Anderson Islander

Heaven and Hell (humor?)

2011-11-22T08:29:00.001-08:00

While walking down the street one day a Corrupt Senator (that may be redundant) was hit by a car and died. His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

"Welcome to heaven," says St. Peter. "Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you."

"No problem, just let me in," says the Senator.

"Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from the higher ups. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity."

"Really?, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven," says the Senator.

"I'm sorry, but we have our rules."

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course.

In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him. Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They played a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and the finest champagne. Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly guy who is having a good time dancing and telling jokes.

They are all having such a good time that before the Senator realizes it, it's time to go. Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises.

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens in heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him, "Now it's time to visit heaven...

So, 24 hours pass with the Senator joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing harps and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

"Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity."

The Senator reflects for a minute, then he answers: "Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell."

So, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell...

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage. He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls to the ground.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulders.

"I don't understand," stammers the Senator. "Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now it's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable. What happened?"

The devil smiles at him and says, "Yesterday we were campaigning, Today, you voted."

Vote wisely

Riv now open more days

2011-10-26T17:50:00.001-07:00

Due to a revision of the Liquor Control Board rules and regulations the Lakeshore Restaurant will be serving off the "Burger" Menu
Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4pm to 9pm pending the outcome of an exemption letter.

Special offer from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Buy one get one of equal or lesser value at 50% off, may be discontinued without notice.

Come enjoy your favorite Lakeshore Burger and a cold drink!

2011-10-07T18:27:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting experience this afternoon on Anderson Island. Yoshie Wong, a candidate for Steilacoom School Board, was invited to the island by Natalie Bates for a discussion on schools and education. What I am sure surprised everyone was Ms. Wong's ability to engage in a serious discussion about education without "speechifying" or pontificatinng.
This is my first time to meet her, but I was impressed with her qualifications and straightforward demeanor. I would strongly encourage anyone consider Yoshie when they cast their vote on November 8.
If you have any questions for her, she can be reached at yoshie27@gmail.com

Open letter to the new 2011-2012 Riviera Board of Trustees

2011-09-25T19:16:00.001-07:00

Openletter to the new 2011-2012 Riviera Board of Trustees

This letter is from me and only me. It represents my ownexperiences and opinions. I am not trying to speak for anyone else. It is givenin the spirit of community. It is offered for you all to do with as you will.

I write as a former Trustee myself, as a citizen of ourcommunity who has followed the happenings of the past year in our Riviera withhorror, and an owner/investor in the Riviera Community Club.

I am impressed with the qualifications, personalities,attitudes and dedication to community of all of you. I voted for all of you forgood reason. I am convinced that you are qualified and dedicated to doing agood job for the Riviera this year. Perhaps you will find at least one goodthought in here as you proceed to unravel the issues before you.

· First, understand that as Trustees, you are not “bosses”. You are servantsof the members (Your neighbors) and you answer to them. Respect them andlisten. They are your investors and they have a personal and financial stake inyour success as a board.

· Icannot emphasize this strongly enough…. Every single one of you as ashow of good faith and as a show of a team spirit should attendthe required CAI classes, and provide updated certificates in the allowedtime. Yes, I know some of you have been through these classes in the past-evenrecent past, and they are pretty basic, but in my opinion, If you all attend the classes andall have the concepts fresh in your minds and a common commitment to them asyou embark on your new terms, I think you will all perform better as Trustees, andmuch better as a team. Remember to include the positions you are eachassigned in your classwork.

· Ananalogy if you will; Riviera Community Club is similar to a small cityor a “for profit” corporation. Similar in this way; We operate by acouncil-manager form of government like a city, or in the case of a for profitcorporation, we operate with a board of directors and management. In neither ofthese two analogous cases does the council or board actually manage. Their jobis to set overall direction, provide oversight to management, hire and firemanagement, set overall policy and establish short and long term goals and objectivesof the operation. In fact in both of the analogous situations the managementand staff provides most of the information, input and advice on decisions thecouncil/board is to act on. Not the other way around. Riviera should operatethe same way.

o Our Bylawsclearly address this issue in the section about what the Trustees may NOT do.

o AsTrustees you are volunteers, not paid executives. This is not nor should itever be a full time job. Yes there is plenty to do, but use your management andstaff (And committees) to do most of the work. Task them to provide you withgood, clear, complete information from which you can make solid decisions.

o Trusteesin our kind of organization often have full time real jobs, or are retired andshould be enjoying that retirement. The Trustee responsibility is not nor wasit ever designed to be full time. Again, the staff and management do most ofthe work. Not the trustees, ever. Nor should any of you carry keys to anythingand only the treasurer should have access to the GL software.

· Rememberalso that your authority is NOT as an individual trustee operatingindependently. Your sole authority is in your votes in public meetingsafter public discussions. Your authority is as a board group, never ever asindividuals. Yes each “officer” has specific “duties” that they must do. Butoutside of that everything you do is as a board by voting. ATrustee has no right to tell any employee what to do. The manager does that. Period.

· Makeyour decisions in public after discussions in public. Make them withthe maximum number of Trustees participating. Make them by VOTING publicly. Andfor God’s sake record every vote as required by law.

· Considerre-instating the “Chat sessions”. As a Trustee I found them veryhelpful. Two ways; 1. They allowed the board to review and discuss-askquestions about decisions they were being asked to make, so that when theactual Trustee monthly meeting took place they were prepared and could makeinformed decisions. 2. They allowed members to observe the discussionsso they also had an idea what was going on. Yep, you need to maintain controland always remember that your meetings are not member meetings, but wherepossible these chat sessions at least give members information that they canuse in their time after the formal Trustee meetings to offer questions and/orinput. Sometimes even in the chat sessions members can offer good ideas if theyare there not to harass the board. What both Trustees and members need toremember is that we are all in this together. We need to operate in thatspirit.

· Withrespect to CDC management; This Company does this for a PROFIT. They have an ax to grind. Whichis that they want to keep managing our operation for profit.

o The profitis ADDED on top of the pay that themanager is paid.

o They areunable to provide a manager who is part of our community. All the managers theyprovided lived off island. That is a BADidea for many reasons.

o Thiscompany in my opinion wanted to protect the board that hired them rather thanthe investor/members who were dissatisfied with the actions and decisions ofthe board.

o Based onthe above, I strongly urge you to immediatelydismiss CDC management and re-hire the manager who was fired by this board.(Jeff Hayes) Pay them off and remove the festering sore that hiring themresulted in. Jeff is a Riviera member/investor, a positive member of the entirecommunity, was growing in the job, and would continue to grow in the job withyour oversight and good direction. While we have struggled for decades tomaintain consistent management, Jeff could grow into a terrific long termmanager with strong ties to the community.

· Operationallyit is clear your first priority will be addressing budgetary andaccounting issues and working to regain our solid footing. It goes withoutsaying, and I will not presume to have any real insights, based on the factthat I have not seen an approved treasurer’s report for a year, and that thosewe have seen have had many-many questionable entries. You have your work cutout for you there. (Another reason why you do not need the hassle of continuingto fuss over CDC. Get them out of your hair)

· Secondpriority is getting our Lakeshore re-opened. Let the restaurantcommittee help you with that. Put them to work! LOL. This will be a majorchallenge as well. Be careful about getting into an agreement with an outsideperson to operate the restaurant. We need Riviera oversight, and with anoutside operator we lose that. If however you do look hard at such a proposal,give them free rent so they can at least make a profit. False starts are notneeded.

· Infact you may want to re-instate other committees that the previousboard dismissed, such as the golf and greens. Be sure they have a charter.

· Ifully understand that the previous board may have done many things outsidetheir authority and in fact cost us untold thousands of dollars. Itwill be tempting to try to recover that money. Not sure what I think aboutthat. I would like to see healing of this community. If you seriously thinkthat regaining those dollars from malfeasance that can be provedwill help the healing, then it should be done. If not then you need to thinkcarefully as to whether you want to spend time and energy there focusing onnegative or on the other many important tasks at hand. A tough call. I reallydo not know how much money they cost us. I do know that they left a poison inthis community that will be hard to erase. I do not envy your responsibility onthis matter.

· Yourfirst long term priority will be a complete review of our Bylaws to strengthenthem. Yes there should be a committee of members, but most importantly alegal team should be tasked with the responsibility of review and suggestingareas for modification. (And/or reviewing suggestions from the committee) Thecommittee should work with and through legal experts who work with such things.The recall fiasco is a perfect example of a need to tighten wording so a neededrecall can be accomplished with or without the cooperation of the Board beingrecalled.

o This review and revise of the Bylaws shouldnot be accomplished in a few weeks. It is a big task. Also I think a limiton the size of the committee will help it get things done. The larger thecommittee, the harder it is to make any intelligent decisions. (ThinkCongress-lol)

· As afinal gesture I offer myself to serve on the following committees shouldthe board feel I can make a contribution on any of them. I am not asking to beon all of them. Just any you feel I can contribute to: Water, By-Laws,Restaurant, Golf and greens. I would particularly be interested in a watercommittee duty.

Lastly, thank you for taking on this daunting task at thischallenging time in Riviera history. I do not envy you but I am confident youare up to the task. And if you had the patience to read this far then thank youfor that. Good luck this year!

Respectfully,

Dave Albertson

Riviera Member, Section 14, lots 12 & 13

History Myths - have fun!

2011-09-11T06:46:00.001-07:00

I have been taken in my several of these. Have you?
http://www.snopes.com/history/

The Power of Rumors

2009-05-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

There is no means of communications faster than a rumor.

Please click on the following link to hear the Scottish poem, "the Rumour."
This may tak a while to load. Copy and paste this into your browser.
http://home.centurytel.net/mollan/music/rumour.mp3

Anderson Island

2008-12-02T06:29:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Anderson Island, Washington.
No, we are not in the San Juans!

Anderson Island on Wikipedia

2008-11-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

Did you ever wonder what Wikipedia says about Anderson Island?

Check out this link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Island_(Washington)