[Goldwingnut]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

I work retail. I can't schedule a night off just because I want to go to a meeting, most of which won't even apply to me or my area of residence. I don't live in a district, therefore, as I understand it (with limited knowledge because I work retail and have been scheduled to work on meeting nights or cancelled due to the virus) my residency is not governed by a district government.

As for Resident Academy, it apparently goes into great detail about the district governments, from what I understand (by reading the website). I had initially thought to go to one of these nights, but the first two times I was scheduled to work - and after that, they were cancelled because of the pandemic closures. At this point, I've already been living here over 6 months.

I had questions in response to your post. I asked them, in the thread. I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you. I'll just continue not knowing the answers to the questions. I can live with that.

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

The operating supplies could probably be reduced somewhat more, by putting out supplies to bid. When the developer opened this place he had all HIS people doing all this work - companies run by his friends and family and business partners, etc. I'd like to see the list of CURRENT contractors, and I'd like to see if there were any competitors at the time the current batch was chosen, what their offers were, and what was the winning "bottom dollar?"


This can be slashed dramatically by the elimination of inclusion in the Holding Company's Daily Sun newspaper. It would still be printed. It would still be available to view online, in rec centers, at the sales offices. But take it out of the Daily Sun OR - post a quarterly page of all club and regular activities - with a weekly "change" column, which would fit on half of a single page of newsprint as a PSA or even a paid advertisement. No need for weekly inserts if the only thing printed are the changes. New club listings, eliminated club listings, new addresses or phone numbers or contact info - all that would be listed. But the things that didn't change from the last time it was printed - wouldn't be printed again.


How is this different from the Operating Costs above, where you specify that the majority of the Operating Costs cover repair of the facilities? Seems like there might be some redundancy going on that could be slashed from the former. Also see my response with regards to contract bids.

Nothing to comment about in the above.

No complaint about Dept. of Safety, they earn what they get and then some. Curious about contracting for exec golf though. Again - bids?


Property Management - aren't they the ones responsible for ensuring that the 55+ status is maintained from a legal standpoint? And are the Rec center employees, or the Community Watch, or the Property Management responsible for ensuring that teenagers aren't playing basketball without their grandparents present? Who's responsible for making sure that the videos of gate-crashing golf cart drivers are checked and provided to the police? In other words - are all these "professionals" doing the job that some of us believe they were hired to do? The safety and security and 55+ legal status of our community is in the hands of someone or someones. Who are THOSE someones, and who are they accountable to? Are they doing what they're being paid to do? If they are, then no complaints. If they're not, then someone - or someones - are overpaid and the job should go to someone or someones who earn it.

Great news, The Resident Academy, all the district meetings, the AAC meetings, and PWAC meetings are in the morning or afternoon, so that shouldn't interfere with your evening work schedule. I understand having to work, I worked my first four years I lived in The Villages and served as a supervisor, it was important enough to me to be at the meetings that I arranged the time off when they occurred.

The Resident Academy does cover quite a bit about the district governance, but it also covers a lot of the amenity questions you may have. Just because you may not live in one of the numbered residential CDDs does not mean the CDDs don’t have a significant impact on you, there is also the commercial CDDs – VCCDD, SLCDD, and BWCDD – as well as the utility CDD - NSUDD – that impact you and everyone else in The Villages. There are a lot of moving parts to The Villages.

Your questions were not an inconvenience to answer. If you’ve seen my past posts, you would know that is not my way. Your attitude is why I didn’t bother to address them. Your very first response starts with developer bashing and the assumption that the developer is in control of everything that happens. This if far from reality. First off all contracts are put out for competitive bid and there are multiple selection criteria for determining the best supplier/contractor, it is not always based on lower price (a lower price by a company with inadequate staffing and resources to fully execute a contract may not get the work, it is a complicated process).

If you’d like to see a list of all the contractors that have been awarded work and the bidding processes and competitors pricing, this information is available for your review. You can get it either by reviewing the agendas/minutes of each of CDD, PWAC, and AAC board meetings for the last several years (many contracts are multi year contracts) or you can do a public records request for this information by contacting the District Clerk, Jennifer McQueary at jennifer.mcqueary@districtgov.org . The public records request has a cost to the requestor under FS119.07 of $0.15/page to cover the cost resources expended (time, paper, toner, etc.).

The operation of the districts is independent of the developer and is subject to annual audits and Florida state statues for operations. Within the numbered residential CDDs only CDD11 and 13 have land owner elected supervisors. In CDD11 the land owner elected supervisors will be replaced by qualified electorate elected supervisors (resident elected). All the rest of the residential CDD’s supervisors are full time residents of The Villages, many of them, like myself, are not on the developers A-list of friends as we stand up for the residents and what is best for them and don’t give a flip about what is necessarily good for the developer.

Printing and binding, here again we have an education issue. Printing and binding is the budget coding that the “Communications and Marketing Plan” for the amenities is covered under, this includes the Rec News. This is a lump sum contact with the Daily Sun that is billed based on distributed copies of the Rec News. The CMP also includes: website hosting and maintenance of the districtgov.org website, V. Recreation and parks dept digital billboard, V. Recreation and Parks Recreation Bulletin Boards throughout TV, production and publication of the district weekly newsletter, the E-Notification system, advertising of recreation events on the radio station and live streaming, The Villages App, V. Community Calendar that comes out monthly, recreation department printing services, and many more services. Simply not printing the Rec News weekly would not put the dent into the budget that most people think it will. The printing and distribution of the Rec News is but a fraction of the one line item of things included in the CMP. Only printing “a few” copies and placing them in the Rec Centers does not eliminate any of the data maintenance, design, and productions costs which makeup a majority of the costs involved. While the rec news is currently available on-line, creation of this data is the costs incurred for the creation of the printed media. Expectations for web-based content is very high these days. If the only source of information would be a phone app then typical expectations would be for example: you want to do water aerobics this morning, you check the app and it shows it starts a Seabreeze at 9:00 am, you need directions so you expect to touch a link and golf cart or car directions are offered, as you get ready to leave you notice it is raining and you check the app to see if it has been canceled. These things all cost money to create, maintain, and update.

NEWS FLASH - THE INTERNET IS NOT FREE! The advertisers on the webpages pay for the content providers to produce what they do. Because the districts are government entities they do not take advertising and have to pay for all content and network bandwidth utilization out of their budgets.
Even the single page of newsprint you suggest would have cost to produce that would offset any savings from not printing the full run of the Rec News.

Operating Costs are things like janitorial services, fire alarm system monitoring and testing, changing the air conditioning system filters, etc. Repair and Maintenance is things like new roofs, broken doors and windows, etc. These sound similar but are divided based on recurrence as well as cost to make this breakout.

Property Management is the primary group that is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the infrastructure and facilities of TV community, everything form the retention ponds and interconnecting distribution system, supervisions of landscape and other service contractors, and if something is broke they are the first ones called to figure out how to fix it or get thing operating again.

Unaccompanied teenagers playing basketball – recreation staff
Gate crashes – Community Watch
Yes the “professionals”, the various department staff members, are doing their jobs that they are hired to do and yes they are held accountable, to a higher standard than in most communities. A CDD has no law enforcement abilities under FS190, these fall to the local municipality, the city or county that the CDD is a part of.

For the level of grief (I’m being nice with that word) that may of the department staffs have to put up with from some residents who will complain and gripe about almost anything and everything, they are far from being overpaid.

I hope this has answered your questions.