Dear Neighbors,
If you want to see something funny—or sad, depending on your perspective—please look at the newly released Weekly Management Report. It includes a photograph of two workers in the kitchen/Zoom room area of our Hospitality Room, with the caption: “K4 was onsite installing new microphones for the Zoom and testing the system in advance of the Board Meetings.”
If you had the misfortune of watching or attending last Tuesday’s meeting, which in hindsight looked more like a reelection campaign than a Board meeting, you may have your own opinion about how well K4 has served us over the past few years. Yet this Board seems determined to stick with them, much as it seems determined to stick with Castle, regardless of questions about effectiveness and reliability.
Let’s put aside, for now, the obviously problematic Zoom setup and the question of how that outdated projector-and-microphone system came to be installed. We’ll get to that another time.
If you were here a few years ago, you may remember Castle’s Regional Director, Jim Koslosky, walking around the room with a microphone, allowing any owner who wished to speak to contribute to the discussion. That is now ancient history. Under this Board, we owners seem to have lost even that basic courtesy, along with our committees and the transparency we deserve.
Today, Ms. Wright appears willing to do whatever it takes to protect Stewart, like a mother bear protecting her cub. Of course, that relationship may well work both ways—and we are the ones who may pay dearly for it.
At Tuesday’s meeting, I was sitting next to Henry Kaplan. Both of us immigrated from Communist countries to what we consider the greatest country in the world. We grew up exposed to the kind of propaganda we thought we had left behind. Yet that evening, we encountered something uncomfortably familiar.
For an hour, we heard what amounted to an unbroken parade of good news. Castle Group was wonderful, had discounted its fees, and we should all be grateful for the extraordinary good fortune of having such a harmonious Board of Directors.
What was missing was any meaningful examination of whether our interests as owners are actually being served. The image that came to mind was a Board whose members ask, in unison, “How high?” whenever Stalin (Stewart) or Molotov (S. Sayuk) says, “Jump!”
The irony is that we cannot blame Castle, Falcon, or PG Restoration for pursuing their own interests. But those interests are surely not the same as ours. It is the Board’s responsibility to protect us—not to make life easier for the companies with which we do business.
Castle Group may be an excellent management company in many respects, with informative instructional videos and the resources of a large corporate organization behind it. But let’s not forget that management companies are businesses, and businesses exist to make money. The question is whether our Board is doing its job to ensure that we receive value for what we pay.
Forget it. With Mystic Pointe 500, they may have hit the mother lode.
Does anyone genuinely believe the glowing account of Castle’s generosity presented at Tuesday’s meeting? I include those who offered their wise comments on the Zoom chat.
And what about the actual cost of management? Until owners can examine clear, comparable financial information, we cannot know whether management fees and other charges have increased over the past several years. I strongly suspect they have, but the records should speak for themselves.
As for obtaining an honest and transparent picture of our finances while Karen remains involved in the accounting process, I have serious concerns. Wasn’t it only a couple of years ago that Stewart questioned her competence, suggesting that she might be senile? I have the emails documenting what was said. Apparently, that was a different Stewart—a remarkable chameleon.
There seems little reason for Castle’s current Regional Director to visit our building if everything is running so smoothly. We hardly ever see her. Everything is under control. The money keeps flowing, and the owners are expected to applaud.
But Tuesday’s meeting revealed something even more disturbing: a complete reversal of the relationship between management and the people it is supposed to serve.
I remember Koslosky standing quietly at the back of the room, holding the microphone and waiting for an owner to speak. Last Tuesday, elderly owners had to struggle their way to the one functioning microphone and then stand before a panel of unapproachable officials, practically begging for answers from the very people who are supposed to represent them.
Is this what our community has come to? Is this how owners who have invested their life savings in their homes are supposed to be treated when they dare to ask questions?
We are not Castle’s customers in name only. We are the owners who pay the bills. The Board works for us, not the other way around.
On November 17, we have an opportunity to remind everyone of that fundamental fact.
Please use your vote wisely.
Thank you,
Matthew Roth, with Ariel Messina and Marty Soll
P.S. In light of recent events, it is more important than ever that we seek independent oversight of the November 17 Board election and the tabulation of its votes. On Sunday afternoon, around 3 PM, we will be in the lobby with clipboards, asking owners to sign a petition requesting the State of Florida’s involvement. Please stop by and sign it.
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