More than $800,000 in amenities fees will be spent next year on Recreation News, according to budget documents from the Amenity Authority Committee and the Project Wide Advisory Committee.
The AAC, which oversees amenities north of County Road 466, is projected to spend $245,306 to print and distribute the weekly Recreation News insert in the Daily Sun for fiscal year 2019-2020. That is a 4 percent increase over this year.
PWAC, which oversees amenities south of County Road 466, is projected to spend $565,020 on Recreation News in 2019-2020. That is actually down 1 percent, or $4,130 from this year.
The amount to be spent on Recreation News by the two committees in the next fiscal year would be $810,326.
The cost of Recreation News received no attention for many years, with many residents assuming the Daily Sun was picking up the tab. That was until 2017, when the AAC was hit with a 73 percent increase in the cost of Recreation News.
That news set off a torrent of complaints from residents who argued that Recreation News is largely redundant, killing trees and should be presented in an online, searchable format.
One year ago, AAC member Carl Bell asked Recreation Director John Rohan about progress in putting Recreation News into an easily accessible online format. Rohan called it, “A Herculean task.”
This past Wednesday, Bell again asked Rohan about the status of an envisioned easy-to-use online version of Recreation News, but Rohan offered no timetable.
“We’re working on it,” he said.
Recreation News is available in a pdf format under the Recreation Department tab on www.districtgov.org.
Recreation News has long been a popular sales tool for representatives of Properties of The Villages. Many sales people wait for the moment when potential homebuyers ask about activities in The Villages. Sales representatives are eager to hand potential homebuyers a copy of Recreation News, therefore the heft of the publication is important to the sales team.
The AAC and PWAC are still finalizing budgets for 2019-2020, so the projected numbers could be subject to change. The budget discussions are taking place after PWAC and the AAC recently voted to remove the cap on amenity fees.
A Community Development District 7 supervisor announced this past week that he intends to assemble a group of residents to attend the 10 a.m. Thursday, May 16 meeting of the Sumter Landing Community Development District meeting at the District Office at Lake Sumter Landing. SLCDD will have the final say over PWAC’s earlier vote to eliminate the cap on amenity fees. CDD 7 Supervisor Jerry Vicenti said he is hoping to persuade the SLCDD Board to overrule PWAC’s vote on the amenity cap.
