Bayonet Point, Florida is an area in Pasco County where a lot of retirees have settled. (Gulf Coast, in between Spring Hill and New Port Richey). Joesph Prudente, 66, has owned a home in the deed restricted community of Beacon Woods since 1998. The covenants require homeowners to keep their lawns covered with grass. Well, Joe’s sprinklers went kaput, his lawn turned brown, and the Beacon Woods Civic Association started a war.

Story from St. Pete Times:

Grandpa had time to do. His crime? He had disobeyed a court order that he sod the lawn at his Beacon Woods home. Prudente must stay in the Pasco County jail in Land O’Lakes until the required sod work is completed, under a September court order signed by Circuit Judge W. Lowell Bray. “He’s in prison for God knows how long because we can’t afford to sod the lawn,” said his sobbing daughter, Jennifer Lehr.

Sod that friggin’ lawn, Joe!!

In an interview at the jail Friday evening, Prudente said he thought he had made a good financial hardship case to the association: His ARM went up an extra $600 a month. Wachovia repossessed his Toyota Scion. His daughter and her two young children, who had fallen on hard times, moved in with him and his wife, Pat. “To me, keeping the house is more important than the grass,” said Prudente. “I just ignored them.” He ignored them, too, after the association filed a complaint in court. He ignored a court order in May, signed by Bray, giving Prudente 30 days to sod the yard. In June, the court also awarded the association $795 in fees, which included a $645 attorney’s fees and a $150 fee for “an expert witness.”

Wachovia repossessed his car?? That’s a good one! Hey, Wachovia is just teaching a lesson in responsibility, after all!

By September, there was still no sod. Bray found Prudente in contempt of court, but said in his order that Prudente could “purge himself of this contempt” by doing the required work within the next 30 days. That time expired Friday. “It is clear to the Court that the ability to avoid incarceration is well within the Defendant’s grasp,” Bray wrote.

So what does the Beacon Woods Civic Association board president Bob Ryan have to say about this?

“It’s a sad situation, but in the end, I have to say he brought it upon himself.”

LOL. Take a gander at the bwcai.org website. It’s typical of your homeowner associations in that it seems more like homeowner mafia. It’s run by rich pompous assholes. I mean, look at the bio for Bob Ryan - one of the first things it does is tell you his birthday, so you don’t forget, you ingrate!

Bob’s birthday is January 16th. He is a native of Buffalo, New York and has lived in
Columbus, Ohio; Atlanta, Georgia; Rochester, New York; St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands; Hilton Head, South Carolina and County Cork, Ireland.
For almost twenty years Bob and his wife Diane (who is in the process of writing her second book) have been married and together have six children. Diane has two daughters’ Bob, two sons and two daughters. The family tree also includes three grandsons, ages 12, 8, and 7. The Ryans have been living in Beacon Woods since 2004, moving from County Cork Ireland (Bob is a dual citizen) where the Ryans lived in a stone cottage in a small town on the Atlantic. While in County Cork, they explored Europe and the British Isles.
President Ryan’s educational background includes attendance at St. Charles Preparatory School in Columbus, Ohio, as well as Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio and Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, where he majored in Business Administration. Bob advises this Woodsman writer that he worked his way through college in the home office of Nationwide Insurance Companies in Columbus and stayed with them in underwriting and sales management for twelve years. He then became regional manager for upstate New York for Phoenix Mutual and had a 20-year career there in sales management. Bob also owned and operated insurance agencies in St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
Genealogy, short story writing, and golf, are Bob’s avocations. He and Diane also took time in 2006 to spend two weeks teaching English to executives in Spain, becoming friends with them in an international experiment called Pueblo Ingles.
President Bob Ryan is one of the nine directors of the Beacon Woods Civic Association Board serving the Beacon Woods community and its homeowners for the year 2008-2009

That is Bob’s bio, word-for-word. It’s a glorified “I’m way-better-than-you-so-watch-your-step” letter, basically there to tell you how fabulous he and his family are. “He brought it on himself”, indeed! Why should Bob give a damn about some old guy who can’t follow the rules? This guy spends his days playing golf and documenting his family’s glorious history for future generations to gawk at.

Holy shit! Uh, The Other Donald also does these things. Um, nevermind. Forget this story, it never happened.