PROMISES, PROMISES

     At some point in time one has to realize when one is being scammed, taken advantage of, played for all its worth. One has to wake up and smell the coffee, or better yet, look around and see the devolving environment of one's life and understand the root cause of it all.
     Even given the fact that the past always looks better in many circumstances as people refer back to a dreamier time, forgetting the struggles of the past, there comes a time when one has to look realistically at all times - past, present and future. So let us take a look at the past and present and hopefully, the future of our home, Century Village. Do not forget that for many of us, CV is not  a second home, a place we stay for a few days, weeks or even months. It is our home. Period. We do not have other homes to replace this one nor the money to do so, so certainly we have concerns over this Village of ours and its ostensible leadership and what it has done to CV.
     Unfortunately, CV has had a history of some truly awful presidents. For every one that cared about the Village, that sought the best for it, that planned for the future, we have had two that were just awful, putting us into contracts that screwed us royal, or wasted our funds and refused to plan for our future even as they diddled around with , well, you fill that in yourself.
     Certainly, one of the worst ever, and for eight years we have been suffering under this man's ever increasingly dictatorial reign, harmful reign, this David Israel. Even if I were to be generous and allow him and his minions to claim that he wanted to do good for the Village, that certainly disappeared quickly. More and more the administration's role in the life of the Village was expanded into areas where they did not belong and was allowed to wither and die in areas where it should have been vigorous and proactive.
    Saddled with an awful Millennium Agreement, this administration did nothing to ameliorate it at all and in act, allowed WPRF and the Levys to roll right over us, spending our funds freely with barely any control over their spending, so we paid for items, big and small, that we should not have, we accepted their attorney's words for it even as David Israel continued to use a lawyer whose sell by date had long ago passed and expired. We wasted funds on ridiculous items, from allowing the gorging of the volunteers within the UCO building to ever increase their "snacks" and specialty drinks they so desperately needed or on projects that sucked so badly they turned into our own swamp!
     While the administration under George Lowenstein and treasurer Dorothy Tetro managed to save money for years to pay for new roads and walkways, and maintained the Village, when term limits came into play - remember that limit! - David Israel, Ed Black, Bob Marshall et al managed to blow all those millions of dollars and more, bringing us to the very brink of bankruptcy and gifted us with the worst road job ever, immediately beginning to disintegrate, to crack, to crumble and to develop large and dangerous cracks and raised portions of our walkways. It was only thru the brilliant work of Tetro that we managed to stay out of pauper's court!!!
     And over the years it became worse and worse. New equipment for the Clubhouses which were capital improvements were deemed repairs and so dig they must into our pockets. Useless and unnecessary murals were paid for. Ridiculous redos and more redos of the shrubbery by the Clubhouse cost thousands and there appears to be a constant repaving and reassigning of spots there along with accompanying work.
     Contracts expired and what we got instead of calm negotiating, investigation and research was an almost hysterical hype every time. "The best contract ever" was what we heard over and over again. So we were screwed on transportation, royally screwed on security and of course, not allowing, purposely not allowing time for the delegates to read and internalize these contracts, was a favorite tactic of David et al. Time and again we had to renegotiate, resubmit proposals and every time pay more.
     We were subjected to a high pitched ridiculous but dangerous push for DSL, a company that would have installed towers in our Village, all over the place, and for what? Well, they would receive millions of dollars for an unworkable system and David would receive what exactly? Pleasure at screwing us again. Glee as he pulled the wool over our eyes again, at least those people he fooled or governed with a leading leash. And more? DSL and their Wi fi proposal was actually dead at birth, just check with Boca CV, but that made no never mind to David Israel for he wanted it and like all babies, he threw monumental tantrums but nevertheless, through the hard work of a group of people, he was defeated.
     But never let it be said that he ever gives up on his selfish and greedy plans. We have two years left with Comcast and yet for years already he has been pushing this Atlantic broadband, a company with little history other than bad service records with its customers - and go check that out online. There was a feeble attempt at an even more feeble excuse saying there were two companies with that name. Sorry, but that is not allowed and when one registers with the state, one needs to have an original name, one that is unique to it. So, yet another attempt to put one over on us - again!
     Lanny writes of having a bird in the hand so choose Atlantic. Weird reasoning that, for a bird in the hand is Comcast which is here, which has the biggest footprint ever in the internet cable world, which has served us well and has increasingly improved services. In addition, quite a number of us are very much satisfied with Comcast in all its various permutations and do not wish to change nor is it in David's purview to do this. Internet is NOT a utility and even the government is pushing that point.
     In addition, one has to think into the future and see how that whole world is changing and rapidly. Why are we to pay for Atlantic to expand? Let them pay their own bills. Why are we to accept that if not ready and they will most probably NOT be ready, they will "lease' the necessities from other companies. Really? Just read the papers and see how well that is doing as companies are going to court to avoid having to lease their wires to other competition. Why are we being urged to take an untried entity into our Village and for ten years!!! Why is David pushing them so hard? WHY?
     It is for the associations to meet and discuss. It is for the delegates to vote as the association wishes, not as they wish, but this system of ours sucks, major, and the delegates, a great many of them, particularly the leashed ones, the ones who get a thrill over being part of the "power", who get jobs in UCO and can boast of a little fiefdom under the rule of you know who, these delegates vote their own wishes!!
     We have a UCO which refuses to adapt and change, to respond to the wishes and needs of the residents. We have a UCO run by a mad dictator, one who suffers from alleged mental and emotional ills, one who has singlehandedly, well, with the help of his buds, destroyed much of us and our future what with no money set aside for the needs we have and will have and WITH NO WORK DONE ON POST MILLENNIUM!!!
     People, the time has come. No, let me correct that - the time has long ago come - wherein we have to fix this problem and stop worrying about what he wants. For Pete's sake, just get Hulu or
Roku and get whatever the hell you want. 300 channels, really? How many do you actually watch? And many of these channels are repeats of others. So please, think and evaluate carefully. Our monies are at stake. Our future is at stake.
     Infrastructure. The Reflection Bay threat to us. Have you seen that housing project down Okeechobee? Looks like a project straight from New York. Well, that will be what Reflection Bay will look like and yet what does David do? He sits on his thumb or heeds Waldman or what? I see no action on the part of UCO at all.
     Time to wake up. Time to get this man out of office and please, do not forget his egregious lies as he tells us that Kelly is on his way out of the Village, Bull!!!! Ed Black was even at a meeting instigated by Kelly and provided some advice to him. Is David going into the motel business as well?
     Ask hard questions. Think hard on the answers. Check for the truth, an ever decreasing commodity here within the Village UCO and in our country at large. Think - for your future depends on it.