Verizon Plugs Up

Friends of mine live off of Angel Lane and Lutz Lake Fern. Verizon paid Angel Lane a visit to put in its fiber optic cable. As part of it they used a ditch witch to run the cable across the street.

They left behind a recurring collapsing pothole running the width of the street and plugged up drainage ditches because the cable pipe ran across through the ditch pipes.

Still not fixed.

First Taste of Neighborhood Civic Activism

When we lived in Pasco Lutz, Susan and I had our first taste of neighborhood civic activism. We lived in a nice subdivision, Turtle Lakes. Behind our house was a pine tree famr that had served as a buffer between our subdivision and State Road 54. Then the developers came in an wanted to turn it into a another subdivision. We were told the zoning was going to be changed to a denser area than what our neighborhood. Our neighborhood and the neighborhood next to us were worried about it. We rallied and then fought it. We won the first round when the Pasco Planning Commission voted against it. However we lost in the County Commission and eventually the homes were built. Basically the developers literally threatened the County Commissioners and they gave in.

At the time the Turtle Lakes Neighborhood Association was almost dead, and this helped revive it.

It was an interesting, except for the poor gopher turtles who were just buried in their holes by the developers.

Call for Action

Friends of ours live off of Lutz Lake Fern Rd and Angel Lane, west of Cheval. There is a huge piece of land next to that area that some developer wants to turn into a borrow pit over many years. Big trucks will drive up and down the quiet streets for years. There is apparently going to be some meeting about it on Friday. As I get more details I will post them.

Hello There Lutz

This will be my blog about Lutz, attempting to replicate what I have done in Seminole Heights. It will be interesting to see where this blog goes, as issues are certainly different in Lutz than they are in Seminole Heights. Lutz is a larger area than Seminole Heights and so would not have the same cohesiveness. Lutz does have a history of activism though. The posts in this blog will not be as frequent as on the Seminole Heights blog, until we move there.

We have long standing ties to Lutz. Susan lived and worked in Odessa for years. The first house we wanted to buy, in 1990, was in downtown Lutz. However that contract fell through when the wooden house was found not to be worth the $40,000 the seller wanted. Six years ago we previously lived in Pasco Lutz, in Turtle Lakes. This time we intend to move closer to downtown Lutz so I will not has as far to drive. Susan's art work has been framed for last 15 years or so by Tana at The Beck Gallery. Our dog obedience trainer, Courteous Canine, is off County Line Road between Turle Lakes and Carpenters Run.

While living in Turtle Lakes, we got our first taste of civic activism. More on that in a later post.