The CotoBuzz Journal, Community Journalism

September 2008 ISSUE

We do not make jokes, we simply watch the LA Times, the Orange County Register and CID/HOA board of directors and report the facts!

LETTERS

Coto de Caza The Welfare State- Subsidies, Subsidies, Subsidies......

September 9, 2008

Hello All: The CZ Board needs to deal with the subsidies going to outsiders playing on our Sports Fields (the majority of the kids) and the free loaders who live in the Estates and the Villages to generate $500,000 or more a year to support landscaping renovation. Though there is now some money going into Reserves to cover landscaping renovation (about $85,000 a year at last count), it will never be enough to cover all the work that must be done. This is a ticking time bomb for CZ that will only get worse if the Board does not have the guts to end these subsidies once and for all. If it does not happen, we are assured years of dues increases that will be inevitable.

But the mother of all subsidies is now being requested by GM, Ford and Chrysler, the Big Three auto makers in Detroit . They are asking the federal government to loan them $50 Billion at 5% interest. Small businesses that generate most of the jobs in this country can’t borrow at 5% interest if they can borrow at all. This is a taxpayer bail out of auto companies that have produced lousy products and service for years and big auto unions who have bankrupted those companies. And, the odds of these companies filing bankruptcy is about 50/50 which means that taxpayers will be left holding the bag if they go under. What are we going to do with an auto plant that may be the collateral? This is crazy. Instead, the Big Three need to renegotiate those union contracts to get serious concessions to cut their cost so they can invest in retooling rather than bloated benefits that most workers in the US do not have today. The fully loaded cost for an auto factory worker is about $60 an hour which is absurd and the reason GM has shrunk from over 400,000 employees in the US to about 76,000. Most of their production is now overseas.

Remember when I wrote that Allen Cadillac in Laguna Niguel refused to service my car after doing business with them for more than 20 years because I dinged them in the surveys for closing on Saturday. And, when I complained to GM in Detroit, they did nothing about it. Well as you might imagine, I had the last word. This year we bought two new cars within a three month period; one Japanese and one German. GM market share has fallen to 21% in the US and the numbers continue to fall because people like me are gone forever. I voted with my check book to punish them from treating a good, long term customer like crap. JM

P.S. The CZ Board needs to end the subsidies going to outsiders and other organizations and start representing the interests of our members before they raise dues again or face a revolt. It will be like the citizens with the pitch forks in the original Frankenstein movie and I will be leading the charge. Where is Governor Palin when we need her? By the way, love her!!! - Joseph Morabito, former director CZ Master Association

COMMENTS

Hi Joe:

As assemblyman Chuck Devore may say, what some call pork, others call earmarks, yet others call it good use of tax dollars. Or as a former board member may say, the association needs a responsible budget by increasing monthly dues so the community can partake of the Coto Lifestyle.

In other words, what you call subsidies, is simply a way to have the community at large enjoy the Coto Lifestyle at the expense of CZ home owners.

You will soon see that a “majority of residents” agree that services need to be upgraded (read, need to increase dues and increase subsidies), even if it takes raising CZ resident’s monthly dues – how might you ask? Simply read the latest CZ survey. - Buzz

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COMMENTS

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