DAVE ISRAEL FOR PRESIDENT OF UCO

Hi All,
Following is a letter of support written by five Unit Owners. You will note that among other things, I have called for the integration of Professional, Subject expert, staff in the running of the 5 million dollar BUSINESS that is UCO. As an example, I gave Financial operations and Investigative services.

In neither case would this lead to the firing or removal of any paid employee or volunteer. For example, let's look at Investigative Services; If we hired a paid subject expert to sit in UCO spaces who would conduct Credit and Criminal Background checks using a computer in UCO and paid him/her $40,000.00 /year; we would save some $110,000.00/year.

How could this be, you may ask? Simple; at $100.00/investigation, multiplied by 1500 investgations per year, we are now spending some $150,000.00/year of Unit Owner money.

Clearly, the difference is no small matter. A trained professional could reach into places that we currently do not access and do a much better job than our current Investigative firm. The hard working volunteers jobs of dealing with the Associations would not change one iota.

The Professional Subject Agent would simply feed our volunteers the work product "up close and personal", taylored to our needs.

Ignore the rediculous rumors, UCO is a BUSINESS, and must be run as such, paid and volunteer positions are safe, if I am elected:

Dave Israel (Candidate for UCO President)

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July 28, 2008

A Good Man for the Job at a Needed Time

There are a number of us who believe Dave Israel is the right man for the job of UCO president at this time. We would appreciate your reading this letter.

The Village has come through some difficult times over the past four years, and we are not out of these difficult times. Florida's hurricanes, including the three that hit us in a two-year period, have had a lasting, widespread effect.

Insurance rates have gone way up, and insurance is being required where it was optional before.

Building code requirements are stricter and thus more costly, also. Running the Village at both the local association level and the overall (UCO) level gets more and more expensive.

There is a critical need for

(1) accountability to all owners and associations through their delegates and the media,

(2) clear explanations about complicated matters, and

(3) honest, wise, caring, and capable people in the top positions.

Transparency is a vital ingredient. Dave Israel took a step in this direction when he instituted the Internet blog, open to anyone's comments.

Those who pressed for truly open meetings at the July 11 delegates meeting took another vital step in this direction.

Yes, there can be some problems to be overcome in having meetings be "open," but they should not be compared to the alternative—having important, costly matters discussed and decided upon behind closed doors by a select few.

Closed-door meetings shut out the possibility of wise counsel, including perhaps good cost-saving suggestions, coming from outside the select group. Closed-door meetings at their worst are an encouragement to shady dealings taking place.

Dave is a leading proponent of open meetings.

It is not a good indicator to us when the UCO president and a vice president resign after the delegates overwhelmingly vote for enforcement of strictly open meetings—especially as open meetings have already supposedly been our policy in having adopted the Sunshine Laws a few years ago.

It is even less a good indicator—in fact, quite frankly, one's suspicions cannot help being aroused—when within a few days of resigning, the same president and vice president do a complete turnabout and place themselves in the running for the same offices they vacated.

What else is Dave Israel for?

He is for hiring professional people in two areas: financial and investigations. We do not mean to criticize those volunteers who have worked in these departments. Many have put in long hours and much effort. But we agree with Dave that in a multi-million dollar operation, we need top-quality expertise to save money in our financial operations.

And we need professional expertise in the investigations department at a time when litigation abounds and an association could be sued for turning down a prospective owner or renter.

Do we even have the reserve funds now that we should have in order to pay for such litigation? We don't know, because the present administration closes off so much to any inspection.

• Dave has a great deal of experience in running important things. Please take a look at his bio. The United States government has entrusted him with a lot. He wants to gather people around him who can help make the difficult decisions that have to be made and save us from disastrous financial mistakes.

Dave also wants to inform every resident in as clear a manner as possible concerning complicated matters. He would use the UCO Reporter to this end, changing it from being opinion piece after opinion piece to largely unbiased reporting of the news.

How can this be accomplished? The news can probably never be presented in a completely unbiased manner, but the effort should be made. Newspapers, as we all know, have their news separate from commentary.

Dave realizes that to accomplish this as UCO president, his own administration must be especially scrupulous to avoid pushing only "their" way of seeing things. We believe Dave will make that honest effort.

If you have read this letter through, we thank you indeed. We hope that those of you who are delegates will vote for Dave Israel for president of UCO. Above all, we respect your participation in the democratic process.

Sincerely,

RESIDENT OWNERS:

Daniel Besson
Phyllis Borrelli
Lawrence Howe
Peggy Steenbuck
Jean Bruckert