When I’m tired and I can’t sleep I count my blessings instead of sheep. HAH.
No, I DO count my blessings, of which there is an endless stream. Yet in these jam-packed days my pre-frontal cortex is often involuntarily wrenched into a sharp left turn, to the big-fat OBSESSIVE lobe, the lobe where disturbing thoughts DWELL, where in THESE troubled times the VERY SAME unanswered question, over and over and over burbles and marinates and ferments, (I am VERY big into fermentation, and one of the often overlooked blessings of a life in Town Center is the opportunity to see LOTS of bacteria in action. It’s EVERYWHERE, really.)
Isolating my point here,THE GREAT unanswerable question, the Razor’s Edge of my quest, the question which holds its own alongside such ALL TIME great QUESTIONS as chicken/egg?, tree/forest?, cat/box? is Lexin/Plan.?
My extensive online searches have yet to produce even one streaming view inside the clanging, erratic, cash-clogged Windmills of Metin Negrin’s Mind. Consequently I have had to create my OWN, completely imaginary view of a possible Lexin BUSINESS PLAN.* and have had to do it working backwards (as if I were writing notecards for a report, which is ALSO the only way notecards truly work out.) 
I mean it, just WHAT is the PLAN The Wizard of Lexin has for Town Center? APPRECIATION, DEPRECIATION and ROI are often listed Goals for Real Estate Investors. SO Methodical DISINTEGRATION is a SURPRISING addition, particularly in the NUMBER ONE spot, as it is here in Town Center. Since 2004 when Disney met Lexin and the Town Center Death Dance began Maintenance in all its forms has been systematically and WILLFULLY ignored.
In WHAT Business Plan does this become logical? How do you take an investment of no SMALL magnitude and leave it outside in the rain, unprotected from the ravaging Florida Sun and the Impressive Florida Rain? Just like an unloved sweater.
FORGET the fact that we Town Center Owners had faith in The Promises of Extremely well paid lawyers. We cheerfully booked our cabins on The Lexin Titanic with all the confidence in the world that Our Captain was NOT bat-shit crazy, and would NEVER NEVER NEVER set an iceberg-attracting compass on the auto pilot.
But this ongoing philosophy, at first leaving us in Town Center looking, like a bit of Celebration Shabby-Chic next to the other PRISTINE villages, seemed to be an anomaly. Over time however a methodical pattern made itself apparent. In the TWELVE years since Lexin began captaining our little ship there has not been ONE significant example of preventive maintenance. The FIRST roof repair-other than some tar and muscovy feather patching-was at 709 Bloom Street, in 2014 and remains a MASSIVE failure.
There have been some laughable attempts at painting during which the on-staff Lexin workers, uninstructed in the ways of professional equipment such as “drop-cloths” and “ladders”were slowed by constantly having to pick mulch, or rotted wood out of their brushes, and an impromptu “average height” evaluation of the staff could be made by seeing just how high they could paint on their tippy-toes.
Over the years the Mortgage on the town has gone UP, UP, UP.
And the estimated costs of REPAIRS has gone UP, UP, UP.
Yet Lexin’s commitment to maintenance has remained level. Most of the funds handed over to the Foundation are for OPERATIONS. Massive electricity, massive trash, massive insurance, vague items which hardly seem to be of “SHARED-BENEFIT” value to unit owners are on our bill.
This introductory essay seeks to trigger thought and conversations about what might be below the water-line where bottom feeders dwell. If one simply looks at the facts-the equity has been stripped, the repairs needed are monumental and the situation is now obvious and dangerous to the residents. Is the LACK of systematic maintenance and the removal of equity the PLAN itself? There are some pretty dire possibilities if one dares to explore THAT part of Metin’s mind.
Bonus Thought-IF I Ran The Zoo.
If I had been so fortunate as to purchase Town Center I would have immediately bought crisp and fine looking painter’s garb from the Uniform Section of the Land’s End website. AND I would be reading This Old House TUTORIALS night and day, The BEST roofing company in Florida would be on my SPEED DIAL.And I would have populated my management company with skilled communicators who perceived their FIRST and FOREMOST raison d’être to treat the buildings and their occupants as RESPECTED partners in an extraordinary venture. EVERYBODY on staff would be able to recognize CAULK, even carrying CAULK GUNS on their belts.
*That is my official disclaimer as everything written here is conjecture, intended to induce a zen-like objective calm over any attorney who might happen upon this post.
Rescuing Celebration 