Hi, my name is Tom!

Hi ... My name is Tom Beard and I with my family, have lived in Tivoli Village for close to five years. During that time I, along with a small and close group of your neighbors, have worked hard to create a community that is safe, healthy and not in financial ruin. For those of you that are new to the community or don't know the story let me give you a rundown ...

Cambridge Homes and KHovnanian were the original builders here and Sentry Management was the original management company. As the housing market began to go into the toilet Cambridge finished off the few buildings they had left and got out of the neighborhood. It just wasn't profitable for them to continue to build here. Soon after they left it was discovered that our development was built on the former Pinecastle Jeep Range ... a WWII bombing range. So, we saw the values of our homes drop because of the market and the bombs.

Next we discovered that a good portion of the southern half of the development were units bought by investors as rentals. As the market tanked homes couldn't be rented and owners stopped paying their HOA fees. This caused a large amount of money, more than $200,000 to be owed to our community with a management company that was doing nothing to retrieve it.

All this left our developer, Kyle Sanders, as the president of our HOA as we were not built out to 90%. Mr. Sanders elected to have another builder come in and build units in our community. This builder, Better Built Homes, built units that are similar in appearance but not construction and Mr. Sanders allowed one building of two car garages to be built despite the outcry of that small group of neighbors. Mr. Sanders and the board also increased our HOA fees by 15% for three years in a row.

Today Mr. Sanders continues to be our HOA president and heads our ARB. He did fire Sentry Management and replace them with Leland Management. At this time our HOA fees are DOWN to $235 a month but we are still owed more than $200,000 by owners.

I tell you all this because I need to let you know what myself and this small group of owners have done to help along the way. We are the ones that pressured the city to have speed bumps installed along Pineleaf Drive making it safe. We are the ones that asked the City of Orlando police department to review the parking here and make recommendations. Again, making it safer. We are the ones that asked the city to create a no parking area for our bus stop. We are the ones that have held community pot lucks, community dinners and parties, community clean ups and community garage sales. We are the ones that decorate at Christmas and post signs to tell people about this blog. We are the ones that hired a lawyer to sue Cambridge homes for not disclosing that we were built on a bombing range. We are the ones that have tried to start a neighborhood watch for more than four years. We are the ones that have tried to keep everyone in the loop about what is going on in Tivoli Village. And I am the one that started this blog and have written 100% of the stories on it.

It does seem like once every 18 months or so I have to remind people that this is not a blog run by our community or management company. This is mine and as it is mine I will use it for whatever purpose I see fit. If I want to support an elected official, I will! If I want to remind people to get off their lazy butt and pick up their animal waste, I will! If I want to post stories of people not following community by-laws I will. I do not get paid for this effort of mine in any way except by knowing I am doing my part to help make this community a safe place and one where my home value will not continue to disappear.

For those people that have challenged anything I have posted or emailed I invite those same people to say hello at our next HOA meeting. Maybe to meet you at our next community event. All I ask is that before you comment on my efforts, you get to know me and let me know what you are doing to help our community.

I will say this though. I will no longer e-mail members of this community as a group. In order to disseminate information I will post stories on this blog and on our Facebook page. And let me leave you with this ... As people struggle and die around the world for the rights, safety and health that we have here today, let me ask that you think about what you do. Are you doing your part? I know I am!