After reading the copy of the Class Action Settlement Notice posted below by AnotherVillager (thanks, by the way), here's a couple of conclusions I've reached...
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- Yes, the five residents, all current or former officers of the POA, have negotiated to get themselves paid an amount of $60,000 each for whatever their efforts were in filing the lawsuit against The Villages. In that the lawsuit was only initiated sometime in 2007, that's a pretty handsome salary for part-time work. More importantly, the total amount of $300,000 proposed to be paid to our "representatives" comes directly out of the monies that The Villages agreed to set aside for future expenditures for recreational amenities in the area of The Villages south of CR 466.
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- More egregious is the $6.7 million dollar payment to be made to the lawyers for the five resident/plaintiffs. (Just as a frame of reference, $6.7 million would pay for the full-time engagement of over 13 lawyers for an entire year at a billing rate of $250 per hour.) In researching the lawyers I can find no record of the firm of Anderson & Anderson, P.A. in Lady Lake or anywhere else in the State of Florida. One of the two plaintiff's attorneys is listed as "Of Counsel" to the firm. "Of counsel" often describes a semi-retired or retired partner who still keeps a hand in a law firm. It certainly appears that this proposed settlement is a tremendous financial windfall to the two lawyers hired by the plantiffs to file this lawsuit. Also, like the payments to the five plaintiffs, this money comes directly out of the amount that would normally be spent on future recreational facilities and programs here in The Villages.
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- The Class Action Settlement Notice permits only Villages residents owning property north of CR 466 to appeal to the Court on this proposed settlement, but sets forth an extremely complicated and cumbersome process for doing so. If any of you meeting the tests as Class Members desire to appeal, you should read and re-read the process for doing so in the copy of the settlement notice posted below.
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- If there is anything positive I read into the proposed settlement notice it's the description of the formation of the new Amenities Authority Committee (AAC). It's pretty clear that the AAC will have complete control over running the recreational amenities north of CR 466. But the notice reads that the AAC will be created "...as a committee of the VCCDD". To me that suggests that the recreational amenities will continue to be managed by the VCCDD management (and ultimately the SLCDD north of CR 466). The wording of the Court doesn't say how the membership of the AAC will be established or whether residents will have any representation on the AAC. I wish it did.
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The bottom line seems to be that our five fellow residents have paid themselves and their lawyers quite handsomely to obligate all of the rest of us to a settlement with the developer of The Villages that satisfies their complaints, even though the rest of us may not agree. It appears that this settlement is probably a "done deal", but if you want to appeal and if you qualify to do so, you'd better get going.
I sure wish one or more of the five plaintiffs who appointed themselves to represent all of the rest of us would make a comment here on anything or everything that's been posted.