ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE

     "Draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice
        and I'll tell you a story." (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

     Just about a year ago, I wrote an article for The Reporter entitled "I Too Have a Dream." I wrote it because I saw my dream retirement home deteriorating into a tinpot dictatorship, a financially unstable one at that. I wrote it before I had decided to take up the urging of people and run for office and it was published after I threw my hat into the ring. Now we are at the edge of that precipice.
     That dream seems even further away now than a year ago. The separation has become wider, the edges sharper, and the nastiness and brutality, the verbal brutality on the part of the minions of David Israel have become worse and worse as time goes on. I have no doubt in my mind that the orders and the mannerisms encouraged flow from the top down, just as the misbehavior at UCO stems and flows from the top down. Not wanting to hear this, to accept the facts as they are, has pushed these people into ever darker depths. Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The House of Seven Gables" says it much better than I ever could.
     "For, what other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!"

     The heart of David Israel is dark indeed and all one had to do was read this issue of The Reporter and see for oneself.
How dark is his heart when he lies through his teeth  that there is a "lack of any indication of "opting out" in our (sic) concept of a Condominium Community. Really then, how does he explain the ability to opt out of the insurance program that the Village has or even in this paper, the option of opting out of a Village plan for hurricane repair - and by the way, John, hurricane season is not over at the end of September: in fact October is more dangerous for Florida than any other month of the season. So the man lies through his teeth and his dark heart is made merry. The same dark heart encourages others to write and say ridiculous things such as the delegates wanted a cheap job and voted to have the worst job possible. Puh - leese! If we had a contract that was a contract, we would have had no problems for lousy workmanship would have been corrected as a matter of fact.
     Like all megalomaniacs, David Israel thinks that the world is all about HIM, just like a toddler who has not yet grown up. Well, the world is NOT about you but about us, all the residents and the sooner you realize that, the better off we will all be. The opposition has now become the "antis" and why - because, as David Israel says, we are against Village wide Wi Fi only because it is his idea. Give me a break. We are against it because it is foolish, financially irresponsible and physically unnecessary as the alternatives are there and better. Proof of the pudding - how many have already opted out and the realization that any associations that will not opt out will then have to split the cost of this foolish and expensive - and how expensive no one yet knows - amongst themselves, becoming quite costly.
     David Israel has become his own jailer and sucks in others as he ambles along in his plan to bankrupt the Village and leave it a physical shambles. The only one to "poison your own well" is the man he sees in the mirror.
     Now he says that the time has come to redo the bylaws. Yes, it is well past time as he does not listen to them anyway, but the problem is that he has his same twisted cronies on the by law committee and that is not good, not good at all for us who live here and do not want his tinpot dictatorship to continue.
     Finally, David Israel, enough already with the previous election for if you stress that, let us delve a bit deeper, to two elections prior. You won by 2 votes. TWO, and only because you spread malicious rumors and dirt about your opponent. Now let us look at the next election. You were a minority winner. Two candidates ran against you and together they had far more votes than you, but because they split the vote, you won. That is not a great mandate. Now let us look at the most recent election, the first one to not have debates, to not have open media, to not have meetings allowed - an election that was rife with corruption and suspicion in the balloting and counting process and for which you REFUSED to show originals - a bit illegal there(?) and you ran against one who came with no name or face recognition and still, you won only by a swing vote of about 36. Only that number, even with all your advantages and dirty tricks, so, no, David Israel, you have no great mandate and by all rights should not have even been allowed to run as term limits were up. Talk about having to have new bylaws!!!!
    So, before you talk again, go talk to yourself, go think before your mouth opens and garbage and lies come out. Try to work well with others, allow people in who do not lick your toes. Henry VIII you are not!