POSTED 7/30/07
I received my LIV newsletter and read something interesting. In Mary Steffensen's front page column was an update about our current sewage problem. She wrote that she was told an agreement was made with the Laguna Water District to truck our waste out starting on Fri. July 13th and would end on Mon. July 16th. This being the case, why would our Aramark management want to negotiate their hauling agreement with LMWD on Tues. July 17th, a day after they stopped using them?
In this day and age would any average manager or attorney accept a handshake as being a solid agreement from a person who they didn't know personally, especially when they're representing large sums of other peoples money. This handshake was considered by our manager and Board President as being a solid agreement from a person who wasn't authorized to make such an agreement.
It should be asked why they did not take immediate action to follow up this handshake agreement with a written agreement with the L.M.W.D. that same Friday afternoon, or at least make arrangements for an emergency meeting with the LMWD that following Saturday or Monday? It was advailable to them.
Most people feel making a decision involving thousands of dollars of other people’s money, a handshake just doesn't cut it.
I believe after the fifth day of our sewer pipe problem, our management finally realized their error. They found an unsuspecting concerned LIV owner to point blame who was asking the Water District questions as a concerned owner. This person did not represent herself as a L.I.V. representative. You might note it was all conjecture our Management and Board expressed and not the facts.
We need to ask why our management and Board President didn't chose to pursue a written agreement. Is there some intelligent reason for this inaction?

Why Aramark didn't immediately send us a qualified professional to instantly point us in the right direction with our sewage problem? What we got instead was management fumbling about while we LIV owners were paying through the nose to truck our poop out.
L.I.V. pays a lot for what Aramark calls "support".
It seems to me that if Aramark would have put the same effort into our sewer problem as their security division and legal departments supposedly gave our Board in selling us on reasons why their management team should run our unlicensed security staff, we might be using our toilets by now. Could one reason be money? Aramark wouldn't make a dime off this big LIV shitty problem while thousands of dollars will be made off running a staff of unqualified and unlicensed security want-a-bees? It kinda makes you wonder what's important here. Was there an attempt even made to ask Aramark for qualified help? Where's Aramark's effort?
I know it's easy for anyone to second guess things, but come on, this whole issue stinks.
This sewer problem should also set an example of showing how desperately we need to focus on forming a long term infrastructure reserve plan. Borrowing this $200,000 for our sewer repair shows that this park has spent all and saved not.