This Is our Village

Friday, October 5, 2012

$.98 x 7854 x 12 = $92,363.04 - KEEP YOUR HANDS OUT OF MY POCKETS - HERE WE GO AGAIN

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Hi all
First of all, let me make it clear, I do not want to see housing on the golf course; I would far prefer to have it returned to being a golf course, "in perpetuity".
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However, there has to be some limit to the rapacity of the Non-UCO ProActive Committee's unbridled greed for our money! 
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At Mondays meeting of the Executive Board, a member of the ProActive Committee, which I hasten to point out, is not a UCO committee, by their own choice, made known plans to make a motion at the upcoming meeting of the Delegate Assembly to place in the UCO budget for 2013 a line item of 98 cents per month per unit to continue paying an attorney to fight the developers plan to convert the golf course to residential housing. I hasten to note that this sort of  motion was defeated at last months Delegate Assembly meeting!!
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Having already burned through $25,000.00 of unit owner money and an undisclosed sum of donations, the ProActive committee now wants another $92,363.04 in 2013 from our unit owners!!
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The developer has millions, we do not!! This hemorrhagic rapacity must stop. Is this to become a Common expense in perpetuity?
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If the Proactive Committee wants money, let them canvass for donations from the "true believers" in the miasmic not to be golf course in the sky, and stop trying to make their vendetta a Common expense which we can ill afford.
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Delegates, please ask your Unit Owners what they think, before you vote!
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Dave Israel
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25 comments:

  1. Looks like to me they keep beating a dead horse.

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  2. Amen to that David. We have spent a lot of money on a lawyer. I don't want UCO to spend another dime on lawyers for a cause they may be already lost.

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  3. talk about head in the sand syndrome ---If I have $.99 to spare-I sure don't want to throw it down a dark hole to nowhere. I'm not in favor of the Waldman project but enough on the $$$$ grabbing. Put your energies elsewhere ---the next Commissioner Meeting is OCtober 2012-----ding dong ---wake up -are you planning on fighting after the fact? Put your energies to better use prepping for the Oct meeting --and I can't imagine bringing the taxation up when the snowbirds are not around to protest. Bah humbug

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  4. What happened to possible buyers, does the ProA have alternative packages prepared? Where is their info, the last post on golf blog was February. If the Commissioners pass the rezoning I see no point in fighting the big money developers. Lets not get swept into more futile expensive law suits. The only winners are lawyers, I would have thought you would know that by now.

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  5. I would rather see the $.99 go to WYFI for the Village!

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  6. Vote no for cryin' out loud...

    And I'm sure glad I don't know how to golf.

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  7. NO WAY Enough is enough but I might go for the same way for Village WiFi

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  8. Why 99¢? Why not say $1.00 and be upfront about it? The whole approach to having us all pay for more legal assistance seems sneaky to me.

    The people in our condo units are hurt by these $1.00 increases, It's a dollar for this and dollar for that, and soon they are paying several dollars more.

    I'm not in favor of shelling out any more to the lawyers. This seems like a bottomless pit, and there is STILL no guarantee the developer can be held at bay.

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  9. In a community of 7854 homes, it must be assumed that at least some of the homeowners are in favor of commercial and residential development of the former golf course. Why should a homeowner be forced to fund a legal battle that the homeowner does not support?

    Using a motion at the Delegate Assembly to insert legal funding into the UCO budget is an indication of laziness, and possibly arrogance, on the part of the Pro Active Commitee. If the Pro Active Commitee made the effort to independently raise funds, from like-minded homeowners both inside and outside of Century Village, I have no doubt that their legal warchest would be
    amply funded, but that would require significant effort
    and commitment. It is obviously easier to use the extant UCO financial and budget infrastructure, with the added
    bonus of making every Century Village homeowner,
    whether they like it or not, an opponent of Reflection
    Bay.

    As a Century Village homeowner, I urge the Delegates
    to vote against this motion.

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  10. Excellent point Don. I do not know if it is laziness, but where is the detailed accounting of money spent so far, where are open meetings, where is the plan if commissioners vote down, or up???? Do they have a realistic vision or do they just want me to pay for their golf pie in the sky?
    And now that it did not come up at the Delegate Mtg they have time to provide proper information.

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  11. There is a retirement community, of considerable size, bordering Century Village on Haverhill Road. Cypress Lakes would be similarly impacted by Reflection Bay. How much canvassasing has the Pro Active Committee done there, and how many Cypress Lakes homeowners have been recruited into the Pro Active Committee? This is a larger community issue, not just a Century Village issue.

    The Pro Active Committee website has not been updated in months. There has been no public disclosure or accounting of the Century Village funds that have already been entrusted to this outside organization, and no explanation of their organizing activities outside of giving money to lawyers. I suspect that there are no significant efforts outside of giving money to lawyers. If I am wrong, the Pro Active Committee has made no effort, to date, to set me straight. That's fine, but don't ask me for money. And don't try to sneak it out of my pocket at an off-season Delegate Assembly.

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  12. Get your head out of the sand - let's move on and let the PRO ACTIVE committee fund their own cause - not out of my pocket. I wokr hard for my money - I don't play golf and I don't ask the committee to pay my electric bill so why should I pay their legal fees. I will VOTE NO!!!

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  13. Now it's 98 cents instead of 99 cents, apparently.

    I am still against this, and it irks me the way this committee continues to try to slip this motion through and make everybody pay for what clearly not everybody wants. Apparently a decent number of residents would LIKE Mr. Waldman's Reflection Bay as a neighbor. They certainly shouldn't have to be paying to keep him out. A much larger number of our residents do not favor the development, BUT do not want to pay any more legal fees. Neither should they be paying!

    I notice that all the comments above this one of mine are OLD comments, from August, including one of mine. Hmmm....! (Well, I suppose if one party can go to the trough again, so can the other party.)

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  14. Hi Lanny,
    October 3, 2012 7:54 PM,

    The old comments are there, because I just updated the old Post with the new numbers and changed the Post date, so this will stay on top until Friday.

    I guess I should have erased all of the old Comments, but did not.

    Dave Israel

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  15. What committee is in charge of keeping these absurd motions from clogging up Assembly agendas "in perpetuity"?

    Last month it was drainage, flooding and dangerous strangers wandering in from "our green space"- give us 99 cents.

    This month, "our green space" is a toxic brownfield Superfund site- give us 98 cents or you will all be breating arsenic dust in perpetuity.

    Two years from now, it will be underground hibernating Martians that must not be disturbed-the survival of the human race depends on putting 77 cents into the 2015 budget.

    The Pro Active Commitee must be made aware of what this looks like to outside people- ineffectual attempts to obstruct development. No one will take us seriously.

    Let's vote this motion down again, and please, someone, figure out a way to stop these monthly scarefests.

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  16. Deja vu (all over again). Vote NO.

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  17. I remember when delegates votes for the $25,000.00. I don't remember who from the Pro Active Committee got up and told us all that they would not ask for money again. Nothing wrong with my memory. I guess the Pro Active Committee all have Alzheimer's or think we do. They should have been privately canvassing people to donate to the cause and dig into their own pockets for envelopes and stamps to send out letters. How about we all chip in to put up a wall. I would certainly agree to paying for that and let us all get on with our lives!

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  18. What bothers me most is the idea of the Pro Active Committee misrepresenting itself as the agent of Century Village residents and the effect that this misrepresentation will have in future negotiations with the developer.

    When the time comes for discussions about security, or dust mitigation, or traffic control, the Developer, and the government agencies that will regulate the development, will remember these crazed presentations at our Delegate Assemblies, inflamatory articles in our community newspaper, and picket line "rallies" that serve no other purpose but to provide entertainment footage for local TV and comedy material for Frank Cerebino. We will pay a price for this down the road.

    Members of the Pro Active Commitee, as Century Village homeowners and Delegates, have the right to make these motions and presentations, and apparently the procedural device of reintroducing the same motion over and over again by changing one digit is legal. I wish that this were not the case.

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  19. Now is the time for all good men (and women) who reside in CV to call your delegate or knock on their door or leave a note or a voice mail or an email... and let them know which side of the fence you are on. I presume this vote represents the majority in your association, not one. If we all did this, I would not be surprised if delegates in favor of this motion had to give more thought to their vote.

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  20. Next year is the Pro Active committee going to make a motion to get 97cents? Will we have to go through this ad infinitem? Can we get a motion passed to stop the Pro Actives from asking for any more money????? How great that would be.

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  21. Sticky wicket. The Pro Active Committee is not a UCO organization, but its' members are Century Village homeowners and UCO Delegates who have a right to have a say in the UCO budget process, which they help fund, and to speak and make motions at the Delegate Assembly.

    Just as you or I have a right to attend open Finance or Executive Committee meetings and petition for, say, a UCO funded Mister Softee ice cream truck (think about it), the Pro Active Committee can attempt to insert golf
    course related legal funding into the UCO budget. The
    lunacy that you saw at Fridays' Delegate Assembly was
    a last gasp attempt to secure that funding after being
    voted down at at least two other levels.

    A majority of Delegates could have voted down the
    budget, forcing the Finance Commitee to redraft the budget from scratch. This would have given the Pro Active Committee several more opportunities to get their
    funding. Didn't happen.

    This does not mean that the Pro Active Committee will not be able to fund their legal warchest. Sixty-eight Delegates voted against approving the budget, presumably in support of the Pro Active Committee. Those Delegates, many of whom are Association Officers, can canvass the homeowners that they represent for donations. If those homeowners feel the
    same way as their Delegates, this can amount to a considerable amount of money. But somebody has to do the work.

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  22. @don4060... now I can't stop thinking about the Mr. Softee truck... :)

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  23. Hi debgeller,
    October 7, 2012 6:40 PM,

    This idea has surfaced before, it would be a simple matter of finding a vendor who would be interested in a Campus franchise to sell ice cream from a truck.

    It could be Good Humor, Bungalow Bar, Mr. Softee...Etc.

    There might even be an income stream derivable to offset our budget costs.

    I will research code and legal issues that might arise.

    Dave Israel

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  24. Dave and Deb-

    Friend me on facebook- see pictures of me and my wife forcing a mr softee truck off I95 just south of Port St. Lucie last month. This was a brand new truck being transferred from the Mr Softee factory in New Jersey to its new home in Miami.

    Owner actually pulled off at the rest stop, sold us ice cream, gave us a tour of his new truck and played the song. He could have been calling 911. It was a fifty fifty shot.

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  25. @don4060. I would love to see that... email me @deb.geller@comcast.net with your facebook name...

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