rbecks1979's blog

I am sure a lot of you are aware about the controversy surrounding the St Johns River.  Central Florida which has been highly overdeveloped now wants to use the St Johns to (gasp) water their lawns.  Our river has enough issues ( like sewage and fertilizers free flowing) without compounding the problems by sucking millions of gallons of water a day.  The worst part is that Crist is avoiding comment on the issue.  I think he is loud and clear in his actions.  He is the developers best buddy.  

The lane shift for the construction of Argyle Forest Blvd was a complete disaster.  Argyle Forest turned into a parking lot Friday afternoon.  The way too short turn lane from Argyle Forest to Cheswick Oaks clogged the entire road.  Those waiting to turn on Cheswick Oaks do not have an adequate lane for the amount of traffic turning down that road.  There is no way for traffic to pass those waiting to turn so the road turned into a parking lot!  

One other "feature" of the newly paved road are enormous car shuddering man holes that will be sure to mess up the front suspension and alignment on your car.  The man hole covers are well above the level of the road and ridiculous.. I hope they come up with some sort of solution or you can just get used to sitting in traffic for 40 minutes on Argyle Forest.

My children attend the Oakleaf school which has a lot of portables.  In fact, a lot of schools here in Clay county are using portables.  They recently participated in a tornado drill in school which is great.  What is NOT so great is that during the drill they went to the main building.  I really do not think many of us are thinking about how unsafe portables are in the event of a tornado.  Does the school board really think our kids ( running out of 20+ portables) are all going to be able to reach the main building before a fast moving twister hits?  Let alone that our children would have to be exposed leaving the portable to get to the main building.. What if they were outside on the way to the building when a twister hits?

I think it is incredible that they want to hold off on reviewing the impact fees until AFTER we vote on a sales tax.  If the sales tax passes than they will likely lower the impact fees for development.  That is CRAZY!!  Guess why they want to lower the impact fees?  All the big developers contribute to political campaigns ( including MR Conkey he was backed by a lot of big developers).. The developers don't donate money to campaigns unless they expect something in return.  So watch what happens.  If the sales tax passes they will shift the burden to us (even though we already pay the impact fee when we buy our new homes they add it into the cost of the home), and we pay real estate taxes, and now they want to increase the SALES tax..