Article Courtesy of The
Citrus County Chronicle
By Mike Wright
Published April 25, 2018
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Sweetwater Pointe is not the kind of community known for kicking up the dust.
Nestled off Old Floral City Road just
south of Inverness, Sweetwater Pointe features 55 upscale
homes on spacious lots, where sandhill cranes wander the
yards.
But a resident’s attempt to change a dynamic of the quiet
neighborhood has some people up in arms — and on the
doorstep of Citrus County government.
County commissioners on Tuesday will be asked to take sides
in a debate of whether to allow golf carts on streets in
Sweetwater Pointe.
Resident Sam Arnold presented the county with signatures or
28 homeowners who support golf cart use on community
streets.
But the Sweetwater Pointe Homeowners Association is saying
Arnold didn’t follow the proper protocol, and commissioners
should ignore Arnold’s petition.
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Sweetwater Pointe is an upscale community of 55 homes
between Inverness and Floral City.
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One commissioner is all too familiar with the issue.
“There’s an awful lot of bitterness,” Commissioner Jeff Kinnard said. “There
is quite a significant division between folks in the neighborhood and the
homeowners association.”
Kinnard knows. He has owned property there since 2001 and will not be
participating in any board vote that may take place Tuesday, even though
Kinnard’s home is set for a closing in May and he is now living in Crystal
River.
A similar effort was led in 2016, but the process was totally different. In
that case, the homeowners association sent out mail ballots to homeowners.
The result: 26 for, 15 against and 14 not returned.
Frank Bose, who has lived in the community since 1996 and is the
association’s financial secretary, said rules at the time counted ballots
not returned as “no” votes, so the 2016 effort failed. Since then, he said,
the residents have amended the bylaws to simply not count ballots that are
not returned.
Arnold’s petition to the county notes there is a platted golf cart trail
connecting Sweetwater Pointe and the Inverness Golf and Country Club. The
only way for Sweetwater Pointe homeowners to access the cart path is through
their community streets or venture out onto Old Floral City Road, he said.
Bose said the association doesn’t necessarily oppose opening the streets to
golf cart use, but that the question should be presented to homeowners in a
formal fashion — through the association’s board of directors.
Bose said that residents are already illegally driving golf carts on
community streets.
“There’s no golfers,” he said. “They’re using them to run around house to
house.”
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