The Villages Crush a Grassroots Revolt

Deconstructed

The Intercept

News

4.8 • 4.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2019, residents of The Villages, an iconic retirement community in Florida, were suddenly hit with a 25 percent hike in their property taxes. In the master-planned community of 130,000 across the state’s Sumter, Lake, and Marion counties, many residents are on fixed incomes. The tax hikes were intended to subsidize new developments south of the community, rather than cover new amenities or upgrades for current residents. The entity known locally either as “the developer” or “the family” benefited from the tax hike and could then escape paying fees associated with the expansion of their development. This week on Deconstructed, host Ryan Grim takes us to The Villages to meet residents who banded together to rollback the tax hike but who were ultimately blocked by powerful players. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the local political machine run by The Villages fought the residents, leading to one of their champions being thrown in jail.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	And over here, I see a bunch more people on golf carts.
0:07.0	Is this the, what kind of, what area of the villages are we in now? Is this the, this
0:13.7	is the wealthy, this looks like a wealthier area. The villages, you've got, yeah, you've
0:20.7	got the big screened in porches, looking out at golf courses. Obviously the palm trees.
0:28.0	Hey, it's Ryan Grimm here and on this episode of Deconstructed, I'm taking you to the villages,
0:34.5	a gigantic retirement community in Central Florida owned by the Morse family. The descendants
0:40.4	of the patriarch Howard Schwartz, who founded the community in the 1970s as a trailer park,
0:45.6	and they draw a lot of water in Central Florida today.
0:52.3	So you can't tell if the golf carts are golfers or current golfers are on their way to
0:57.7	golfing or just the way that they get around here. What's over there? Is that a giant pickleball
1:02.3	assemblage? I'm driving around with my brother. Our dad is a snow bird in the villages. We
1:07.9	just passed a huge sign describing the villages as quote, Florida's friendliest hometown
1:13.0	with a nice little exclamation mark. There are now 130,000 retirees and counting here
1:18.2	in this planned community and there are a lot of them out today on their golf carts.
1:22.0	Headed to endless pickleball courts, free putting greens, tennis courts, golf courses
1:26.8	and later today it'll be happy hour in the town squares we'll be popping with two-for-one
1:31.2	specials. It's also a Republican bastion. Mike Pence was here recently, so was Kellyanne
1:37.4	Conway. Every GOP nominee comes through here and the family are close political allies
1:43.1	with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. I'm here because in 2019 residents of the villages
1:48.0	were suddenly hit with a 25% hike in their property taxes. For many of the people here
1:53.1	on fixed incomes, that was a brutal hit. If the new taxes were intended to cover new
1:58.0	amenities for the villagers or to deal with the traffic here, maybe you could justify
	...

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