There seems to be some degree of conflict between statements made by John Mikus, President of The Estates, and Ben Solomon, Attorney for Lennar.

Mr. Solomon said, "If the Lennar Baywinds proposal is approved, Lennar here and now commits to making a modification to your by laws which will put it to a vote at the turn-over meeting. Before the association accepts control, we will let the members decide whether they prefer having the neighborhood presidents automatically become the board of directors each year because the homeowners and the presidents themselves have encouraged Lennar to offer up another option, which we agree to do. There will be a vote at the turn-over meeting whether it should be neighborhood presidents or whether it could be any other member of the neighborhood association generally elected by that neighborhood association membership."

Yet, Mr. Mikus wrote, "For the record it was the presidents insistence and not the petition that finally resulted in the change in the possible election for future boards."

I will leave it to the readers to conclude whether it is Mr. Solomon or Mr. Mikus who is in the better position to know what motivation prompted Lennar to offer the more favorable modification to the by laws. And would it be too much to hope that even the presidents might have been influenced by the voices of the people they represent?

Whatever the circumstances, it seems apparent to me that Lennar’s compromise modification makes it much easier to vote in favor of the proposal on Tuesday, April 26. Mr. Solomon stated the turn-over meeting date would be approximately 30 days after the April 26 meeting. Please be thinking about how you will vote at the turnover meeting on how the members of our future Master Boards will be determined. The two choices beginning with the 2006 Annual Member Meeting will be:

Option 1: The board members will automatically be the presidents of the individual neighborhoods. Under this option, you will never have the right to directly elect your representation on the Master Board.

Option 2: The board members will consist of one directly elected member from each individual neighborhood. The person elected can be the neighborhood president, one of the other neighborhood board members or any other member of the neighborhood association. Under this option, you have all the options every year.

Max Harper