Yelling and booing erupted earlier this week when the Oak Ridge Homeowners Association finalized action giving Adelphia Cable exclusive rights to serve the community. 

In the raucous discussion that ensued, one woman said she was accused of having an affair with a man and another said her son was threatened with ejection from the meeting. 

Association President King Allison said the meeting on Monday got out of hand, but he said the decision to require homeowners to subscribe to Adelphia was done democratically. 

Ninety percent of the homeowners in Oak Ridge signed a petition months ago agreeing to the change, he said. 

The fireworks erupted at the meeting when homeowners were told by the association’s treasurer that a lien would be placed on their home if they did not subscribe to Adelphia. 

Homeowners also voted 49-13 at the meeting, with three abstentions, to bind future home buyers to use Adelphia as their cable provider, which added to the frustrations of Lura Dreim and her neighbor Connie Trappe, both of whom opposed the plan. 

Dreim said the association’s officers have harassed her and other homeowners who don’t go along with their policies, and she said the comments directed at her and Trappe at meeting were the latest effort to make them afraid. 

“I’m afraid someone’s going to get hurt here and I don’t want to be here when it happens,” Dreim said. 

She added, “They are trying to make everyone afraid. I won’t go along with Adelphia. I will get a satellite dish if I have to. If I have to go to court, I’ll go to court.” 

Trappe said one man at the meeting accused her of having an affair “with the sprinkler guy” and she considers the allegation slander. 

She said she was verbally abused for refusing to accept the mandate to subscribe to Adelphia. 

The Oak Ridge community, which is near Beverly Hills, is often described as being a congenial place to live, but she that’s not the full truth, Trappe said. 

“This thing went from congeniality to being really tacky,” she said of the meeting. “It became slanderous, defamation of character.” 

Allison said the reason the community switched to Adelphia was simple economics. 

Adelphia offered to provide the same cable services as Time Warner Cable at half the cost, Allison said, provided all 120 homes in the community subscribed to Adelphia. 

The contract with Adelphia means the association is billed every month at a bulk rate and must pay about $20 for each of the 120 homes in the community. 

Time Warner charges homeowners in Oak Ridge about $40 per month for the same service. 

Allison said the fact that the association pays a bulk rate every month means everyone must participate. 

The association would still have to pay Adelphia $20 a month per home even a homeowner doesn’t subscribe. 

That was also the reason the covenants were amended at the meeting to bind future home buyers, he said. 

As homes are sold, the association is still bound contractually to pay Adelphia $20 for that home, Allison said. 

“We say you must take Adelphia and if you don’t, we’ll put a lien on your house,” he said. 

Allison said Trappe was not accused of having an affair. He said Robert Rothenbohl made a statement about the sprinkler system and it was misinterpreted. 

Rothenbohl, who takes care of the irrigation system at the clubhouse, said Trappe has filed numerous complaints with the Southwest Florida Water Management District about water use violations. 

He said the truth is that one of the clubhouse pumps is not functioning and it was difficult to water the entire lawn in one day using a single pump. 

Now that the water district has given the association permission to water on more than one day a week, he said, they won’t be in violation. 

He said his comment to Trappe referred to her constant complaining about the irrigation. 

“I said you’re messing around with the irrigation,” he said. “I don’t know what the heck she thinks.” 

Dreim’s son, Carl, who was threatened with ejection, said he heard the same thing as Trappe. He said Rothenbohl accused Trappe of “messing around with the sprinkler guy.” 

When Allison refused to let his mother speak, Dreim said he stood and told the president to let her talk. 

He said Allison responded by telling him that if he opened his mouth again he (Allison) would personally throw him out. 

Dreim said the association is trying to restrict the economic rights of the homeowners and that’s not fair to the people who don’t want to use Adelphia. 

Dreim said she subscribed to Adelphia cable service for a time and didn’t like it. She has returned to Time Warner. 

She said now the association’s officers are threatening to put a lien against her home. 

“I think it’s lousy,” she said. “I said they were behaving like the Gestapo.”