And that, really, is the heart of the matter, good doctor.

Any attempt to propose an "innocent" reason as to why the wall was built - liability issues, closing a gap, keeping out pesky neighbors, reducing street noise for a handful of residents - has to include an explanation as to why it was done at 6 o'clock on a Saturday morning.

I can't believe that the developer was having a hard time sleeping on Friday night and suddenly said to his wife, "You know that gap that has been in existence for twenty years? I really need to get that fixed or the residents of my closed community will be nagging me to do so. Let me call my contractor right now so he can pre-cast a suitable wall section before dawn".

peachie -

if you knew the history of this cart path you would know 1] there was no trespass as the assisted living facility and mr. brown went out of their way to redirect the path when construction of harbor chase began; 2] thus, crossing the land was done with permission = no trespassing; 3] irritation does not stem from a feeling of privelege but from the unannounced loss of a 20 yr crossing upon which residents had come to rely.

where does your info that the path was only to allow access to medical offices come from? if that was so, why is it that access has been lost now rather than having left the area accessible and walling off the area around the offices?

on what info do you base your belief that spruce creek residents will shortly be allowed to cross 441/27?

what liability/implications does the villages have if people drove the cart path not on their property? as mentioned before, the owner of that property facilitated the use of his land for travellers...he had no fear of liability apparently. and he has told a poster here that he had NOTHING to do with the building of the wall. [see previous post] so your statement that he brought this upon us does not seem to be correct.

the villages is not an 'enclosed community' nor a gated community; roads are public and anyone can push a button to get a gate to raise...not to mention that the griffin ave gate to the historic side does not even have a gate.

you are, however, correct that the problem does not start/end with the historic destrict - others from throughout the villages used that access point and are also impacted adversely.

I'm puzzled. Where do you see greed, as opposed to sound business practice ???

where do you see 'sound business practice' in the building of a wall that prevents villagers in getting to villages facilities?

Welcome to TOTV.

Look around at 100,000 + people living in a fairly nice environment. Several hundred successful businesses providing jobs for thousands. Home sales holding steady or rising when the rest of the country is struggling. Looks fairly sound to me.

Interesting......................................

Trouble in River City
 

Many of my friends and myself did not know about the protest this morning. What do you guys think about meeting at the radio station at 10:00am every day this week? Word will get out! This effects all of us.

Well Gracie, I’ve been conspicuously absent on this issue because I’m 600 miles away in the Smoky Mountains and on the way up here last month, I took a bad fall and I’m recuperating from a fractured knee cap. I just caught this thread and spent a couple of hours reading through it so I could post intelligently without repeating anything that’s been said. But my tongue is sore from biting it.

1. This was a shock to me and I never saw it coming either.
2. The golf cart access path sits right on the county line between Sumter and Lake counties.
3. The property on the west side is listed as owned by “Villages Tri-County Medical Center Inc.” which is a nonprofit organization not affiliated in any way with Gary Morse or his companies as far as I can tell.
4. The property on the east side (on Paradises Dr.) is listed as owned by “Villages of Lake Sumter Inc.” which is of course Morse’s company.
5. From the photographs taken by BKCunningham and others, it’s impossible to say which property the wall is on. Six inches either way makes it one or the other.
6. Using aerial photographs from Google Earth, I can tell you that in 1999 the path through there appears to be just a dirt path. But in the 2004 photograph, Morse had paved his side with a divider and the Tri County Medical side installed a golf cart sized roundabout with pavers.
7. Sometime on or after the 2004 upgrade, access gates were installed there to limit access to card carrying TV residents but the town of Lady Lake soon after made them remove the gates. The reason being that you cannot discriminate access to a public road (Paradise Dr.)

These last two points are extremely important if a legal battle ensues. Both property owners made significant roadway improvements on or before 2004 with intent to provide safe paved golf cart access through that area. So that useage has been in place for over a decade.

Now, has anyone contacted the building permit departments at Lake and Sumter counties to determine for sure to whom the permit for the wall was issued?

A precast wall section needs 30 days to cure BEFORE installation - - -

.

You all aren't going to believe this...but the path is a

BUILDING LOT !!

In the town of Lady Lake

Why do you people who have absolutely NO clue what's going on over here think you have to come into this discussion to do nothing else but throw gas on a fire? All you do is ridicule and sit there and throw judgement on a subject you are far removed from. Go to a different thread and talk about golf. Leave this problem to the people who care about each other and are affected.

Thanks for all the support...

Really? You have that much time on your hands that you went through this thread and pulled out my posts?

Get a life...

I agree that the closing of OBH restaurant, the cowboy statue or the many other things that keep being mentioned in these posts are totally irrelevant to this issue.

I don't believe that the Morse's want to the see the historic district destroyed as they still make money on most of the homes that are sold here. I don't know if the Morse's are greedy or not and I don't care. I suspect that they are just business people who want to do what's best of their business. I'm not going speculate about the reasons that this wall was erected nor am I going to engage in personal attacks of the Morse family.

I don't think that any of that is helpful to this discussion or the goals of the people who have been affected by this wall.

I would simply like, and I believe that we all deserve, that either the wall be taken down or a reasonable explanation of why it was put up.

Can we please try to stick with the issue here and stop with all of the speculative comments that only confuse the discussion.

I support the wall along the Mexican border and so I support a wall all along The Villages.:D