SUMMARY

Lennar has illegally amended the governing documents of Baywinds to intentionally take away voting power from Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport homeowners and give their voting power to the homeowners in other neighborhoods.

It is no coincidence that Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport are the two largest, lowest-priced-home neighborhoods while the others are the smaller, higher-priced-home neighborhoods. The aerial photograph below of Lighthouse Pointe and Sailfish Cove that includes Zillow.com estimates of the home values in these two neighborhoods clearly illustrates this.

Click here to magnify the above aerial photograph

Despite the fact that Lighthouse Pointe has 5 times as many homes as and collectively pays 5 times more assessments than Sailfish Cove, the 8th Amendment has illegally made the voting power of the 180 Lighthouse Pointe homeowners EQUAL to the voting power of the 36 Sailfish Cove homeowners (i.e., each neighborhood can only elect one representative and therefore each neighborhood has equal voting power on the Master Board.).

The aerial photograph below of Bridgeport, Egret Cove and Sandpiper Walk that includes Zillow.com estimates of the home values in these neighborhoods illustrates another type of disparity that the illegal 8th Amendment has created.

Click here to magnify the above aerial photograph

Despite the fact that Bridgeport essentially has the same number of homes and pays the same assessments as Egret Cove and Sandpiper Walk put together, the 8th Amendment has illegally made the voting power of the 159 Egret Cove and Sandpiper Walk homeowners worth TWICE that of the 160 Bridgeport homeowners (i.e., Egret Cove and Sandpiper Walk homeowners can elect a total of TWO representatives to the Master Board while Bridgeport homeowners can only elect ONE representative to the Master Board.).

Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport contain 31% of the homes (i.e., 340 of 1082 homes) and pay 31% of the assessments in Baywinds. Despite this fact and in some ways because of this fact, their voting power has been illegally reduced from 31% BEFORE the Amendment was adopted to 16% AFTER the Amendment was adopted (i.e., Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport homeowners control only 2 of the 12 or 16% of the Master Board seats). In other terms, these neighborhoods’ original voting power was cut in half without a commensurate and proportional reduction of their assessments. The graphic below clearly illustrates this disparity.

As can be seen from the above illustrations, by taking voting power away from larger, lowest-priced-home neighborhoods and giving this voting power to the smaller, higher-priced-home neighborhoods Lennar has effectively divided Baywinds economically into lower- and upper-class neighborhoods.

QUESTIONS

Why would Lennar do something like this?

Well, given the fact that Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport were built by Lennar’s competitors, Lennar may have been rewarding and protecting its customers at the expense of its competitors’ customers.

Why would the Presidents of the neighborhood associations allow Lennar to do this?

In fact, the Presidents of the smaller, higher-priced-home neighborhoods asked Lennar to do this. [click here to view an email from John Mikus.] According to David Core, the attorney advising the neighborhood Presidents before turnover, this was done in part to protect “smaller neighborhood associations from the possibly disproportionate influence a number of larger (neighborhood) associations can have in the master association election process.” [click here to view David Core’s email in which the previous quote is circled in red at the bottom of the second page and the top of the third page.]

Why would Karen Israel and Lou Babbit, the respective Presidents of Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport at the time, and Bernie Barnett and Annette Migliorini, the respective representatives of Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport on the current Master Board, allow this to go unchallenged?

Only Karen, Lou, Bernie and Annette can answer that question but maybe they just don't get it.

Why would Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport homeowners allow their voting interests to be taken away without a fight?

Well, these homeowners either

1. mistakenly relied on their leaders to protect their interests,
2. don’t care or
3. haven’t yet realized how much they've been harmed by Lennar's taking away of their voting power.
   

Why would the homeowners in the ten (10) other smaller neighborhoods allow this to happen?

As stated clearly in David Core's email referenced above, the smaller neighborhoods benefited from Lennar’s actions and would be acting contrary to their self-interests to oppose Lennar's actions. In fact, a real estate agent who lives in Baywinds and sells Baywinds homes told a group of Baywinds residents that taking voting power away from homeowners in the lower-priced-home neighborhoods and giving more voting power to homeowners in the higher-priced-home neighborhoods was the "right thing to do" to ensure Baywinds property values are protected. It would appear that this real estate agent considers Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport "the projects" of Baywinds.

LAWSUIT

It was with all of the above in mind that a small group of concerned homeowners attempted back in 2005 to restore the voting power that was illegally taken away from Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport homeowners.

First, this small group of homeowners tried to meet with the neighborhood Presidents to discuss this issue but the Presidents refused to meet with these homeowners. [click here to see Al Tsacnaris’ email]

Next, this small group of homeowners tried to use the State's mediation process to resolve the issue but mediation failed because the Board “did not believe that (mediation) was a necessary tool.” [click here to see Al Tsacnaris’ sworn testimony]

Finally, being left no other choice by the Board, this small group of homeowners reluctantly decided to invest their time and money and become Plaintiffs in a lawsuit. [click here to view the original lawsuit]

Recently, after more than two (2) years from the initial filing of this lawsuit, Baywinds and the other Defendants agreed to the payment of $27,500 to the Plaintiffs in return for the Plaintiffs withdrawing all but one of the counts in the lawsuit. [click here to see more details]

The Plaintiffs have subsequently decided to unilaterally withdraw the one remaining count of their lawsuit. While this was done for a number of different reasons, the principal reason was that the Plaintiffs were no longer willing to invest either their time or their money for the three-hundred-and-forty (340) homeowners of Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport who have failed to show any interest in this issue over the past three (3) years. In fact, the silence of these homeowners has been deafening.

The Plaintiffs' decision to withdraw their lawsuit challenging the validity of the Amendment that Lennar illegally adopted, does NOT validate this Amendment. Unfortunately, this illegally adopted Amendment will continue to be, in effect, a Sword of Damocles hanging over Baywinds because any Lighthouse Pointe, Bridgeport or disenfranchised homeowner has now, or at any time in the future, the right to challenge the validity of this Amendment and therefore the authority and actions of the past, current and future Master Boards (i.e., there is no statute of limitations).

An attorney in one law firm filed a case challenging the validity of an amendment adopted decades earlier. The court invalidated the amendment and the association was forced to reimburse homeowners for fines that they had paid under this invalidated amendment going back decades. What a costly and avoidable mess!

LEGAL

The Amendment adopted by Lennar establishing a Master Board of neighborhood representatives is legally invalid because Lennar violated three (3) different Florida Statutes and the Baywinds governing documents to adopt this Amendment. While violation of even one of these Statutes would be sufficient to invalidate this Amendment, the fact that Lennar violated three (3) different Florida Statutes and the Baywinds governing documents demonstrates compellingly the invalidity of the Amendment.

Click here to view an expanded, more complete legal analysis

CONCLUSIONS

For the foreseeable future, Baywinds will be managed by a Master Board composed of one representative from each of the 12 neighborhoods. The large size of the Board together with the inherent limitations of the neighborhood representative selection process are likely to produce a series of dysfunctional Boards composed of members that are not the most qualified people available in Baywinds. For example, one or more neighborhoods may be forced to choose only one person from a field of two or more very qualified people while other neighborhoods may be forced to chose from a field of people less qualified than some of the very qualified people who lost the elections in other neighborhoods.

While many of the past and current Board members have publicly acknowledged that their fiduciary duty is to all of Baywinds and not their respective neighborhood constituents, it is foolish to believe that such a conflict of interest doesn't exist or that it won’t adversely affect the Baywinds community. One only has to look to the controversy surrounding the income-producing billboard along Okeechobee Blvd. next to Regatta Cove to see an example of such a conflict of interest. This Amendment ensures the perpetuation of a dysfunctional Master Board responding largely to neighborhood self-interests.

Given all of the above, it would not be surprising if it is discovered one day that $50,000, $100,000 or even $1,000,000 or more are missing from the Baywinds treasury and cannot be accounted for. This has happened before in HOAs so don't think it cannot happen in Baywinds. A condo president/treasurer stole $920,000 from a 264-unit condo association made up of mostly senior citizens. In addition, the 84 year old president of another condo association has been charged with organized fraud in a scheme to siphon an estimated $1.4 million from a 520-unit condo association. Click here to learn more.

It is apparent that the only people who will ever be held accountable for mismanagement and malfeasance are the homeowners who will pay higher-than-necessary assessments (i.e., It isn't the Board members who are being held accountable for these costly and largely avoidable problems. It is and will continue to be the homeowners who foot the bill.).

Please be assured that these higher-than-necessary assessments will likely lead to more and more Baywinds homeowners deciding that they can no longer pay their monthly assessments which in turn will lead to even higher assessments to those Baywinds homeowners who must make up for this shortfall. This in turn may lead to more homeowners defaulting on their assessments.

Maybe someday, Baywinds, particularly Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport, homeowners will wake up and do what is right to establish a smaller, more-effective and accountable Master Board with each and every member elected by and accountable to ALL homeowners. Until that time comes, if ever, we will continue to waste money, our assessments will continue to rise at an unnecessarily high rate and Lighthouse Pointe and Bridgeport homeowners will bear a disproportionate share of this burden.

While it may make us feel good to blame and/or criticize past and/or present Board members, doing so doesn't fix the problem. We shouldn't blame the Board members. We should blame ourselves for our apathy and expecting others to fix our problems. If this problem is ever to be fixed, then "we the people" must fix it.