Continued half truths and misrepresentations reposted from Mr. Scott Fenstermaker V-N article.
The other side of the story as summarized previously by Mr. Don Wiley:
“ Continuing to portray the 40% number as a "sweetheart deal" that somehow only The Villages developer is getting is both dishonest and neglects the rest of the facts of the situation.
As far as the road costs that were a part of the 2019 25% tax increase, the majority of that was for resurfacing of Morse and Buena Vista Blvds and the result of poor planning by the county, a failure to put money away for repair costs they knew were coming. They were too busy touting "no tax increase for 14 years" to take care of business. The real question one has to ask but nobody is (except me) is what happened the next year. The road resurfacing was a one-time cost and represented about 50% of the tax increase, we should have seen a 10-12% decrease in 2020 but didn't. Why you may ask. Because for 2020 every department in the county fattened up their budgets with 10 to 20% increases. Of course, you can't see these increase in the 2020 budgets because they only forward when they present the budgets, they don't show how much it increased from the previous year. To see this, you have to pull the 2019 budget proposals and painstakingly compare it line item by line item to the 2020 budget, only then does the truth of the mismanagement of the county come to light.“
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