The Villages has ordered drone pilots to stop flying over construction sites.
Several avid drone pilots have received a “cease and desist” letter from attorney William Giltinan of Carlton Fields, a law firm with more than 300 lawyers and offices in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey, New York, and Washington, D.C. Carlton Fields has long represented the Holding Company of The Villages Inc.
In addition to ordering the drone pilots to halt their flights, they are also being ordered to take down existing videos.
The best known of these drone pilots is Villager Don Wiley, a licensed commercial drone pilot who launched his small business, Gold Wingnut Productions, a little more than six years ago. He has amassed a following that includes more than 21,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel.
For more than a half dozen years, the retired U.S. Navy submariner has used his drone to show his followers what is coming next in The Villages. Wiley, who has taught drone classes at The Enrichment Academy in The Villages, painstakingly uses plats and government documents to match up information with the visuals from his drone, to give his loyal followers detailed overviews about new construction in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown, where growth has been a hot topic for decades.
Wiley spoke Friday with Villages-News.com and explained why he believes he was targeted by The Villages.
“It’s an attempt to control the narrative and flow of information in the community,” said Wiley.
His videos are not anti-Villages. He is simply providing information about what’s coming.
“I pride myself on getting to the facts and getting them out there,” Wiley said.
He claimed The Villages wants to exclusively release information about what is coming through its newspaper, The Villages Daily Sun, and the Vmail videos, frequently hosted by Jennifer Parr, vice president of The Villages and the head of Properties of The Villages.
In a social media post Friday, Wiley pointed to a story on the front of The Villages Daily Sun Local & Business section in which longtime staffer Keith Pearlman announced a new feature he will be writing, looking at The Villages. Pearlman’s introductory piece featured a large drone view of the highly anticipated new Eastport section of The Villages.
In the letter to the drone pilots, the attorney for The Villages makes it clear that the pilots could be in for an expensive legal battle, should they choose to fight.
Here is an excerpt from a letter received by one of the drone pilots:
“As you may not be aware, there are laws prohibiting the use of drones to take videos or photographs of private property without the owner’s permission. For example, Florida Statutes Section 934.50 defines “surveillance” to include “[w]ith respect to privately owned real property, the observation of such property’s physical improvements with sufficient visual clarity to be able to determine unique identifying features or its occupancy by one or more persons.” Section 3 then goes on to prohibit “use [of] a drone equipped with an imaging device to record an image of privately owned real property or of the owner, tenant, occupant, invitee, or licensee of such property with the intent to conduct surveillance on the individual or property captured in the image in violation of such person’s reasonable expectation of privacy without his or her written consent.” Section 5(b) then provides that an aggrieved property owner may initiate a civil action and, when successful, recover their attorneys’ fees in addition to other damages. Given that your videos clearly use drone imaging to conduct unauthorized surveillance of private property owned by The Villages Companies, and the persons working on those properties, we believe that they were, and continue to be, taken in violation of this statute.”
The Villages’ battle with Wiley is complicated by the fact he is also a Sumter County commissioner. When he won re-election to the commission in 2024, Wiley’s campaign was largely funded by loyalists to the Developer of The Villages.
The letter from The Villages’ attorney states that the “Holding Company would, of course, prefer to resolve this matter quickly and amicably.”
The drone pilots are directed to sign off on the letter, promising to stop flying over The Villages’ construction sites and to take down their videos. They have been ordered to comply within 14 days.
Wiley indicated to Villages-News.com that he will not be removing his videos. He has also promised to take on the topic in his 3 p.m. Sunday show which can be viewed at WWW.youtube.com/goldwingnut