June 21, 2023:
“Residents Speak Out About Coddling Predators and a Pervert,”
“Subsidizing Tennis Dinner Dance Tickets by Embezzlement,”
and
“Happy 98th Birthday, Dad”
Part I. Residents Speak Out About Coddling Predators and a Pervert
I want to thank the residents for the wonderful feedback we received on our last report, the May 24, 2023 report, entitled, ““Coddling Predators and a Pervert Is Becoming An Art Form Here in Cascade Lakes” and “Granddaughters Reported Being Harassed in the Community Pool.” Here is but one example:
“Hi Vicki,
First, [name of spouse homeowner] and I want to thank you and Arthur for your tireless work applying your very impressive skills and intellect in exposing what is truly evil and corrupt in our community. It would be easy to overlook the cesspool in favor of enjoying oneself. You both are unique in that you recognize your higher responsibilities as citizens and as people who can actually make a difference.
Now more than ever, as you well know, it is critical to defend our freedom of speech and civil liberties. Thank you!
It is truly shocking the level of degeneracy and criminality that you have experienced and exposed. Your impeccable documentation is indeed the sunlight that can lead to disinfecting the community.
…Wishing you a safe, healthy and enjoyable summer.
Warm regards,
[names of homeowners]”
Cesspool and degeneracy indeed: that reputation is well earned and you’re right, this place could use a strong disinfectant, so thank you, above homeowners, for your affirming feedback, and thank you to all the other homeowners and residents who also gave supporting feedback.
As I previously wrote, the first step in eradicating this type of menacing behavior is to call it out loudly and clearly, and then the next step is to have a zero-tolerance policy toward it. I will repeat the three-pronged approach to cleaning up the menacing riffraff-type behavior here:
1. Declare and have a zero-tolerance policy for this type of behavior, and that includes for everyone, including board members and committee chairpersons;
2. Enforce it expeditiously by the rules and regulations already in existence: first an immediate violation warning notice (or greater depending on the severity of it), and then a suspension and ban of predators, bullies, and harassers from the common areas; and
3. Have a Grievance Committee made up of members with ethics and integrity instead of stacking that committee with a sadistic predator and other individuals who gave preferential treatment to their friend, who capriciously and arbitrarily condemned someone they didn’t like, and who in fact gave this serious predator a complete pass, thus proving their bias and corruption. Start over with this Committee; disband it and start over.
In my opinion, this is the only way to restore the failing reputation of this community. To date, none of this has been implemented.
It’s up to the majority of the Board to do what they need to do. If they don’t, you know what you’re dealing with, but then again, most of you already do, so therein lies the real problem: predator coddlers at the top, and they’re the ones, along with their predator buddies, who are putting the rest of us at risk.
So once again Arthur and I paid for a state law enforcement officer for the June 21, 2023 board meeting.
And once again, like clockwork, pervert/predator Chick Coletta entered the mostly empty ballroom and made a beeline for a seat a mere one seat away from me, and once again, I immediately got up and moved away from him and to the end of the row where the officer was standing up against the wall. This literally happens at every single board meeting.
A resident asked me at this June 21st board meeting if the law enforcement officer was “really necessary;” apparently, he is. There has yet to be a board meeting where pervert/predator Coletta doesn’t follow me or try and sit close to me or otherwise harass me, all without a peep from the chair of the meeting, the HOA president. So yes, it’s necessary.
Meanwhile, the majority of the Board remains silent and complicit with the bad actors roaming around unfettered.
Predator Steve Schlosser was also present with his concealed weapon under his shirt and it was noticeably hitched to the right side of his body. He behaved himself this time, as he did last month, undoubtedly because of the presence of the state law enforcement officer at the last two board meetings.
It is unfortunate that in order to exercise my rights here, we have to hire state law enforcement personnel to protect me because of the continual refusal of the majority of the board to take the appropriate action to protect the members in and on the common areas, which we pay for.
Part II. Subsidizing Tennis Dinner Dance Tickets by Embezzlement
The tennis club is having its annual dinner dance. The ticket prices are being subsidized by the club membership money. Likely those tennis club members who voted to do this clearly plan on attending.
They obviously like the fact that other members’ money is partially paying for their personal tickets at an outside venue (a restaurant called Benvenutos) so they can eat, drink, and be merry using other people’s money. How gauche.
This is embarrassing for these people and for this community. You join a club and they use part of your money to buy personal dinner dance tickets for themselves, not for you. Yes, you read that correctly.
If there’s that much money in the coffers, it means the membership dues are too high, it doesn’t mean you practice socialism and take other people’s money so you can party on their dime.
That’s not why they joined your little club, so you could take their money and spend it on yourselves. I’m sure if they knew that up front, they would have thought twice before handing over their $25.00 membership dues.
To use members’ money who are not attending a private party to subsidize the tickets for those who are, is in my opinion and the opinion of others, piggish. I don’t care that 46 people voted for it with 10 voting against it (and that was barely a majority of this club’s declining membership, currently at 87 voting members, so it was 52.87%). That this was even put to a vote was piggish and unethical.
And I don’t want to hear the excuse that “majority rules” because the majority inappropriately and unethically voted to take the minority’s money. In this case, what the majority wants is irrelevant when it comes to seizing other people’s money for the majority’s own personal use.
As another example of the irrelevancy of a majority vote, if the majority voted that Arthur and I are ordered to move, would we be forced to move? No, because what the majority wants is completely irrelevant in this example, too. Your solution if you don’t like us is not to engage with us.
Here’s another hypothetical: if the majority voted that I should not post my opinions, would I be forced to stop? No, because what the majority wants is completely irrelevant in this example, too. Your solution if you don’t like what I write is to stop reading right now.
You’re still reading. Stop. Ok, whatever. Some of you who claim to hate my writing really do like it because it gives you something to talk about, and I also understand that sometimes when someone holds up a mirror to some of you, what you are forced to see is rather unpleasant, to put it mildly.
But your solution is not to force me to shut down this website and stop writing; it’s for you to stop reading or, alternatively, heaven forbid, to suddenly become ethical.
Likewise, if you don’t like the price of the tickets for this private shindig, then your solution is also simple: don’t buy the tickets and don’t attend; the answer is not to force the minority to pay for your personal tickets or to vote to embezzle other people’s money. It is not ok to vote to commit a financial crime against your neighbors.
By comparison, you cannot vote to rob a bank; that’s called a criminal conspiracy. Yet that’s what essentially happened here: a group of people voted to rob the tennis club’s piggy bank which held other people’s money who were not part of this conspiracy.
Who’s brilliant idea was this: who is so cheap that they want their neighbors and other club members to pay for their personal partying? It’s cringeworthy.
It would have been a nice gesture to offer to buy two tickets for the Sports Director and his wife; that’s a fair use of members’ money if the membership voted to do that. But this money grab is obscene, cheap, and piggish (yes, I’ve used that word three times in this short report).
That’s not what members agreed to when they paid their dues to this club. It’s actually incumbent upon the club to refund this money to those non-attending members, not to use their money to purchase other members’ tickets so other members can party on the non-attending members’ resources.
And if the club leadership who negotiated this private dinner dance at a private restaurant was concerned that the minimum tickets needed to guarantee the venue might not be met, then you either negotiate it better or find another venue, because that means the ticket price is too high and you’re making a commitment you may not be able to fulfill.
If it’s not doable, one doesn’t do it. The solution is not for the club to subsidize the ticket price with non-attending members’ dues so that those attending can use other people’s money for their own personal entertainment, something the non-attending members never signed up for. That’s a form of theft called embezzlement.
“Embezzlement is a crime that consists of withholding assets for the purpose of conversion of such assets, by one or more persons to whom the assets were entrusted, either to be held or to be used for specific purposes.” Lehman, Jeffrey; Phelps, Shirelle (2005). West's Encyclopedia of American Law, Vol. 4 (2 ed.). Detroit: Thomson/Gale. p. 223.
And just because a slim majority of those who voted for it were fine with it doesn’t negate the fact that it’s an embezzlement of other members’ money who didn’t agree to have their money used for the purchase of other people’s party tickets. This is a type of financial fraud.
And where is this fraudulent embezzlement of other people’s money permitted by the Mission Statement for this club? The leadership of this club was entrusted with this money for specific purposes as set forth in the Mission Statement. Here is the Tennis Club’s Mission Statement as stated in their club by-laws:
“MISSION STATEMENT:
To promote the enjoyment, health benefits and camaraderie of playing tennis by:
1. Providing recreational activities for players on all skill levels
2. Improving and developing new game skills
3. Participating in various Palm Beach Senior Tennis League competitions
4. Encouraging the expansion of membership through outreach to new residents, lessons for beginners, and planning social tournaments and special events for both members and non-members
5. Promoting good fellowship and sociability throughout the Cascade Lakes Community”
Where does it say that members are obliged to pay for other members’ private party tickets? Nowhere. This is a private party, and individuals who wish to attend should pay for their own party tickets, not embezzle other club members’ money to subsidize the cost of their tickets. Embezzlement is not part of this club’s Mission Statement.
If they can’t afford the price, the solution is not to embezzle other members’ money, it’s to not attend. There is no other club to my knowledge that takes some members' money/dues and gives it to others to subsidize tickets to a private dinner dance, in this case, at a restaurant.
Would the Cultural Arts Club do that? No way. Would the Social Club do that? No. Would the Jewish Heritage Club do that? Nope. Go down the list of clubs on the HOA website and tell me what other clubs have done this for a private dinner dance. I know of none.
If you want to go to a dinner dance, which costs money as this dinner dance does, and the tickets are “x” amount each, if a club member wants to go, he or she pays the “x,” not “x” minus “y” where the “y” is another members’ dues who isn’t going who is making up the difference in Ms. X’s ticket price.
And just because 46 members voted for it because they want to party and they saw an opportunity to pay less than otherwise required, doesn’t make it right. Let’s have a list of those 46 people who voted to embezzle money from their fellow club members for their own personal use. I bet you that every one of them plans on attending this little soirée.
Meanwhile, the HOA through a former board majority vote is forcing members to join this club if they want to participate in league play even though membership in the tennis club is not required by the leagues.
And three of those former board members are current board members and tennis players, Jeff D. Green, Richard Greene, and Bob Dingee. And I believe current board member Pat Nast was the president of the tennis club at that time. I bet these four board members and their spouses are likely part of the 46 planned attendees who voted for this scheme.
That former board actually reversed a prior board vote that didn’t require such club membership for league play. This was mean-spirited and laziness in my opinion because it was done to force residents to join a club they were not inclined to join (and therefore also not inclined to attend the annual party).
It was mean-spirited and lazy because it was easier than actually taking the time to market the benefits of club membership as the club’s own Mission Statement specifically requires (Statement #4 in their list). In fact, HOA president Jeff D. Green even admitted that if they didn’t make club membership mandatory for league play, there would be no incentive to join the club.
And now these residents are forced to pay for other people attending a dinner party they still don’t want to go to. So this places the members in the sorry position of having to pay for other members’ personal tickets to a dinner dance party to which they themselves are not going if they want to participate in league play.
Let’s be clear here: if you want to participate in league play, not only do you have to join the tennis club, but you also have to pay for other people’s private party tickets for a dinner dance that you’re not attending because your mandatory dues are now being used to fund a portion of their personal tickets. Let that truth sink in.
That’s backwards for encouraging membership in this club, and it’s antithetical to building up the membership ranks because it breeds resentment. In fact, over time, I believe the membership of this club has actually decreased. My recollection is that this club had between 120 and 130 members a few years ago; suddenly it’s down to 87 per a June 5, 2023 email from the club, and with this latest news, it may drop even further.
Both Arthur and I were each raised to pay for our own enjoyment. How can anyone with a conscience enjoy themselves on someone else’s dime? Where is the work ethic, the pride, the satisfaction of paying your own way for your own personal fun and entertainment? How can you attend this event without shame?
Seriously, I’d like to know which one or more of you pillars of the community are so gosh darn cheap that you would take money from your neighbors and fellow club members for your own personal pleasure, because that’s exactly what you did.
Is that how your parents raised and taught you, to take money from other people for your own personal use and enjoyment? Or did you just decide to do that on your own?
Some of you think you’re so smart because you came up with a scheme to get yourselves “cheaper tickets” by using other people’s money. Which one or more of you geniuses concocted this scam on your fellow club members? And is that twenty bucks you saved on your ticket your ethical threshold?
We know for some people their ethical threshold is even less, it’s a plate of cookies from the predator/pervert. Yes, that’s all it took for a couple of residents to openly declare their eternal loyalty to him. But back to you unethical cheapskates.
For this reason - this cheap and unethical money grab – some club members have privately indicated that they will not be renewing their tennis club memberships come renewal time. In other words, in the future, buy your own damn tickets.
Part III. Happy 98th Birthday, Dad
While I am approaching my own birthday on July 3rd, I want to instead focus on someone else.
Wishing my Dad, Stanley B. Roberts, a World War II disabled veteran and Cascade Lakes’ second oldest original owner, a very happy 98th birthday for July 9, 2023. I love you to pieces, Dad, and it’s been an honor taking care of you in our home.
My own birthday wish is for your good health and continued happiness, Daddy (and for the rest of my family and friends as well).
I’m filled with immense gratitude for the blessing of having both my parents still with me (and we all live together!). I feel as if I am truly the luckiest gal alive!
It would not be possible without the love and devotion of my husband, Arthur Andelson, one of the kindest, gentlest, most generous, selfless, giving souls I have ever met; he is truly the personification of goodness.
The universe has been profoundly and abundantly kind to me and I am humbled by the many privileges it has bestowed upon me.
Your faithful scribe, Vicki Roberts
Hyperlinks:
1. May 24, 2023 Report: “Coddling Predators and a Pervert Is Becoming An Art Form Here in Cascade Lakes” and “Granddaughters Reported Being Harassed in the Community Pool”
2. May 17, 2023 Report and May 20, 2022 Update: “Armed Uniformed State Law Enforcement Officer for Protection from Resident Predators at Board Meetings and Residents Packing Pistols”
3. Corruption page
4. July 21, 2022 CL-Update entitled, “Goons Galore? Alleged Serious Harassment of a Widowed Owner by Several Male Residents Including One Self-Proclaimed ‘Number One Bully’ After the July 20, 2022 Board Meeting”
5. June 15, 2022 highlights entitled, “Explosive: Lies Exposed, A Smoking Gun, and Vindication”
6.
7. Contact Us page has been updated.
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