Leisureville (20 page)

Fooks predicts that the next wave of retirees (assuming there is one) in Sun City is likely to be wealthier, savvier, and more demanding of municipal services. “They'll want to incorporate once they realize they don't have a real voice in their own affairs,” he says. “They're going to wonder why they don't have a real police force, and why they have to plead with the county just to get a road repaired. Having to knock on the county's door every time you want something is not what I would call local representation.”

The police chief, Dan Connelly, drops by the office, and Fooks invites him in to join our discussion. Connelly has few illusions about the critical choices Sun City will soon face. As far he's concerned, it's only a matter of time before Sun City will have to face reality. “The driving force for Sun City's incorporation will be police protection,” he says flatly. “Crime is getting worse and there's no way the Posse can even begin to handle it.”

In Arizona, streets in gated communities are not eligible for road repair or police patrols; therefore, there is a strong financial
incentive to remain un-gated. After years of de facto solitude, Sun City remains without gates, but it is now uncomfortably sandwiched between sprawling municipal neighbors. Residents of these other cities have necessarily turned many of Sun City's roads, such as Grand Avenue, into major arteries, and Sun City finds itself subjected to an ever-increasing amount of nonresident traffic, making it more vulnerable to crime.

“People want to feel safe, and the sheriff's department can't supply that with three deputies,” Connelly continues. “Besides, how many of today's criminals are going to be scared off by an eighty-five-year-old member of the Posse wearing a hearing aid?”

A
LTHOUGH
T
HE
V
ILLAGES EXTENDS INTO THREE COUNTIES, THE VAST
majority of the development will soon roll across hapless Sumter County. Per capita income in Sumter County is about half the state's average, and sixty percent of its population is on some sort of state assistance. In addition to being poor, it's also far more rural than two adjacent counties—Lake and Marion—with less than one-fourth their population. When the build-out of The Villages is complete, Sumter will have 45,000 new homes, compared with 5,000 each for Lake and Marion counties. There will be roughly 90,000 Villagers living in Sumter County, outnumbering all other county residents by nearly 50,000.

Sumter County encompasses nearly 600 square miles of the quiet center of Florida. Even when fully built out, The Villages will remain a small rectangle on Sumter's northeast corner. I know this, but I'm still surprised when it takes me nearly an hour on back roads to reach Bushnell, the county seat. The number of run-down trailer parks that post signs advertising their age-restricted status also surprises me.

Along the way, I stop by the tiny Leesburg airport, just across the Lake County line, to sneak a peak at the “Morse air force,” as Gary's planes are often referred to. I spot two gleaming Falcon jets in a hanger detailed to look like it holds thoroughbred horses. Morse successfully lobbied to have a U.S. customs officer assigned to the airport, thus giving it “international” status, and allowing him to fly
directly into and out of the country with foreign clients. Morse has also lobbied for and received tentative approval for interchanges off Interstate 75 and the Florida Turnpike that will help make The Villages and its environs more accessible to motorists.

I arrive in tiny Bushnell early for a meeting with county officials, and park beside the county's handsome old courthouse. I ask a young, pregnant girl walking along the road where the center of town is. “This is it,” she replies. “Unless you mean Wal-Mart. That's up the road.”

The air is hot and seems to cling to my body, and the town of 2,300 is quiet except for chirping cicadas. I see a sign for Bushnell's one claim to fame: the nearby Dade Battlefield Historical Site, where in 1835 Seminole warriors (distantly related to Billy Bowlegs) ambushed and killed more than 100 American soldiers in a marshy meadow, thus starting the Second Seminole Indian War.

Inside the courthouse, which has served as the county seat for 100 years, I meet with County Supervisor Brad Arnold and Supervisor of Elections Karen Krause. She paints a picture of Sumter as one of central Florida's last sleepy counties, but rapidly changing under pressure from The Villages' development. “I guess it was just a matter of time,” Krause says. “We've got The Villages in the north, and now the southern portion of the county near Orlando is filling up with that city's spillover. Those folks are tired of the mess down there—the crime, the traffic, the sprawl, the high cost of living—but now they're re-creating it here.”

“Ten years ago, the number of registered voters in Sumter County was under 16,000,” she tells me. “Five years ago it was about 28,000; now it's about 50,000. The majority of these registered voters are from The Villages. We knew it would happen; but we didn't think it would happen so fast. Used to be we had more cows than people in the county, and just three stoplights.”

The trend shows no signs of abating, she says. “We are issuing 550 building permits a month for The Villages. We figure that each
new house represents 1.9 voters. And unlike the rest of the county, Villagers are a conservative lot. Ten years ago, I was the very first Republican ever elected as a county commissioner. Now all the commissioners are Republicans.”

Residents of The Villages, along with Morse, quickly flexed their new political muscle by changing the way county officials were elected, advocating a new system of power distribution in the county, ironically titled “One Sumter.” County residents used to elect their five commissioners by district. Residents in district one, for example, would elect their own representative to the board, but not vote on a commissioner representing another district. But with just two district commissioners to vote for, Morse and the Villagers decided that they'd rather vote on the election of
all
the commissioners. Naturally, the rest of the county liked the protection the district system afforded them from the surge of new voters in The Villages.

The vote on “One Sumter” in 2004 was extremely close, but with a ninety percent turnout rate (twice the county average), The Villages won, and the era of big-stick diplomacy began. Villagers, with their overwhelming numbers, could now monopolize every county election. And yet many still felt stymied and underrepresented by the districting system. Although Villagers could now vote for all five commissioners, they could still run for only two seats.

To address this slight obstacle, Villagers pushed through a redistricting, which gave them a third seat on the county commission, and thus a lock on electing the county's government for the foreseeable future.

Although Villagers have already lobbied for—and received—their own Sumter County sheriff's substation and government annex, which is golf cart–accessible, they are no longer satisfied with the arrangement. There's now talk of moving
all
county functions out of the centrally located, century-old Bushnell courthouse and relocating them to The Villages.

At our meeting, County Supervisor Arnold tells me that Chapter 190 is “a wonderful thing. I haven't seen a downside. It helps grow an unincorporated part of the county in a rational manner.” He adds that he recently said as much to a fact-finding group from Georgia, whose legislature is considering the adoption of a similar measure. “The Villages pays taxes and yet it's not a big user of county services,” he says. “It's a win-win for us.” Arnold says nothing of the fact that transplanted retirees have politically overwhelmed the local-born population. When I ask him if these retirees might have a different set of priorities from local families—regarding schools, perhaps—he says he doesn't think so.

He points with pride to the towns near The Villages, including the desolate municipality of Wildwood, which are preparing to benefit financially from the development. “Wildwood is annexing unincorporated land that will soon be commercial,” Arnold says. “They will also provide homes for workers. It's a real boom for them. The Villages is a big economic engine. A lot of residents hope it'll give their children a reason to stick around after high school.”

To gauge just how far The Villages has already expanded, I return from Bushnell along a sun-bleached, cracked two-lane county highway that goes through gorgeous rolling pastureland with broad vistas. I admire the shady stands of old live oaks in the meadows, and an occasional glistening lily pond. This is the Florida of piney woods, saw palmetto scrub, and sun-dappled hummock that Marjorie Kennan Rawlings describes vividly in many of her novels. Although an avid reader of Rawlings, I still had no idea that central Florida could actually be this stunning.

The Villages' executives often refer to this scenic idyll of delicately interwoven ecosystems as “inventory,” and I soon see why, when up ahead the scenery abruptly changes. To my left I see a metallic water tower soaring above a treeless crest, surrounded by hulking piles of concrete sewer molds, partially finished streets, and
mounds of sandy soil. Some of the landscape is carefully contoured and resembles the early stages of a new golf course.

To my right, mailboxes line the road beside old driveways scarred by tank treads. The homes are already demolished, and giant bulldozers have leveled what were once rolling hills. Pale sand and upturned oaks with their naked and gnarled roots litter the construction site for as far as the eye can see, which is pretty darn far. The development has leaped right across the road I am driving on, which will soon be converted into a multilane highway with strip malls. Concerns about the health of the area's aquifers have apparently had no effect on Morse's ambitions.

I head for what seems to be the eastern perimeter of The Villages' mammoth construction site. But it's hard to know for sure. The development is expanding so quickly that none of the local maps can keep up. I turn down a lonely lane that runs right along the Sumter and Lake county line, and I am soon rewarded with another vista of endless construction. The newest phase of nearly completed Village development sprawls to the horizon.

In the near distance, just across a brown rail fence, are scores of gently curving streets ending in culs-de-sac. Unlike the more rudimentary site I have just visited, here there are tidy curb cuts, sewer grates, utility boxes, stop signs, and even street signs. Only one thing is missing—houses—but they'll be there soon. A wave of homes is already cresting on a nearby hillside and is poised to roll across this neighborhood-to-be. Given The Villages' aggressive construction schedules, this neighborhood could be filled with homes built from scratch in a few months.

Across the street in Lake County, the land is still wooded and sparsely populated with older, somewhat ragged homes. I pull into the dirt driveway of one displaying a “For Sale” sign and walk a short way until the packed dirt ends and overgrown scrub grass begins. I meet a man who is leaning over a metal fence, with a yapping Chihuahua
dancing about his heels. He's in his early seventies and wears leisure slacks, old loafers, and a stubbly beard. High-voltage electrical wires buzzing atop steel towers bisect his yard, which is dotted with small orange trees. I'm staggered when he tells me the asking price is $750,000.

His name is Alan, and he tells me he relocated to the area eighteen years ago to get away from “all the commotion” of his native Orlando. “When I moved in here, there were just two mobile homes and us,” he says. “Now they're building 34,000 homes across the street. Kind of boggles the mind, doesn't it? And there's nothing any of us can do about it. So I'm moving.”

“What do I think of The Villages and all this development?” Alan says. “I think it stinks. They're building without any regard to the land. I'm no tree hugger, but I hate to see the land raped the way they're doing it. They're shipping in all sorts of clay and sand just so they can make the land flat. They're cutting down trees, and putting in lakes where there weren't any. There's only one saving grace about this whole nonsense—it'll be gorgeous when it's done.”

The Villages brushes off the complaints of locals like Alan. “Everybody complains about change,” Gary Lester responds when asked about local opposition. “I'm still upset with the American League for adopting the designated hitter rule.”

My curiosity once again gets the best of me when I drive past a sign for a county park and something called the Spark Level Baptist Church. I turn down a potholed road with run-down trailer homes lining one side and an empty pasture on the other. The road ends at the church and an overgrown park with a few scattered picnic tables at the edge of some piney scrub. According to local historians, this neighborhood was founded by escaped slaves and is one of the earliest settlements in the region. At the time, the area was a swampy forest located far away from prying eyes. A state map from 1837 labels it “Negro Town.” Born in poverty, the small African-American
settlement remains basically destitute. The trailers are badly rusted and the yards generally consist of packed dirt littered with discarded furniture, car parts, and empty gas cans.

I knock on the door of the trailer closest to the church. An older woman opens the door but doesn't invite me inside. I ask her about the sprawling development next door. “What we going to do 'bout it?” she says, in a breathy drawl. “I been here fifty-five years. They covered up our fishing lake. I heard one day they gonna come and offer us. But I ain't seen nobody. Guess they just going to put a big wall around us.”

She recommends that I speak with a neighbor named L.T. and his wife, Ruby-Mae, so I walk a few hundred yards to their cinder block home, step onto the sagging porch, and knock on the door. An elderly man cautiously opens it a crack. I explain my visit, but he remains ill at ease. “I'm kind of busy right now,” he says guardedly, his eyes not quite meeting mine. Try as I might to put him at ease, my visit is clearly making him uncomfortable. The Klu Klux Klan once held considerable sway over this area, occupying several local positions of power, including the sheriff's office. A few local white residents tell me they recall signs reading “No Niggers Allowed” displayed inside private businesses as recently as a few decades ago.