WALDEN LAKE MALIGNED BY AN ANONYMOUS SOURCE
Just hours following the worst Hurricane in decades, I picked up the PLANT CITY OBSERVER and read – “OLD WALDEN LAKE GOLF COURSE STILL FALLING APART – NO CURRENT PATH FORWARD TO SOLVE PROBLEM”. Your paper had the temerity to publish this “story” knowing full well a hurricane was headed our way – your masthead stated , “CITY MANAGER AND STAFF PREPARE FOR HURRICANE MILTON”, but you did not have the courage to even say who authored the misinformation in the “Walden Lake article” – or was it meant to be a not so veiled “strong arm advertisement”?
One cannot solve a problem, if one does not understand the problem. The “Walden Lake problem” has NOTHING TO DO WITH GOLF! In the 1970’s this City, this County, and this State made a contract with the future residents of Walden Lake when they created a MASTER PLANNED COMMUNITY (PUD). Residents have been writing to your newspaper and the City Commissioners for years that the 350 acre watershed’s PRIMARY PUROSE is to be a – STORM WATER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, golf is a secondary or tertiary utility at best.
No one caused Hurricane Milton, but there are aggravating factors that contributed to the severity of damages in Walden Lake. There are hundreds of retention ponds on these 350 acres. Thousands built their homes around this property with the expectation it would be maintained as a golf course or at least as green space with a responsible caretaker. Today, these retention ponds cannot hold water – as they are chock full of growth (neglect), and the water cannot reach them because of overgrowth (neglect). The cosmetic grass cutting 200 feet from private property lines of these 350 acres only exacerbates the flooding. If the rain water cannot reach these retention ponds due to neglect, we are going to have more flooding. If the politicians break the glass to the Walden Lake Planned Unit Development (P.U.D) to accommodate the out of town land speculators, then they will most certainly put current and future residents under water more frequently, and maybe more severe. Pouring cement over this watershed would be folly.
The characterization by the anonymous author that the “GOLF COURSE failed due to lack of interest” is a red herring – it failed due to business malfeasance and the greed to develop.
Sadly, many residents in Walden Lake are more than just hurting from the flooding – they have suffered severe and some have suffered catastrophic real damages. Those who did not suffer property damage will most certainly suffer higher insurance costs, and potentially lower property values.
By virtue of this letter to the editor, I am asking the Walden Lake Community Association Board to retain special counsel to seek immediate injunctive relief or a moratorium on all “rezoning” until a full, fair, and objective assessment of the “problem” can be performed – at minimum. This would include the “trash” created by the landowner shown in your pictures, and of course, clearing the retention ponds of debris and clearing the grasses so that rain-water can flow to them, and not into the community.
Don Marshall
Plant City (Walden Lake) Resident (1992)