[villages07]

ijusluvit never returned to this thread to explain what he meant by the original quoted statement.

Each of the Villages is governed by a CDD, community development district. The District supervisors are initially appointed by the developer. Over time, as the district is populated by residents, the composition of the supervisor board changes from all appointed to a mix of appointed and elected residents then to all resident supervisors elected by voters within their CDD. This is one aspect of becoming 'independent of the developer'. However, to my knowledge none of the responsibilities of that CDD are changed....they still budget for and maintain the common areas of that CDD.

Now, for full disclosure, my frame of reference only goes back about 3 years. I don't know if the governement setup in the original historic side is different than how it is done today.