Quote:
Originally Posted by mickey100
I'm a full time resident. Don't let my imagination run wild? The $40 million lawsuit was not my imagination. It was the Developer taking advantage. As good as Janet Tutt is, I don't think she would have been able to talk the Developer into doing what was right. That has been my point - I would feel better if TV had freedom from the Developer. Sure things are going well now, but consider how things might have been had the POA not stood up for the residents a few years back. The Villages would look like a totally different place - no funds for maintenance of important buildings, recreational trails, etc.
Some posters seem to think that wishing for freedom from the Developer is some kind of affront to Janet Tutt. I don't get that logic. That is not the thought that is being discussed here. What is being discussed is that you have a manager that is tied by salary to her employer, the Developer, and that is not necessarily in the residents' best interest. If the Developer eventually signs off, we can hire Janet Tutt directly to work for the residents' interests, without worry about the Developer's desire to make money overriding our needs.
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We had just bought here when your much brought up law suit happened. Most of us didn't have a clue. And most of us still don't. We looked all around and saw no mold or mildew, no shabby care of buildings and we were pretty leery of this being way too good to be true. We were VERY skeptical about the low cost of amenities and the free golf and all of the beautiful, well maintained buildings, and if not for old friends who had lived here who assured us that this place was the real deal we wouldn't have purchased our designer in Hadley.
What I know about that lawsuit, and YOU know about that lawsuit, and everybody knows about that lawsuit is pretty close to nothing. Neither side is allowed to speak out on it. I know that anyone can bring a lawsuit for any reason and this was brought by a few villagers including a couple of lawyers. Here is what little we know, printed in The Orlando Sentinel in 2008.
Villages developer to pay $40 million for recreation upgrades to settle a lawsuit - Orlando Sentinel
I know this. That lawsuit did not have a thing to do with anything south of 466 where we lived. We lived adjacent to the Odell Center, where I saw them power wash the wall a couple times of year and repaint all of the structures at Odell once a year. I saw them weed the beds that separated us from Odell several times a year and replace two palm trees on Odell property that had died. I saw them maintain the common areas without anyone complaining. All good.
About twenty years ago Gary Morse brought his family from Michigan to help his dad, Harold Schwartz. Harold had been married more than once and Gary Morse's mom had remarried a man named Morse after her divorce from Harold and I have heard a couple of reasons why she changed Gary's name from Schwartz to Morse. No one knows for sure, but Gary and his wife Sharon moved from Michigan where they had been involved in the original Brownwood, that is still alive and well today. By tales that I have heard Harold was a people guy with the idea to sell some land in central Florida to folks with "free golf for life". And in the beginning was the area on the north east of 441/27 with nice big lots and lakes and golf course to view with mostly modular homes. Still lovely and still loved.
But sometime after Gary joined his dad the plans became more ambitious and changed. Someone, maybe Gary, consulted the designers of Disney's Main Street to see how they could build a pretty, whimsical downtown area completely NOT based in any real history but a pretty place for restaurants and businesses to serve the folks they hoped would buy land so they could build houses and sell them.
I am pretty sure that they risked most all of their money at the time to do this.
And of course it worked. And continued to work. What I THINK happened is that someone researched and found the best contractors to build and to do infrastructure and to design and to decorate and to dream up all of this loveliness. If you didn't pass muster you would be out the door. Gary Morse may not have had all the good ideas but he knew who to hire. The CDD form of government was not new to the Villages. I think Disney used it but I am not sure.
As the place gained momentum, more people were hired and more people were employed. They built golf club houses with restaurants and staffed with good people in their employ. But it appears that their business plan was to sell the business part and own the property to rent to independent business people. So someone with not a lot of money became someone who with a good plan became a business success. This 77 year old man, Gary Morse still is at the helm but the business is now mostly run by his three children, all born and raised in the Brownwood area of Michigan and doing a pretty good job with this ever growing giant that employs thousands, makes the unemployment the lowest in the state and up there with llowest unemployment area in the country. Has made this the fastest growing area in the U.S. and built ten percent of all of the homes in the United States during the awful downturn in building and real estate sales.
I do not know the Morses but I do know that making a success of your venture is the American way. It is o.k. to become hugely financially successful. Most of the developers detractors are against ...well you know the politics that we are not allowed to discuss on this forum. I say build a business, employ people, keep them off the welfare roles. I am PROUD of where I live and how it was built. I am a fiscal conservative now that I am old and I say, well done Morses. Whoever you are.
Be rich, stay rich and thank you kindly.