Leisureville (16 page)

I meet with Joe Gorman, the current president of the POA, over a cup of coffee in downtown Spanish Springs. Joe, a mergers and acquisitions analyst for a Fortune 100 company, opted for early retirement, and for The Villages as the place to spend it. “I liked it immediately, and I still do,” he tells me. “This place is ninety percent great. Not merely good—but great.”

Joe says he “woke up to the issues” about five years earlier, when the
Orlando Sentinel
ran an investigative series about Chapter 190. It explained how Morse sold common property assessed at $8.8 million to the central district for $84 million. “When I saw that, I thought it was a typo at first,” he tells me. “I later learned that the business valuations weren't completely off base, but what concerned me was that there appeared to be very little arm's-length negotiating. I've been in business long enough to know that you never give someone exactly what they ask for. We had to make repairs to the Savannah Center not long after purchasing it.”

When Joe talks about Morse's ability to levy fees on residents with near impunity, he uses language borrowed from the American Revolution. “It's taxation without representation,” he says. “If the central districts are going to tax us, then residents should be able to serve on the board. If there were just one thing I could ask for, it would be to open up these districts to fair representation.” The POA's ten demands, incorporated into its “Residents' Bill of Rights,” are actually quite modest. The document is filled with basic requests that most of us take for granted, such as “a local government that is free of conflicts of interest.”

But few requests are too rudimentary in dealing with Morse's autocracy. Although the First Amendment ensures that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or the
right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” Morse and his central districts recently tried to do away with that protection.

They instituted an “Activity Policy,” which outlawed the gathering of two or more residents for the purpose of protesting against The Villages' policies without first filling out a lengthy application to gain permission from the central districts, and obtaining a $1 million liability policy. Even then, there was a ten-day waiting period, and protesters were still forbidden to demonstrate near areas with high traffic. When the POA called the American Civil Liberties Union and the local independent press, The Villages quickly backtracked.

Joe says the Activity Policy originally slipped by without anyone's even noticing it. “There's hardly any discussion at central district meetings. The board recites the Pledge of Allegiance and then votes on whatever is presented to them by staff. There's never a dissenting vote. The whole thing lasts maybe twenty minutes.”

Technically—and company officials are quick to remind you of this—the mini-districts and central districts don't “belong” to the developer; employees of these districts don't work for the developer directly; and the company is a separate entity that must petition the districts just like anyone else. But it's difficult to ignore the obvious: the family owns the company that controls the government.

The family members themselves rarely speak with residents. Gary Morse's son Mark, who now runs the company's day-to-day operations, gives an annual “state of The Villages” address sponsored by the VHA. Several Villagers describe it to me this way: the younger Morse jumps onto the stage and delivers a quick speech. He doesn't take questions from the audience, insisting instead that all queries be submitted in advance. This past year, they say, he didn't even respond to submitted questions.

I ask Joe how much support he thinks the POA has in the community. “It's kind of like during the American Revolution,” he tells me. “About one-third support the king, one-third support the rebels,
and one-third are generally more concerned about the annual Christmas parade.”

Later that night, I attend a campaign rally for U.S. Senator Bill Nelson of Florida, a Democrat, in one of the recreation centers decorated to give a feeling of the old South. After delivering a basic stump speech to a crowd of 200, Nelson takes questions from the audience.

A man wearing sandals, shorts, and a hearing aid is passed the microphone. “Senator, are you aware that the developer of The Villages is abusing Chapter 190?” The man is clearly nervous: his voice trembles, his eyes water, and his hands shake, but he soldiers on. “The developer controls everything. If he wants to sell residents an outhouse for $50 million, his people on the central districts say ‘Sure!' He has sold property to us at ten times assessed value.” The audience erupts into applause, but Nelson shows little interest in the issue.

“As a member of Congress, I get all sorts of calls like, ‘Can you help me get my cat down from my tree?'” the Senator responds. “Now what can I do about that? I have no jurisdiction over that Chapter 190, or whatever it's called. One thing you can do is demand accountability from your local elected officials.”

Several audience members shout out, nearly in unison: “We don't have any!”

After the rally, I meet one of the few residents elected to a mini-district, Rich Lambrecht. He is trim and clean-cut, and looks almost too young to be living in The Villages. Like Joe Gorman, he has a financial background.

“Once we finally got a majority of residents sitting on our five-member CDD board, the developer's two appointees simply stopped showing up,” Rich tells me. “They weren't used to the sort of issues we brought up, like competitive bidding.”

Sinkholes—and the resulting liability—have become an issue in Rich's mini-district. These impromptu ponds dot the landscape
all over this region of Florida. Until recently, it wasn't an issue; a sinkhole in a cow pasture isn't exactly big news.

In the middle of Rich's district is the Nancy Lopez championship golf course, which Morse decided to retain rather than sell to the central districts. The golf course has a complex drainage system that includes retention ponds. Not long ago, one of these disappeared down a sinkhole. Given the fact that the retention pond is on Morse's property—you can't reach it without first walking across the golf course—you might assume that Morse would be footing the bill to repair the damage. You'd be wrong.

When Morse first built the golf course and the surrounding residential area, he had the mini-district approve the building of a storm management system, and then assume debt and liability for it, even though portions of the infrastructure are located on his private property.

Although the retention pond serves Morse in many ways, he left Rich's mini-district with the bill for repairing the sinkhole, which ran well over $150,000. When Rich dug a little deeper, he also found that Morse made residents of the district financially responsible for landscaping a nearby strip mall owned by The Villages, costing residents of the mini-district another $50,000 a year.

“Somehow I keep expecting Mr. Morse to pull me aside to see if we can find some common ground,” Rich says. “But he won't even show us his face.”

A few days later, I attend a meeting of the developer-friendly VOA—the Village Homeowners Association. The meeting is advertised as a question-and-answer session with representatives of The Villages. Gary Lester, Morse's spokesperson, sits at a table facing the audience. Several colleagues join him, including Pete Wahl, who manages The Villages' entire quasi-governmental system. All questions have been submitted ahead of time.

I sit beside a veteran member of the VHA, and he volunteers to fill me in. “Pete Wahl's the old-timer. He knows what the hell's going on. You'll see him and Gary Lester clash a bit because Lester works for the developer, but Pete doesn't; he sort of works for us. He won't speak for the developer because he wants the developer to speak for himself. Pete doesn't want there to be any conflict of interest. He's basically paid by the developer, so it's a real delicate line he walks.” I nod in agreement.

The questions are all innocuous. “Why are folks driving so fast in their golf carts? It should be illegal!” “Will the developer widen the golf cart paths near Spanish Springs?” “When's the new golf course going to open?”

“People shouldn't be driving so fast; I guess that's just human nature,” Lester philosophizes. “But it's not right. And it's not safe.” When he is asked about any construction plans in The Villages' near future, Lester pleads ignorance. “I don't really know. We're just so busy doing what we're doing. That's about all I can tell you.”

Wahl addresses the next question, about the nine-hole golf courses, which are owned by the central district. He then passes the microphone to Lester to speak about eighteen-hole championship golf courses, which are still owned by the developer. My seatmate nudges me. “See how Pete didn't answer for the developer? See the difference? Pete's a very knowledgeable guy, but a lot of people still don't like him. They say he should be elected, and that if there were an election, he'd never get voted in.”

The next question is about the possibility of making the church in downtown Spanish Springs off-limits to visitors without passes. I've heard other Villagers express outrage that their downtowns are inundated with local families. Another church congregation also considered limiting its parishioners to those age fifty-five and over; children under nineteen would be able to attend the church only as guests. The question makes Lester a touch uncomfortable. He
pauses, then says he doesn't think placing age restrictions on the church downtown is such a good idea.

Lester then ends the meeting with an impassioned sermon about “truth and cow doo.” The Villages uses millions of gallons of water a day, and the regional water district has recently expressed concern that the water table is dropping. Lester is clearly pissed off because several local newspapers had the temerity to report these preliminary findings as news.

Much of Florida sits atop a giant aquifer, but it's not big enough to meet the needs of endless growth. After years of bruising water wars, every county and municipality in Florida has adopted stringent standards that regulate water use. Regional water districts use these standards to establish minimum water levels in order to ensure that the state's aquifers don't dry up.

The Villages is challenging the way the water district collects its data and then applies the data to establish minimum water levels for the surrounding area. By negating the water district's methods and findings, The Villages is potentially unraveling Florida's water policy.

Water, or the lack of it, is The Villages' Achilles' heel. Restrictions on water use are one of the few things that could prevent Morse from building thousands more homes. The Villages makes a good faith effort to irrigate with reclaimed water, but this still covers only a small fraction of total water use. The possible overuse of water has some very real consequences: dropping water levels could lead to an epidemic of sinkholes, and put the regional ecosystem and economies under enormous strain.

During his speech, Lester belittles a local environmental activist who lives outside The Villages, and insinuates that she doesn't understand the issues well enough to be criticizing The Villages' complex water system. In reality, the woman is a highly educated young retiree who quit a lucrative career developing power plants to home-school her three children.

“I don't have any financial incentive to stand up and take the heat to do what's right,” she explains to me when I speak with her later. “This is my community. My children live here. I'm not in it for personal profit and gain. How much is the developer paying Gary Lester? Just how far is the developer going to chase the golden ring? Until our lakes are sucked dry?”

It's plain to see that the water table around The Villages has dropped, although it's hard to say exactly why. Lake Miona, which borders some of The Villages' more prestigious properties, has fallen by more than a foot. The docks are now so far above the water that it's uncomfortable to board a boat, and a metal fence pole sticking out of the water at a public beach clearly shows a foot or so of exposed rust. Many of the people I speak with say it's because of unsustainable water usage. Lester says it's because of a long statewide drought.

“If you read the local papers, you'd think the sky is falling, that we're running out of water,” Lester says. “I want you to know the facts. You should be very proud of the water program here in The Villages. Did you know that the water quality in Lake Miona has dramatically improved? You know why? Because it's no longer surrounded by pastures filled with cows that poop in the water! We've cleaned up Lake Miona by developing the land around it!”

Visibly moved, a member of the audience pleads with Lester to publish the truth in the
Daily Sun
. “We're working on it,” Lester responds.

The man seated beside me looks satisfied with Lester's explanation. “No matter where you live, or what you do, there will be negative thinkers,” he tells me. “I'm just glad that there aren't too many of those kind of folks here in The Villages.”

A few days later, I see a headline in the
Daily Sun
that seems familiar: “Villages' Efforts to Protect Aquifer Working.” A tiny sidebar is headed: “Villages Helps Recharge Aquifer.” It's a short, awkward story quoting only one source: the developer's paid water consultant.

* * *

The next day, I meet with Pete Wahl, a stocky gray-haired bulldog of a man who used to work as the supervisor of Lake County until things soured, and he left to work for The Villages.

Wahl tells me that he left Lake County because he was pro-development and his board of supervisors wasn't. Like Lester, he expresses some disdain for the rural character of the three surrounding counties: Lake, Sumter, and Marion. “The worst kind of sprawl is low-density development,” he tells me. “That kind of development can't even support sewer and water lines.