Sunday, May 18, 2008

Fool me twice, Schöne Ansicht, can't get fooled again

Remember that nice apology note I got from the Schöne Ansicht townhouse owner, Joel Ridley, about a recent late-night brawling and pissing party? Well, I found out yesterday that, while Mr. Ridley lives in another neighborhood, he uses his townhouse as a "party house" on some weekends (last weekend was not the first party he's had, but merely the first one to impose on a wider audience of homes). That sounds like a pretty sweet deal for him (what with saving his neighborhood from being trashed and annoyed), but it was totally bad form, if not bad faith, not to claim that in his correspondence with me. I think a property owner whose parties become increasingly intrusive and destructive to surrounding property owners have some obligation to be honest and accountable.

This is akin to the time in construction when a Schöne Ansicht developer wrote me an e-mail assuring me that stormwater run-off on the development would be channeled to the storm sewer. Consequently, I spoke up for the developer in a Salemtown Neighbors meeting when the issue came up only to be rebuffed by neighbors who told me that the developer was lying. Later, of course, I found out that indeed what he wrote me was not true and that he was channelling water via the surface to a tank and to the alley. Is the place just cursed with people who make bad decisions and won't own up to them?

Well, I bought Mr. Ridley's apology without question only to find out that he was not being entirely above board on the issue of his late-night party habits. And I wrote a good will post only to have it come back up and bite me now. So, I'm back to a deeper shade of jade about Schöne Ansicht, and the latest word on the street is that the developers have shown no support for a community meeting with the other members of the Schöne Ansicht homeowners association on the subject of late-night parties. No surprise there. They've never bothered to listen to anyone remotely connected to an association.

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