I
am not an attorney, but I cannot imagine the suit about the roads being
successful. First of all, I think that in order to successfully sue you must
prove there has been negligence—maybe even gross negligence—on the part of the
defendants, UCO and Dave Israel. Considering the steps that were taken before
actually engaging M & M Construction Company, I doubt negligence could be
proven. Moreover, the completed work was examined by an agency specializing in
this and found to meet standards for such work.
Furthermore,
two things were
known going
into the project:
(1)
That (as Grace points out) in order to save money the old pavement, except
in a few places, was not first being removed; therefore, cracks would reappear in time. In fact,
you find this all the time when roads are repaved.
(2)
That, as Dom Guarnagia pointed out in a Reporter article a few months ago, because most of our roads
do not drain through storm drains, more flooded areas would result.
These
facts were known. The only way to have avoided them would have been to install
storm drains throughout the Village and removed all the old asphalt. The costs
for both would have been astronomical.
Finally,
who is being sued? Dave Israel and UCO. But who or what is UCO? The UCO board
of directors is the delegates—who represent us, the owners in the associations. Despite their protests, it looks mighty like
those bringing the suit are asking us to sue ourselves, to me!
IF
the suit were to be successful—which, given the foregoing strikes me as an awfully big “if”—we are told all will be well because an insurance company
will be footing the bill. Would this be M & M’s insurance company, with M & M facing higher insurance rates for the next several years? No,
because M & M isn’t being sued. Footing the bill will be UCO’s insurance company; that is, OUR OWN
insurance company!
What
a clever ploy! In effect to sue oneself! Do we really think, if by some stretch the suit were successful, our insurance company would roll over and
submit to this without there being the severest of repercussions? Of course
not. Insurance companies are not fools. We will end up altogether priced out of
the insurance market by this insurance agency or any other, in my opinion. Our
buildings, which
include your and my homes, will be UNINSURABLE for all intents and purposes. Think about
this as we face the hurricane season!
Of
course those bringing the suit want your dollars to help pay the attorneys’
fees. I can think of few worse ways to invest my money, however. I wouldn’t be
helping myself, and I could be bringing irreparable harm to the Village.
No
thank you, Mr. Ponzi!
Well, I see from the other blog that my friend Olga has added my name to the those of Grace and Elaine in the "Dumb and Dumber" club. That makes two clubs in which Olga has now enrolled me. The first was the Bigoted Cockroach Club. I am not particularly fond of the names of these clubs, but I do like my fellow club members, and that, I suppose, is what counts. Plus the fact there are no dues.
ReplyDeleteIn Olga's response on her blog to this blog post, I can see she does not understand what I am saying, because she links the storm drain issue with the pavement cracks issue, whereas the storm drains relate almost entirely to the flooding. Her linking them as she does (and wrongly assuming I so link them), makes me truly wonder WHAT she understands about the roads project. It is a lot less than I thought!
I would try to straighten her out (and in fact began to), but it was taking too many words and too long. I would persist with it, except that I really think Olga doesn't WANT to know--so what is the point? Some people must simply do their thing.
But I do thank you, Olga for expediting my enrollment in the new club.