Some thoughts come to mind relative to the settlement etc.

At the April Delegates meeting Ms. Bleu, once again, said some unfavorable things about Jean Dowling. Those of us who have worked with or watched Jean in, action, know how well she performed her tasks and how many hours she spent on this job.
We also know that she is a very intelligent (honors graduate from college) and knowledgeable person with a great work ethic.

We also remember the extraordinary effort she made reporting what information was available as the work progressed on the Clubhouse restoration. How did Ms. Bleu become so incorrectly informed of Jean's performance, it does make you wonder?
I do know that rumors or incorrect statements were made concerning things I've supposedly done. I had a hallway conversation with Ms. Bleu where she wondered, out loud, why I was attending an Operations committee meeting. I pointed out that I was on the committee, she responded, it was a known fact that I was a conduit into WPRF and was informing them of every thing that transpired at these meetings. Of course, none of this was true, but where did this "knowledge" come from? I'll give you three guesses and the first two do not count.

How many residents know that I was called for a deposition? By UCO! Ms. Bleu was the questioner with Mr. President at her side. I had to wonder why I had been called until I saw this duo. I wonder how much money Ms. Bleu's firm racked up? I was there for nearly eight hours along with a court reporter. Total cost must have been nearly $400.00 per hour, multiplied by the total number of hours involved, for everyone being deposed.

It is good to have this issue resolved but what happened since the Executive Board meeting several months ago where the same basic agreement was approved at the regular Monday meeting but was reversed in a specially called meeting Friday immediately before the Delegate Assembly? The vote of the Executive Board on Monday was 14 in favor and 7 opposed. The vote on Friday was (1) one for acceptance with the balance of the attendees against. This, of course, then went to the Delegates meeting for disapproval of the offer.

There was no legally called meeting during this week to discuss or consider anyone's view. I wonder how much money was spent on legal expenses between that meeting and the meeting on Friday the 4th of April?

What is interesting to me is that some of us with insight into the inner workings, knew what was going on but were unable to convince a majority or the delegates so that settlement might have occurred several months ago.

Also, I find it interesting to see another item on the Blog suggesting that the unit owners buy the recreation facilities from the current owner. What they may not have realized is that these facilities were offered to the residents many years ago and the Residents declined. Several years ago this subject was approached again but it was determined that for several reasons the sale could not happen. The first was that the property was not for sale. It had been owned for several years and was nearly, if not completely depreciated. If sold a high percent of the sales dollars would go to pay taxes making it a very impractical sale, from the current owners point of view.

Also in one of the Blog comments there was mention of doing something at the end of the lease. This lease is for, I believe 22 years and began in 2000. This means that someone has the very large job of drafting a renewal lease and presenting it to the Delegate Assembly for approval. This will be a very large task. Of course it need not be completed until 2021 but perhaps it is not too early to begin developing a list of items that need changing. This should be a list that all the future UCO officers have access to so they can add or subtract items as they consider them. Then in 2020 a committee can be formed and start working on the actual draft of the new lease proposal.

Bob Marshall