Cory Lakes CDD

Hi Supervisors,

I just sent the following email to Mylita Butler in response to her from March 23rd. Below my email response are two suggestions that I am recommending to the board:

"Dear Mylita,

As you know, I always encourage resident participation and communication in
district matters. So, I am thankful that you reached out to us. It gives
the CDD an opportunity to respond and react.

I can not speak for the other board members. Nor, can I speak to the other
board members, so I have removed them from this email.

It was disappointing to learn that Carrie is leaving. She has been a great
asset to the community. However, you know as an expert in Human Resources,
that people leave jobs for many reasons and sometimes it can not be
prevented. You said in your email that we devalued Carrie and it's
disgusting. You also said that no one seems to think that it's an internal
problem. Oddly enough, I am a someone and you never spoke to me about it so
I don't believe it is logical to draw the conclusion that no one seems to
think it's an internal problem. In fact, when I conducted my exit interview
with Carrie, she shared with me some reasons that were in small part due to
how the CDD managed her position. And, I take full responsibility for those
reasons. However, she told me that the main reason was that she could not
progress in her position at Cory Lake Isles and as a young woman in the
middle of her career she wanted the opportunity for more upward mobility. I
can't blame her and I support her in achieving her goals.

As far as our devaluing of Frank, you offered no examples of this. However,
in your past public comments you blamed the CDD board for micro-managing
Frank, which is a form of devaluation. Here are Frank's words at his final
board meeting when discussing his resignation. He said to the board:

"The idea that the board micro-managed me? You made it a point not to. I
appreciate that. I felt that some of the committees might have been a little
bit."

In fact, Frank told me 2 months before he resigned that he wanted to resign.
I asked him why and he told me that the committees, particularly LAF, where
making large demands on his time and treated him like he reported to them
and not the board. He asked me why he had to present all of his activities
two times, once to LAF and once to the board. That is when I told him he
didn't have to. And, then he asked me if it would be OK if he didn't attend
LAF. And, I told him that it would be OK. Furthermore, that prompted the
clarification in policy regarding committees so that they understood that
the district employees reported to the District Manager and not the
committees.

I hope that all this information shows you that accusations and criticism
without a complete understanding of the facts is destructive rather than
constructive.

When Frank had made up his mind to resign it was the day after we received
an email from a resident which was deeply critical of Frank. That
resident's facts were incorrect and Frank was hurt. He told me had had
enough and the allure of moving further South made staying here
unattractive.

Which get's me to my last point regarding destructive emails and in this
case our new Facilities Manager, John. I would classify your email below in
the same category as the email Frank received which made him want to resign.
In your email, you swiftly criticize us for hiring John, without consulting
Carrie because she is a woman. You accuse John of being directionless and
not doing his job by hanging out at the beach club and making residents
uncomfortable. I can not think of a more insulting email. I am shocked
that a person of your expertise in Human Resources would even consider
sending such an email.

The fact of the matter is that John has accomplished a huge amount of tasks
since he's been here. To see this all you have to do is look through the
last several months of board packages and look at the list that he provides.
He has a great work ethic and I have found it is easy to communicate with
him. He is fully committed to the betterment of this community.
Furthermore, on several occasions it has become obvious to me and the board
that he knew more about the mechanical workings of our community's
infrastructure than vendors working on the devices. Everyone can see that
he personally gets jobs done such as painting the gym. And, unlike the
professionals that we got to do it the last time, he didn't break the
mirror. He has saved this community thousands of dollars and we should all
be thankful to him for it. One last point that I will make is that if he
has been able to accomplish all that he has done for us and still has time
to be at his base site, the beach club, then that only proves that his is
efficient at his job.

In closing, I always encourage you to communicate with your board. I fondly
recall the time that you reported a speeder on your street and showed me a
video, after which I spent two hours visiting the speeder's home and opening
their eyes to the fact that they needed to change their ways. A few months
later you told me that they had stopped speeding. It's that kind of
activism that works. But, the derogatory and hurtful email that you sent
below is not constructive for our community. Please, stick to the facts,
support your claims and take the time to demonstrate leadership in shaping
our community.

Best,
Cyril
"

At this time, I would like to make two suggestions:

1. John has done a superb job as a Facilities Manager so far and his pay is still slightly below the average FM position in neighborhoods around us. I would like to recommend that the board gives him a $2,500 raise so that he is on Par with other FMs around New Tampa. That would put him at $47,500.

2. I think that we have done well in delineating the roles of committees since Frank has left the community but there is more to be done. I would like to propose that committees send their reports to the District Manager. In turn the DM can determine which items will be taken care of as operational matters without the need for board involvement, which items should be presented to the board for review and which items should be sent back to the committees for clarification or with a final response. If committee members want to bring matters directly to the board, they have two options. One is to present them to the board during public comments as residents or, two, would be to request to be on the agenda in advance of the board meeting for a specific subject matter and time allocation request. If they choose to use public comments, any resident committee member present can give their 3 minutes to the chair to extend his/her time commenting.

Supervisors, please let me know your opinions on these to items.

Thanks,
Cyril

I would approve of this raise I'd be fine with a $3K increase

Cyril – I believe we should stick to giving committee chairs time to review their items obviously we want to ensure they are included with the Agenda ahead of time.

Mylitta responded to my email and suggested that our Facilities Manager is provided a Cory Lake Isles shirt so that residents know that he is on our staff. I like that idea.

I also think that we should run an article in the Islander with a picture of John and introducing him to the residents.

What do the other Supervisors think?

1. I am in complete agreement with raising John's salary. I am also completely on board with providing Cory Lake Isles shirts for both maintenance and office staff to wear when on duty. If you don't all agree with the shirts, I think a name tag to be worn at all times is ideal! I have said on several occasions in agreement with Mylitta's suggestion, that I agree that a maintenance assistant be hired as well.

2. I am completely flabbergasted that this is the 2nd time that you've tried to shut down the committees during our meetings. The last time this came up you tried to limit their talking time to 5 minutes. The other Board members retaliated with the rudeness of this action and firmly requested that the time length extended the committees be 10 minutes. Now, this time you are trying to completely eliminate their participation in our meeting as a monthly agenda item and simply be treated like every other resident in our neighborhood that has a random thought to share with the board. I feel that this is so incredibly rude and harsh and a complete slap in the committees faces. They work hard for our community even though they are acting in a completely voluntary role that holds no voting power. I feel that maybe you are feeling internal pressure due to some of the recent harsh and even inappropriate communication directed at you by some of the committee members. My opinion is that each committee still be offered the agreed upon 10 minute time slot with the option of extending this time as needed if there are more pressing issues. The committees work hard for our neighborhood and I feel that they should be shown respect and appreciation reflected by the board listening to what they have to say. Some of the things that they need time to present are things that we as a board have requested they do for us. How can we request them do things if we aren't willing to listen to what they investigate on our behalf?

I feel that we as a board have to keep in mind that we are in fact residents of Cory Lake Isles just the same as every committee member. Yes we were voted into an elected position to make decisions on behalf of our entire community and the committee members weren't, however that doesn't mean that they don't deserve the respect of our listening to what they have to say.

Joyce,

You are absolutely correct that the reason that I suggested directing committee requests to the District Management company and asked the other Supervisors for their opinions about my suggestion is that I feel that several current and previous committee members have barraged the CDD with destructive and dispariging public communications and I see no reason for the CDD to support committees who support individuals who are unwilling to work with the CDD in a positive and constructive way.

In addition, many of the requests being made by the committees can be handled by the District Management firm without the CDD involvement, so there would be no reason to spend our monthly meeting on issues that will be handled without our input.

However, If neither you nor Jorge are in favor of my suggestion regarding committees which means we should probably not move forward with a discussion about it.

I agree that there are certain residents in our neighborhood who do speak very negatively toward the CDD. To me this is a complete reflection on them and their level of immaturity. I personally don't feel that it is ever ok to speak to someone rudely and put them down the way that many residents feel that it is ok to do. Some of the residents who behave this way do sit on committees and others do not. I don't think that it is up to the committees to tell them that they can't sit in on their meetings as they are residents just the same. I do encourage you to over see what I refer to as the "high school drama" and continue on with the reflection staying where it belongs, on the resident who spoke so rudely and demeaning in the first place. (You have actually reminded me of this in the past as well when I've become frustrated with the negativity projected by different residents.) I just hope that residents will begin to work together and reflect a positive image associated with our neighborhood and act like educated intellectual adults instead of playing games, name calling, and speaking down towards one another. We should want to build each other up not put each other down! We are all working towards one goal, the beautification of our neighborhood and this is also reflected in the way we treat each other.

Well said, Joyce. Thank you for reminding me of my own words.

I agree with giving John the pay raise to bring him in line with other Facility Managers. Further, I believe a name Tag would be better than a T Shirt because T Shirt ware out and Name Tags don't.