St. Petersburg, Fla.  Aug 31, 2001
SUSAN THURSTON
A Tampa Palms couple who had two months to take down an unauthorized wooden fence say they need more time to explore their options.
Joseph and Lucy Patsko had until Monday to replace their fence or face a $1,000 fine. Instead, they asked the homeowners association for an extension.
"We're not going to go without a fence," Mrs. Patsko said Wednesday. "We'd really like to resolve it, but they are being less than neighborly."
The Patskos erected the 6-foot wooden fence in March to protect their 2-year-old son from going near the road and to keep people from cutting through their yard. The backyard of their home, on Condover Court in Cambridge III, abuts busy Compton Drive near the Tampa Electric easement.
A panel of homeowners ruled in June that the wooden fence violates the community's deed restrictions and, therefore, has to go. The Tampa Palms Owners Association denied the Patskos' request for the permit in 1998.
Association manager Maura Lear said the Patskos have exhausted their appeals. She held back on imposing the fines, however, until the board gets clarification about the extension.
"I have been told . . . to send a letter back asking them to be more specific, but that is no indication that they won't be fined," she said.
The Patskos say they need time to ask the Tampa Palms Community Development District to build a brick wall along Compton Drive to help screen their fence. They are scheduled to speak at Wednesday's board meeting, which starts at 6 p.m. at the Compton Park Recreation Building.
"There has to be a happy middle here," Mrs. Patsko said. "There has to be a compromise. We all live here."
The district is in the process of figuring out next year's budget and could decide to raise taxes to pay for priority projects. At this point, the brick wall would be extra.
The Patskos say the wall would complement others throughout Tampa Palms and would make their fence less noticeable. Forcing them to replace their fence would create a financial burden, they said. They estimate it at $15,000.
The homeowner association gave the Patskos permission to erect a plastic or wrought-iron fence, but not a wooden one. Tampa Palms banned wooden fences in 1998 because many in the community had deteriorated. Several homes still have them, including some near the Patskos.
The association contends that wooden fences were not allowed when the Patskos applied for their permit. The Patskos disagree, saying they were denied before the ban went into effect.

First came the newsletters proclaiming in bold letters that the local homeowners association was, of all things, "illegal."
Then came a letter from the association itself, assuring residents that the group is perfectly legal - and advising them to ignore future issues of the renegade MiniFarms News that show up in their mailbox.
Divisions emerged within the community, and the few residents who haven't taken sides are not sure what to think.
"I'm kind of questioning what is correct and what isn't correct now," said Diane Harding, a bank worker who moved into the community last April.
Welcome to Crystal Hills Mini Farms, where the struggle between the homeowners association and dissident residents erupted this month into a battle with fiery missives landing in every property owner's mailbox.
The controversy rocking this quiet, rural neighborhood of 192 lots, north of Citrus Hills across from County Road 486, is whether the homeowners association can force property owners to pay annual dues.
The original group was created in 1978 by Context Development Corp. to maintain the community's private dirt roads. The group was involuntarily dissolved by the state in 1986, although records are unclear as to why that happened.
Nevertheless, in 1988, three homeowners created a new association to resume road maintenance. But the rest of the property owners never voted to create or join the new
group, leading resident Sal Fariello to conclude the group has no right to demand dues from residents or place liens on properties owned by people who don't pay the dues.
"What we have is a fraudulent, bogus association that is unlawfully shaking people down for money," said Fariello, who moved to the community nearly six years ago. Fariello created the MiniFarms News newsletter this month to share his views with the other property owners.
Steve Butts, who became president of the new association in February, says Fariello's charges are off-base, but he understands why some property owners are upset.
Some are facing liens and possible foreclosures for failing to pay the association's dues. Butts said 11 of the 156 property owners are delinquent on their payments.
Others are fuming about the association's abrupt decision July 2 to double the annual dues from $75 to $150 without notifying many of the property owners in advance. In a letter mailed to all property owners last week, the association acknowledged that it had failed to notify everyone and rescinded the dues increase.
For some, the last straw came in July with the limerock paving of Jinnita Street, an east-west road at the community's northern border.
One man's oak tree was cut down without his permission, and to make matters worse, he had to hire workers to haul the tree away. Another resident complained that the swale along his front yard created by the project floods his property.
The association could only afford to lay limerock on one of the three streets it hoped to pave, and the project has left the association $3,000 in debt.
Butts said the association has made mistakes but will proceed with road projects.
"This has been a very proactive board. As a result of it being proactive, some people may perceive that as a threat; others may perceive it as being overbearing," Butts said. "In reality, there's nothing that has been done by the 2001 board that hasn't been in the best interest of all property owners."
No legal power
Frank Cozza, a retired builder who moved to Crystal Hills in 1978, said the current association has no authority. Cozza says he should know: He was one of the three people who formed the new association in 1988.
When the original group dissolved in 1986, no one was left to maintain the 7 1/2 miles of dirt roads. Cozza said he and two neighbors created the new association to pick up the work.
Membership was voluntary, Cozza said, because the other property owners never voted to create an association with mandatory dues or enforcement powers.
"It was not with the intent of putting a lien or a foreclosure or things like that," Cozza said. "It didn't have that kind of intention. It was more or less a volunteer association. If you agreed to pay, okay, if not, okay."
Early letters from the association bear that out. "We ask everyone to be faithful in doing their share," reads one letter.
But the tone changed when the Rev. Hector Castro became president of the association. In a May 17, 1990, letter, Castro said the association would place liens and foreclose on the properties if dues weren't paid.
Castro said the association's authority traced back to the community's 1978 Declaration of Restrictive Covenants, which created the original group. "When we originally purchased our land from Contex(t) Development, we all had to sign a document that we would agree to pay for road maintenance," Castro's letter reads.
"Our attorney has advised us that we can enforce this document," the letter continues.
Castro did not return a call for comment.
As the new association strayed from his founding intentions, Cozza said, he left the group and refused to pay his dues. In 1993, the association filed a lien against Cozza's home for $725 of back dues with interest.
Cozza sued the association to lift the lien, but the case never made it to a court decision. In a 1995 settlement, the association agreed to drop the lien and the back dues Cozza owed, if Cozza agreed to pay dues starting in 1997.
"They lost," Cozza said, "because they had no legal power."
Smoke and mirrors
The early battles over the homeowners association were fought before Butts, the current president, moved to the neighborhood in 1999.
He said the association's attorney, Ellen Hirsch de Haan of St. Petersburg, has assured him that the group has legal authority. "Basically (the attorney's) legal opinion is . . . that all documents are legal and valid and enforceable and (we) can continue to operate on that assumption," Butts said.
Hirsch de Haan could not be reached for comment last week.
"We have a lot of smoke and mirrors because people aren't happy," Butts added. "There were a number of years in which nothing was done to bring all of the documents in line to where we could all understand them, and that is what the board is trying to do."
But the association has more legal battles ahead.
Nikki Cohen, a Fort Lauderdale resident who owns a vacant Crystal Hills tract, plans to fight the $468 lien the association placed on her property for failing to pay dues.
Cohen said she bought the property in 1982 with plans to someday build her retirement home there. She never signed an agreement to join a homeowners association, she said. Nor did she receive bylaws, treasurers' reports or proxy votes that she would expect from a legitimate homeowners association.
All she ever received, she said, were tersely worded letters demanding that she pay her dues.
"The money they claim I owe them - I'll give it to an attorney and tie them up in court before I pay it to them," Cohen said.
"I would have liked to have lived there," she added. "But now, it's getting uglier and uglier, and I don't like to be a part of that."
Then there is the case of Bob Lindsey, a Pinellas County deputy who is building his retirement home in Crystal Hills. He plans to sue the association for damaging his property when workers laid limerock on Jinnita Street last month.
Workers cut down a 25-foot oak tree from his front yard without his permission, he said, to park one of the paving vehicles. Lindsey had to spend $800 to get the downed tree removed from his yard. The association has not replaced the tree or restored his driveway to the proper grade, he said.
"I have enforced the laws of Florida for many, many years," Lindsey said. "We're sure as hell going to live by the state of Florida laws in that community, not by their laws."
Butts said workers only cleared out trees that had grown into the 25-foot roadway easement that fronts each lot. "We had places where there were trees 15 feet out into the easement," Butts said. "It's a very difficult thing to accept if somebody comes along and says this tree is in the easement and needs to be removed. People take offense, and understandably so, but they also have to understand we have a 25- foot easement for a reason."
Total chaos
Shortly after moving to Crystal Hills Mini Farms last December, Joyce Moore attended a homeowners association meeting that was "total chaos."
"Neighbors were arguing with one another, and there was general bedlam, so much so that business could not be carried out," Moore said.
The atmosphere changed when Butts took office this year, Moore said. Butts brought order to the meetings and invited county officials who could answer residents' questions about the roads and other issues, she said.
Moore thought the community was moving in the right direction - until she and other residents received the MiniFarms News letters published by neighbor Sal Fariello.
"The mailings were inflammatory and served no purpose except to stir up hard feelings, cause doubt and distrust among the residents and confuse non-resident owners," Moore said. "His 'newsletter' contained statements that bordered on untruths, cloaked in spin designed to alarm and incite our neighbors."
But Fariello, a consultant who reconstructs automobile accidents, said he has been piecing together the history of Crystal Hills Mini Farms to find the best solution to its road problems, not to cause community uproar. And he stands behind every word in his newsletters.
Aside from challenging the legitimacy of the homeowners association, Fariello is questioning whether the paving of Jinnita Street last month was legal.
The founding documents for the original and new homeowners associations charge the group with maintaining, but not improving, roads.
County code also requires county engineer approval of any road improvements, even on private roads, that will affect drainage. Fariello said the plans to pave Jinnita Street with limerock never received county review, a point Butts disputes.
It was the county's review of the project, Butts said, that prompted the association to widen Jinnita Street from 16 to 20 feet and double the limerock layer to 6 inches.
Those changes pushed the project $3,000 over budget, he said, and forced the group to postpone its plans to pave Jeremy Avenue and Benjamin Street.
Crystal Hills has grown rapidly over the past few years, Butts said, but still has about 73 homes peppered throughout the neighborhood's 192 wooded lots. New homes bring new traffic to the community's sugar sand roads, Butts said, and the community needs an association that can keep the roads passable.
"Although we haven't made everybody happy, the people on the board have made a concerted effort to do what is right," Butts said.