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Appreciate What You Have

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 4, 2009

For family health reasons, I had to be in the northland last weekend and Connecticut did its very best to remind me why I moved to Florida. Chilly rain changing to ice and snow made driving between Norwalk Hospital to my old home in the north hills of Wilton just plain nasty.

It was 17 degrees in White Plains as I (outside!) boarded Jet Blue at 8 a.m. last Monday. By 1:30 I was playing 18 on Caloosa Greens in 70 plus weather. Thank you, Sun City Center.

As I drove past the snow-covered New Canaan golf course during my trip, I had to give thanks for what we have here. For a company in Chapter 11, WCI does a pretty good job of keeping the courses here in playable shape. It's not perfect by a long shot.

For instance, as I write this, I'm looking out my window at the 7th tee box on the Lakes and there are weeds, some of them eight or nine inches high between my house and the cart path. It ain't pretty, but these weeds are not on the course and, I assume, will be taken care of in the fullness of time.

It's been a tough winter on golf courses and truly the only advantage is that my drives are much longer. There's bounce on them there fairways. WCI has had to cut back on its maintenance crews and while it's understandable - we, the players - have some inalienable rights too, conferred on us by the payment of dues, to have golf courses that are up to standard. Up to par, if you want to be punny.

The Property Standards Issue

I've been watching the development of an SCC Task Force to create minimum property maintenance standards for some months now, and I'm disturbed by it.

For one thing, I live in Greenbriar and the Homeowners Association here has some really silly and stupid rules, such as you need approval on the color of the mulch you put on your plants. If I had ever lived in an HOA before moving here, I wouldn't have bought this house, much as I love it. I get hate mail because I have a crooked tree in my front yard. Asinine!

Now cometh Walt Cawein, past CA president and local power broker, who - with a committee of like-minded souls - wants to set standards for all homes in SCC, including those that do not have Homeowners or Property Owners associations.

This so-called Task Force was not set up with CA Board approval, but, rather was put together by Cawein and then president Paul Wheat.

The idea, I am told, is to take the "standards" to the county and have Hillsborough County's Commissioners make them into law. Thus, the county would become the enforcer of these "standards."

I am always leery of rule-making organizations that set themselves up as the arbiters of our lives.

They tend to grow bigger and make more rules and some of those rules can be idiotic, such as how high your grass can grow. One inch? Two inches? Three inches?

Then they put local "investigators" or "reporters" out to check and report those whose grass is three-and-a-half-inches high to higher authority.

I consider those people spies. People who spy on their neighbors. It's reminiscent of other regimes in other times. This kind of thing can only lead to trouble, setting neighbor against neighbor and making life impossible all around.

We already live in a contentious society and many of us have - as we have grown older - developed a cantankerous outlook.

This will compound that attitude. "Compounded Sun City Center cantankerous!" It comes trippingly from the tongue.

I'm sure this column will stir up a wasp's nest - perchance several of them on all sides of the issue. But if we don't discuss it now, if we don't look at this very, very carefully, then we'll be the worse for it.

More rules lead to more and more rules and, folks, that just isn't the way to live out the rest of our lives.

Bob Black sits on the board of directors for the Sun City Center Community Association. The opinions expressed in his column are his and do not reflect the opinions of other board members.

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