We met...

On Sunday, July 28th 2013 there was a meeting of some Hawks Bluff home and property owners. There were about 30 people in attendance; most signed in an attendance sheet while others refused to sign in (???).

Hosts opened the meeting by thanking all and establishing some rules of engagement (i.e. don’t interrupt, cell phones off, bathroom location, etc.) and turned the meeting over to Deborah Short (property owner and local Real Estate Agent) with Mary Newman (property owner and home owner) taking notes…

The general gist for the meeting was for Deborah to share her efforts to date, doors she has knocked on, and progress she’s made. The main general issues are:

• Status of disrepair of the roads and all other common areas;
• The county will not take over the roads because they:
• Were not built up to code (even though they were built by, at the time County Commissioner, Darren Lance)
• Are in poor state of disrepair
• The impact the status of the roads has on the current value of the property and the possibility of re-sales.
• VA and VHA would not consider loans for anybody to buy in Hawks Bluff.
• Impossibility of emergency vehicles to access some home home sites due to the status of the roads.
• Liability we all have regarding these being our own roads (private) in case of accidents
• Promises, explicit or implied, made during the sales cycle which were not, as of yet, fulfilled:
• Lake on Phase I
• Electricity to all lots
• Other amenities
• Implications of these portrayals having also being made in an infomercial by the Van Buren County Mayor at the time.
• Not getting the services our taxes are expected to pay for:
• It was reported that Hawks Bluff contributes $37M out of the total $161M in property revenue the county reports (~23% of the total tax base).
• Police patrol is virtually non-existent
• Vandalism – in some phases – is rampant (street signs being ripped off, mail boxes vandalized, fires being set, etc.) with little or no response/action from the county Law Enforcement agencies.

Note1: Somebody made mention of the name Rita Thomson and her association with the State of Tennessee (Soil Erosion???)… Can whoever brought that name up elaborate by sending Deborah an e-mail with what you know, heard and how to contact Ms. Thompson?

Note2: it was said that the works that were being done in Phase IV by mandate of the EPA were suspended because a home owner complained that the trucks were damaging the roads. Second version of the same fiasco says that the works were suspended because Rocco Toscano had not paid the company doing he works. Neither version makes any sense to me. Does anybody know anything about this?

CALLS TO ACTION: 

FIRST: what is needed from each and every one of us is to give Deborah (an email to DEBMSHORT@GMAIL.COM with attachments - if applicable - will suffice) information on:

1. Why you bought here, promises made left unfulfilled, along with your name, address, phone number.
2. Any example of issues misrepresented in the sales cycle.
3. Pictures of how the property was supposed to look like (from the brochures) versus what it looks like today
4. Any old letter, e-mail or any other correspondence where things were promised but have not been fulfilled (roads maintenance, lake construction, mowing of swales, etc).
5. Whatever you may have, please make it available to her by, if possible, the end of this week as she is having another round of meetings with state and federal agencies next week.

SECOND and last, but not least, please send an email to the CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) specifically to Jeffrey.bolden@cfpb.gov with the subject of filing a complaint. Your complaint centers around the fact that you were not delivered the goods and services promised by International Land Consultants and its owner Rocco Toscano when you bought the land here in Hawks Bluff. If you are willing to speak to one of their agents, please state so in your email and include your contact information.

Do your part and stay tuned...

Property Owners Meeting - 7/28/2013 - 4:00 PM - 262 Coyote Trail

Deborah Short, a fellow property owner in Hawks Bluff and local Real Estate agent, has recently had meetings with some TN State officials to bring attention (and eventually find solutions) to the problems left behind unresolved in Hawks Bluff by International Land Consultants - the outfit who sold us the land - and Rocco Toscano, the president of that company.

Deborah has called for a meeting with all interested and able-to-attend property owners to talk about information she needs to further her conversations with the TN State officials (more details in meeting agenda). The meeting is scheduled for Sunday, July 28th, 2013 @ 4:00 PM at 262 Coyote Trail, Spencer.

The problems ILC must resolve (and TN State Officials must be made aware of) are many and various and, among them are these, although this list is non-exhaustive:

1. All common roads are “maintained by the developer until they are dedicated to, and accepted by, Van Buren County, TN” (from page 8 of 20 of the 11/2/2004 Property Report). Many stretches of road are in poor condition, deteriorating increasingly as time goes due to the absence of maintenance, and there been no published plans to turn them over to the county. We need the roads maintained and a date by when they will be turned to the county. 
2. We need full documentation of the reasons why the lake was not built in Phase I as represented during the sales cycle.
3. We need full documentation of exceptions made to allow owners to violate/break represented covenants, such as: (a) Trailers and structures under the minimum 1,200 sf. in some lots, in violation of Point 2 (Size of Dwelling) of the Declaration of Restrictive Covenants; and (b) Physical and visible commercial enterprises operating out of some residential lots in violation of Point 1 (Residential Use) of the Declaration of Restrictive Covenants.
4. “Over ground [electricity] lines have been extended in front of or adjacent to all lots” as stated in page 9 of 20 of the 11/2/2004 Property Report. This has not been accomplished, nor has a date been given by when it will be done; we need a date.
5. Full release of any present or future POA or HOA organization from any and all of these responsibilities/liabilities, should they be left unfulfilled by ILC.

Please plan to attend!

Sunday, the 7th day of April, 2013

This entry was stalled in the hopper since late February… Nothing really new; just still important to me…

Local happenings… A lot happening… The county Sheriff, Grayson Beasley, died of a heart attack on the morning of February 20th; he was 59 and a picture of health (on the outside); condolences to the family. Now there is the issue of succession; according to some county documents, the county commission is to appoint the sheriff replacement to complete the term, which ends in August of 2014; here it goes:

“(b) (1) Vacancies in county offices required by the Constitution of Tennessee or by any statutory provision to be filled by the people shall be filled by the county legislative body, and any person so appointed shall serve until a successor is elected at the next general election, as defined in § 2-1-104, in the county and is qualified; provided, that the candidates have sufficient time to qualify for the office, as provided for in § 2-14-106. The county legislative body shall be required to make an appointment to fill a vacancy within one hundred twenty (120) days of receiving notice of the vacancy unless during that time period there is a general election scheduled in the county and there is sufficient time for the vacancy to be placed on the ballot in accordance with this section. Any appointment to fill a vacancy by the county legislative body shall be made in accordance with chapter 5, part 1 of this title. This subdivision (b)(1) shall not apply to any county that has a metropolitan form of government and a population in excess of five hundred thousand (500,000), according to the 2000 federal census or any subsequent federal census….”

So, throw your hat in the ring, my friends… Go present yourself to the county commission as a qualified candidate and good luck!

Later we have learned that there are seven (7) candidates being considered for the job (and two more who would like to be considered buck lack qualifications; one of them is suing the county) and that the commission will hear presentations from, and ask questions to, all seven. The commission will make a decision by June (have no idea why it would take so long…)

By the way, on the comment above about throwing your hat in the ring, do not bother if you are not local (several generations) and, if you happen to have a Latin surname, pfff, forget about it! (This is not my opinion; it is something I was told by a commissioner - who will remain anonymous - in a meeting were the topic was being discussed…)

Personal
My third daughter, Alex, turned 23 years old this past February 24th… As luck will have it, Jan was in Atlanta as lecturer in an AKY Business Fraternity conference; I was escorting Jan (as a driver, baggage handler, etc. you know, my usual chores...) and Leah happens to be member of the AKY Business fraternity an was attending the conference. So, when the conference was over, we all gathered at Alex's place and celebrated with a very special birthday girl!

Food for thought:
“The first to apologize is the bravest; the first to forgive is the strongest; the first to forget is the happiest”

- Anonymous

Tuesday, the 12th day of February, 2013

My grandson at 10 weeks old

My grand niece at 2 years old

Personal…
My grandson at 10 weeks old and my grand niece at 2 years old…

Local happenings… Not much happening… Went out fishing a couple of times; the first time I got skunked: not even one nibble! The second time was much better and I caught more fish than I’ve caught in the last five years altogether! Good stuff! Also, while looking for bait to go fishing with (minnows), I finally got to visit the Rock Island State Park: what a beauty! It has cabins for rent, fishing, boating, hiking, swimming. And the river (Rocky River) is just impressive… They built a dam and created a lake; very pretty. However, once you pass the dam, the natural river takes over and the rock formations are impressive; the water rapids are outstanding… Eventually, downstream the river eases up and one can launch boats and go fishing… Worth visiting!

Local Politics. So, I've received no responses to date regarding the duplicity of political entities in the county (Double mayor, double commission and double police force)… I thought this could be a really active point of discussion… I still hope…

Sports. I believe that, in its current form, American Football days are counted…! Here is why: “Brain scans performed on five former NFL players revealed images of the protein that causes football-related brain damage Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy -- the first time researchers have identified signs of the crippling disease in living players” (from an article in The Atlantic this past Feb 4th). And here is the rationale: if they really learn how to diagnose CTE, they will be able to say exactly how common it is for football players to develop it. This is when you start thinking about football and an existential crisis. You tell a parent that their kid has, say, a five percent chance of developing crippling brain damage through playing football, and you will see the end of pee-wee leagues and probably the end of high school football. Colleges would likely follow. Unless they change the sport and make it helmet-less (the helmet is currently used more as a weapon than a protection device), it is bye-bye football… Don’t think so? How common are college boxing teams these days?

Food for Thoughts…
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

- H. L. Mencken

So, keep your mind and eyes open, my friends…

Thursday, the 31st day of January, 2013

Weather. The unusual times started the night of Tuesday, January 29th, at about 7 to 8 PM; watching TV we could hear the wind outside and, since we had been paying attention to the forecast, we were expecting it… The howling got us up at about 2:30 the morning of Wednesday the 30th... We lost power at about 4:30 AM so we went into powerless mode (torches, flashlights, lanterns, candles, etc); I even made coffee the old fashioned way by boiling water on the grill and pouring it directly over the coffee grinds; came out pretty good! At about 7 AM we found out we seemed to have been the only ones in the area not to have power, so we went out to investigate… It turned out that the wind (with gusts of wind up to about 60 MPH) brought down a big tree between our house and DeSalvo’s house; the tree brought down a power line and two posts near DeSalvo’s house. After seven hours, Caney Fork Co-op had two posts replaced, cables re-installed  and power restored. Not bad! We also had a threat of tornadoes in the whole middle Tennessee area including our county; but they did not materialize up here in the Plateau (we are high enough for tornadoes not to like it here…) We have also had a swing of -35°in the last 24 hours… Went from shorts and light sweater to heavy sweats…

Sports. I think they should do away with the NFL Pro-bowl… What a joke… 62-35 was the score of what seems to be more like a full pad practice than a game… Not even an exhibition game… The players have nothing to play for… I believe they get a ‘bonus’ of about $50K to appear in the Pro-Bowl… How can they be expected to play hard to make $50K and risk a contract for $5M? Makes no sense. Do away with it!

Local Politics. Van Buren County has a population of about 5,800 residents; it has a mayor, a county commission, a police force; it levies and collects property taxes and business licensing. Spencer is the only incorporated municipality within Van Buren County and has a population of about 1,800 residents; it has a mayor, a city commission and a police force. It has a utilities department but has no taxing jurisdiction. When one overlaps the two sets (remember Venn diagrams?), there is an intersection data: mayor, commission, police force. These are entities that are duplicated for the benefit of no one. There is nothing available to the resident to the City of Spencer which is not available to those outside city limits; in other words, there is 100% overlap of benefits and obligations… So, there is a set of questions begging to be asked… Why do we need two identical political entities? Can we consolidate and provide better services? What needs to happen to consolidate? Anybody out there in Bluffland would like to take a shot at them?

Food for Thoughts…
“The trouble is, you think you have time…”

- Buddha

So, stay busy, my friends…