I hereby apologize for jumping to the conclusion that the board of directors of the Village Woods Owner's Association is out of touch before I even saw them in action. I saw them in action last night and can now say that they are out of touch.
Nice people. Encumbered people. People who care a great deal.
About everything but people.
One of them was amazed that I didn't "Act like a clown" in his own words. You will note that I don't use names. I have only used my own name and that of Adolph Hitler. Those commenting on my blog and writing letters to the editor of the San Diego Reader have remained nameless.
I would name names but it would probably lead to other trouble. Suffice it to say that I have named my own name because I believe in standing behind what you say.
I used Hitler's name without thought to the feelings they bring up. I apologize to anyone who felt badly about comparing him to the president of my association; who felt badly about the association being associated with Nazi Germany; and to people for whom thoughts of Hitler and the Nazis brought back real memories of the Holocaust.
So I need to find another historical comparison for the way the leadership is out of touch, how leadership takes advantage of power (even though the stakes are so low); and how cruel the leadership is of the people they purport to support...
The Middle East, perhaps?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Board Meeting?
One of the main things about the board meetings is that they're held on the fourth Wednesday of the month. The literature and the calendar on the association website says those meetings are on the fourth Monday.
But as far as we can tell, the meeting is at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 23 in the Clubhouse.
The Fun Party - as the opposition political party encourages you to go to this meeting if only to see what the clubhouse looks like. We also want to bring up:
1. Timely delivery of meeting minutes (last minutes posted on the website are Oct. 2010)
2. First Annual Pool Party and Neighborhood Mixer this summer
3. Financial Update
4. Green Technology
5. Safety
6. Radical concept of allowing the bulletin board to be a forum instead of a place for advertising
We of course would like as many people there as possible. The goal of the Village Woods Fun Party is to work with or in opposition to the board for change. It will take 55 people to vote board members in or out but considerably less to change the their minds.
But as far as we can tell, the meeting is at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, February 23 in the Clubhouse.
The Fun Party - as the opposition political party encourages you to go to this meeting if only to see what the clubhouse looks like. We also want to bring up:
1. Timely delivery of meeting minutes (last minutes posted on the website are Oct. 2010)
2. First Annual Pool Party and Neighborhood Mixer this summer
3. Financial Update
4. Green Technology
5. Safety
6. Radical concept of allowing the bulletin board to be a forum instead of a place for advertising
We of course would like as many people there as possible. The goal of the Village Woods Fun Party is to work with or in opposition to the board for change. It will take 55 people to vote board members in or out but considerably less to change the their minds.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Look to Humanism
I keep wondering what Jesus would do with my Association and the President; or Mohamed, or Buddha or any religious icon. But I keep ending up with an answer that takes the fight and makes it meaningless. I'm looking for Jihad, struggle, a righteous war. Over what?
Safety from some bad neighbors and use of the Clubhouse, it turns out. That and not living in fear of the Association and the President. But that last one is a simple choice and the second one isn't worth fighting. struggling, Jihading over. And I haven't really brought up the most important one, officially.
While the President and a lot of the members of the Association are odd, they aren't dangerous. And, just because they don't really know how to handle dangerous members, doesn't mean I have to fight them. I do know that this movement doesn't have many more members than the Association has board members.
Than just tells me that the vast majority of the people just don't care. And why should they care if I can't use the stupid Clubhouse? That scary people visit my neighbor? That I want to get rid of the old regime and put in a new regime that will be bad, unresponsive and fearful in new ways? Why should anyone care?
I just assumed that because one person made a mistake, refused to admit she made a mistake and didn't apologize about the time it took for me to rectify the mistake - that she was making a mistake about all the things I didn't like about the Association. No. All she was doing was proving to me that she is a member of my race. Human.
And, instead of doing anything Human about it, I was mean. And she continues to do nothing. Just like Buddha it turns out. Maybe we have more in common than I thought.
Safety from some bad neighbors and use of the Clubhouse, it turns out. That and not living in fear of the Association and the President. But that last one is a simple choice and the second one isn't worth fighting. struggling, Jihading over. And I haven't really brought up the most important one, officially.
While the President and a lot of the members of the Association are odd, they aren't dangerous. And, just because they don't really know how to handle dangerous members, doesn't mean I have to fight them. I do know that this movement doesn't have many more members than the Association has board members.
Than just tells me that the vast majority of the people just don't care. And why should they care if I can't use the stupid Clubhouse? That scary people visit my neighbor? That I want to get rid of the old regime and put in a new regime that will be bad, unresponsive and fearful in new ways? Why should anyone care?
I just assumed that because one person made a mistake, refused to admit she made a mistake and didn't apologize about the time it took for me to rectify the mistake - that she was making a mistake about all the things I didn't like about the Association. No. All she was doing was proving to me that she is a member of my race. Human.
And, instead of doing anything Human about it, I was mean. And she continues to do nothing. Just like Buddha it turns out. Maybe we have more in common than I thought.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Pins and Needles
Oh my God I can barely contain myself with waiting for news from the monthly Association Board meeting. We tried to go to the meeting - advertised on the Association website as last Monday. It turns out that the meetings are really on Wednesday so they got me on that.
I couldn't make Wednesday but I'm sure my letter was mentioned, and the blog, and, hopefully, the Reader article but probably not the letter from some asshole at Village Woods who didn't get it and threatened financial ruin if I can get the lawyers to make it stick...
Nonetheless, I want to find out what stupid things came out of the meeting so I can smash the ball back over the net. Really need to get more people in on the Party (which is a political party, people; not a noisy thing that you all hate).
Come on!
I couldn't make Wednesday but I'm sure my letter was mentioned, and the blog, and, hopefully, the Reader article but probably not the letter from some asshole at Village Woods who didn't get it and threatened financial ruin if I can get the lawyers to make it stick...
Nonetheless, I want to find out what stupid things came out of the meeting so I can smash the ball back over the net. Really need to get more people in on the Party (which is a political party, people; not a noisy thing that you all hate).
Come on!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Reader Letters 1-27-11
Cheapskate Caught
I am very disappointed that the Reader saw fit to reward a member of Village Woods for admitting that he doesn’t pay dues and that he wants to be noisy (“I Live in Linda Vista,” Feature Story, January 20). We are a small, low-income condo. We live very closely in small units and need to enforce quiet. As well, we are struggling to pay our bills, with many members who do not pay dues and are foreclosing. It’s good that you flushed out one source of his income, which we will go after, but it’s questionable whether you should be rewarding people for admitting they break rules and cause havoc in our community.
As well, I would like to make a correction to Walter Mencken’s column in which he intimated that Sunrise Powerlink is a green energy project (“SD on the QT,” January 20). It is a greenwash project that will increase fossil fuels and global warming by shipping liquefied natural gas from Indonesia across the ocean in fossil-fuel-emitting vessels, which are unregulated, bypassing our ports and jobs to a Mexican port, and bypassing our clean air laws to produce the power in Mexico. As well, it will greatly increase our fire danger. Many, many people came down to the board of supervisors meeting against the Sunrise Powerlink and filled the room to overflowing when it was heard. What we want as an alternative is a solar roof project by SDG&E to outfit all of our homes with solar roofs. We are willing to pay monthly for that but not for increased fire danger and increased global warming, which will eventually destroy our food and water supply.
Name Withheld by Request
via email
Kevin Six replys:
Satire. Look it up: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire
Also, I am paid up on my dues and I want solar too. But thanks for threatening me.
Too bad you don't under stand the above word. Don't want to break rules or make noise. Just want to have fun, within the rules. I also want to read everything before I make comment.
Oh, and Walter Menken is a satirist. Look it up: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satirist
I am very disappointed that the Reader saw fit to reward a member of Village Woods for admitting that he doesn’t pay dues and that he wants to be noisy (“I Live in Linda Vista,” Feature Story, January 20). We are a small, low-income condo. We live very closely in small units and need to enforce quiet. As well, we are struggling to pay our bills, with many members who do not pay dues and are foreclosing. It’s good that you flushed out one source of his income, which we will go after, but it’s questionable whether you should be rewarding people for admitting they break rules and cause havoc in our community.
As well, I would like to make a correction to Walter Mencken’s column in which he intimated that Sunrise Powerlink is a green energy project (“SD on the QT,” January 20). It is a greenwash project that will increase fossil fuels and global warming by shipping liquefied natural gas from Indonesia across the ocean in fossil-fuel-emitting vessels, which are unregulated, bypassing our ports and jobs to a Mexican port, and bypassing our clean air laws to produce the power in Mexico. As well, it will greatly increase our fire danger. Many, many people came down to the board of supervisors meeting against the Sunrise Powerlink and filled the room to overflowing when it was heard. What we want as an alternative is a solar roof project by SDG&E to outfit all of our homes with solar roofs. We are willing to pay monthly for that but not for increased fire danger and increased global warming, which will eventually destroy our food and water supply.
Name Withheld by Request
via email
Kevin Six replys:
Satire. Look it up: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satire
Also, I am paid up on my dues and I want solar too. But thanks for threatening me.
Too bad you don't under stand the above word. Don't want to break rules or make noise. Just want to have fun, within the rules. I also want to read everything before I make comment.
Oh, and Walter Menken is a satirist. Look it up: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/satirist
Bulletin Board = Public Forum
From a First Amendment law firm:
Although the California Supreme Court found that California's free speech right applies to speech in a privately owned shopping mall because the mall is the modern-day equivalent of the traditional town square, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center, 23 Cal. 3d 899 (1979), subsequent cases have narrowed Robins' reach. In 2001, the California Supreme Court said that a tenants' association did not have the right to distribute unsolicited flyers throughout a privately owned apartment complex. Golden Gateway Ctr. v. Golden Gateway Tenants Ass'n, 26 Cal. 4th 1013, 1035 (2001). But even in that case, the court "emphasize[d] that [its] decision ... does not give apartment owners carte blanche to stifle tenant speech. Tenants may still have remedies under conventional property law principles. (See Lobsenz & Swanson, The Residential Tenant's Right to Freedom of Political Expression (1986) 10 U. Puget Sound L.Rev. 1, 45.) Moreover, many statutes and ordinances serve to protect tenants against unreasonable lease provisions and restrictions. (See, e.g., Civ. Code, § 1942.5, 1942.6, 1953.)." Id. at 1035. In addition, even under a free speech analysis, there might be an argument to be made that a tenant bulletin board is a kind of limited public forum -- especially to the extent the bulletin board is located in a freely accessible location -- and that the Board may not restrict postings based on the viewpoint of the poster.
Although the California Supreme Court found that California's free speech right applies to speech in a privately owned shopping mall because the mall is the modern-day equivalent of the traditional town square, Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center, 23 Cal. 3d 899 (1979), subsequent cases have narrowed Robins' reach. In 2001, the California Supreme Court said that a tenants' association did not have the right to distribute unsolicited flyers throughout a privately owned apartment complex. Golden Gateway Ctr. v. Golden Gateway Tenants Ass'n, 26 Cal. 4th 1013, 1035 (2001). But even in that case, the court "emphasize[d] that [its] decision ... does not give apartment owners carte blanche to stifle tenant speech. Tenants may still have remedies under conventional property law principles. (See Lobsenz & Swanson, The Residential Tenant's Right to Freedom of Political Expression (1986) 10 U. Puget Sound L.Rev. 1, 45.) Moreover, many statutes and ordinances serve to protect tenants against unreasonable lease provisions and restrictions. (See, e.g., Civ. Code, § 1942.5, 1942.6, 1953.)." Id. at 1035. In addition, even under a free speech analysis, there might be an argument to be made that a tenant bulletin board is a kind of limited public forum -- especially to the extent the bulletin board is located in a freely accessible location -- and that the Board may not restrict postings based on the viewpoint of the poster.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
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