as follows:
"Let's get back to basics! 
   * Restore the fundamental role of government
   * Public funds are for the people not private ventures
   * A better tomorrow starts with serving citizens of today
   * Communication is key to community prosperity"
Hear for yourself. . . ask the questions you need answers to.   Please join us on Thursday, Sept. 30th at 2 p.m.  RSVP to the HOA office.
 
Sue Champagne
Islandwalk at the West Villages HOA