Candidate: MICHAEL DOLLARD

My wife and I have lived here since 2013 and truly enjoy life in The Villages. The activities and opportunities available are truly wonderful, as are the friends that we have made.

Myself, I have been

·         Active in CERT,

·         Volunteering at the Villages hospital ER,

·         Preparing taxes with the AARP Tax-Aide program

·         Serving as an assistant Vice President with the Village Homeowners Advocates.

Professionally - My working background was in government finance and administration. Before moving here I was a town manager for over a decade, prior to that I was the Chief Accountant for a county and also spent many years working in accounting and auditing of government and not for profit units.

Community - In the town where we raised our family I was active with the youth sports programs, scouting, church groups (teaching in a religious continuing education school) and a large volunteer ambulance corps where I served as president and as an EMT/AEMT medic. I was also with a separate paramedic agency, as the finance director and as a medic. Over time I had to guide both of those agencies, as have most volunteer groups, from volunteers into paid positions. 

Running because - I became interested in the CDD’s after I researched the workings of the CDD’s, PWAP, ARC, NSCUDD and VLCDD.  I noticed a quirk in the financial reports for CDD-9 and that is that the unassigned fund balance (excess cash) has grown substantially year after year. Yes, they also have large reserves but that is a good thing.

Every year, on your tax bill, there is a charge for Special Maintenance – that “tax” funds the operation of the CDD’s.  As of January 2020 there is enough surplus cash on hand to pay that tax for two years.

In my professional opinion, some of this excess cash needs to be used to decrease the charges on the tax bill.

Another reason for running is that in sitting through CDD meetings I watched them change the color palettes – the colors that you can paint your house without further permission.  I don’t object to the changes that were made.  The colors that were removed would probably never be used (would you paint your house black?) but it does raise a question – shouldn’t there be some uniformity among all of the CDD’s?  As it is now, in some areas, one side of the street can have one set of rules and the other side has different rules. In the same vein – can’t we tweak the rules about yards, just like they did colors of your house, so that the trolls have less to complain about?