COURTESY : The Daily Commercial
By Bill Koch
Published December 2, 2006 

THE VILLAGES - Villagers voted last month to establish a special board to oversee communitywide affairs. Now, lawyers will have to examine the agreement before that board can be created.

Voters in The Villages approved a nonbinding referendum Nov. 7 that would establish an authority consisting of supervisors or representatives from the community's four residential districts and the commercial-based Village Center Community Development District board, as well as from The Villages' portion of Lady Lake and Lake County. That authority would assume responsibility for some things the Center District now handles.

The discussion Friday at the Village Center Community Development District board's regular meeting turned contentious when several Villagers questioned legal provisions of the authority and said potential board members have conflicts of interest.

"The suggestion (to establish an authority) came from The Villages (developer)," Village Center supervisor Gary Moyer said during the meeting in an attempt to quell legal concerns about the authority's formation. "We're fully in support of the authority. We want to do it right."

Joe Gorman, president of The Villages Property Owners' Association, criticized the Village Center board, which consists of developer-elected supervisors, several times during the meeting. He said the agreement that forms the authority is unclear on authority members' relationships to the developer.

The agreement establishes a board of members appointed by the boards of the areas they represent. Authority members would later run for election.

The Villages has ten resident-based community development districts. Development is complete in the first six and is under way in the rest. Districts 1 through 4 have resident-elected boards while the others still have developer-selected boards. The developer, as the majority landowner, also selects board members for the Village Center and Sumter Landing community development districts, which govern The Villages' commercial areas.

Moyer, who is also The Villages' vice president of development, said the agreement which binds the seven separate governing boards together cannot be changed at this time. The referendum was legally based on the agreement, he said.

Sadie Woollard of The Villages of Lady Lake said she objected to selecting any of Lady Lake's town commissioners to the authority, saying they were all too close to the developer.

"We want someone who is unbiased and open minded," she said. "We want someone with a voice."

Villagers also said they were concerned that requirements to limit the interim authority to district board supervisors would block qualified Villagers from participating.

"You're missing the boat if this has to be someone on the board," said Villager John Drummond.

Chico Mir, a Community Development District 2 board supervisor, questioned the Nov. 7 election results.

He said all Villages landowners, as opposed to strictly local registered voters, should have been allowed to vote. Some of the Villagers who were prohibited from voting may be registered in another state or another country, he said.

"To me this is critical," he said. "I want to know if we're going to get in a lawsuit."

Mir contended that every Villager who pays amenity fees, which fund the Center District, should be entitled to vote.