In Sumter County, it is apparently is impossible to recall Mr. Estep or any other Commissioner. Laws governing recall in Florida - Ballotpedia

However, I would hope that Mr. Estep will still rejoin the other two members of the EMS team to keep their campaign promise and roll back the 25% tax increase, making up the revenue shortfall by increasing the Developer's sweetheart impact fee.

Undoubtedly, the Developer would pass as much as possible of the increased impact fee on to new home buyers. That is fine. It is the new home buyers who are necessitating the new county infrastructure.

But simple economics: Businesses cannot simply pass on all their costs; otherwise no business would ever go bankrupt. With reasonable impact fees, the Developer's profits would take a hit. We have been subsidizing his business. That is why he is going to such extraordinary lengths to protect his sweetheart deal and to continue offload what should be his costs on to the existing residents. Why do you think he has launched his massive propaganda campaign?

But this whole issue was, or would have been except for Mr. Estep's reneging, decided in the last election by about a 2-to-1 vote.

Here is the impact fee for a RETIREMENT (as is The Villages) community in Collier county and it includes schools even though it is a retirement community. So it is not apples and oranges
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Collier County Impact Fee Calculator
Building Use:Retirement Community (Detached)
Location:Collier County
Fire District:North Collier BC Fire
Living Area:1500
# of Units:100
Total Area per Unit:1700
Water and sewer impact fees are NOT INCLUDED. Please see fee schedule or call 239-252-6237.

Emergency Medical Services $6,201.00
Fire Please click here for North Collier Fire rates
Government Buildings $40,781.00
Jails $21,512.00
Law Enforcement $26,567.00
Library $14,583.00
Parks Regional $269,432.00
Parks Community $93,383.00
Roads $303,710.00
Schools $878,954.00
Total Fee $1,655,123.0 for 100 detached units

Here is a quote (below) from your link that states any elected Florida municipal official can be recalled for any of 7 reasons. As someone in this thread pointed out the new commissioners have only been in office since November (I didn't very that) so they have to have an audit or completely new cost analysis to set an impact fee. I would give them until Summer.
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See also: Requirements for recall
Grounds for the recall must be provided. There are 7 allowable grounds. They are "malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, drunkenness, incompetence, permanent inability to perform official duties, and conviction of a felony involving moral turpitude."[1]

Who Gets The Most Benefit For New Infrastructure?
 

Mr. Estep, during his campaign for office, stated that he, “Strongly Disagreed” with the 25% tax increase in 2019. The increase was due to all the new infrastructure, along with new schools, libraries, etc. which are not even included in the calculation of the Sumter County impact fees. He and the other two new commissioners pledged to roll back that tax increase. Raising the impact fees is one of the fair ways to correct the wrong done in 2019. Let’s face facts, the cost of new development should be paid for by the people who benefit from that development. The additional $1,458 impact fee for each new home in The Villages will surely be passed on to each new homebuyer. I seriously doubt if that amount will be detrimental to the growth of TV. And, with all the new homes sold every year, the businesses will follow. Actually, it has been shown that higher impact fees actually help increase the value of all homes in the area. Impact fees are one time charges. Tax increases, unless rolled back, are every year expenditures when we all pay our taxes. It’s time that Mr. Estep honor his word and his campaign promise. A man or woman is only as good as their word.

John, as to recall of the County Commissioners, read the portion of the link about counties. I wish that all 5 of the Developer's puppets could have been recalled prior to last November's election and that the remaining two (Gilpin and Breeden) could be recalled now instead of voted out in 2022, but I don't think it can be done in Sumter County, unlike some other counties.

An impact study is necessary regarding non-road impact fees and would be part of the analysis that you describe. The Commissioners need to immediately contract to have the study done with respect to non-road infrastructure. The road-impact-fee study was done in 2019. There is no reason why the road-impact fee cannot immediately be increased from 40% to 100% of the amount calculated in that study. The delay, thanks to Mr. Estep's breaking with Mr. Miller and Search, is putting millions into the Developer's pocket at our expense.

I think a lot of voters in South Sumter feel they helped elect the EMS team, so they are waiting for their "Charter" schools, town square, better roads and family pool. Also, didn't the "old" commissioners just end the hotel tax that paid for square entertainment?
It will be interesting to see how the new commissioners roll back the 25% tax increase. After all, that is why they were elected...

The EMS team clearly stated that they would roll back the 25% property tax increase by increasing the Developer's sweetheart impact fee.

Since TV is the fastest growing development in the country, and since home prices are already quite a bit higher than similar properties outside TV, I think "the developer" COULD pass 100% of a higher impact fee on to the consumer without his profits "taking a hit". Not all businesses could do this, but I think this one could.

If so, fine. But the Developer apparently doesn't think so or he would not have launched his massive propaganda campaign in the Daily Sun and had his suppliers turn out in mass at the last Commission meeting and block the parking lot with their heavy equipment. The point is that the existing residents should not be paying for the infrastructure necessitated by The Villages expansion.

In any event, the issue of replacing the 25% tax hike with reasonable impact fees was decided in the last election by a 2-to-1 margin. We wouldn't be reexamining the issue now if Mr. Estep had not reneged on his campaign pledge.

These new county commissioners have promised something that they can't keep. The county is growing and there are services that are expected and go along with the increased population, which are they going to cut? Library hours? Police and fire service? the county services offices hours? wages? do any one of them have the backbone to make the hard and unpopular decisions? doubtful.

What exactly have they found now that they are in office that they can cut to recover the 25% increase? My guess is NOTHING! They are getting ready to go into the most shocking part of their new positions, the budget season, and the realities of operating a county of this size.

The budget process started tonight at their workshop. They were presented with information about county salaries for the workers. About a 4% increase across the board is proposed. All in about $2,200,000 increase in wages. This doesn't include any new hires, just increases for the current workers. Do they have the backbone to say no pay raises this year to the county workers? once again, doubtful. They can save 15% of the proposed increase in one quick and easy step, all they need do is forego their salaries and benefits, that'll save over $300K per year. Will they do that? keep dreaming!

The real test of their integrity will be in September when the final budget is decided, and the residents of Sumter County find out that they can't deliver on their rhetoric of the last two years; will they fortitude and the integrity to stand up at the board meeting and say to the public:
"We were wrong, we didn't know what we were talking about, we can't cut the budget."
Dream on!

Half of the 25% increase could have been given back in the most recent budget, but it wasn't, it was squandered by every department in the county with 10-20% budget increases that didn't exist in the previous year's 5-year proforma budget projections. They could have started setting money aside for upcoming maintenance and been prepared, instead of ignoring it like they did the previous 14 years. But nope, every department all of a sudden needed new computers, and tools, and other "stuff" since the money was there. The first rule of government budgeting is "if you have the money, spend it, don't give it back to the taxpayers".

As far as the South Sumter county resident expecting pools, town squares, and many of the other niceties that exist in The Villages, they are in for a shock, it's not going to happen, the county doesn't have the money for it. The county didn't build and provide all these nice things in The Villages, the residents did, by buying homes from the developer who invested of that money back into their development to make it what it is; the residents did when they paid their infrastructure bonds on every new home. The Villages isn't what it is because the county spent taxpayer money on these things, it is what it is because we, you, I and every other resident in The Villages invested our hard-earned money into it when we bought our homes. There're no free rides happening here. Each community must invest in itself if they want something better.

Well than, that begs the obvious question. Why do they go to such painstaking measures to control the governing bodies to insure that passing on impact fees will not be an issue, among other things?

If the assumption of control is true, the answer is the same as to why there is big money at all levels of politics, all the way to the White House. :icon_wink:

South Sumter is a wildlife preserve.
I don't think the animals need charter schools or town squares.
:ohdear:

:bigbow: