To the Editor:
Let’s get this straight! You come to a meeting to announce, where Hacienda’s restaurant, pool, and pro-shop once stood, will now be replaced by apartment units, numbering 286. Now I wasn’t at the meeting, but from what I’ve heard, you, the amenities committee of 5, voted 4 to 1 in favor of the apartments over a parking garage! Well, thank you for being so considerate. (The actual vote was 5-0, they threw in the one dissent, to placate the concerned residents) Thank you for that also. There were 200 residents at the farce, sorry, I mean meeting, frustrated, and angry. They voiced their concerns, of their loss of a beautiful pool and restaurant and broken promises spoken when they purchased their homes.
I have news for you guys! They don’t care!
They don’t care! Meetings such as this actually mean nothing, they know going in what they will be facing, they know you will be venting all this upon them. But guess what? They don’t care! That apartment plan was formulated in 2015, (a source whom was employed by the Villages told me) All I know it was a done deal, long before it was presented to those at the meeting, there never was a parking garage, that was fodder. When they took their seats, they knew what they were about to face.
The Developer’s only concern is return on investment, and restaurant and pool equals peanuts, in comparison to this project. They already took away, Katie Belle’s, the Church on the Square, and now this greedy operation. Rumor has it that The Palms golf course is next, stay tuned, they are not through with us yet! Phase 2 is yet to come. The once prestigious golf courses are now second rate, at double the price!
Every time you look around, we are getting less and less for our buck!
Been to The Sharon Morse Medical Center, pre-COVID19? Well, the parking was atrocious, the bank parking lot full, with three people in the bank. People with a handicap, or hurting, driving round and round waiting for some one to leave. A sorry state to say the least, and now you add the “286” and what will you get?
Downtown at the square, has always been a place where you can go sit, have a few drinks, enjoy the music: add the “286” factor, to that and what will you get?The Villages we once knew (myself, 2004) is gone, never to return. A person recently wrote an article with the gist of it being: ” is it too late to save The Villages?” My answer: It’s way too late! Quoth the Raven: “Nevermore.”
Here’s the situation: You take a frog and put him in a pan of tepid water on the stove, you gradually ever so slightly, turn up the heat, the frog stays, and stays, until he boils to death, he can’t jump out. We are the frog, and the Developer is holding the knob that controls the heat!
Now for all you members of the, Three Monkey Club, that are going to respond to this letter. Save it: I love The Villages, and, I don’t want to live anywhere else!
But at the same time: I am being boiled alive, and I don’t like it!
George Appleby
Village of Santiago
