[EdV]

For those of you who plan to attend the meeting tomorrow evening regarding the Golf Cart Thoroughfare to/from Paradise Drive, below is my letter to Mayor Richards regarding my opinions on the matter.

I urge my fellow Stonecrest neighbors as well as other open minded neighbors to print this out and bring it to the meeting in an effort to ensure that these issues will be discussed.

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Dear Mayor Richards,

Attached please find a copy of the letter from Gary Moyer to Janet Tutt regarding the removal of the recently erected wall and recommending approval by the VCCDD to take ownership of the golf cart thoroughfare that was approved by the Town of Lady Lake in 1998. It further indicates that they intend to install an access gate on that thoroughfare that would restrict access to Villages Residents only.

I believe that regardless of whether or not ownership of that thoroughfare is transferred, the Town of Lady Lake must deny any request to install any such gate that will restrict access to only Villages residents, for the following reasons:

1. Resolution 98-106 requested approval for construction of a golf cart thoroughfare, not a restricted access gated entryway.
2. The approved engineering plans do not show any such gates.
3. Paradise Drive on the eastern end of that thoroughfare is a public access road and the property on the western side is a public access parking lot.
4. The proposed gate would provide access to medical, retail, and restaurant facilities by Villages resident seniors while at the same time denying access by Stonecrest and eventually Spruce Creek South resident seniors to similar facilities in Lady Lake and beyond. And it should be noted that some of these seniors do not own automobiles and this has been their only way to access those facilities (including the Lady Lake US Post Office) for many years now.
5. The VCCDD is a Community Development District that is a public non-profit unit of local government. As such, any roads, throughways, or multi-modal cart paths under its jurisdiction must be accessible to the public.
6. The multi-modal paths (not golf course paths) used by carts for transportation throughout TV are an integral part of the public access roadways within TV and are not private recreational facilities as some have suggested. They were built to provide golf cart access where travel on the regular roads by carts is prohibited due to safety concerns. Their primary function is transportation, not recreation. Furthermore, they were built with tax free municipal bond funds. And although they are maintained with VCCDD amenity funds, that does not empower the VCCDD to declare them private any more than a city or town with a local tax can declare some of their streets for resident use only.
7. Access through this cart thoroughfare by non TV residents does not in any way compromise the exclusivity of the numerous private recreational facilities in TV any more than access by automobile does.
8. This golf cart thoroughfare has been available as approved in an unrestricted manner for the better part of fifteen years now. If the intent was to create a TV resident only golf cart access to and from Paradise Drive, it should have been clearly stated as such in the 1998 resolution. But it wasn’t.

If the proposed change requires installation of a gate for security or safety reasons, it must not require an access card and any such addition should require submission and approval by the Town of Lady Lake.

Respectfully,

EdV
Stonecrest Resident, Summerfield Florida