ANALYSIS OF OUR HOME - CV

     After reading several articles in various places and the stress put on "summer people" as opposed or contrasted to "snowbirds", it hit me. That is what is wrong with the Village in a major way.
     We have been encouraged to think of ourselves here as two distinct groups of people: those who live here all year round and those who live here on a lesser basis and even those are divided into snowbirds and snowflakes. But this is wrong. Many part timers turn into full timers as the years go on and we all must learn to think of CV as what it is - a year round permanent small town or large village where infrastructure of the most basic kind must be ensured before any enhancements are added and it all must be done with proper care and thought. There must be long term and short term plans for the Village and funding be set aside or planned for accordingly.
     This can only be done if we realize that we are one , ONE unit, one place. The all year residents must realize that the part timers add something to the Village, have much to contribute and at times must be catered to in the sense of courts or clubs, but they must also remember that the year rounders also have needs and sometimes the mundane needs of better fencing for example has priority over another court and also a careful evaluation of projects.
     What is even more wrong and off about the Village is the fact that we do a big project and then in 6 months or a year we suddenly have to fix or totally redo, be it the resident pool at the Clubhouse or another pool that springs a leak, or the parking lot at Hastings or even the whole paving job in the Village. Why is it that we are always caught on the short end of the stick having to pay for all this doing and redoing and there is no recourse to force the contractors to fix at their expense?
     The answer is simple. Because the people in charge either do not care, or do not know how, or even worse - are getting something out of it - when they allow one page multi million dollar contracts to go thru without benefit of lawyer approval, with the signature on a BLANK page - yes, you read that right - and lack of details for the contracted job. There is no good process or procedure in place to insure proper contracts and completion of near perfect jobs.
     What is needed is much more careful and knowledgeable oversight, even of WPRF. For example, why have I received dozens of calls complaining about the unhealthy situation of the porta potty at Hastings. It is vile, I was told. Anyone in that situation must call Eva Rachesky as she is in charge of that but actually why should it even happen? Why? Because the oversight is lax and a could care less about it attitude. It is not glamorous so why bother about it?
     In school, when we wished to apply for a Blue Ribbon School or Middle States Accreditation, we had a massive evaluation of the school from soup to nuts - all members of the school community, the physical plant, the educational goals, achievements, supplies, long and short range plans, finances and on and on. That is what must be done here. The first project a new administration must take on is a massive self evaluation of the Village, the state of the Village, its future and short term needs and goals, its finances, short and long range, its physical needs, the priorities, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps we would even need an outside expert or guide in all this. But without doing this evaluation, without seeing how we meet, how we compromise, how we finance, how we set process and procedure at the head of the line -  without all this we are going to be in a bad way. What is needed is more common sense and less grandiose pie in the sky personal projects.
     What is needed is the reinstatement of term limits. Just today there was a report of riots in Burkina Faso in demand of term limits. Other municipalities are implementing them, including right here in Florida and all over the country and the world and what are we doing here? We are going backwards, cancelling our term limits and letting incompetency, selfishness, wastage of funding, stale old ideas and thought remain in place. We need to put term limits back in again and make sure they stay there. We need to cut this government by secrecy and let the light and air in. We need to step up, work hard and get rid of trash. and who will do this - ALL OF US OR IT WILL NEVER GET DONE! Once again, read and think and ponder where you fit in and where you can step in and help the Village, help us become ONE family.