Courtesy of The Beaches -- Shorelines

By Christina Abel

Published Saturday, August 6, 2005

PONTE VEDRA BEACH -- Michael Dubin's problems in the Sawgrass subdivision began 21 years ago, when he moved into the gated community the day before Christmas.

He said a neighbor approached him within 30 minutes of his moving in and urged him to put Christmas lights in his driveway, even though Dubin explained that he is Jewish and doesn't celebrate the holiday.

Dubin said the neighbor persisted, saying all Sawgrass residents put up Christmas lights.

That was the first indication that he was going to run into religious problems in the community, Dubin said.

The Dubins had been corresponding with HUD since 1995. But Karen Dubin decided to file the harassment complaint because the Sawgrass Association, the complex's homeowners association, had sued the Dubins in 2004.

The lawsuit cited the Dubins for "failing to maintain their property in a non-offensive manner" and said the Dubins' home is "offensive and a source of embarrassment and annoyance."

The lawsuit is ongoing, with the Dubins filing counterclaims and motions for dismissal, and the Sawgrass Association filing a motion for final judgement against the defendants. A court date has not been set, but the Dubins have requested a trial date after Oct. 26. Association President Jim Scielzo said he would not comment because the case is ongoing.

Meanwhile, the Commission on Human Relations continues to investigate the harassment complaints. Ila Sharpe, the Dubins' contact at the Florida Commission on Human Relations, said the commission would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

The complaint includes police reports that someone keyed, egged and threw beer bottles at their cars, destroyed their mailbox, damaged their garage door and made death threats to the family over the phone.

Though a police report was not filed in the HUD complaint, Karen Dubin said swastikas were drawn on their driveway in 1995.

"I had gone out early to get the newspaper and found all of the swastikas," she said. "There must have been 10 or 12 of them and, you know, the only thing I could think of doing was to take the power hose and hose them off."

The HUD complaint also says the Dubins' neighbors refuse to talk to her, that other children refuse to play with her 4-year-old son and that she had to move out of state because of the constant harassment. But Michael Dubin still lives in the Preston Trail West home with their children. He said the incidents have made his family's life in Ponte Vedra Beach unbearable.

"People don't like us who have never even talked to us and one day you get to the point and say, 'That's enough, I've had all I'm going to take,'" he said.

Dubin said the Sawgrass Association sued them in February 2004, and that he took issue with the claims in the suit.

The association's suit says the Dubins failed to maintain the exterior of their home and that the paint was spotty, peeling or chipping, and that they have installed a television antenna disguised as an umbrella on their lot without prior approval.

However, in a Sept. 15, 1995, letter to Karen Dubin, the association's Architectural Review Committee approved the Dubins' "satellite dish/umbrella."

The association's suit also says the Sawgrass Association sent letters to the Dubins in August and October 2003 and January 2004, demanding that they paint their house, fix their overgrown and unsightly landscaping and remove the oversized satellite dish.

But in the Sawgrass Association's letters to the Dubins on those dates, no specifics are given about what the Dubins needed to do to make their home comply with the rules and regulations.

Michael Dubin said he has been complying with the rules and regulations all along.

Since March 2004, he said, he has been re-siding his house in stages. He said the project is 75 percent complete and that within the last two weeks he has torn down old siding, put in new plywood and covered it with HardiBoard, a concrete siding.

Dubin said he also wonders why his neighbors, two of whom have failed to maintain the exterior of their homes, have not been sued.

For example, the back of one home has chipped and peeling paint that is visible from the Sawgrass golf course and a trellis that is only half painted. The home next to the Dubins has a side with two different tones of brown paint.

Since the association sued in 2004, Karen Dubin brought two counterclaims, the first of which seeks damages that could amount to $200,000 or more against the association, and a motion to dismiss the lawsuit because, Dubin said, the Sawgrass Association lawsuit "was filed without offering mediation to the defendants."

But Walter Rohrer, the former chairman of the Sawgrass Association, was quoted in a June 24 Shorelines story saying the association did offer to settle the complaint out of court.

Michael Dubin said they were never offered an out-of-court settlement. The Dubins have since filed a motion in court asking for the "original dated copy of the out-of-court settlement directly referred to in the front page."

On Monday, the Sawgrass Association's lawyer, Chris Draper, sent an e-mail to the Dubins regarding the request for a copy of the settlement.

Draper refused to comply. "Any settlement offer is privileged and not admissable so I will not be producing anything," Draper wrote in the e-mail.