Well, I haven't done this in a while, but I guess it's time for me to chime in again.
It's late and I don't remember exactly where the saying came from, but this seems to be "Much ado about nothing."
I, for one, love it that Harold Schwartz had the foresight and the family has carried it on for decades. I challenge anyone here to come up with a winner such as The Villages and then walk away and say, "OK, have at it, ya'll". Ain't gonna happen. Why should it?
Everyone came here because
they wanted to come. We all came here for something other than what we already had. I know there are those who will get their 'knickers in a knot" when told that if they don't like it here, they can leave. What part of that statement is not true? That is not telling someone that they have to do so, anymore than telling them that they had to move here in the first place. I know for a fact, we didn't have a gun to our heads telling us what we were going to do.
As for the idea of turning it over to the residents, I will vote a resounding "NO". Why? Because it would cease to be well run and would go downhill faster than a snowball headed for hell. For crying out loud, there are too many already that cannot agree on anything simple, much less something as big as this place. It would be constant bickering, it would show, and everyone would suffer the consequences. Does it suit everyone now? Of course not. We are, after all, individuals. But, there are always those around who think they can build a better mousetrap. Most, if not all of us, did not come here to build mousetraps.
With this being primarily a retirement community, how many of us have generations left to worry about how big it is getting, anyway? I just feel that we should all be grateful for what we have instead of complaining about what we don't have or what someone else does have. Not only does the Morse family continue to grow their business and their
profits (after all, isn't that what business is supposed to do), but we continue to reap the benefits while they put out the big bucks. Thank goodness, they are not the tightwads that some people here are.