An original member of the Amenity Authority Committee has been honored for his many contributions to The Villages.
Carl Bell has stepped down after 14 years on the AAC. Bell, now 85, moved to The Villages in 1994.
During Wednesday’s meeting at Savannah Center, AAC Chairman Don Deakin read out a long list of Bell’s many contributions to The Villages.
“I remember the time, when residents were not allowed to drive their golf carts after dark on what was then called ‘Recreation Trails,” which we now know of as ‘Multi-Modal Paths’ and local neighborhood roads,” Deakin said.
“It was Carl Bell and a few of his colleagues who used logic and reasoning to convince each of the local governments in our area, including the City of Lady Lake, Lake County, Sumter County and Marion County to give their stamp of approval for us to drive our golf carts after ‘dark.’ But like Cinderella, we had a curfew. Ultimately, Carl and friends made a second trip to each Board of Commissioners and persuaded them that ‘Dark is Dark’ and we are mature adults who should be allowed to drive our carts 24/7/365. The rest is history,” Deakin said.
AAC member Ann Forrester agreed it was a significant achievement.
“You can drive your golf cart at night, and you can thank Carl Bell,” she said.
Other highlights include:
• Bell began as a Villages Homeowners Association (VHA) representative.
- One of the first things Bell did was join the Computer Club and serve as Vice President. Using his computer skills, he donated his time knowledge and effort helping local churches, local governments, the Developer and residents.
- He served as the IT person for six different churches, and spent 17 years assisting St Timothy Church with their computer needs.
- In 1995 Bell was asked to become the first resident to serve as a Supervisor on the first Community Development District, taking Mark Morse’s place when he resigned, as the board transitioned to a resident board.
- Because of his strong faith, while serving on the CDD1 Board, Bell introduced the “Moment of Silence” before each meeting. Now all boards have it.
- Continuing to use his computer skills, Bell wrote the software for the “Word Map Directions” that is still in place today at manned gates.
- Bell contributed a lot of time and effort working with the Lady Lake Police and all First Responders to put together a guide book on how to get to each street during emergency situations. In the early days Villages maps were primitive and GPS had not been invented yet.
- He worked with Sumter County Sheriff Bill Farmer and Lt. Nehemiah Wolfe in creating the first WEB site that included a “BOLO” (which means, “Be On the Look Out”), which facilitated law enforcement’s ability to maintain confidential medical records without violating HIPA.
- He served as the “At Large Sumter County” representative to Lake Sumter EMS. In that capacity Bell organized and input over 230,000 transactions and provided factual analysis of data regarding response times, which ultimately led to the Paradise Fire Station getting built to better serve the Lady Lake portion of The Villages.
- He then worked with Mike Tucker to gather, download and organize tax records to be sure the new facility was getting their fair share of local revenues.
- Bell assisted in the VHA’s effort to gift a golf cart to the local Sumter County Sheriff’s office to enable them to provide better service to our residents at Spanish Springs Town Square and other areas.
- Bell assisted Sandy Mott and the VHA effort in a campaign to obtain a “Certificate of Need” for a hospital which was a dream of The Villages Founder Harold Schwartz. The effort succeeded in launching the first phase of The Villages Hospital.
- Bell advised Gary and Mark Morse, Developers of The Villages that a zip code can have two names, which opened the door for getting our own full-service post office.
- Bell worked with Jennifer Parr for Habitat for Humanity and he personally worked on 18 Habitat houses.