Time. Value. Money.

Not Here. We Don’t Have a Pot to Piss In.

Nothing. Nothing for all those years of payments made in earnest, and on time. And for 2027, the board has to ‘minimize expenditure increases to avoid increasing assessments’, while we could wipe out that shortfall with just three months of what we’re handing over to the club. For what? Are you good with that?

Here are a few awards won in the name of our community by The Magnolia News in the last two years, sitting on the corner of my desk. They belong on a wall somewhere in a Community Center. One that’s ours. All our own. And we’re not picky!  We’ll take any one of the FOUR Community Centers we’ve already paid for with the largesse we’ve bestowed on the club. And what do we have to show for it? Are you good with that? A decade-and-a-half of payments NEVER VOTED ON BY A SINGLE RESIDENT HERE?

Pipe dream? Why can’t a community like Magnolia Point have its own place to hold a Bake Sale? Host a ceremony for our local scholarship winners? Have a ‘Hoe Down’ (or is it an ‘HOA Down)? Honor the GCSPD? Have a ‘Potting Class’ presented by our Landscape Committee? Have card games, committee meetings, board meetings, beholden to no one!  Carrying on our business as we see fit?  Like grown ups do? We’re tried ‘renting’ quarters for our community’s spirit, deluding ourselves that we’re ‘winning on the cheap’, kicking that can down the road, and now it’s the devil to pay.

And now we’ve been kicked to the curb by the club, leaving our board and groups to wander the landscape, homeless waifs looking for a place to assemble, what’s the rationale for continuing the ‘good faith’ Use Agreement? Would someone answer that for us?

To the board, hope springs eternal, as does the conviction that the Use Agreement fee must be paid at all cost.  Now, and pretty much…forever. They believe it’s their (our) responsibility to make the sale of the club as attractive as possible to an outside buyer. Say that to yourself now, slowly: ‘We must make a private business as attractive as possible to an outside buyer’. To this end, they are inclined to add the UA, and it’s monthly subsidy, to the terms of any negotiation between our Association and a potential buyer. This board, noted for its disregard of Florida Statues and more infamously lately Florida Sunshine Laws, is earnestly considering putting this ‘nuiclear option’ beyond the reach of homeowners, that is, to negotiate our right to do anything about it such that we can do nothing about it. 

And, for those of you who care about that other elephant in the room, the board has no interest in preserving the PUD. If you don’t believe that, what, after four months plus, has this board ever said about it? Anything? Any pronouncement, Newsgram, letter, post or utterance of any type? They of ‘poll’ fame: have they convened a survey of the community on this? Any effort to organize the residents for a petition? Any town meetings with the PUD as the topic? That, in ‘board speak’ is no. They will not oppose any change in the PUD advanced by a buyer. If your mission is the ‘pretty up’ the club for potential buyers, you want to assure any buyer that a PUD like ours is safely fading away in the rearview mirror. No surpise, really; we know that Access Control and Strategic Planning have been at work planning for changes in the PUD, as they have expressed in recent reports to the board. 

Any buyer (and backing bank) with half-a-brain can see that the club is a shitty business, the owners have stated as much, shouting to high-heaven in word and (spiteful) deed that they can’t survive without our dough. And any buyer knows that a lot of us are worked into a lather over this, and certain to continue to object. The infamous ‘lawsuit’ is public record; it’s not like we’re not firm in our beliefs, or resources. Any buyer has surely brought this up. Board’s idea: let’s offer to ‘bake it in’ to any deal, and wrap it up in some tepid, facile ‘We know what’s best for you’.

That’s all. For now. And, my bad. I guess we do own a toilet, though parking is a bitch.

– Dave Petraglia – 10/20/2026