Baitball Blogger
Baitball Blogger's JournalLittle Conspiracies - More tales of bad behavior in my Florida HOA.
Sometimes I wonder how people are going to react when they read about the strange things that seem to happen all too often around here. I can tell you that I've never read anywhere else the kind of things that seem to be normal in my development. Today I'll write about how people behave when they are afraid that someone is catching on to the fact that our Association has been under the influence of backwater dealings for some time. Keep in mind that all if not most of my observations come from video clips from the security cameras that I have collected over the years.
For those that don't know, my neighborhood was involved in a larger community scandal in the nineties. The extent of the good ole boy maneuvering that took place in the early stages of the development is now coming to the surface because the poorly constructed areas are now in need of repair. No one wants to pay - and no one should since the city's backwater methods are largely to blame. The city leaders empowered the wrong kind of people who not only helped interfere with the business interests of a developer, but they also thought they could enrich themselves by defrauding members of my community by spreading misinformation about our legal rights. That is the big picture.
But I study human behavior and how this affected them in the years that followed has been a point of interest. There are patterns. Like the person who used to be afraid that someone would follow her in her early morning walks. Keep in mind that I am not usually wide awake and out of bed until after nine in the am so I have to rely on quick scans of the security camera clips to see what happened in the morning. I assumed she was concerned because a couple of time she pointed at my house before she left and her husband took a picture of my car, probably to show her that no one drove the car out of the driveway while she was gone. I just wonder how many other people she inconvenienced with what could be interpreted as defamation. Seriously, what is anyone going to do around here? We're more scared of them because of their connections.
I always wondered how much of her "fear" was made up because no one else in this neighborhood had ever moved in and walked so comfortably in and around people's houses in the early morning hours. And I say this as someone who was very concerned when she started trespassing on my property. It is something that has been remedied once I got the police involved.
But, there are still signs that small groups are still meeting and I would love to hear from other people in HOAs to find out if this kind of behavior is normal: Someone jogs in and out before or after the cabal leaves in their cars at the same time in the morning. What is the jogger, a look out? It's the same guy that comes in sporadically, but always at a time when it appears that cabal members are leaving in groups. The guy doesn't live in the community so it's a tell. .
The worst I have seen was when a group of neighbors were loaded up in a van and left for a meeting which took most of the day. While they were gone, the same two or three cars drove in and out of the neighborhood, slowly, like they were making sure no one was messing with the cabal's property. A few months after that meeting, the cable company came in and laid down new cable on their side of the community. I imagine that's why they wanted secrecy.
But I determined that this was a practiced method when I wrote to the president of the Association to discuss an issue of concern. He responded with a hand-written letter delivered to my door to tell me that he had a HOA meeting to discuss the issue and I could appear at a board meeting where he would tell us what they had decided. Except, that there was no noticed HOA meeting. They just talk among themselves and come up with a consensus.
All this happened within the last five years. Because I made a stink of things, usually by writing about them on this website, there are signs that they are waking up. Like they are finally publicly noticing our HOA meetings. But they still can't resist with those private get-togethers, which I directly relate to the backwater methods that still control every aspect of our lives.
Like this morning, when the tall man jogged in and out; and cars from the usual suspects left at the same time. And tonight, when board members met for an hour, at the same time that more of the usual suspects walked or jogged up and down the street.
It's Florida, and if I've learned anything about this community, we don't enjoy the benefits of a legally run HOA that is concerned with fiduciary responsibility because too many people are tribal and putting their interests first. And it won't get better until it is all exposed. Much like the problem we have with Trump at a National level.
I was raised in a household where both parents instilled qualities
of a public servant. It is a life of self-deprivation and constant self checking with everything you do in your every day life. Most people would see it as repressive. I certainly did as I grew up. But you learned to respect it because the job was honorable and the reason you did it was because you knew that as a public servant you had a target on your back. It was easy for someone like Trump to tear down your work and purpose if they found some human frailty.
That was over forty years ago, but Trump has brought that reality to life. It is just something that public servants have to live with.
Breakfast meetings in Florida - Easily abused.
When Acosta made the case that breakfast meetings were common in Florida, it set off alarm bells. I see them as something that is insidious.
In the 90s our area in Central Florida was a point of interest for the State and Feds. There were roads to be built, including a nature Trailway that I suspect one day will turn into a metro rail when the population requires better transportation. That meant federal and state money was coming into the area. The feds and the state were therefore, interested in finding local support for their plans.
Then, there was the local interests. At the time, there was a huge fight going on between the former owner of the Country Club and its members. It might seem like the local interests and the state and federal interests had nothing to do with each other, except for one glaring problem. Based on the way the locals would set up the game board, you had to deal with many of those members in order to find support for government projects. The board would be heavily influenced by the Country Club issue when Country Club members ran and were elected for office in late 1996.
Once in office, they anointed the local Rotary Club as the nearest thing to a local professional organization and ordered the City Manager to become a member because it was their desire for the City and the Community leaders to communicate better.
It was a foolish arrangement because anyone would know what would happen. The City Manager was looking for support and used these meetings to establish relationships. Whether it was a dinner that followed at a local restaurant, or in the meeting itself, his job was to find out what people wanted in return for City support. It was a pattern that probably continues to this day. City officials joined these private organizations and had direct access to the most self-interested people in the community. Community leaders - elected officials.
In short, the feds and the state got their road and my community turned into a cautionary tale to show the folly of Central Florida's shadow government, which uses far too many secretive meetings to push their causes. Those people who live in our communities that are given far too much access, get far too much influence. Even enough to undermine our own Association documents.
It certainly destroyed my trust in government when the good ole boys in my community were able to over-run our community documents for their own benefit. Instead, they gave the Mayor's friend, who lived in my community, freehand to frame the issues. It was a big miss when the City would fail to conduct proper due diligence when our community's final stage of development was up for review in 1998. The City would, wittingly or unwittingly, turn into a co-conspirator with these people, allowing incompetence and lack of oversight to advance their causes in City Hall. And it all hinged on relationships, in particular with one resident who had influence with the mayor and country club members -- probably because he was known to buy and sell golfcourses.
I call him Resident Roil. Every good ole boy community has one. He or she is a civilian who has entirely too much influence with community leaders and elected officials. The City would accept his word and never looked too deeply beyond what he said, probably because they needed his support for other city projects. I see this as an intentional strategy: Find the loudest critics of the City, and turn them. From what I observed, once they're turned they stop attacking the city, and start spreading misinformation in order to support the city's projects. And, they also defame those who start asking too many questions.
What I got was an eye awakening. So much to say about those days, but the one thing that I became the most wary about was how this backwater network would communicate outside of the normal, legal process. And it was those damn breakfast meetings at the Rotary Club that stand out the most.
In the 1998 HOA meetings, we were told that we had no legal rights to stop the new developer from developing the community next door. It was a lie. Our own Resident Roil had signed the documents that turned the Association over to us in 1989. It was a glaring failure to inform us of critical information. It was going to be a victim of a con. But, we relied on information from those who had the most interest in misleading us. They said we had one way out of our situation. We had Resident Roil's relationship with the mayor. Not only do they play golf together, but he'll see him at the Rotary Club breakfast meetings. Lots more information was communicated that I could show how we were being manipulated into a huge con-job. But let's stay on the topic of these breakfast meetings.
By the time I understood what was going on, I began to realize that Resident Roil was part of a shadow government that used the Rotary Club as a front. It's a civic organization that promotes the selfless nature of its members. I know quite a few Rotary Club members from that time, and selfless is not a word I would use to describe them. Several Rotary Club members would move into the community as the project went through the City process in 1998. And it became apparent that they were part of a group in our HOA that were in favor of supporting the new developer of the sister side of our community, BECAUSE THEY HOPED THAT THIS NEW DEVELOPER WOULD HAND OVER THE DEEDS TO OUR COMMON GROUNDS THAT WERE ALONG THEIR HOUSES. No surprise that they moved into homes along those common grounds. No surprise that Resident Roil had a choice piece of common ground behind his house.
Right there and then, I realized that the Rotary Club was a front. If my story gets traction I hope I put pressure on these private organizations to divorce themselves from these bad actors. In Florida, people wear many hats. If the Rotary Club wants to retain its selfless nomenclature, it needs to pay attention to the laws of Florida and ensure that its organization is not being used by people who are greedy as hell everywhere else. And if the case is that they want to support the backwater ways, let's just put that on the table so we can all be forewarned.
Those breakfast meetings. It always galled me to think how my fate was wrapped up before I even had time to get the kids off to school. So, in sum, Acosta made a big mistake defending them.
About Biden's perspective regarding compromise...
Look, I don't think Biden is a racist, like in the classic Dixiecrat racist manner. But his words about compromise does cause concern to many minorities because it's foreshadowing of a pattern we would all like to see gone. In order to compromise, you have to give up something, and that something throughout the nineties (The Centrist Decade), and beyond, were issues that were of major concern to minorities.
We were bargaining chips for way too long, and frankly, in the white dominant world, our issues don't register as a priority.
This is a fact: the kind of things that concern us because we are people of color don't warrant consideration in the PERSONAL reality base of most white Americans. First thing to know about a poc is that we learn to develop situational awareness in order to avoid...trouble. This behavior is also known as healthy paranoia. It's exhausting sometimes the way we have to evaluate all the known factors, and include the expected patterns of racism and stereotypes BEFORE we share our opinions or make a decision. IT IS EXHAUSTING, but we learn to do this to avoid the common traps. And, yes, sometimes we're a step behind in our decision-making because we have to second guess everything we say and do. If we don't do this, one casual, impulsive moment might set off a racist who thinks we're being uppity and that galvanizes everyone around them. Metaphorically, it's like that scene in The Color Purple, when Oprah gets surrounded by the townspeople. It's discouraging to be right, and, yet, have to deal with that kind of reaction.
That brings us to the reaction from those who don't consider themselves racists, who add to this phenomenon. Their reaction is the most hurtful of all. We'll call them the "other white, non ethnic people."
This is what I can tell you about them. I have lived in a predominantly white culture society over the last few decades and minority issues do not come up in conversation, unless it's the usual stereotypical comments that get regurgitated because they have found some social acceptance. And I'm not talking about the obvious things that racist say that crosses the line of acceptable speech. I intentionally do not chose to be around racists and have cauterized those relationships over the years, so now I'm down to the "Other white, non ethnic people." And even among them, there are differences that I have found difficult to bridge because we have very different ways of living our best lives--even when we live under the same roof.
By comparison, racists know what they are doing is archaic and wrong. The one thing that can send them running to their backward caves is exposing their agenda of Making Whites Great Again. It simply is not accepted in its raw form. We can look them in the eye and they know that we're seeing them for who they really are. But it's harder to remove their advantage, when we have this other host of people who refuse to see it too. Essentially, they become complicit bystanders.
This is the part that is hurtful. I have observed among my other white, non ethnic friends and family members that they tend to doubt my ethnic p.o.v. because its not something that is part of their personal lives. This creates another obstacle to overcome. I have pointed out things to them that I felt were blatant and their response has been along the lines: "That's crazy, nobody thinks that way." And when I have been proven right, instead of accepting my observations, they just look away and you can almost see their brains going into Langolier mode, erasing the facts that disrupts their view of the world. Because, you see, accepting our point of view creates complications that just makes life harder in a world that favors the white dominant culture. "Too many rules! Too many rules" That's the kind of response you can get from a "Other white, non ethnic person" when you try to warn them about the situational awareness that you live by everyday. You see, they can walk freely, where you can't. They can show their curiosity in a way that would set off alarms if you did the same. So, they don't get the same societal electric shocks that will cause behavioral changes and so, they tend to dismiss our worries as just plain crazy, paranoia.
So, that's why minorities are uneasy about a white person who talks about compromise with the other side. We know that our issues are just academic factors to people who don't live our lives. And throwing us in as a bargaining chip isn't so hard to do for someone who has so many other personal benefits in the deals they make.
So, they may not be racists, but they are also not 100% committed to our cause.
"I do not care if you went to law school. You cannot threaten me!"
So, walking into the neighborhood on my dog walk, I saw a car parked in an odd place and took my iphone camera out, just in case. Saw a white haired man sitting in the driver seat, pointing his finger at the dashboard. But I never heard his voice because he became quiet as I walked by. Instead, I thought I heard a child's voice saying, "I do not care if you went to law school. You cannot threaten me!"
I don't think it was a child, however. Maybe a woman's voice garbled by the speaker phone because the conversation was very elevated in syntax.
Listen everyone, as long as I have lived in this community I have been aware that lawyers have dicked around and abused their professional ethics in order to keep us in line. I don't know who this woman was, or what was going on, but I sympathize with her. We need something far more effective to consumers than the Florida Bar to help us.
The fact that Trump is closer to Russian interests, than he is to traditional U.S. foreign policy
is due to the nature of international business. This desire to reach out to foreign countries has been going on since the nineties. I mean, it was going on before then, but in the nineties local governments were doing some extraordinary reach out programs to connect with business partnerships in other countries. The interests of LOCAL governments were being proxied through private business people in the area. On a small scale it proved to be disastrous as local city elected officers were breaking the law in order to push these partnerships. We're still reeling from the power overreach.
Take that to Trump's level, where he gets access to millions of money from foreign interests. He is the natural result of global business networking. Which is a huge irony, since the small Joe right-wing voters are distrustful of globalism.
Trump is the supreme capitalist example of a globalist.
I don't know. I think the things I've seen here are strictly backwater Florida. Like the lawyers...
In my personal journal, I intend to dedicate a chapter on why I wouldn't hire a local lawyer, and it goes down to the fact that they're so interconnected that they will only stick around long enough to learn what you know. In other words, it's up to you to uncover their conflicts of interest because they won't tell you. So when they leave, they leave you weaker than you were before you contacted them.
I am going to tell you an anecdote, but keep in mind, that this is only one of the experiences I will write about, concerning the lawyers.
Here's the necessary background: On one HOA meeting in late 1998, we managed to clean the board of the two members who were putting their interests ahead of the interests of the Association. In a nutshell, their houses abutted against the Association's common grounds and it was their hope that the new developer for the sister community would just hand over the titles of those properties over to them, in return for their support for his plans. Let that sink in. It was a huge breach of fiduciary responsibility, but fiduciary responsibility is the first casualty in a good ole boy community.
In another part of town, about the same time that we were cleaning out our Association board, the City and its co-defendants were seeing the final stage in a lawsuit filed by the old developer, who tried to develop our sister community. Part of his lawsuit claimed that he had been denied the opportunity to develop the property because of business interference and/or conspiracy. One of the City's co-defendants was the Master HOA, A HOA that empowered itself to represent all the Associations within our PUD borders, including mine.
Keep that information on the back burner.
The old developer's lawsuit against the city and the Master HOA would end with a settlement agreement that included a confidentiality clause. Years back, with the help of a public records request, I was able to go into City Hall to examine boxes of documents that were pertinent to that lawsuit. I spent a pretty penny on copies, and it would take me years to sift through the information, and even more years to finally understand what had happened.
One of the documents that I read was particularly shocking. That one I understood, almost immediately. It was a letter from a local attorney who expressed his commitment to insure that the points that were agreed on in the settlement agreement, would be observed. Remember, that one of those points involved a confidentiality clause, which would have extended to the Master HOA.
In the document, the lawyer would identify himself as the "Insurer". In one line, like a subject line, it was stated that the topic involved "Auto Casualty". To this day, this statement is still jarring to me, because his involvement had nothing to do with auto insurance. And it's that attempted misdirection that stands tall, adding to my opinion of lawyers. But it doesn't stop there.
Remember, that at the same time that the City and the Master HOA was entering into this settlement agreement in late 1998, my Association was cleaning the board of two people who allowed our Association to walk into this debacle. There was a third board member that may have also been partially involved, or at least knew more than s/he led on. In sum, there was no one I could trust, 100%.
Skip to a few months later when our HOA now had a new president who was a homeowner who had never taken part in any of the early events. He seemed to be of the right mindset, imploring us to refer to our HOA documents for guidance. Keep in mind, that we were only beginning to suspect that we had more legal rights than we were led to believe. We needed the opinion of a lawyer to confirm it. And the new president suggested the personal lawyer he had just retained to represent him as a homeowner.
Oh, God. It would be months before I would connect that we were being led down a rabbit hole. The new president of our Association had been referred to the lawyer by someone in our community. And the lawyer was the same one who had insured that the confidentiality clause would be followed. This lawyer had a conflict of interest you could drive a train through and he wouldn't tell us. Months later I confronted him and he acted like he didn't know.
But we didn't know that in early 1999. Needless to say, we went to him for clarification and he read over our documents. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. He poured over those pages and didn't even appear to stop to breathe because he came up gasping for air, almost gleeful when he crossed over a statement that he claimed vindicated the HOA president who represented our HOA when the sister community was under city review in early 1998. In layman's terms, it was a line that claimed that the president had the power to sell property. i don't know how that stacks up against primary and secondary law, since there are plenty of cases and even state laws that supersede HOA documents, but I don't believe we were sitting before an attorney who was giving us the benefit of loyalty. He concluded that a lawsuit against the city would be a "horse race," which put doubt in our minds. In other words, he averted a lawsuit that would have protected his clients in the lawsuit against the old developer.
Months later, I came across that lawyer's name in that memo I described earlier and realized his incredible conflict of interest. I hate him for it. He pushed us off the path that would have revealed just how politically intertwined this community is and, thus, denied us self-determination and justice.
There's more I could write about the tumbling consequences that are directly tied to that lawyer. I'll just mention the following: The new president developed a close relationship with him, and over time, the new president would change. He grew in the belief that he didn't need the rest of the board to make decisions. He felt he had the power to represent our Association, like a CEO.
There is no question in my mind that the lawyer led him to believe that. And it would become the beginning of the end when the new president made a rule that we would hold the board meeting first, followed immediately by a HOA meeting. Do you see how that would work out? The lawyer would have an opportunity to influence the president's direction. We only would learn what he decided at the board meeting, and wouldn't have time to investigate and research the issue to question him. I saw the flaw immediately. The lawyer was turning us into a rubber stamp.
Needless to say, I ended my participation on the board when my term was up. I don't know how anyone can agree to be part of these boards because there is liability, even if you're just a rubber stamp. But I know that part of their boldness comes from lawyers whispering in their ear, "We've got your back."
Of course, over the years this community has been able to hone their strategies to accomplish the same objective -- tamp down on information that would eventually be turned around into a lawsuit against the city and the Master HOA. And the strategy that amazes me the most, is allowing one of their cronies to serve on BOTH boards: Our Association board, as well as the Master HOA Board, which is obligated to follow the confidentiality clause. And this person is Not just anyone, mind you. But someone with military service AND ties to Tallahassee.
Imagine what it has taken to change my perspective in order to find justice. It has not only involved breaking through American sacred cows, but also required dealing with the fear of retaliation from powerful people. Needless to say all the improper board procedures that I have observed and documented over the years, makes for one hell of a curiosity.
In sum, I really do believe I got a front row seat to see how the backwater powerbase of Central Florida operates. And to say that all these machinations have interfered with the enjoyment of my property is an understatement.
What is it about Florida that we can foster such nasty, crude people who have such influence over
our lives? I don't think it's an accident that such a rotten soul as Roger Stone has a home in this state. It seems that the more connections they have to powerful people, the more arrogant they get. So back to my question, "What is it about Florida that we can foster such nasty, crude people who have such influence over our lives?
It's a rhetorical question, because I know the answer.
In a nutshell, there is a bond that exists between our local government, the state and a combination of private cronies and the agencies that usually restore order and fairness. We're lucky on a national level to have the FBI and the media doing their jobs as the Constitution meant it to be, but it's not like that in Florida. Things wouldn't be this bad, otherwise.
I've already written how my city was compromised back in the nineties. You can find that rant in my Journal. Today it's impossible to break the path that began twenty years ago because people who make it into our community boards are either loyal to the cause, or do not seem to have the resolve or accurate information to break with the backwater methods that rule this community. It's my objective to bring that information to light, eventually. Even then, I think my success will be limited to exposing an entitled, privileged white-flight community in suburban Florida. I don't expect anything will change, because this is a way of life that works too well for them.
What I will share tonight, is how their need for secrecy creates strange behavior from those who are invested in protecting secrets which have long run their course. That's what happens when you have two societies running parallel to each other, and one is determined to retain power in order to keep information from the other.
For background, our community is being sued by our sister community over payments for infrastructure problems. The solution is very simple. The problems were a direct cause from the city's interference with our legal rights back when the sister community was going through the city review process. With the assistance of backwater cronies who lived in my community, the elected officials of that time co-opted the sister development. Their reason: they favored a new developer over the first one that tried to develop the property. Their subterfuge involved withholding critical information from the rest of us who lived here, which would have apprised us of our rights. But keeping us informed would have slowed the approval process. To this day, they go through great lengths to keep information away from us that pertains to our welfare. Except for their cabal.
You would think that good people would distance themselves from a cause that included fraud and conspiracy, but that's not what I have observed. This is more like a virus that spreads. There is never a shortage of people who are willing to join them, if the opportunity is offered. And when they do, it isn't too hard to spot the benefits they receive for their service. It's just the same as you see on a national level.
Meanwhile, I get to observe how they compound their problems by creating a hostile environment. People here are just downright dishonest and mean spirited, and the best advice I could give a newcomer who wants to hold on to their integrity, it is this: if they are eager to reach out to you, look for a disingenuous purpose. You probably won't be wrong.
There are other things that are unique to a compromised community. Like tonight, when I went out to walk the dogs, I could feel the difference. It wasn't an ordinary night. The old guy on a bicycle without lights that drove too close to us as we walked on the sidewalk wasn't the first thing that tipped me off. It was the houselights on the neighbor next door. That only happens on my street when someone is jumpy. So, looking at my security cameras, I could distinctly spot the lone dark shadow of a person walking on the golfpath behind the house. I kept my eye on that camera and the mystery was solved shortly afterward. The other neighbor is a HOA board member and the camera captured the moment he returned from the HOA president's house.
So, tonight it was another illegal HOA board meeting. That would make two in about ten days time. Something is moving quickly.
You know, it's times like this that I think about that lawsuit filed by the developer back in the nineties. I wonder if the federal district court for the middle district of Florida that ruled over that lawsuit and ultimately allowed this community to bury its secrets, did so knowing that it ultimately was allowing a community to function in a manner that was the opposite of what the Constitution had intended.
I know about the fight you're talking about because a lot has been written
about cattle ranchers who have a manifest destiny idea about property. That is definitely a huge problem, and I think the laws should have already been on your side to make it easier to protect your property.
On a smaller scale, I experienced something similar that involved property rights. Something that should never have happened if the laws were meant to protect a homesteader. It was something that revealed the true nature of Central Florida. Except, no one wants to talk about it, so new people continue to walk in without understanding what they're being subjected to. I will make an effort to explain it, because it sounds like you have been through a harrowing experience and can understand it on a personal level.
The problem with my neighbors disrespecting property lines has a history that goes back to the nineties. At least, that's my opinion. It's not just the activity of one bad neighbor. It's a collective mindset of a group that has or had back channel access to the political powers during that decade. It was a crazy time and everything came off the rails, which is what you would expect in a Republican leaning community that had very little respect for government regulation. In their favor, it didn't seem like local government had much respect for government regulation either. By the time they found a purpose for it, it was too late. This story is about what happens when the private sector takes the reigns of our local government. Spoiler: the rest of us end up with the worst of both.
We purchased our home in 1994. The neighbor next door, who was the president of our Association during this footloose era, had already put up a rail fence twenty feet into the golfcourse property. "To keep the golfers off his property," he claimed. They were nice neighbors for the first two years, and then an insanity set into this community that began in 1996.
During that time, one of our neighbors was part of a resistance group that was playing an active role in the fight against the then owner of the golfcourse and Country Club. This resistance group was opposed to the owner's plans to build two properties on the golfcourse. The plans were for single family, upscale homes, which was a huge improvement over the high density vested rights that he had when he first purchased the property. The Country Club owner received approval to build single family homes based on compromises he obtained through prior lawsuits. In other words, Zoning by Litigation.
He also wanted to finish the last phase of the community I live in. This would have been a third property that he wanted to work on at the same time, though he didn't own the property.
You have to pay attention to all the moving parts, and back in the 1996-1998 time frame, there were two major moving pieces to pay attention to. The first: the development of the two properties near the country club had heavy opposition, mostly by its members. It became a hostile situation and strategies ranged from efforts to buy his property, to taking over City Hall through the election process. That's my interpretation of what I witnessed or read from researching public records of that time.
And, we will start by saying that it appears that they intended to use the power of the city to stall or interfere with the developer's right to develop his property. This is what I concluded based on my reading of ample briefs that were part of the developers' latest lawsuit against the City. The evidence of foulplay would have been confirmed if the developer exercised his right to modify the lawsuit and proceed with a jury trial. If he had followed that process, he would have deposed the City Attorney, and it would have been all she wrote.
We need to see the chronology of the lawsuits to see how that would have transpired: I think it was July 1998 when the Federal Court ruled on the developer's lawsuit against the City. The decision would weaken the city's hand because the judge ruled that the city had provided assurances to the developer, therefore it ruled in favor of the developer based on estoppel. Therefore, the developer had his vested right to develop the two properties along the golfcourse in what they called, developable property.
If the developer had followed the next legal option to him, and modified his lawsuit and obtain his jury trial, he would have had the opportunity to also prove another claim he made in his lawsuit. Business Interference. Maybe even conspiracy, but I haven't read the lawsuit in several years, so I am not sure about that last part. But Business Interference I do remember because I can see how that would have related to the development of the final phase of our development.
To prove business interference, and possibly conspiracy, all the developer would have to do was depose the City Attorney, because in October 1998, four months after the judge had made the estoppel ruling, the City Attorney had a strategic talk with the City's trial attorneys. This they did to determine the monetary offer they were going to make to the developer. And in that talk the City Attorney provided details that would have confirmed what we may know today, loosely, as conspiracy.
But, the developer never took that option, because, in December 1998, he settled out of court with the City for two million dollars.
The second moving piece in 1997, (at exactly the same time that the backwater boys and gals were launching their tactical assault to stop those two developments), involved the final phase of our development. The country club developer could prove he had a business relationship with the representative of the private owner of final phase of our development because both the developer and representative showed up in 1995 when the conceptual plans were approved by the Planning and Zoning board. But that property became in jeopardy when the resistance group managed to stall the development of the other two properties. The stall occurred when questions were raised in November 1997 that required a legal opinion. This requirement created a lull, a stall. And it was in this time period that a new, competing developer showed up to develop the final phase of our property.
I went to every "public" City meeting that involved our community and the way things were handled will point to a rush job. I could write chapters on what I saw that smelled, but in short, the development for the new developer was rushed through city hall. Probably the biggest smoking gun of malfeasance was a ground breaking photo taken with two high level City elected officials that took place two and a half months before the first public meeting was held in City Hall.
In addition, we were held back by the member in our community that was part of the resistance group. He asserted and reinforced the idea that our Association was not turned over to us yet, so we believed we had no rights, except for what was negotiated privately.
It was all a lie. Not only was the Association turned over ten years prior, but the legal papers was signed by the guy who was involved with the resistance group.
Like following a plume to a chemical spill, this guy's name kept coming up. One of the few people that befriended me told me that this fellow was the one that made the pitch to buy the Country Clup. I realize this is hearsay, but I can affirm that Resistance Guy told me that "we made an offer for the Country Club, but the offer was rejected." He just never confirmed that he was the one that did the sales pitch, so of that, I cannot be sure.
But I think about it a lot. Can you imagine how much money he would have pulled in as commission? It would probably require a need for a financial consultant. With his political connections, he would also have the power to draw up small sections of the golfcourse, and it makes me wonder when I see people stolid to this day about taking over common grounds or golfcourse property, if someone made promises to them, that were impossible to keep.
All I can say is, back in 1997-1998, some of my neighbors behaved in very strange ways with reference to that new developer. They bent over backwards to facilitate construction and were also very nasty about keeping the rest of us at bay. Even to the point of making rules to keep the rest of us from talking to him. It was an eerie time. Think about it. We had a group of neighbors that worked together to try to get our common grounds deeded over to them, which should sound strange, unprecedented and unheard of, but they acted like it was no big deal and they were hostile to the rest of us who wanted to slow down the process long enough to understand what was going on.
In sum, I believe when the federal court allowed the city and developer to settle the lawsuit that it also stopped the rest of us from discovering just how much our neighbors worked together to compromise our community. And, without a clear line drawn, a lot of what we see today when it comes to encroachments, started back in that time. That's what I sincerely believe.
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Seminole County, Florida
Member since: Sun Mar 18, 2012, 10:16 PM
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