A Villager who helped engineer the rout of the Sumter County Commission knocked out a longtime Community Development District 5 supervisor in Tuesday’s election.
Reed Panos of the Village of Sunset Pointe handily defeated incumbent Supervisor Chuck Wildzunas, a resident of the Village of Winifred.
Panos collected 4,068 votes or 63.55 percent of the vote. Wildzunas received 2,333 votes.
Panos has served as the leader of Fair Government for Sumter County, a political action committee that championed the ouster of incumbent Sumter County Commissioners Don Burgess, Al Butler and Steve Printz. The commissioners fell in August’s GOP primary, victims of an angry electorate enraged by a 25 percent tax hike in 2019.
Panos, a plastic surgeon, differed with Wildzunas on the red-hot issue of trolls and the anonymous complaint system when it comes to deed compliance in CDD 5.
Wildzunas was in the minority in a 3-2 vote to stop accepting anonymous complaints.
Panos said he spent hours and hours at postal stations talking to CDD 5 voters about the anonymous complaint system. He said those conversations indicated that about 80 percent of the residents wanted to eliminate anonymous complaints.
Wildzunas also represented CDD 5 on the Project Wide Advisory Committee.
Community Development District 9
Michael Dollard of the Village of Fernandina defeated Michael Fitzgibbons for Seat 1 in Community Development District 9.
Dollard won 3,813 votes or 65.29 percent of the vote. His opponent collected 1,003 votes.
“I really like living in The Villages. I think it’s a great place and I want to keep it that way,” said Dollard, who lived for many years in the “snowbelt” of western New York.
Dollard is also a volunteer with the AARP Tax-Aide program and an assistant vice president with The Village Homeowners Advocates.
He moved to The Villages in 2013.
