EXERCISE IN FRUSTRATION

From time to time I get an email from a frustrated resident asking why we have money for cart paths and course improvements but none for landscaping or driveway paving. I have answers for them; it's pretty obvious. 

But I can't provide solutions. And if you think you're going to get them by attending the monthly executive committee meetings, you may want to read an email from a resident who's been there, done that, and now wears the T-shirt: DON'T BOTHER!

I guess I'm just jaded from everything I've seen and read from others while writing this blog, but I've come to the conclusion that the government we have here is anything but representative. It doesn't have to be. It's a corporation. A not-for-profit corporation, but a corporation nonetheless. 

I have stocks in lots of corporations and they don't listen to me either. That's just how it is.

And since our leaders are bound by corporate law and insulated from lawsuits, they don't have to answer to anyone but the special interests they support. 

Dear Farmington Woods Blogger,

Just returned from another pointless executive board meeting. Why do I call them pointless? First of all, most of the residents who attend these meetings are on one committee or another. Resident attendance is low and very few choose to speak even when they have concerns.

Because many residents have never been to one of these meetings, let me explain how they are run. Before the meeting begins the Board takes questions and comments from the audience. You are given 5 minutes to make a statement or ask a question unless you’re the interim president of the eighteen hole women’s golf club, then you receive unlimited time to pontificate.

The rest of us are held strictly to the 5 minute rule. According to their rules of order, they are not supposed to answer you but occasionally the president will bend the rules with a sassy reply. During June’s meeting a woman asked where they were going to get the money to pay for the irrigation system that residents rejected on May 10^th.  Here the rules applied, so no answer.

At this meeting I asked a simple question: Since the bond vote, why is it that no committee or executive board member sees fit to discuss our two failing operations: golf and the club house/restaurant operations. No answers or remarks, board members just sat there silent.

So why ask questions at all you’re wondering? I guess because you’d think the Board would take those questions back to the responsible committees including golf, restaurant and finance and demand answers. They don’t.

Your questions and comments fall on deaf ears. And if you don’t attend these meetings, you’ll never know what concerns other residents have because questions and comments from residents never appear in the minutes of the meeting.

Now I understand why working residents don’t attend these meetings. They’re a waste of time, effort and money. The Farmington Woods Executive Committee is back to business as usual.

“So don’t worry, be happy. We’ve got this covered.” In the end they exercise self interest and hardly represent the concerns of the majority of residents: making the golf/restaurant operations self-sustaining.

And that means doing away with the ridiculous restaurant assessment imposed on non-golfing residents in 1998. It’s been increased twice since and it will happen again as long as we allow it to. Let’s face it, we not only have two failing operations here, we also have an executive committee that fails every non-golfing resident every time $30 per month is added to their condo bill.

It seems to me that leaders here are having a gay old time listening to Perry Como and tipping back Rob Roys like it’s the 50’s again. “We’re in the middle of a recession? It’s a good thing we live here at Farmington Woods because we’re recession proof! We have 1.084 residents that provide us with endless pots of money to spend as we please.”

And spend they do, regardless of what we, the residents want.

Comments? You're welcome to email me at 2chewman@gmail.com.