LAKEWO0D RANCH — Oaks resident Vicky Horswood, a board member of the Summerfield-Riverwalk Homeowners Association, worries that someone speeding down Lakewood Ranch Boulevard will one day seriously injure a child on a bicycle.
She didn’t come to Friday’s second incorporation meeting at Town Hall to debate the economics or politics of incorporation, as some did.
One of the reasons she came was simply to express that she would be a little more comfortable living in Lakewood Ranch if it had its own city police department.
“It seems now that we get police out here only when something happens,” Horswood said with an audience of about 20 around her and members of the Lakewood Ranch Civic Action Forum’s Incorporation Study Committee in front of her. “I would just like them here all the time to catch these speeders.”
Rack up one vote for incorporation.
Horswood, however, was the only audience member who had a positive reaction to Lakewood Ranch becoming a city.
The other half-dozen or so speakers who were asked to give feedback after the incorporation committee unveiled the proposed city charter weren’t necessarily opposed, but seemed to have concerns.
Don Buckard of Twin Hills was boggled by the theoretical feel of it all. Like others, he wants answers that aren’t yet available.
“This reminds me of a course in school,” Buckard said.
He wants to know what the boundaries of the proposed city would be, would the taxes go up or down, and is future growth enough to carry it forward?
“I just want the facts and I don’t want to be sold,” he said.
Buckard was told there will be answers in a matter of months when economist Hank Fishkind’s financial feasibility study is complete.
Fred Braun, a member of the Country Club-Edgewater Village Homeowners Association, was concerned that the city charter presented at the meeting calls for no term limits for the five-member city council.
Braun said no term limits is a problem in Washington, D.C,. now.
“I foresee a cozy relationship between these five council members,” Braun said.
Reg Titcombe and George Serrano of Country Club offered their concerns.
“Why is this being done?” Serrano wanted to know. “How does all this benefit me?”
Serrano suggested that the five council members, who rely on a professional city manager, are often shy about opposing that city manager.
“The manager tends to dominate the council,” Serrano said. “The manager pulls out some regulation and the council members say, ‘I guess that’s right.’ To lay people, that can be intimidating.”
Serrano has experienced a city council-mayor government in Meriden, Conn., and Meredith, N.H.
“It’s nearly impossible to get the city manager out,” Serrano added. “They have a very strong association.”
Titcombe argued that the economy is so frighteningly bad right now that it would be a mistake to incorporate.
“I’ve just read that people are only buying what is absolutely essential,” Titcombe said. “I think the economics are going to totally drive this.”
When the meeting ended, Jo Anne Dain, Civic Action Forum president, seemed pleased with the feedback.
“Both meetings have been wonderful,” Dain said. “We will now go back and analyze everything. The next big milestone is the feasibility study.”
Richard Dymond, Herald reporter, can be reached at 708-7917.
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