LET THEM EAT CLUB FOOD!

Lot's of important things happening around here: Executive Board wants to hire a PR firm to undo what the media did to them over the last couple of months. Did to them? Couldn't have been that ridiculous boondoggle they tried to force down our throats in the form of a $4M bond that had something to do with it, no way! If the image of Farmington Woods has been soiled, no PR firm is going to help it. Stop draining the lifeblood out of the community for the losing golf operation and things will improve.

By the way, it's now "trespassing" to walk on the golf course even though you own it; a board member repeated the ridiculous propaganda that we all "knew there was a golf course here when we bought our units," so we should just suck it up and support this losing operation, after all it's an amenity and increasing your property values. Just don't walk on it. Best news of all from the Board meeting: the $2M irrigation system is now going to get done for a mere $43K. What was the other $1,957,000 going to be used for anyway? And where's the $43K coming from?

I'll get to these things in more detail tomorrow, but for now I'd like to mention just briefly how bad my lunch was today. When we first moved here, the taximum was $20 and the club was only open 10 months a year, so we would just forgo the monthly pleasure that the club provides and "donate" to the unused minimum fund. But when it went to $25 and then $30 and the club went to a 12 month calendar we did our best not to waste our hard earned money with such a foolish donation. Gift to the Woods? I don't think so.

After today's lunch however, it may be time to go back to our longstanding plan: 12 shrimp to go at $2.50 each. That covers the $30 just nicely and judging by our lunch today probably the wisest thing we could do, because today's culinary adventure at the club took the cake, so to speak. It's bad enough we get hit with this $30 per month assessment, but when you cash it in, you should at least be able to enjoy it.

My wife ordered the blackened chicken quesedilla and I had a BLT. Seemed like a safe bet. I've even had that sandwich before and it wasn't bad. But today, halfway through the first half I realized I was eating a BL. Hard as I tried I couldn't find the tomato in that half. Don't get me wrong, I love bacon and this was loaded with bacon, but the tomato was sliced so thin that it wasn't even a factor in the taste.

The blackened chicken quesedilla had chicken, not blackened, was oozing with far too much cheese and had all the tomatoes that my BLT lacked. I guess there was a mix-up in the kitchen. By the way, I spent a dozen years in Tucson, AZ and I know what a quesedilla should taste like. If you want a good one locally, try Murphy and Scarletti's across from the Health Center.

Their barbecue chicken quesedilla is to die for and it's also cheaper. And the guacamole is truly guacamole. They operate in the real world where if your product is bad and you run out of money to pay salaries you go out of business. That's the free market. This isn't. What we have is a socialized restaurant subsidized by public funds.

If you think that our experience today was an abberation or one time event, I can assure you it's not. My wife spoke with some folks at the Board meeting last night and they said they had been served raw fish last week. And it wasn't sushi. This is what happens when there is no profit motive.

As long as the clubhouse/restaurant is subsidized to the tune of $400K a year by residents and the goal remains to "break-even or have a slight loss" the food will never be good at the club. I watch a show called "Restaurant Impossible" every now and then. If Chef Irvine ever got a look at the books of this operation and a tour of the kitchen, all hell would break loose.

As a matter of fact if any of us ever got to see the books and look in the kitchen, another kind of hell just might break loose: people might start to question why they are forced to keep an operation going that wouldn't last three months in Avon, Farmington or anywhere else.

When we went down to Oronoques CC in Stratford last month, lunch was delicious, the service was great and not one resident of Oronoque Village contributed a mandatory dime to keep that operation afloat. Their product did.

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

RESIDENT APPRECIATION DAY, SUNDAY, JUNE 3RD

Now that Memorial Day is over and you're headed  back to work tomorrow, we'd like to give you something to look forward to. On Sunday, June 3rd we're having a Resident Appreciation Day party at the Byron Pool from Noon to 4pm. (Rain date is June 10.)

It took a lot of work on the part of a lot of people to stop the bonding process, but the real heroes are the residents who showed up in record numbers at the polls to overwhelmingly turn down the bonds and send a message to the board.

The work's not done, but we still need to take a day to celebrate what was accomplished on May 10th, 2012. And who needs an excuse for a party anyway?

So, drop by the Byron Pool on Sunday, June 3rd from Noon to 4PM. Stay for an hour or ten minutes, get to know like minded people. There will be pizza, munchies, soda and beer. All you have to bring is yourself. And a friend if you like. 

See you there!

5000 PAGEVIEWS: THANKS FOR READING

When we started this blog on March 7th, 2012 we had no idea how residents of Farmington Woods would respond to our message or be curious enough to see what we were trying to accomplish. Little did we know that we would reach 5,000 pageviews in just over two months or even more incredibly, 2,000 in the last three weeks.

The vote on May 10th reinforced our feeling that most residents want their condo fees and district taxes to go toward maintaining the beauty of Farmington Woods, both the grounds and the buildings. For them, the golf course/clubhouse operation is secondary. Results of 67-33% and 81-19% don't lie.

You may not know it but the referendum you just took part in had a record number of voters participating: 1,023 residents voted! We actually had more votes cast on the bond referendum than the Town of Avon had on its budget and they have 11,000 registered voters.

So,congratulation to those who turned out. And to those that didn't, vote next time. If we want representative democracy here at Farmington Woods it's really very easy. All we have to do is vote.

Anyway, by the looks of things people are reading what we have to say here at http://www.farmingtonwoodsinsider.blogspot.com/. And if you'll keep reading, we'll keep writing. If you have something you'd like to contribute, email it to me at 2chewman@gmail.com and I'll post it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I had 5,000 page views on my business website in the span of two and a half months, I'd be writing this blog from the Bahamas. Or not.

In the meantime, waiter, can I get another Bahama Mama?

DEMOCRACY VS COMPANY TOWN POLITICS

Just finished writing this http://ctwatchdog.com/finance/democracy-slips-at-major-avon-condo-complex-following-huge-turnout-to-defeat-higher-taxes-for-golf-course for CTwatchdog.com. My good friend George Gombassy has given us a several opportunities to tell our story to the world at large. We were lucky to get a referral to him from our other good friends at CCOC.

Please do yourselves and all Connecticut condo owners a favor by dropping by here http://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin/ea?v=0016mDWXmlC-eB_fr-8FcCRtELbB_sqfZpCsukzVRYB8ooTG005bRiN7VCc-hlXu8WkEoFbcC_dOYU%3D to put your email address on the mailing list.

As you know from living in one, condos are not always run democratically and laws governing their operation more often than not favor the boards and management companies that run them. Because we had no one to lobby for us in Hartford, CCOC was created in order to help level the playing field. So, go to their site, sign up for the email and join at your earliest opportunity. They have had success in getting legislation favorable to condo owners through the legislature recently and there is power in numbers.

HEADED IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION?

It was just reported to me that Al Miller, General Manager of Farmington Woods for the last three years, has resigned his position. Is this the beginning of a new direction here and are more resignations coming? Stay tuned to find out.

WHO'S BEEN MISINFORMING WHOM?

If you think that writing this blog was my idea, think again. It was the brainchild of my wife during the early November power outage when we wondered what had happened to the “disaster plan” that was in place here in the early 2000’s and whatever happened to using the clubhouse generators to provide warmth and comfort to residents?

I did my best to help her forget the idea, but then this $4M bond thing came along and I was recruited for the job. It’s been nothing short of a draining, roller coaster ride of an experience for the last three months. But this isn’t about me, so I’ll go on.

After the victory last Thursday we celebrated on the weekend, all the while knowing that the annual budget vote was coming the following Tuesday night. I guess I wasn’t prepared for the experience: democracy in action one week, a mockery of democratic process the next. There’s a lot to be said about the latter experience; it will be the subject of my next CTwatchdog.com column. After I finish this, I’ll start that.

For now, I want to skip to the end of the meeting when my wife, Joe Caggiano and I went up to speak with Irene Loretto. I actually had a legitimate question for her. Since I had searched through the Governing Ordinance of the Farmington Woods District and couldn’t find any reference to removal of Directors, I assumed she could refer me to it.

I told her that she and four other directors were not doing the work of the majority of residents at Farmington Woods and that she and they needed to go. Her first reaction was a curious look of surprise and then she told me quite firmly not to threaten her. I told her it was not a threat, that we were going to through the process by the book and quite legally.

Then she said something that I found astounding. She told me that she had received an email, as in one email, from a resident who thought we should have another vote on the bond because of all the “misinformation” that had been spread by my group, Residents for Fiscal Responsibility and others.

She really said that. 1,023 residents voted last Thursday. They turned down the two bonds not by a landslide, but by a tsunami. And all it took was ONE email to put doubt on the whole process. At that moment I realized that this issue was not going away. It will come back in some form or another. Just wait. We ended the conversation with mutual smiles and we were on our way.

When I arrived home two things troubled me: her perception that I was threatening her and her remark about the “misinformation” that was spread prior to the bond vote. I’ll deal with the threat accusation first. If being informed as a politician, and make no mistake, this woman is a politician in charge of a Taxing District, that some person or group is seeking your ouster for failure to represent the majority of the taxpayers, then we better cancel all local, state and national elections for the foreseeable future.

Because, in a democracy that's what elections, referendums, petitions and recalls are all about: ridding the community of the people who have captured it for their own purposes. It’s not a threat, but a democratic process, and if she cannot see the distinction, she is taking all this much too personally. She doesn’t see that the majority here, in a time of economic downturn, want the golf operation to sustain itself or the board to come up with a better solution. We own it. We should have some say in what is done with it and how much we are willing to give up in services to keep these two failing operations on life support.

Now my reaction to her first remark, that we had spread “misinformation” prior to the vote. Since Tuesday's meeting, I’ve been tired and lacked the motivation to write. But today I decided to take a look at the letter that Ms. Loretto sent on April 5 for a second time, the one where she states in the first paragraph: “….a great deal of misinformation is being sent around or spoken. Some is being sent without the courage from the sender to even sign it, or admit who the author is.” That person, of course, was me and my group.

The anonymous approach was a guerilla marketing tactic. The next night I appeared with Joe Caggiano on Fox61 News. We had been planning this “coming out” for a month. Of course that didn’t stop a member of the Clubhouse Committee from emailing me to tell me how “gutless” I was. I wonder where he was during the Viet Nam War?

In the end, writing takes motivation, and reading that again not only got me motivated to write, but also to read on. I encourage you to read on too, because if one side wants to start accusing the other of using “misinformation”, that other side should get a chance at rebuttal. And what follows is mine, a paragraph by paragraph dissection of her letter, sent to all residents. I’ve already covered the first paragraph, so let’s see where an analysis of paragraphs 2-11 takes us:

PARAGRAPH 2

In this paragraph she states that “fortunately we don’t have a debt problem, but we are well aware that additional members are necessary for us to return to a break-even point.” She’s half right here. No, we don’t have the kind of “debt problem” that caused Tumble Brook in Bloomfield to go bankrupt; but that’s because we have a resident base that pays off the debts every year with increasing fees and taxes and reduced services. It’s a zero sum game.You can’t have both.

PARAGRAPH 3

In paragraph three she states in reaction to the accusation that no cost/benefit analysis or feasibility study was done before spending $43K for architects, lawyers and bond brokers, that their cost/benefit “analysis” was done, not by an outside accountant, but by Farmington Woods accounting staff, “in effect updating part of the 2009 Sub-Committee Study on Golf.” That would be the study that was done mostly by in-house staff who were of course, as objective as they could be, considering they were employed by Farmington Woods.

PARAGRAPH 4

The next paragraph should make every reader who has ever owned or operated a business in the real world, the world of the marketplace, where success or failure is determined strictly by the bottom line, gasp. Here she reminds us that “You should remember, that even in these tough times, Golf is contributing over $1M in revenue, and this, of course would all go away without the golf course.” OK, so I’ve got a business I want you to invest in. It brought in a cool $1B last year, unfortunately they fell short of expenses by a quarter billion. And the’re projected to do the same next year. Want to invest?

PARAGRAPH 5

If you ever get a chance, get yourself a copy of the esteemed 2009 Ad-Hoc Select Committee to Study Golf. You can pick one up at the MA. No, it’s not a Harvard study. I doubt that I would have gotten away with turning something like this in as a term paper even in my undergraduate days. After admitting they haven’t made a profit for 5 of the last 6 years they come to the conclusion that residents should foot the bill for the golf operation whenever membership is too low to fund it.

In her letter she list costs for maintaining open space at $323K. Aside from the fact that it was OK to stick us with bond payments of roughly $360K per year to keep two losing operations alive, the final figure from the report for maintaining open space is highly suspect. Four full-time employees and $15K for keeping God’s green Earth groomed? Please. Of course we’re now being told that we would still need an irrigation system for open space. Been outside at all this week?

PARAGRAPH 6

I guess the misinformation in this paragraph is really disinformation or perhaps just a matter of definition. When she says that “We all devoutly wish...we could return to the 30-year period that (the course) could still be provided to all of us non-golfers free of charge.” she’s ignoring the fact that for the last 20 years we have all been paying an on-going assessment in the form of restaurant minimums that they wanted to increase to $35 a month this year. And they’ve clearly stated that their goal is to run the restaurant at “a slight loss or break-even policy for the restaurant”even after collecting $400K per year from us to keep it going.

PARAGRAPH 7

In this paragraph she makes the statement that there is “a one-time closing costs of shutting down all golf operations, which have been estimated at over $100K." Excuse me, but the 2009 Golf Committee estimated that after filling in sand traps there would be a “Net Benefit” of $130K if a conversion were made from a golf course to open space. If you want to check my numbers, go straight to the MA and get a copy of this report. They’re free.

PARAGRAPH 8

This particular rationale has been used over the years to keep residents fearful of outsiders, especially those outsiders who would come to play golf here if it were open to the public. She states that if the course were open to the public “Farmington Woods would no longer be a private, gated community, but totally open to the public.”

So, the next time you see a delivery truck, contractor, plumber, electrician or a member of a wedding party headed to the club, or for that matter an outside golfer headed up to the club to play in a charity tournament, be sure to contact security at the front gate and have them removed. The reality is there’s only one group here that doesn’t want “outsiders” here and that’s the members of the cozy and always private, golf club.

PARAGRAPH 9

Sometimes misinformation comes in the form of myth. In this case, I’m referring to the myth that the golf course, despite the fact that it loses money annually and is kept alive by using resident fees and taxes, thereby reducing the actual amount available for upkeep of our community, actually increases property values at Farmington Woods.

And, Irene for one, believes the myth to the extreme. She says that “I personally feel our values would decline 10-15% without the course.” That’s quite a claim, considering that in early 2009 when the economy was much better, of the two realtors that were consulted for the study only one “reluctantly suggested between 5 and 10%”. They both “thought non-golfers bought units here because there was a course or at least groomed open space.”

PARAGRAPH 10

In this paragraph she claims that “if we close the course a complete assessment of our Club House/Restaurant operations would be necessary. A reduction in that operation would definitely lead to even more fees and taxes to unit owners.” Yeah, if we close this losing operation down it’s going to cost us even more.

But I’m sure some of us would make do by spending our $30 per month minimum somewhere else. Did you know that a study done at “real” country clubs found that even high-end members of exclusive clubs resent having to pay minimums? And did you know that our pseudo-country club now has Section 8 housing? How’s that working out for ya?

PARAGRAPH 11

OK, last paragraph and it’s short. Can’t be any misinformation here. What’s more, I’d like to be done with this analysis; but unfortunately I’m not. In this final paragraph she says she’s “sure I have not answered absolutely every question you might have (very true, actually), but I’m hoping this information is helpful..”. You be the judge of the veracity of the second part of this sentence. If you can honestly say after reading what I’ve just written that everything in her letter was information and not misinformation/disinformation, I’ll give her a pass and let her have this one.

I’d like to wrap this up by saying that since the night of February 7^th, the date of the first informational meeting on the $4M bond, I’ve been studying this issue by reading documents created by the boards and MA, by researching the internet and by talking to experts on this issue from all over the country. My group, Farmington Woods Residents for Fiscal Responsibility has tried to present information clearly, concisely and honestly so that voters could make an informed decision on May 10^th. I believe we did that. And the voters spoke. End of story.

It’s time for a change here at Farmington Woods and if the present board refuses to recognize that and offer something other than the status quo, it’s time for a new board.


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

HIDDEN CHARGES OR DON'T FORGET TO READ THE SMALL PRINT

I just got off the phone with CBS Interactive Sports. Seems that in January I had watched a college basketball game on the web using their service and because I approved this "one-time charge" they saw fit to sign me up for a monthly subscription of $9.95. And I used their service once. Now I have to go through Bank of America to get those charges removed.

This got me thinking about our yearly budget here at Farminton Woods, which comes up for approval tomorrow. On the surface it looks like a good deal: virtually no increase in district taxes and a modest 1.43% increase in condo fees for a total increase of 0.99%! Sounds too good to be true and when you look at the fine print, it is.

On the back page, under Golf, the budget notice reveals that residents will again be covering the losses of the golf operation to the tune of $124,397. Under Capital Fund it lists $46K for bridge and cartpath repair.

And if you look under Clubhouse and do the math, that operation will lose $62,479 in the coming year.When you consider that we just wasted $43K last year to hire architects, lawyers and bond brokers for a project residents rejected in an overwhelming manner, it makes you wonder when the madness will stop. By the way, until residents protested, we were looking at a $35. monthly restaurant miniumum next year. Even without these minimums, we're advancing these losing operations more than a quarter million dollars in the next fiscal year! Money that could be used for improvements to the residential community that is Farmington Woods.

If you think that an increase of 0.99% looks good after hearing about the funds that continue to flow to the golf course for infrastructure and operating expenses then think again. All that money should be going into fixing our driveways, completing the sidewalk that passes by the guardhouse, so that mothers with baby carriages and anyone else who chooses to walk there, can walk safely, or buying new pool furniture. But it's not and if we approve this year's budget it's just as bad as approving the charges made by CBS to my credit card. I got nothing for it.

So, one more time I'm going to ask something of you. If you haven't turned in your condo budget proxy yet, save it for tomorrow night. Bring it to the Budget Vote in the North Lounge of the Clubhouse and vote this budget down, both the condo and the district budgets. In one of the articles I wrote for CTwatchdog.com there was a section I called "The Board Jumps the Shark". I was referring to the bonding proposal. But what do you call it when the board on a yearly basis uses public funds to support an operation that is having disastrous financial effects on our community?

Like I told the guy at CBS sports, who by the way could only cancel my "account" but not clear the charges, "It's like you came into my house, found my wallet and took out $10 a month for the last three months." CBS is a huge corporation and I'll have to write a letter to Bank of America to get the charges rescinded. All you have to do to stop the piracy that happens here, every year at this time, is to VOTE NO ON THE BUDGETS. PLEASE COME AND SEND ANOTHER MESSAGE TO THE BOARD!


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