Even though no activities in the rec centers, softball fields, tennis courts, pickleball courts, bocce, shuffleboard, horseshoes courts, platform tennis, sand volleyball/tennis courts they still have to be maintained. Yes, it sucked and most outdoor activities didn’t need to be stopped, but wasn’t much know about the virus then.

They now know virus nearly impossible to catch during outdoor activities. Now fans in close proximity without masks have higher change of getting infected. But, playing sport outside has determined very low. Course indoors in close proximity the changes go way up.

Great news, The Resident Academy, all the district meetings, the AAC meetings, and PWAC meetings are in the morning or afternoon, so that shouldn't interfere with your evening work schedule. I understand having to work, I worked my first four years I lived in The Villages and served as a supervisor, it was important enough to me to be at the meetings that I arranged the time off when they occurred.

The Resident Academy does cover quite a bit about the district governance, but it also covers a lot of the amenity questions you may have. Just because you may not live in one of the numbered residential CDDs does not mean the CDDs don’t have a significant impact on you, there is also the commercial CDDs – VCCDD, SLCDD, and BWCDD – as well as the utility CDD - NSUDD – that impact you and everyone else in The Villages. There are a lot of moving parts to The Villages.

Your questions were not an inconvenience to answer. If you’ve seen my past posts, you would know that is not my way. Your attitude is why I didn’t bother to address them. Your very first response starts with developer bashing and the assumption that the developer is in control of everything that happens. This if far from reality. First off all contracts are put out for competitive bid and there are multiple selection criteria for determining the best supplier/contractor, it is not always based on lower price (a lower price by a company with inadequate staffing and resources to fully execute a contract may not get the work, it is a complicated process).

If you’d like to see a list of all the contractors that have been awarded work and the bidding processes and competitors pricing, this information is available for your review. You can get it either by reviewing the agendas/minutes of each of CDD, PWAC, and AAC board meetings for the last several years (many contracts are multi year contracts) or you can do a public records request for this information by contacting the District Clerk, Jennifer McQueary at jennifer.mcqueary@districtgov.org . The public records request has a cost to the requestor under FS119.07 of $0.15/page to cover the cost resources expended (time, paper, toner, etc.).

The operation of the districts is independent of the developer and is subject to annual audits and Florida state statues for operations. Within the numbered residential CDDs only CDD11 and 13 have land owner elected supervisors. In CDD11 the land owner elected supervisors will be replaced by qualified electorate elected supervisors (resident elected). All the rest of the residential CDD’s supervisors are full time residents of The Villages, many of them, like myself, are not on the developers A-list of friends as we stand up for the residents and what is best for them and don’t give a flip about what is necessarily good for the developer.

Printing and binding, here again we have an education issue. Printing and binding is the budget coding that the “Communications and Marketing Plan” for the amenities is covered under, this includes the Rec News. This is a lump sum contact with the Daily Sun that is billed based on distributed copies of the Rec News. The CMP also includes: website hosting and maintenance of the districtgov.org website, V. Recreation and parks dept digital billboard, V. Recreation and Parks Recreation Bulletin Boards throughout TV, production and publication of the district weekly newsletter, the E-Notification system, advertising of recreation events on the radio station and live streaming, The Villages App, V. Community Calendar that comes out monthly, recreation department printing services, and many more services. Simply not printing the Rec News weekly would not put the dent into the budget that most people think it will. The printing and distribution of the Rec News is but a fraction of the one line item of things included in the CMP. Only printing “a few” copies and placing them in the Rec Centers does not eliminate any of the data maintenance, design, and productions costs which makeup a majority of the costs involved. While the rec news is currently available on-line, creation of this data is the costs incurred for the creation of the printed media. Expectations for web-based content is very high these days. If the only source of information would be a phone app then typical expectations would be for example: you want to do water aerobics this morning, you check the app and it shows it starts a Seabreeze at 9:00 am, you need directions so you expect to touch a link and golf cart or car directions are offered, as you get ready to leave you notice it is raining and you check the app to see if it has been canceled. These things all cost money to create, maintain, and update.

NEWS FLASH - THE INTERNET IS NOT FREE! The advertisers on the webpages pay for the content providers to produce what they do. Because the districts are government entities they do not take advertising and have to pay for all content and network bandwidth utilization out of their budgets.
Even the single page of newsprint you suggest would have cost to produce that would offset any savings from not printing the full run of the Rec News.

Operating Costs are things like janitorial services, fire alarm system monitoring and testing, changing the air conditioning system filters, etc. Repair and Maintenance is things like new roofs, broken doors and windows, etc. These sound similar but are divided based on recurrence as well as cost to make this breakout.

Property Management is the primary group that is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the infrastructure and facilities of TV community, everything form the retention ponds and interconnecting distribution system, supervisions of landscape and other service contractors, and if something is broke they are the first ones called to figure out how to fix it or get thing operating again.

Unaccompanied teenagers playing basketball – recreation staff
Gate crashes – Community Watch
Yes the “professionals”, the various department staff members, are doing their jobs that they are hired to do and yes they are held accountable, to a higher standard than in most communities. A CDD has no law enforcement abilities under FS190, these fall to the local municipality, the city or county that the CDD is a part of.

For the level of grief (I’m being nice with that word) that may of the department staffs have to put up with from some residents who will complain and gripe about almost anything and everything, they are far from being overpaid.

I hope this has answered your questions.

I am glad you are participating in local government and communicating so effectively, GoldWingNut.

Disagree, there was still a cost to maintain operations and functional even if not being used.

Wow! Great informative answer, wingnut! Learned a lot. Appreciate it!

The shuffle board courts at Spanish Moss are not being maintained; The Bocci Ball court at Everglads has weeds and ants taking over. While no one was using them, why were they not maintained?

Issues
 

Let's concentrate on more important things, like making a 4-foot putt.

Have to disagree. Less electricity was used. Less employees were needed. No electricity using exercise equipment was used. Less water being used. And I thought the “maintenance fee” we are charged on our annual taxes was used for the common grounds upkeep!

Thank you. I said this the last time this subject came up. Shutting off A/C in rec ctrs would cause.mold and mildew. No thanks that causes a lot of health problems. Shut off filters and no maintenance of pools. Two weeks and you get a nice green messy pool. Takes work to get it back. The Villages always looks nice. Costs money that's where your money goes. Do you still run your A/C at home
Do you still maintain your yard and home. Does it cost money. There you go. It still costs money. Activities are run by volunteers. They do not get paid. Ok I'm done.

Exactly what “Activities” did you pay for that you didn’t get to do? And which of those activities would have made you more accessible to COVID-19? Didn’t your lack of activities Actually, possibly, save your life? You’re lucky they didn’t charge more.

Good luck getting money back from the developer !
Let me know how that worked for you !!

Rec centers, pools and sports courts etc still had to be maintained.
We can only imagine what the numbers would have been if we went about life as usual

[QUOTE=rickdankert;1782597]For 3 months, all activities in The Villages were cancelled. Rec centers, pools, outdoor activities all closed. Dog parks closed. But still, we paid our Activities Fees every one of those 3 months. I think we should receive a rebate from The Villages. I received one from my auto insurance provider because I wasn’t driving. I even got money from the government. How about it, Developer? We paid for 3 months and received nothing. A full or partial rebate seems appropriate.

Rick Dankert
Briar Meadow[/QUOT

OMG......here we gooooooooo again !

I just hope the homeowners insurance companies don't charge us more for having to stay home so much.

Not true here.