Community Development District 1 supervisors are refusing to surrender on the issue of golf cart safety on Morse Boulevard.
Fueled by frustration and heavy lobbying by resident James Vaccaro and others, CDD 1 earlier this year agreed to update a traffic study originally performed by Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc., to the tune of about $120,000.
CDD 1 Supervisor Rocky Hyder and Vaccaro recently met with Sumter County officials including Public Works Director Deborah Snyder.
“The conversation turned more positive when it was mentioned that this board might be willing to pay to update the previous Kimley-Horn study,” Hyder said when he updated his fellow supervisors at Friday’s meeting a Savannah Center.
However, county officials signaled they have no desire to take on the issue of Morse Boulevard traffic north of County Road 466, Hyder said.
“Right now there doesn’t seem to be the political will in the county to do something about this project. They have other projects and I understand that,” Hyder said.
Vaccaro said it was made clear to him that the county was not going to address the Morse Boulevard traffic concerns.
“It got kicked down the road,” Vaccaro said.
Even though it might mean going it alone, CDD 1 supervisors indicated they will move forward with the study, despite the fact the anticipated cost contributed to a decision to raise residents’ maintenance assessment by 10 percent.
“We can’t give up. We can’t kick it down the road any more. We have to try to keep proceeding,” said CDD 1 Supervisor Bill Jenness.