|
Information and Resources for the residents of Langley Grove Estates |
Could have, should have...
|
Parkbridge Silences local residents |
October 1st, 2009
After many weeks of negotiations with Langley Grove Estates management and Parkbridge lifestyle communities, to implement major upgrades to the Langley Grove Estates Community website, Parkbridge has taken the low road and redirected our community owned domain to their own corporate website.
Seems someone had a problem with a negative review of the local Otter Co-Op that we posted and rather than accept that residents here have a right to their own opinions, they just hijacked the site and redirected it to silence any further resident discussions.
Apparently Co-Op donates goods to the local social committee on a regular basis and Paul felt this negative review might impact that. And well it should! As the administrator of this website, and to be fair, I sent a notification of that review to the top 5 management contacts at Otter Co-Op and not one of them offered so much as a "message received".
When Paul demanded that I post a retraction and apologize to Co-Op, I absolutely refused. For one thing, I'd just suffered a heart attack and advised him I wouldn't be contacting anyone for a while. Secondly, I have a right to my own opinion and since this is a community website, not a company website, management has no right to make any demands or censor any content.
For those with Co-Op gas accounts, the equity arrangement must be a sweet deal. For those of us on fixed incomes and limited mobility who are forced to pay 50% to 200% above average for our groceries and only see a 4.75% return at the end of the year, it makes no sense at all. While it might seem very noble for Co-Op to be charitable towards the social committee, to me it seems like I'm the one paying the price for that charity.
When I look at what Otter Co-Op has become, I just think "Pyramid Scheme". Someone is getting very rich obviously. New banks, multiple new gas stations, and still only 4.75% back?
I remember many years ago driving from Surrey to spend an afternoon looking through the hardware section at Co-Op. There were so many little items that you just wouldn't find anywhere else. Years later, when my kids were old enough to be interested in inventing or creating new things, they'd beg me to take them to Co-Op to rummage through the hardware section for ideas. Now it just resembles a poorly organized imitation of walmart's hardware section. And the prices... might as well be buying those items at Chevrons town pantry.
Anyway, from there the situation just degraded and between the local cabals and calgary, someone decided to just steal the .com domain away without a word.
More than a week later, their Eastern IT manager finally offered an explanation for the hijacking and an apology for their conduct. In a reasonably friendly exchange, I explained that there were more problems here than just the domain hijacking issue and he promised to pass those on to those with the power to address those issues.
Randy Jones, the western operations vice president contacted me the next day and basically said that they had no interest in discussing anything with a "third party" website. Excuse me?? I believe if you check the registration date on the langleygrove (dot) com domain, you'll see that we were in fact the first party website!
He stated they would not monitor your complaints here and would ignore any resident concerns posted on this site. Although they "probably could have and should have handled things differently" when hijacking the domain.
He included the usual bafflegab advertising spiel about how much better all of our lives are now that they own the property and referred to some "enhancement" programs they'd implemented (????), claimed their management was world class, etc, etc, etc.
Of course I replied with several examples of ongoing problems (a year and a half and no resolution in one case), broken promises and dates, rules not being enforced, etc. He couldn't be bothered to address that or reply but I see another weak reference to cat control in the September newsletter so I know he read it.
On the subject of the Community Newsletter, I couldn't help notice I've been omitted from any "get well wishes".
I guess I'm just not involved with the right clique here and don't rate a mention.
Anyway, regardless of the views expressed by Parkview or management, you do have a voice here.
If they won't accept or address your concerns, I'm sure the BC Rentalsman's office would be happy to intercede on your behalf.
|
| |
|
Contribute
Contact www.langleygrove.ca if you have, or know of, an article that should be published here
|
|