Friday, October 31, 2008

OCTOBER SUGGESTIONS

We would love your suggestion that will improve our Village. Suggestions may be viewed by those visiting. We will renew the display each month. Anonymous are welcomed. So throw one in the box. Read more on this article...

Thursday, October 30, 2008

A TIDBIT

In our October Board meeting Directors Mulch, Burke, and our general manager all made comments that board business towards our Village improvements were taking way too long and need to be done now before the Winter Texans season begins. Director Burke even wanted to forgo our Board policy of acquiring a minimum of three proper bids which were originally asked for, and after being given more than enough ample time was not obtained by our GM. Their concerns were for the completion of the sidewalks, bathhouses 1 and 2 (later changed to mostly internal work), and the repair of the outdoor pool bottom. One must ask why the rush? The outdoor pool was in need of this bottom repair since South Texas Pools first installed it wrong in 2002. Director Mulch and our GM didn’t seem to be in any rush to fix the pool bottom right when it was near the end of its warranty in 2005 and possibly save the Village this $60,000 repair bill. The two sidewalks have also been in need of repair for years with this expensive sidewalk to nowhere but the bank is a questionable necessity. The records seem to indicate that each one of these three have contributed to these project delays, but now seem to have this urgency to rush these projects through improperly. Amazing!

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Thursday, October 23, 2008

BOARD OF DIRECTORS 10/22/2008

After the pledge of allegiance, our President asked Director Mulch who is taking down our minute information. Jan Mulch and Sandra Etter said Director Mulch. A Director asked why the change from Mary who had been doing a fine job for years? Director Mulch said directors and certain people in the park were bothering Mary. Mary is very sensitive he said, so she is no longer capable. Director Dodson asked who the directors were. President Sullivan said she’s been subjected to stress for reporting supposedly differences as to what may have occurred at the meetings. The President said this was to take stress off of Mary. Director Dodson’s question as to which directors were bothering her was never answered.
FROM THE AUDIENCE
Selba Campbell addressed issues about voter ballots.
A man from lot #326 expressed his displeasure with our Board and opposed in contributing owner’s money to OPM. He stated with a little ingenuity there were other ways to achieve this. Director Burke gave him a summationa on what her intentions were and that they have so far raised $1980 to give to 17 employees who had worked here during hurricane Dolly. They may add some owner money to it.
MANAGER’S REPORT
Fines, late fees, building permits were discussed. Nothing out of ordinary was said until near the end when our GM explained he’s currently having a problem with roofers doing our Rec. Hall and Activity Center roof repair because they along with the insurance adjuster that was assigned to us all went to Galveston. He said as of today no full written damage report has ever been received. The repair appears to be in the range of $100,000+ for our Village. He said he has contacted the insurance agent.
APPROVAL OF MINUTES
When the President asked for the approval of the 8/27/08 minutes, Director Dodson asked for a correction to an answer given by Reta Priest. Director Dodson said she had asked Priest if LIV owners had signed their own names on the recall ballots. Director Dodson said the minutes state that she did not respond when it should read she answered yes. Director Burke immediately told Director Dodson that Priest denies saying that. Director Dodson explained she had to ask Priest three times before she said finally said yes. You don’t forget or misunderstand the answer when having to do that. From the audience Reta Priest jumped up and said I did not answer you. Director Burke suggested leaving the original answer as is and note that there is a dispute. She said that would be an accurate assessment. Many on the board disagreed. The Board would not approve the minutes for 8/27/08. It was mentioned of a taped that proved Priest saying yes. It was said that Mary wrote down that Priest said yes in the minutes. Director Burke in a cross examining way, asked at this time when Mary was taking down the minutes, was she looking at Reta Priest to know it was her that said yes? Director Burke went on to say if we put in the minutes what Reta Priest now currently disputes; it may bring up issues later. Our President Sullivan said he was looking at her mouth and it said yes when asked that third time. The President did ask what issue are we making here? Director McBride responded by saying this is a legal document that should be correct. Director Burke again expressed that this continue as is. Director Dodson asked Director Mulch if he had the notes that Mary took and the tape of this meeting. He gave his take on what Priest said and after being asked three times he finally said yes. Director Dodson said she would like it to be reviewed by appointed directors. Director Burke again communicated like an attorney talking about the validity of anything on the tape. It was voted to table the 8/27/08 minutes until further review.
In the 9/04/08 minutes Director McBride wanted to strike the sentence that reported he said the new fire hydrant recently installed was working. He said he never said such. He said it should read that he said that the fire hydrant was moved and was not working for almost a year. That was noted and changed. There were several more minor changes. These Minutes were then approved.
TREASURER’S REPORT
Other than the report which showed that some of the financial income was affected from Dolly, it was pretty much the same. It showed the Center losses as usual in the profit and loss statement. Director Hansen brought up a shocking discovery. He had the most recent records showing continuous monthly bank balances showing an averaged over $500,000 in one account and minimal or minus in another. It was noted by having that much in one account our Village could have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars from a bank failure. This happened after being assured in a previous meeting by our GM and the treasurer that these accounts are never done this way but instead they are evenly distributed so as to be federally insured. He said that this was totally irresponsible to our organization. The response was, it would be looked into.
COMMITTEE REPORT
Audit committee: (D-Steffensen) Rental Office had one recommendation to vote a change in our Declaration at the annual meeting for lowering the liability to $100K.
Decorating and Entertainment: (D-Dodson) there were too many upcoming events to list.
Golf: (P-Sullivan) Owner daily fees $1 increase, Renters/guests $2 increase, Beverages $.25 increase, credit cards will either stop being used or have a 3% fee. The remainder of concrete will be pour on hole #6.
Security Report: (D-Dodson) Securitas because of the court order will begin on Jan. 1st instead of Nov. 15th. There were no problems with Securitas from this court action that delayed the start date.
UNFINISH BUSSINESS
Employee Hurricane Bonus: (Director Burke) The board approved that the 17 employees received $125 each.
Bathhouse 1 & 3: (Directors Mulch, Peterson) A decision was made to combine the original April’s ideas with Director Peterson’s new plans and not to exceed $28K total for both bathhouses.
Sidewalks: (Director Mulch) The replacement of new sidewalks in front of the Activity Center and by the Heli Pad, plus install a sidewalk starting from the alphabet lots to the security building.1 bid was all that was received for this sidewalk work. Our GM said this is known by President Sullivan to be the cheapest we’ll get. Director Burke made a recommendation to suspend the original requirements to receive 3 bids because of the Winter Texans are coming soon. Motion was made to get 3 bids and was passed.
Margaret Gage Issue: (Director Peterson) Director Peterson through the recommendation of our President, secured an agreement that Mrs. Gage will pay $250 a month for a total of $1000 of the $2000 owed for attorney fees incurred when a restraining order was placed on this 80 year old lady. Our GM said this was done to stop her from capping or damaging Village water lines that she thought were put on her property. It appeared after talking to our GM she was reluctant to speak to anyone with respect. Director Peterson pointed out that this could have been handled a whole lot better by everyone involved and thought that the reason for him doing this was to stop the escalation of the attorney fees.. Director Peterson said he had talked to board members while working on this agreement, but before he could explain that this was done individually, our GM made the comment to the audience about another secret meeting. It was explained by Director Burke in short for her but lengthy for us speech, and by the general manager, of how this 80 year old woman did this to herself. This was seemingly confirmed by our President that he had numerous contacts from her and her daughter that were uneventful. It appears she had only verbally said what she thought of doing, but never physically did anything. Director Mulch said if we were to accept this agreement it will lead us to a very, very, deep hole. Motion to approve the agreement was voted on and was a tie with our tiebreaker Board President voting no to make the motion fail.
Swimming Pool Bids: (Director Mulch) Asked by Director Dodson if there was more than the two bids obtained. The answer was no. She was told by Director Mulch and Director Burke on how hard it is for our GM to get bids in South Texas. Director Dodson said she had found two additional pool companies that should provide legitimate bids and again explained that there was a Board agreement that a minimum of three legitimate bids were to always be obtained. A discussion about the pool steps. It was then decided to obtain more bids.
Other: Director Hansen wanted to talk about what our Village is being charged to do our trash pickup. During the weeks he was here, he had monitored what trash was picked up and what was being charged. He found that we have been noticeably overbilled with trash pickups. He said by his calculation our Village may be overpaying as much as $60,000. He said during the week of the hurricane when the bridge was non- passable, we were charged for trash pickup. Our GM explained that we transported trash to a bin across the channel and that is what they were charging. Director Hansen asked him if we had 14 bins over there, because that the number they charged for. Motion was made for management to implement a plan that includes recycling and get at least three sealed bids from companies. Director Burke expressed her opinion. Motion passed
Director McBride had obtained for our GM a national and a local fire hydrant height requirement off the internet with pictures. At the last Coffee meeting, our GM said he needed a standard or rule to give to the installer to show he needs to fix it.. Director McBride also said he noticed that in a 2006 GM report the sea cottage hydrants were raised to fire department requirements. The GM said the installer in coming out to correct it at no charge to us.
Director Dodson asked President Sullivan if there had been a meeting with our attorneys about the Cowen Lawsuit. Director Burke was the only board member invited by our President to attend this meeting that was dubbed by her as a discovery meeting. That was all that these two wished to say about the meeting. It was never asked or said who else was invited to attend this meeting.
NEW BUSINESS
Cabrera Variance Lot 1 (Director Burke) Variance passed.

Meeting adjourned.
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Monday, October 20, 2008


It looks like the laying of Time Warner cable has started inside our Village. They were at the gate keeper’s building working their way down the road to the first stop sign. Git er done. Keep you posted.
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Sunday, October 19, 2008

A TIDBIT


A fire hydrant issue normally would not get any attention, but this is not quite normal. Nearly a year ago a fire hydrant line broke under the corner lot of #127’s pad. Instead of just fixing and relocating the valve a few feet, it was decided by whomever to put a new hydrant and relocate it on the other side of the street for $6000+. We were without a fire hydrant for ten more months before the installer put it in so low the hose connections were almost touching the ground.

Director McBride asked if the installers were coming back to fix this. Our general manager responded by saying he had talked to the Port Isabel Fire Marshall and was told LIV was out of his jurisdiction. Our GM said they did discussed what was legal and together drove through Port Isabel. Our GM said he saw half of their fire plugs are lower than ours. Our GM said the Fire Marshall looked at our fire plug and didn’t have a problem with it and was not going to enforce anything in LIV anyway. Our GM said we are going to excavate around our hydrant a little more.

Director McBride posed the question if you pay someone to do a job and it isn’t done right, should not this person come back and make it right? Our general manager said this Fire Marshall was suppose to have gotten back with him with a rule or a standard and but doesn’t have one. Our GM explained to say to a guy you didn’t do it right, you have to have something that says he didn’t do it right.
Above was during our October 14th 2008.Workshop meeting.

Below was during our June 28th 2006 Regular Board meeting.
GENERAL MANAGER'S REPORT - Larry DeMah\de –#12. Fire Hydrants at Sea Cottages have been brought to the Fire Department's required height.

Go figure?
Our GM said he has not yet paid the installer. What do you think?
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008


COFFEE WITH THE DIRECTORS 10/15/2008

After the Pledge of Allegiance, Vice President Young started the meeting saying that the comments will be available three days after the Coffee meeting for later review by owners at the Library. Lot #155 asks the Board make owners more aware of new lawsuits and what they involve. President S. said his feeling is that we all should know what’s going on. Director Burke then gave her legal summary of the procedure. President Sullivan finally said it will be posted on Channel 2 to review such info in our library as it materializes.
Lot #686 commented about the lawsuit brought against the directors. They said they were unaware that our Village had an unlicensed security. Their third item was that they felt this board member doing the suing should not be able to participate with board business.
Lot #281 said all the board members should rerun for the board.
Lot #685 comments were the same as #686 with the addition if the owner who sued the directors was so upset with the way things are, she might consider moving. A member of the SGG asked for their name.
Lot #249 suggested more owner input on issues and that this blog should not represent the majority of the people views.
Lot #245 asked about the Arroyo Cable lawsuit. Director Dodson expressed that they are suing that we owe them over $1,650,000 but will settle for $750K. The thinking is that they have a weak case but a judge decides. LIV had a long history of each month monitoring how many units were occupied using the service and that is what we paid. Now they want LIV to pay for the past years the full number whether occupied or not.

Questions from the audience

Selba Campbell gave information about voting and asked for permission from the board to have a little campaigning done on the first chicken night. The OK was given.
Our general manager said our LIV email was hacked into and is ruined. He said he’s got the FBI working on solving this huge problem. Armando had a stint put in for the second time and is doing ok. Our general manager said he also had bypass surgery but would be back to work on Monday.
A sea cottage owner complained about the numerous sets of golf clubs being stolen and asked to enforce the after dark rule that workers have to leave by sunset.
Lot #65 said that our gate keepers were letting people in the park without checking.
An owner came up said that she thought security was on the ball most of the time.
Lot #312 owner said his guests were not being stopped at all by security. They gave passes with no expiration date and never looked at the pass when coming in the park.
Lot #689 wanted the butterfly garden to be taken care of when time permits.
Someone from the audience name John was kept from voicing his opinion when our general manager said he was not an owner.
An owner asked about adding a third employee towards the much needed grass cutting on the golf course. The answer was they added a part time this year already.

WORKSHOP

Director Peterson discussed the problem about a resident staying at lot #254 in which our Village had a TRO put on. It was brought up to clarify that he is suppose to help in this matter.
Director Dodson asked to mow the grass at the corner exit stop sign just pass the security gate and our general manager said that Marcus would take care of it.
Director Mulch wanted to present the three bids to the outdoor pool repair and put that on the agenda, along with the sidewalks at four locations and have the bath house be debated.
Director Steffensen brought up that on April 23rd she had allocated $27K to cover bath houses #1&3, not $27K for just for #1. A discussion took place about how to obtain an accurate dollar figure and it was put on the agenda.
The subject of this new fire hydrant was brought up. Our general manager said he talked to the fire marshal and was told he had no legal jurisdiction in our Village, but discussed what was legal. He told our manager that they too have to dig around some of their hydrants but failed to tell him if they were originally installed that way and approved. The fire marshal said he had no problem with ours and our general manager said he was going to dig around it some more. It was suggested to have the hydrant install correctly and the general manager said he has to have some standard to show them that it’s incorrect, which at this moment he doesn’t have. The people who had us wait ten months to install this according to our GM have not yet been paid. It was also asked if this hydrant had been tested. Our GM said no.
Robinson Pools gave a bid of $65,000, Berry Pools $58,500 to fix the pool bottom. It was discussed why only two bids and our GM said he contacted five or six.
Mary Steffensen said we had allocated $32,000 in the budget for the pool repair.
Mary Steffensen talked about revenues and the increase in prices for the cost of goods that will reflect on what we charge in the restaurant. The credit card charges have went up and a 3% credit card charge is to be reviewed for the Pro shop and rental department.
Director McBride asked to have shutoff valves to replace the pneumatic valves for the sprinkler systems.
Director Peterson requested that we start to work on the weed burr problem.
Mary Steffensen said we need to search for a cheaper transportation cost for our golf course sand.
Director Burke said that the Board had an outstanding variance to look at and put it on the agenda list.
It was put on the agenda if our Village should add to the employee appreciation fund raiser.
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Friday, October 10, 2008

THE LAWSUIT

The lawsuit was dropped after the both parties finally negotiated an agreement. The recall is out. All nine directors are back. Conditions agreed on were that our GM stays, Aramark stays, and all nine board member seats will be up for re-election in March. The new security starts the first of the year and we will revise our voting ballots and proxies.

In the courtroom Reta Priest told a bailiff that she wanted to have the courtroom cleared because she was being disturbed and was near a nervous breakdown. Director Burke said she was there not to give support to Priest and Mulch, but because she was given a subpoena.

This result seems to show the GM was what this lawsuit was all about, causing grief, turmoil, and loss friendships. This has set a standard, of what exactly is still unclear but it’s definitely not good. It’s still unclear who’s paying the lawyer’s tab, but in the long run the attorney fees will seem small in comparison to the future losses that our park may incur as a result of this event.

This one dance is over but the music I feel will keep on playing. Many wrongs have been done to too many good people over this. I hope I'm wrong.
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Thursday, October 09, 2008

THE LAWSUIT

It appears nothing has been settled in this lawsuit today that Reta Priest and Leroy Mulch started. I will update any information tomorrow. Read more on this article...

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/user1/ptisabel/093008_to_members.pdf

VILLAGE OWNERS; Please click above to read the very important info from our Association attorney. It's your money my friends! Read more on this article...

AND THE HITS JUST KEEP ON COMING!

Would you be surprised at receiving a letter from this recall clan targeting our Village attorney for doing her job? Well you shouldn’t be because that’s seems to have been their M.O. for months. Attack anyone who doesn’t agree and then distort, insinuate, and draw sympathy (the DIDS). You might note the one thing that might be missing in this surprise possible letter as was in their failed recall attempt letter, is detail information such as times, places, who had witnessed those involved, you know those silly things called FACTS or PROOF! It seems only things you hear or read from this crowd are conjecture, hearsay, innuendoes, and fabrications, topped off like a cherry with a touch of fear.
The Condominium Act states our By-laws must provide provisions for the removal of directors. Our By-law provides one such procedure using a recall, but Priest and Mulch appear to think they are somehow above this By-law. These governing By-laws were simply not followed and the way the proxies were prepared had absolutely no chance of validity. For all we know Priest, Mulch, and their recall gang could have made up or changed all of them.

Why on earth would Directors Burke and Steffensen see this recall as anything other than invalid? Are they also thinking suing over this seems to be OK?

Consider the possibility of having a legitimate Board election if we held it in July using this same recall procedure to elect our Directors. We would have no quorum of voting owners present. One director wannabe and his/her constituents will mail out every ballot to the Village owners as a proxy with an attached letter stating their opinions about all the opposing candidates. This information is all you are left with to make an intelligent voting decision that has to be mailed back to this wannabe’s group. They themselves do the tally but after seeing your vote are allowed to grill you on how you voted wrong and try to make you change it. Would you tolerate such a process? Is there something just a little wrong with this picture?

The above was the exact method done for this Recall and is a shameful way to try to force three of our directors off the Board.

Our three elected directors have never been against the association. They were against a previous board that did not recognize owner’s ratifying rights on substantial additions and alterations to our Village. They were for managerial accountability that the previous board seemed to ignore.

This unacceptable recall along with the ridiculous lawsuits against our six Directors may site several reasons why they are doing it, but appears to have only one true agenda, to regain a majority control of the Board to insure that your general manager stays. That’s it, end of story.

The friends of the general manager have turned this park upside down leaving us, the owners, with an undisclosed cost that could last for years. If this bunch really wants a recall, they should do it in a legitimate way and have the facts for a change be given to every owner and let them designate their vote without being questioned. Let’s obey our By-laws for a change.

Priest and company continually say they are the voice of the people and are working in your best interest. I for one have heard only their one voice and yes, they are working, but for who’s interest?

One more item to note is that no one is associated with this blog other than me. I don’t recall stating in any of my articles that Aramark is trying to buy out our Village. To also say that this blog is not reputable and not founded on the truth is saying that information I acquire and used from the general manager, Directors, the Board minutes, our Village Newsletter, and Board meetings are therefore lies. I can back up what I say, I question if the same can be said from this recall group.
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