Today (January 3rd), SROA General Manager, James Lewis, stated that Assistant General Manager, Keith Kessaris — the only scheduled presenter at the January 11th Sunriver You “Owners’ Forum” on proposed plant protect rules — would not provide answers to any owners’ questions.

Lewis prevented Kessaris from answering my simple request for the definitions of “physical protection” and “grouping of trees.” These terms are pivotal terms in several of the proposed rules. Without knowing what they mean and how they would be applied as part of enforcement, Sunriver homeowners cannot anticipate the impacts on their own plant protections; and, therefore, cannot make informed comments for the Board to consider prior to the Board taking action in March.

Lewis stated: “It is not Keith’s or any other staff member’s role to provide an ad hoc answer for anything that has not been forwarded by the Design Committee.”

Of course, the terms “physical protection” and “grouping of trees” were forwarded as part of the proposed rules, but Lewis is making the frankly idiotic assertion that no definitions of these terms were in the proposed rules so the staff can’t answer questions about the terms’ definitions. Right!

What this actually reveals is that Lewis, Kessaris, and the Design Committee screwed up by not including definitions and/or using clearer terms. Thus, Lewis is attempting another CYA, rather than addressing the omission.

In any case, if Kessaris were to answer other questions at the forum, but not my two, this would show “bad faith” on the part of the SROA and put the SROA in jeopardy of a legal challenge to any enforcement of the new rules.

It seems these guys never learn.