Baugh holds first Town Hall meeting in Lakewood Ranch

LAKEWOOD RANCH — To Lakewood Ranch, Vanessa Baugh is the woman next-door.

Her jewelry store occupies a prominent space on Lakewood Ranch Main Street, and her home here looks out onto a lanai where she can watch her community.

So when Baugh, the District 5 Manatee County commissioner, commanded her first town hall-style meeting in Lakewood Ranch March 5, it was like just another conversation among friends and neighbors.

“Most of you I’ve met,” Baugh told the 156-person audience at Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. “Most of you helped me get elected. You are family. I don’t work for the county. I work for you.”

With that, Baugh provided details on the issues that matter to Lakewood Ranch residents — ones she has heard about many times before:

• Traffic at Interstate 75 and University Parkway;

• A planned new traffic signal at the entrance to the Edgewater Community; and

• The condition of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard.

“I know what the issues are,” Baugh said. “It’s my job to help solve them.”

Baugh deals with the first issue as a citizen every day.

Baugh said that while she drove — or plodded along — University Parkway near the I-75 interchange shortly after becoming commissioner, she called Ed Hunzeker, Manatee County’s administrator.

“There’s got to be something we can do here,” Baugh told him.

Since she was elected in November 2012, Baugh acknowledged, nothing has happened there.

The Florida Department of Transportation has said in the past that it does not have any money earmarked for its proposed diverging-diamond plan for the interchange until after 2021. But Baugh announced to the crowd that she would board a 5:45 a.m. private jet the next day to discuss the University Parkway/I-75 traffic problem with FDOT and other local officials in Tallahassee (see page 1A story). The crowd applauded.

The meeting represented a hard charge to improve traffic conditions before the 2017 World Rowing Championships begins.

“I don’t care what we have to do,” Baugh said. “They get tired of me saying it. We need a road.”

The tough talk — and action — impressed people in attendance.

“The fact she was not only involved, but actually going to the meeting is impressive,” said Dick Moran, a resident of Edgewater. “A lot of officials would hear about the meeting after it happened from someone who was there. She’s doing a superb job of representing our interests.”

As 8 p.m. approached and Baugh heard concerns from residents during a half-hour question-and-answer session, the District 5 commissioner confirmed that even when she returns home, the state of her community stays in mind.

“I need to get home soon because my husband (Don) is probably wondering where dinner is,” Baugh said. “My husband tells me that even in my sleep, I say, ‘Oh my gosh, we need a road.’”
Other issues

Baugh on Lakewood Ranch Boulevard:
“It won’t get totally repaved anytime soon. It won’t get done this year.”

Baugh says the intersection of State Road 70 and Greenbrook Boulevard needs a traffic signal:

“But that is more difficult because it is a state road.”

Baugh on a planned traffic signal at the entrance to the Edgewater community:

“We have that funded in fiscal year 2014.”

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected]