Saturday, June 27, 2009

My interview with Jessie about Bingo

BINGO
Paul Pontious suddenly took over the Bingo game after he told Jessie that a HOA member must be on the BINGO BOARD to overlook the operations of BINGO. This my friends was a total lie from Paul Pontious. No member of the HOA Board needs to be on the BINGO Board. At that time Jessie did not know this. Jessie started the Bingo game with a loan from the management of $7,000. With the money he bought all the equipment needed for Bingo and got it started. In two years he paid back all the money in two payments of $3,500 each. Jessie did all the hard work looking for all the outlets for the Bingo supplies. Paul Pontious was president of the HOA Board at that time he came on board to oversee the operations of Bingo. Slowly he kept asking Jessie how to operate the Bingo machine. Then he wanted to know how to divide the money, how to do this, how to do that etc. Before you know it, he knew everything there was to know. He even had his name on the Bingo bank account with Jessie. What a smooth operator. He even had Jessie come over to set up all the chairs and tables and Paul would come in around 6:30 to see if everything was done. Before you know it Paul was calling all the numbers and had taken over as BINGO president. Jesse was doing all the work and Paul was coming in at the last minute doing nothing, yes nothing. Now Paul is telling everyone even the CDD Board how to spend the Bingo money. He is also spreading bad stories about Jessie, which is all a big lie. Bingo must pay $200 to rent the hall. Paul has certainly made a mess of Bingo. Jessie now has his home for sale. He wants out of Lake Ashton. With people like Paul Pontious I don't blame him. He even wants me out of here. What HOA member is looking out for Bingo now? Why is everyone smoking outside the main entrance when Paul Pontious sign the covariance that no smoking is allowed there. He tells the CDD board where the money should be spend. What do we have a new community director?
Post

Friday, June 26, 2009

Residents Say HOA President Vandalized Their Cars

Article and Video Courtesy of
WFTV Channel 9 -- ABC
ORLANDO -- Daytona Beach
Published June 21, 2009

PALM BAY, Fla. -- Sometimes neighbors just aren't neighborly. Palm Bay homeowners called Eyewitness News after, they say, their HOA president vandalized their cars. They say he did it as a form of retaliation; they are the same homeowners trying to kick the HOA president out of office.

A group of homeowners have raised all sorts of questions, ranging from the costs of some new bougainvillea to the cost of lawn care at Oakwood Villas (see map). They decided to try to recall the homeowner’s association president and that's when things started to get ugly.

Joyce Lopez came out of her home Friday morning to find her car covered in eggs and shaving cream. She's convinced it wasn't child’s play.

“There were two cars here and my car was the only one,” she said.

Lopez suspects she was specifically targeted because she is one of a small group of people petitioning to recall the president of the Oakwood Villas Homeowner’s Association, Ed Socha. Four of the six people listed on the petition have all had their cars vandalized.

"I live alone and I don't know what’s next. I may come out and somebody may knock me down, too. I'm scared,” Lopez said.

They believe the association's half-million dollar budget is being mismanaged. They have also raised concerns about what they consider racist emails, filled with slurs, distributed by the president.

Eyewitness News tried to contact Socha, but he was no where to be found.

One other homeowner sent pictures of his car covered in a gray substance after he raised questions at an association meeting. When he confronted the property managers, they said it had to be a bird, but he says no other car was touched.

Police have taken vandalism reports. Whether they can tie them to anyone remains to be seen.

Gov. Crist's veto sends State Farm packing

Gov. Crist's veto sends State Farm packing
Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post
By Michael Bender
Published June 25, 2009

TALLAHASSEE — State Farm officials said they have no option but to leave Florida after Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday vetoed legislation to let them offer unregulated property insurance rates.

"At this point, we have no choice," State Farm Florida spokesman Chris Neal said.

State Farm, Florida's largest property insurer, announced in January that it would discontinue 1.2 million policies in Florida due to the state's rocky insurance market. This week, company officials said they would reconsider if Crist OK'd the bill to let the state's most highly capitalized insurers offer unregulated rates.

This message is for Mr Anonymous who calls himself Paul

The writer of this blog is on Anastasia Island enjoying the white sands of the Atlantic, and the ocean water is very warm and clear. We are staying at our second winter home here at St Augustine and will be here for a total 3 weeks. We will then go back to Lake Ashton, pick up our 36' RV, No I don't leave my RV at Lake Ashton and we don't pay $125.00 plus tax for storage fee, I don't like getting screw, and travel across the Eastern part of the United States. We will park the RV at our second summer home in Massachusetts and then we will enjoy Maine Lobster at our main summer home called "King's Kastle" in Maine on Salmon Lake. Mr Anonymous you are free to join us, but I can see you can't because your too busy supporting the high cost of living at Lake Ashton. Yes, wait until you get your large road repair bill, anyhow enjoy muddy Lake Ashton and the wonderful food with the 18% tip, hope you don't get sick. We will be mowing your lawn soon because I can see a Fore Closer coming. And by the way, where did you go to school? Your E-mails are written very poorly and that is why you don't want anyone to know who you are. BINGO PAUL, What a loser.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson is Dead

More Home Fore Closers coming

If a resident looked at all the polls that I posted, he would be bankrupt. 18% tip at lake Ashton Guill, pay for all the mowing of fore closer lawns, repair all the roads, higher pay for do nothing Joe Hunter, pay for use of the clubhouse, higher rates for golf, Kill all the alligators, Higher cost for coffee on Monday coffee meeting How about a fee to enter Lake Ashton? This is a place for the disturb people.

News Wanted. Send to lakeashtontalk@yahoo.com

Ashton Grille

You must pay a 18% gratuity for your lunch or dinner service and on top of that the food is not that great. I gave it a second chance and that will be my last. You can have a much better meal elsewhere for the same price or less. You are paying more for your food and service. If your service is poor, you can leave a smaller tip or if the service is great leave a larger tip, but don't tell me how munch I should tip!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Ripp-off

Why should the residents of Lake Ashton have to pay $4,000 to mow the lawns on the fore closer properties. The bank owns the properties. It part of the lien on the property. Its all a rip-off. You are being made a fool again, sucker. What is wrong with the HOA? That's $50.00 per resident. Where are they coming from? Don't they know the law?????? Give me a break!

Where is Everyone??????

Article Courtesy of The Miami Herald
By JAMES H. BURNETT III
Published June 23, 2009



Joshua Hamann jokingly compares himself to the last human in a city overrun by zombies. He's not suggesting his neighbors are zombies. The problem is, he has no neighbors.

Hamann dwells in a newly opened condo. And in the six weeks since moving into the gleaming new Everglades on the Bay in downtown Miami, he has felt pretty lonely. Hamann occupies one of only about 50 sold condos in his 49-story tower, out of 409 units.
A couple miles north at Midtown Miami, Alisha Marks knows the same feeling. ''It was pretty much a ghost town when I got here,'' she says.

It's an odd time for South Florida's condo market. Over development compounded by the credit crunch and a sluggish economy created an abundance of condo units.

So, what is life like for the few residents whose lights are on?

''Weird,'' says Hamann, a 28-year-old project manager for a window shading company, who rents the $400,000 one-bedroom, one-bath unit on the fifth floor. Everglades on the Bay opened in April and offers residents great views, clean white walls, spotless carpets, stainless steel appliances, a well-equipped gym, a pool, and


Joshua Hamann lives in the largely unoccupied Everglades on the Bay condo in downtown Miami. Here he calls the elevator.

even party rooms. Hamann moved in immediately.

Since then, he has one neighbor on his floor. It took two weeks before his first experience of sharing an elevator ride with a neighbor. ''He didn't know how to react,'' Hamann notes.

''I'm a sociable guy, but you can't socialize with what isn't there,'' says Hamann, who commutes on weekends to the Gulf Coast where his wife lives. He jokes that before he moved in, he saw brochures featuring smiling ''crowds'' hanging around the pool.

On a recent Friday morning, Hamann encountered exactly three people over the course of several hours -- two security guards, and a concierge.

Several stops in the fitness center? Empty.

Several visits to the pool? Empty.

Several visits to the laundry room? Empty.

The building is emptier than the cheap seats during a Marlins game at LandShark stadium.

''This is how it goes every day,'' Hamann said, adding that he interacted with more neighbors growing up in rural Kentucky, where farms were spaced a mile apart.

Why all the empty units with no residents?

In Miami-Dade alone, more than 23,000 new condominium units have come onto the market since 2002, according to Condo Vultures, a real estate firm that also researches trends in the condo market. Most of the new units are concentrated in the Brickell, downtown, and Midtown Miami communities. Thousands more have been built in Broward. Even more are in the pipeline.

During the boom, most of those units were considered ''sold.'' But since the market busted because of bad loans, wildly optimistic bank lending practices and a tightening credit market, many of the newer condo buildings sit largely empty as sold units wait to close or have been returned to the developers.

An occupancy report, commissioned by the Miami Downtown Development Authority and released last week, indicated the glut may be slowly disappearing. Even so, roughly one-third of the inventory, 8,300 units in the downtown and Midtown Miami area are unsold. For projects completed since 2008, just 34 percent of the units have closed, according to the report.

Some of the sold units may not yet be occupied, and some of the unsold units may have been rented out. Take a nighttime drive along Biscayne Boulevard or Brickell Avenue and one will notice lots of dark windows in those sleek new high-rises.

Mimi Scott faced a similar situation at the Radius tower in downtown Hollywood. The condo opened in November 2007, and she moved in shortly after. It was ghastly quiet, she says.

''I didn't like it,'' says Scott, a retired playwright who lives part of the year in South Florida.

"There still aren't a lot of people down the hall. There are a couple of neighbors near me. But more empty than full units, at least on my floor.''

But for Alisha Marks, a 28-year-old public relations executive, things are slowly getting better in her building.

Marks has lived in a one-bedroom condo at Midtown Miami for six months, and has only recently begun to see neighbors.

Marks thought of her once-empty floor in the 28-story tower as a playground of sorts, ''but after a while you begin to miss that interaction,'' she says.

She says the silence in a largely empty building is "kind of creepy -- but more strange than creepy -- because of the silence and the emptiness.''

"In the past month or so, I have gotten a few neighbors. And now the adjustment is to having them around. They're fine, but going from no one else to three people on my floor almost makes it seem loud, too loud!''

But all is not lost in these empty buildings, according to Jack McCabe, president of Deerfield Beach-based McCabe Research & Consulting, LLC.

While McCabe believes the most recent condo boom ''happened five or six years too soon,'' he doesn't believe it has to take that many years to get the empty and available units into the hands of responsible owners.

''It could take up to five to six years, but many people will tell you the condo market will trail close behind the single-family home market,'' McCabe says. "And that market is still one to two years away from serious signs of recovery.''

Foreclosers

The residents of Lake Ashton are paying $4,000 for the lawn care of homes under fore closer.

The Lake Ashton restaurant is no longer sharing funds

GOT A QUESTION? SEND IT TO lakeashtontalk@yahoo.com

Monday, June 22, 2009

Fishing Joke

A couple goes on vacation to a fishing resort in northern Minnesota. The husband likes to fish at the crack of dawn. The wife likes to read. One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a short nap. Although she isn't familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat. She motors out a short distance, anchors, and continues to read her book. Along comes the game warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside her and says,"Good morning, Ma'am, what are you doing?" "Reading my book," she replies, thinking isn't that obvious? "You're in a restricted fishing area," he informs her. "But officer, I'm not fishing. Can't you see that?" "Yes, but you have all the equipment. I'll have to take you in and write you up." "If you do that, I'll have to charge you with rape," says the woman. "But I haven't even touched you," says the game warden. "That's true, but you do have all the equipment." MORAL: Never argue with a woman who reads.

Golf joke

Golf Course Or...

Four married guys go golfing.While playing the 4th hole, the following conversation took place:

1st Guy: "You have no idea what I had to do to be able to come out golfing this weekend. I had to promise my wife that I will paint every room in the house next weekend."

2nd Guy: "That's nothing, I had to promise my wife I will build a new deck for the pool."

3rd Guy: "Man, you both have it easy! I had to promise my wife I will remodel the kitchen for her.

They continued to play the hole when they realized that the 4th guy hadn't said anything. So they asked him, "You haven't said anything about what you had todo to be able to come golfing this weekend. What's the deal?"

4th guy: "I just set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. and when it went off, I shut off the alarm, gave the wife a nudge and said, 'golf course or intercourse?'
And she said, "Wear your sweater".

News Wanted. Send to lakeashtontalk@yahoo.com

Joe Hunter

Joe is now back at Lake Ashton. He fail the interview but he got the janitor job. Good luck joe.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Joe Hunter

Joe told only a few of his friends, because there are not that many, that he is flying to Georgia for a job interview. Good luck Joe. I guess it was not you that voted NO, that Joe will not leave Lake Ashton for more money. Hey Joe I am praying for you. See Joe, I like you.