Links to my previous CDD updates:
7/4/25 CDD Town Hall preview
The Chairman of the Harbor Bay CDD called an emergency meeting to be held on July 9, 2025. Harbor Bay CDD rules for scheduling an emergency meeting specify the following:
The Chairperson, or Vice-Chairperson if the Chairperson is unavailable, may convene an emergency meeting of the Board without having complied with sections (1) and (3) of the Rule, to act on emergency matters that may affect the public, health, safety, or welfare. Whenever possible, the District Manager shall make reasonable efforts to provide public notice and notify all Board members of an emergency meeting twenty-four (24) hours in advance. Reasonable efforts may include telephone notification. Notice of the emergency meeting must be provided both before and after on the District’s website if it has one.
Here is the agenda outline for the emergency meeting.
My question is which one of these items is an emergency and could not wait to be discussed at the July 24th meeting? My guess is the consideration of roofing proposals is the “emergency,” but the hurricane hit Mirabay on October 9, 2024. It was an emergency in October and November. Because this Board failed to plan and failed to act does not constitute an emergency.
The “emergency” meeting was cancelled due to the inability of a quorum of three Board members to attend the said meeting in person.
What is going on with this CDD Board? The dysfunction is undeniable. The CDD is held to rules of the Florida Sunshine Act. The Florida Sunshine Act calls for all discussion of any Board-related actions to be discussed in the “sunshine.” This means that if there is something the Board may need to vote on in the future, it may only be discussed at a properly noticed public meeting. At the June meeting, there was discussion about a new problem—the password being given out for the CDD server. Not one Board member asked, “What are you talking about?” Everyone seemed to be in the know. Now while it’s possible the attorney or management company spoke to everyone one on one, the matter was not listed in the agenda packet. Where is the transparency and the sunshine?
Next, I want to talk about hurricane-damage insurance claims. The portions of the discussion about insurance claims in the minutes of the meetings from November 2024 through May 2025 are listed here. You will see in November, the Board approved proposals for repairs to submit to the insurance company as the CDD’s estimate of damages. Insurance adjusters were to be on site the first week of December (Make note of this time frame.).
In December’s CDD meeting, there was no discussion about insurance. The insurance adjusters came the first week of December, but there was no follow-up discussion.
In January, again, no discussion about insurance.
In February, two months after the adjusters were on site, the claim was working its way through the company’s process. Inspections and an engineering report were complete. Repairs to the youth clubhouse and the lighthouse repair were approved.
At the March meeting, CDD attorney Michelle Reiss said the insurance adjuster requested a call with her next week. The Board approved the clubhouse roof repair for $259,000. The Board also reviewed hiring a lawyer who specializes in insurance claims. There was Board consensus on March 20, 2025 to wait one month to do the hiring.
The April meeting was cancelled due to a lack of supervisors in attendance to reach a quorum.
In May, resident Scott Smith asked the Board if we hired our own structural engineer. Seven months after the hurricane, it takes a resident’s expertise to explain a process for a solution to the Board. GMS, our district manager, oversees 250+ districts in Florida. One would think that Mirabay was not the first district under GMS’ management that submitted a hurricane claim, yet GMS gave the CDD no guidance. Further, no one on the Board bothered to ask GMS about best practices. This is how we get into the mess we are in today. To date, the Board has yet to ask GMS for a recap of what actions went well and what didn’t go well, so the CDD has no documentation on Mirabay’s response to Hurricane Milton.
Continuing in May, Michelle Reiss said a response was received from the insurance company indicating they did not approve the full amount, and she provided a written response on May 15, 2024. I will return to this written response later.
Let’s go back to the meeting that happened in the first week of December. Here is the report.
The individuals present at the inspection were the following:
- Mr. Mark Isley, Field Operations Manager: The Mira Bay Club
- Mr. Judd Hart, Executive General Adjuster: McLarens
- Mr. Kevin Stanley, Construction Consultant: Halliwell
- Mr. Patrick Lenk, Industrial Hygienist: Halliwell
- Mr. Jonathan Clements, Construction Consultant: Halliwell
- Ms. Maritza Perez Hearst, Construction Consultant: Halliwell
- Mr. Jesus Rodriguez, PE, Senior Forensic Mechanical Engineer: Halliwell
- Mr. Athanasios Tom Marinos, PE, SI, Senior Forensic Civil/Structural Engineer: Halliwell
The numbers were seven on one. No update was given about this at a CDD meeting. The report, which is dated February 20, 2025, was done on behalf of the insurance company. At this point in time, I do not know when the CDD received the report. I made a public records request and received this report on July 3, 2025.
At the June meeting, Michelle Reiss informed the community we received a check for $186,582 from the insurance company. I have attached the detail and status of all the claims here. There was no discussion in the June meeting about how only receiving $186,582 for submitted claims of $1,377,096 might affect the budget. There was also no follow-up discussion about the hiring of the attorney who specializes in insurance disputes even though the Board agreed in March that they would wait one month and then discuss the matter further.
On May 15, 2024, Michelle Reiss writes a letter to the insurance company that can be seen here. There was no Board discussion about this correspondence in May or June.
Why aren’t these very important issues discussed at Board meetings? Why aren’t these reports and letters included in the agenda packet for all to see? Why isn’t this Board transparent as to what is happening?
And now you should understand why the June meeting was so dysfunctional. Right now, the proverbial excrement is about to hit the fan. The knives are coming out and the backstabbing has begun. No one will take responsibility.
This problem will not be fixed by this Board. This Board is being led by Chairman Dan Leventry. He should definitely resign.