Heritage Harbour seeks change

HERITAGE HARBOUR — Change is coming for Heritage Harbour residents, both in their CDD meetings and in their community.

Better wetlands regulation and community involvement are issues Heritage Harbour South Community Development District’s newest supervisors Tad Parker and George Mosinskis already have etched on their notepads.

Along with its new members, who replace CDD veterans Lee Bettes and Joe Jaudon, the CDD will soon have a new chairperson and potentially a shift in board dynamics.

The duo officially took their seats on the board this week and former CDD Chairwoman Joyce Sandy resigned from the chair position at the Nov. 12 meeting for undisclosed reasons.

“The board will be changing,” Mosinskis said. “Hopefully we’ll start making good changes. There have been things that worked, and there are things we can improve.”

Mosinskis, who has attended CDD meetings as a concerned resident since 2010, noticed a shift in the way supervisors interacted with each other and the audience over the years.

CDD Vice Chairwoman Michelle Patterson has noticed the negative shift as well. Conversations between board members turned into shouting matches, Patterson said, and gave the board an appearance it didn’t like.

“We didn’t have a good connectivity on our board before,” Patterson said. “Board member communication has been reckless, not all the time, but I would like to see no reckless conversation at all. That means not being rude to one another or disrespectful. We should show integrity.”

Listening to the advice of field professionals, such as district counsel, engineers, managers and other staff members, hasn’t been the CDD’s strongest attribute, Patterson said.

“We hire professionals, so let’s use them,” Patterson said. “We should rely on the actual professionals we’ve hired. I think the skill of board listening has been very lax. We don’t have to do everything the professionals say, but we’re paying them. Can we please listen and consider what they have to say?”

Getting the community involved
The majority of the supervisors, both new and old, also agree utilizing the community and individuals who are experts in certain subjects will create a stronger bond with residents.

Letting residents know their knowledge is welcome, especially after the loss of the two longest standing board members last month, will benefit all parties, Parker said.

“It’s great to get participation from the audience and to use people who know what they’re talking about,” Parker said. “We want this community to be more of a team effort. Residents should attend meetings, do studies and plant bushes. We want people to get involved.”

By opening communication with residents more, the board hopes a more diverse crowd will go to the clubhouse for the monthly meetings.

There’s also a multitude of families living in Heritage Harbour, but that demographic rarely attends meetings.

“We must find ways to grow the audience of our meetings so that it more effectively represents the diversity of our community,” Sandy said. “We have ethnic, age and family composition differences, as well as people who come from every part of this country and abroad. We should tap into the entire residential pool, to give the CDD the leadership which is truly representative of the electorate which we serve.”

Although the forecast of the CDD’s climate is unknown, Patterson is open to the new ideas she hopes come with her new teammates.

She sees new supervisors as fresh sets of eyes.

“Losing the historicals and those experienced eyes is something we’ll miss, yes,” Patterson said. “But, once the new members have a firm understanding, they will have good ideas, too, and there’s nothing wrong with that.”