[Villages Kahuna]

The Sumter County commissioners, including three who ran and were elected on the promise of rolling back a 25% increase in property taxes, voted to do just that on Tuesday.

The special meeting to vote on the question was scheduled before the period agreed on to “study the effect of the tax rollback on county property owners” was made necessary because of the bill proposed by State Representative William Hage to cap impact fees charged to developers to a low single-digit percentage. Hage’s proposed law would have been retroactive to January 1, 2021, and if passed would essentially protect the Developer (and all Florida Real estate developers) from the obligation to pay impact fees created by the commissioners concurrent with the rollback of taxes on call Sumter County property owners. To refresh everyone’s memory, Hage is a senior executive of the Developer being paid about $200,000 year. If you see Hage’s proposed law as a huge conflict of interest—and very expensive to county homeowners—you’d be right “on the money”.

But the Developer-owned Villages Daily Sun’s front page headline describing the commissioners passage of the property tax rollback was Commission Pushes Tax Increase Through. The long article in the Wednesday edition describes the increased road and infrastructure impact fees as a “tax increase”. Of course there was no discussion in the article of the fact that county homeowners’ property taxes would have a major reduction from the tax increase passed by the former county commissioners which would have gone into effect next year. To refresh everyone’s memory the former five-member board of county commissioners were all either employees of the Developer or affiliated with contractors working for the Developer.

Draw your own conclusions, but all Sumter County homeowners should be thankful that finally there were three political candidates who followed through on their campaign promises. I know I am.

The other two conflicted commissioners run for re-election in 2022. Keep a eye out for the emergence of candidates challenging their incumbency.

By the way, I predict that both residential and commercial development in the south end of The Villages will continue at the pace desired by the Developer. Somehow they’ll “figure out a way” without the funding of new roads and infrastructure which would have been provided by ALL Sumter County homeowners!