JUST WRIGHT CITRUS
  • Home
  • Just Blogs
  • About

Vision isn't always seen out front

6/5/2023

 
Picture
Those of us who have called Citrus County home for more than a few years are nervously watching the landscape change.

That could be literal — a car wash where trees once stood — or something a little more esoteric. We feel a transition but can’t quite put our finger on it.

And that brings me to Magnolia Cemetery.

Magnolia is on State Road 44 near County Road 491 in Lecanto. It’s one of the oldest cemeteries in the county with burials including Civil War veterans on both sides of the fight.

Its origins trace to 1869 when a mysterious visitor from Kentucky committed suicide in a nearby hotel. The stone that marks his grave actually faces northwest where the hotel once sat.

I’m a cemetery person. I’ll be driving along a county road in the middle of nowhere and will stop at the local cemetery. Something about old and new gravestones, the inscriptions on some, the simple “born” and “died” dates on others. I search out families and, if unfamiliar with the area, try to figure out that community’s iconic names.

I’ve visited most cemeteries in this county at least once, including those that folks don’t even know exist. (One is hidden in plain sight.)

Cemeteries are sacred. They’re not to be messed with.

I wrote a story one year about a dispute among families about ownership of a cemetery. The man who claimed ownership was barring burial to members of a feuding family and the whole thing ended up in court.

Magnolia Cemetery is a plot of land with deep Lecanto history. For a hundred years it was surrounded by woods, rustic homes and farms.

In time, progress started to encroach on the cemetery. S.R. 44 was widened and then the C.R. 491 widening that totally exposed Magnolia Cemetery to the outside world.

If you’re somewhat new here, that wide-open valley on the east side of 491 was once covered in forest.

I took today’s blog photo a few months ago while strolling through Magnolia Cemetery. I came across this peaceful setting where someone had placed a bench seat to visit loved ones with picturesque woods in the background.

Those woods are gone. Rather than nature, what’s coming straight ahead is a Dan’s Car Wash and who knows what else. The county stripped all the beauty that surrounded Magnolia Cemetery for the sake of digging vast drainage holes to handle future development.

I try to picture how those families would react if they could see the cemetery’s surroundings today.

We’re talking a lot these days about vision and strategic plans. Past county commissioners are blamed for visions that didn’t turn out quite right (ask me about Ottawa Avenue) and praised for the ones that did (widening C.R. 486 before it was needed).

Vision changes over time. I wrote a little bit Monday about a developer’s plans for homes on the closed Pine Ridge Golf Club, and someone remarked it wasn’t fair.

Here’s how she put it:

“Those developers sold the original development plans to the county with their golf courses as ‘green spaces’ to get them approved and homeowners who purchased properties in golf course communities purchased with that similar green space mindset. It would be like purchasing a lakefront home and later the lake being filled, covered in concrete, and turned into a racetrack.”

And now you see the dilemma facing county commissioners every time they get a request to upzone or otherwise change a community’s traditional character.

It’s often difficult to anticipate whether something will work out or not. What I see out on C.R. 491 in Lecanto looks less like vision and more like hodge-podge planning. The original idea of a medical corridor wasn’t a bad one but look at it today. No medical corridor and a car wash coming in on the S.R. 44 corner.
​
I’m confident we have commissioners who are thinking more about the overall picture and not only what’s in front of them at the moment. 

Just as our pioneers did.

Join the discussion on our Facebook page.


Comments are closed.

    Author

    Mike Wright has written about Citrus County government and politics for 36 years.

    Picture
    Mike Bays State Farm Ad - Click to visit!
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Kovach Law Ad - Click to visit!
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Kinnard Chiropractic Ad - Click to visit!
    Picture

    Archives

    May 2025
    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021

Home

Today's Blog

About

Just Wright Citrus Logo
 Copyright © 2022
Created by Joshua Brunk and Noah Breder
  • Home
  • Just Blogs
  • About