My Take on the Recent Amenity Center Board Meeting

There were HOA board meetings about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I attended the Amenity Center one because I wanted to hear why the budgets were increasing so much that they had to raise the fee they are charging us. I don’t like going to board meetings because I don’t like the attitude of the developer people and the management company. I actually used to be on the Amenity Center board, but that just lasted about 6 months before I resigned. I resigned because I felt it was pointless to be on the board.

Anyway, I wrote an email to Vania and Robert Nelson, the developer main guy, that summarized what I though I heard in the meeting. I asked them to reply to me if I got anything wrong. Since they didn’t reply to me, I guess I got everything right! Here’s the email:

Hi,

I attended the recent board of director’s meeting for the amenity center. I’m going to write an article about it for the Hampton Lakes Herald and I just wanted to run a few major points by you just to make sure I got things right. 

First off, it appears that a lot of residents don’t know how these meetings are conducted. Instead of telling everybody to read the bylaws, maybe you should hand out a sheet of paper to the people as they come in that explains the proper etiquette involved in a director’s meeting. It might reduce the amount of complaints and threats of being thrown out of the meeting. 

I was on the board for 6 months and wasn’t aware that there are two pools of money the developer works with! Robert pointed out that the new pickle ball courts were being paid for by the developer. I thought all money spent was coming out of the fees that are collected from the homeowners. Which brings up the question why didn’t the developer just go ahead and install heaters for the pool? I believe the homeowner committee to investigate the pool heaters was set up to fail. In 2021 there was a video of a board meeting (which I have) in which Ray Juan says that we can’t heat the pool this year but will get it in next year’s budget, 2022. Heating the pool was already being investigated by Robert Nelson because that’s where the ridiculous $500K geothermal estimate came from. So when the pool committee got the price down to $100k why didn’t the developer just say thanks and do it? Why did we have to use the homeowner money and have the homeowners vote on it? I’ll tell you why, roadblock! Robert keeps saying it wasn’t a turnkey proposal. It was close enough that a professional could have taken it the rest of the way with minimal effort. The developer and/or Robert just didn’t want to do it. So that’s basically what I’m going to say about that.

Next, lets talk about the increase in the lifestyle budget. We are increasing the lifestyle budget to pay for new people that will be manning the new cafe in the amenity center. Is that right? The homeowners are going to pay over $100k for people who are hired by the golf course and the Caloosa Grill to work the cafe? Did I get that right? What are projected sales from the cafe and who gets that money? Does the income go to the golf course and the Caloosa Grill? I hope not. What if we’re paying $100K in salaries and the income is only $10k? So we, the homeowners, lose over $90K a year?! Do we pay for staff to work at the Caloosa Grill? I don’t think so. If this is a Caloosa Grill operation shouldn’t the Caloosa Grill pay for those employees? And what about cleanup? People buy stuff, take it outside, the wind blows and there’s popcorn floating in the pool?! Who’s going to clean that up? Your current staff doesn’t even want to be bothered to straighten out the pool chairs!  What is the menu anyway? If you’re going to cook food, you need a hood. You’ll also need a grease trap. Don’t you think it would be a good idea and common courtesy to run this by the homeowners before you start spending such large chunks of their money? Do you think you’re going to attract people to the frigid pool in December with a bag of popcorn?

Anyway, if I got anything wrong and you want to clarify, please do. So I will publish my opinion piece soon. I will also publish your response.

Thanks for your time,

Harry Olson

So that was the email. After 2 weeks I got no response so I guess everything I said must be correct. I am especially upset about hiring people to run this cafe and pay them with our money. I never heard anything about this cafe until I went to the meeting. If this is a Caloosa Grill operation they should be paid by the Caloosa Grill. Who’s buying the food? Where does the income go? To the Caloosa Grill or into our bank account? Do they understand anything about profit and loss? We homeowners are not supporting a charity. Why not just get three vending machines? One for soda, one for chips and other snacks and one for candy bars. There would be no need to hire anybody. The vending machine company would take care of it. I hate it when they play around with our money.

Also, during the meeting I said something about them padding the accounts to make our fee higher. Robert Nelson denied that they pad the accounts. I still can’t wrap my head around $35k for elevator maintenance every year. If that isn’t padding an account I don’t know what is. Plus every year we’re going to buy $40k worth of new exercise equipment?

Another thing during the meeting was that the residents were told to talk to our homeowner representative on the board to get our input heard. When our resident representative was leaving the meeting several of us asked for his email address to which he replied “send your emails to Vania”! Thank you! So much for our voices being heard!

When we get our streets topped with the final coat of asphalt are the existing potholes going to be fixed properly before that happens? Those potholes show up every year in pretty much the same spot, so wouldn’t just covering them over with a thin layer of final asphalt become a problem 2 years down the road instead of one?

With all the street flooding we’ve had lately is the developer going to make sure all storm sewers are clear of debris?

What about all the crooked street lights in the neighborhood? They were crooked before hurricane Ian. When are they going to be fixed? Why does a resident have to call FPL to get it done. Why not the HOA?

What about our recent pool closure to fix things and paint the building? It was decided to do this before it was “in season” so we didn’t inconvenience all the snow birds. The problem with that is its too cold to swim in the pool during “in season”! So somebody in the country club makes the decision to do it now and he probably hasn’t even visited the amenity center pool ever.

I can’t wait until the residents take over. They say the books are audited. Do the auditors go out and inspect if we got $30k worth on flowers? No! They just add up the numbers the developer gives them and everything is A-OK! Audited. Not that I’m saying something fishy is going on, but mistakes can be made. When we take over I highly recommend changing HOA Management companies and get new auditors. The people who work in the Amenity Center should be amenity center employees, not Caloosa Grill or Country Club employees. There is quite the spider web of operations that I hope we will be able to unravel without too much pulling of the teeth!