What is stopping the legislature from passing the same bill a second time:

1. Why would they spend the time and effort to give us another chance to turn it down? The legislature and governor don't care if we have an IFD. They went through the process to make it available to us and we said, "no thank you." Yes, they *could* do it again, but why would they bother.

2. Your proposed 5-year waiting time.

We lost nothing. Nada. Zilch. Emotional arguments and speculative promises did not fly. Carry on.

We, the residents, lost the chance to control our VPSD. The failure of the IFD leaves it in the hands of the Developer (somewhat) and the BoCC.

It's my understand that the new ambulances are already in the Villages fire department stations and are being used. So, no changes to the placement of these ambulances because of this no vote.

Let me fix that for you:
It's my understand that the new ambulances are already in the Villages fire department stations and are being used. So, no changes to the placement of these ambulances today because of this no vote.

The IFD would have ensured there were no changes tomorrow as well.

Exactly!

It looks like the residents of the Villages have narrowly defeated the IFD. The voters have spoken. I don’t think all the scare tactics were very productive. Life will go on. We already have our own ambulances in The Villages so that is not jeopardized by the Villagers rejection of this proposal.

Really? So what is to stop the County from trying to take over control of VFD again?

It is interesting that the proposed fire district won a majority of the votes in some of the newer districts. I would submit that this is because the new arrivals have not yet learned to be skeptical of projects and candidates promoted by the Developer, the Developer's appointed officials, the Developer's million-dollars-a-year-for-part-time-work-employee State Representative Brett Hage, the Developer's newspaper, and the Developer's VHA. Villagers should be aware that "The VHA" trademark is registered to the Developer. https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...eloper-336491/

The proposed fire district was, indeed, a pig in a poke that we were being asked to buy. It went down to a well-deserved defeat. The present system is working, and there was no need to change it.

chilout Only thing worse than a BAD LOSER is a :censored:BAD WINNER! IMHO :cryin2:

That is the boogeyman set up by the proponents to try to sell us the pig-in-a-poke fire district. But why in the world would the county commissioners, who under One Sumter are ALL elected by Villagers, going to do something opposed by Villagers?????

I believe there was way TOO MUCH confusion on the ballot item. The ballot stated FUNDING of the IFD, it did NOT appear to stop the IFD. I tried to understand the issues, and never found the suitable answer(s).
Bottom line IMHO, the whole situation was badly handled on both sides.

I guess we can add Pig-in-a-poke to sweetheart impact fees as the most overused catch phrases of the year. Hopefully we'll not have to hear anymore of this obsessive hatred toward the Developer for another two years when I'm sure he'll be back to endear us with a new catch phrase.

Early Voting
 

IMHO early voting had nothing to do with the failure of the Fire District Referendum Early voting is a good thing and two weeks is about right. Prior to early voting and mail-in voting remember those long lines?

:shrug:
I voted early and I had full knowledge.
:shrug: