318 South Dixie Highway
Lantana, FL 33462
Phone: (561) 540-5790
Email: code@lantana.org
Let them hear from you.
Home owners associations and town code enforcers are the worst of the worst.
FYI bump
Real neighbors are rare today.
Amazing. That HOA is a disgrace.
Hopefully a patriotic sod farm will pick up the story...they could sod that yard in an afternoon, I bet.
That's some thanks for serving our country, eh? He makes sacrifices so some weenie's most pressing concern is a yard without grass.
Boy, I hope this soldier doesn't actually try to fly a flag in his yard. He'll get busted for that too.
Section 10.5-25 states that grass must be sodded.(unbelievable)
http://library1.municode.com/gateway.dll/FL/florida/19220?f=templates&fn=default.htm&npusername=11133&nppassword=MCC&npac_credentialspresent=true&vid=default
You are wrong.
If this had been a drug-dealing anti-Constitution slob, it would STILL be a violation.
A violation is a violation. As a homeowner, I wish to keep the property values in good order in order to prevent a downhill slide and more slobs moving in. That is the purpose of homeowner associations--keeping the standards high.
Just because this happens to be one of the good guys does not change the fact standards and codes must be evenly applied.
You would not be barking like this if the homeowner was Jane Fonda.
Sent my email and it was not pleasant.
I'm so sick and tired of these beuracratic a$$'s it's not funny.
Semper Fi
A few water balloons filled with "Round up " tossed on the Code Enforcers front lawn is called for.
Another REPORTED outrage in floriduh. It is not beyond reason that much of the bad news coming out of that state is intended to sully the escutcheon of the Bush name.
/tinfoil beanie
I am nonplussed that no neighbors have stepped up to help the Sergeant.
Top sends
Why doesn't Newsweek run THIS story? thanks for info. I have neighbors from H@ll also.. cannot mind their own business nor find a life. Distressing. I am assuming the email you gave is for the town NOT the people.. I would like to send words of encouragement to the owners & thank the man for his service .. hope he sees it here & would like to send a few choice words to the community "powers that be"
Talk about abuse of power under color of authority and arbitrary and capricious ruling by barely competent bureaucrats.
I have seen and worked with my share...
Excerpt:
LANTANA, Fla. -- She's in and out of the hospital, and he just returned from serving his country in Afghanistan, yet the town of Lantana wants the couple's top priority to be fixing their yard.
The clock is ticking for a soldier and his family to follow orders -- or else.
When Army Sgt. Mike Neal returned from the war over the weekend, he went to bed, got up the next day, and started seeding his yard.
Code enforcement told them seeding wasn't enough.
Lawn work is hardly the welcome home party Neal wanted. After 14 long months at war in Afghanistan, relaxation seemed like a simple request.
"All I asked for is a week or two to get settled in and get back to normal life," Neal said.
Lantana code enforcement officers gave him 48 hours to fix the lot and swale next to his home...
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Tonk, Kathy, MJ... have any troops in Fla to rally to help our sgt?
Tonk.. please ping your list on this.. thanks
Fourteen years ago I moved to a community near Washington DC. It was the first time I'd lived in a neighborhood with a community association and had no previous ideas about what an arrangement like that would be like. Of course I read the community association's covenants and guidelines before signing on the dotted line, but they didn't seem too onerous. . .
. . .That is, until I wanted to put a white picket fence around my Georgian-style house. Uh-uh. The community regs indicated only cowboy-type fences, which I thought looked stupid with this style of house. So I volunteered to join the architectural control committee, became chairman, and re-wrote the guidelines to accommodate some variations. Then I put up my picket fence and lived happily ever after. Many neighbors have thanked me for some common-sense variations in the guidelines.
While serving as chair of the committee I came to see the value of a community association, especially in an ethnically-mixed area where different ideas of beauty come into conflict and many residents do not come from a background where home ownership and home maintenance are usual.
For instance, there was one foreign national who was hanging what he said were goat carcasses on his deck--you can't imagine the flies and the smell! Turns out that the county government had no provisions to address something like this because they never dreamed anybody would hang animal carcasses on their deck, so the community association had to deal with it.
Another guy was runnning an auto body shop out of his garage in this upscale, doctors-and-lawyers neighborhood. A third family, unfamiliar with the workings of their garbage disposal, were throwing chicken guts onto the community association ground behind their house, creating a pile of refuse with a staggering odor, horrific accumulations of flies, and noisy fights between wild animals and local dogs.
Still another gentleman wanted to paint his house Barbie pink with turquoise shutters and door on grounds that such colors are historically authentic where he came from, which was Barbados. In a community full of $750,000 houses, we had people who wouldn't pick up their garbage and were parking wrecked cars on their lawns. We had people who wanted to use their front lawn park a trailer with 20 residents living in it.
Now if you sink your hard-earned savings into a house, the biggest investment of your life, and the idiot next door decides to breed miniature horses next door, do you think your investment is going to hold its value? Any real estate agent will tell you that your house will not be worth anywhere near as much if it's next to an undesirable property that is infested with flies and animal manure. Your next-door neighbor is destroying the value of your investment. So while you may believe that he should have personal freedom, do you also think he should have the freedom to take your money away? Most people would say not. And it is on this premise that community association rules are based.
That said, too many of the people who run these community associations are little Nazis. They get power-mad and obsessive, have little else to occupy their time, and like to impose their tastes on others. The way our community association dealt with this issue was to get professional management. We have a local property management firm that does nothing except handle our dues, hire contractors, maintain the pool and common areas, pick up trash, and perform the nasty duty of policing the goat-eaters. Even though I have from time to time gotten a letter from the property manager warning me to fix something that needed fixing, it's been done in a professional way so I haven't resented it. This system diminishes quarrels between neighbors and nearly eliminates the Nazi-like approach to regulation. Everything is calm and professional and runs smoothly.