Why Has General Manager Michael Allen Done Nothing and is Hiding the Truth?

Do you remember the letter dated March 24, 2004 addressed to The General Manager of the Grove Isle Club and Resort? The editor of the FORTY LOVE newsletter, Heinz Dinter, received a copy, presumably with the letter writer's hope the blunt but truthful letter would be published in the tennis newsletter. Heinz published it — heavily edited out of courtesy and compassion for Tennis Director Norman Schellenger and Pro Shop Manager Carol Griffin. The edited copy of the letter was published under the headline "When Frustration Boils Over: True Feelings of a Club Member." We then posted it here in the nobletruths blog on November 6, 2005 (you find it by clicking on November 2005 in the Archives).

Then general manager Raluca Leibowitz apparently ignored the letter because no one noticed anything that would indicate management took heed and fixed any of the problems documented by the Grove Isle condo owner and compulsary member of the Grove Isle Club. Some six months on the job, Michael Allen has not done anything with the contents of that letter. Of course, it is possible he did not see it when he took over from his predecessor.

However, the letter's author sent him another letter dated December 18, 2005 and attached a copy of the 2004 two-page letter.

THE FOLLOWING HAS BEEN MOVED HERE FROM THE COMMENTS SECTION (THE COMMENT WAS POSTED ON DECEMBER 28):

I want action! We are Grove Isle condo owners.

We, who are Grove Isle condominium owners, are the victims of immense greed. We are hostage of incredibly clever manipulation exhibited in our Declaration of Condominium and supporting documentation that permit people who do not render any services of value to take from us money year after year. Of course, when we purchased our condo we, or our lawyers representing us, should have read the fine-print. But who did? We trusted the honesty and integrity of those we dealt with. Surprise! Surprise!

The Grove Isle Club and Resort does not give a hoot about the Grove Isle Condo owners. But they take our money and give nothing of good value in return. We are genuinely disgusted. The Grove Isle Club is typical. Greed looms everywhere. Let me prove it to you.

I wrote the following letter to the new General Manager Michael Allen:

December 18th 2005

Michael D Allen
The General Manager
Grove Isle Club and Resort
Noble House
4 Grove Isle Drive
Coconut Grove, Fl 33133

Dear Mr. Allen:

Back in 2004 I sent a letter to the lady General Manager with my complaints about how the Club is run. She never did anything. Now I learn you are the new General Manager. So I send you that letter I sent in March 2004 and do not expect you to ignore it because we are truly fed up with what’s going on.

We are sick and tired having to pay you $1500 every year and get ripped off. If this does not improve immediately we will not pay the club membership fee that’s coming due. Additionally, I will personally see to it that others do the same. To get mailing labels addressed to the 502 Grove Isle condo owners takes one phone call and we may even start a Blog like others have already done. Maybe we join their Blog or we can also ask Heinz Dinter to build such a Blog for us.

You have been here long enough to get something done. Why should we subsidize your employees stealing from the Club? Norman Schellenger is stealing and Carole the Pro Shop Manager knows all about it. Just match the entries in her appointment book for lessons with the report she submits with the money collected or the charges to the member account. That has been going on for years. Perhaps you didn’t see my 2004 letter but you have it now.

How can the Club tolerate that? If you let them do that the other employees are entitled to steal too.

I passed a copy of the 2004 letter to Heinz Dinter but he never did anything with it then. I had hoped he would put it into his newsletter. I don’t know if he discussed it with your predecessor. I noticed he published part of my 2004 letter but he protected the tennis employees by leaving out my comments about the tennis people, the condition of the courts, and how the courts are maintained.

I will wait one week to see if you take the right action. If you don’t I will let the Club members know in the comments section of the Noble House Blog.

I wish you the best in your new position.

HERE’S THE LETTER I SENT TO THE GENERAL MANAGER OF GROVE ISLE CLUB AND RESORT (marked in red and bold-faced are those paragraphs that were not published by Heinz Dinter previously):

March 24th 2004

The General Manager
Grove Isle Club and Resort
Noble House
4 Grove Isle Drive
Coconut Grove, Fl 33133

Dear Madam:

As condo owners we are forced to pay the private profit-making enterprise Nobel House D/B/A Grove Isle Club and Resort $1500 each and every year and that’s what we get for our money.

When we play tennis the court is not taken care of. The lines are not brushed. However, your employee who is supposed to do that is busy feeding the ducks and the fish.

I am taking tennis lessons and am asked to pay cash. This way I get a break on the fee. I call to make the appointment that’s written into the appointment book but because I pay cash I don’t have to sign the ticket.

A number of the water coolers have not been working for many weeks. How come the staff does not place those orange home depot coolers on the courts so we have water to drink? These orange coolers are collecting dust while someone could have a heat stroke on the courts. The proshop has ice buckets but they are rarely used. You are looking for a nasty lawsuit if someone gets hurt on the courts.

It must cost many thousands of dollars to replace the clay that gets blown away when the wind is blowing much and that is happening frequently. Why don’t your workers turn the sprinklers on for a little while early in the morning? That will keep the clay from being blown away. But someone has to instruct the maintenance worker. What are the supervisors doing?

It is so frustrating to come to play tennis and the courts are not groomed. The staff is too busy chatting on the phone or wandering away to visit with friends. One day someone will get hurt because of the courts condition and that will cost plenty. Lawsuits in Miami cost plenty.

Favoritism at the courts is running rampant: special people get special treatment and even get away with not paying the guest fee. To me it looks like our tennis management buckles under and don’t stand up to their supervisory obligations.

Don’t you find it appalling that we have to pay when the club runs a tennis round robin and we are even asked to bring food? We have brought friends to these affairs and they could not believe that a private club maintained with member dues would scoop so low and ask for $10 and bring-along-food.

These tennis activities are like a needle in a haystack. We don’t even have one every month. And what happened to the social calendar of club activities? We don’t get anything for our money.

We have been members of several private clubs for many years (some charged much more than $1500 per year). Never have I seen so little respect for the members by the club. They stand around instead of offering service. They don’t treat us with the respect a private club member deserves. It’s like visiting Kmart. They get chummy with us and call us by our first name. They engage in talk of a personal nature that’s not appropriate. They even make passes and engage in conversation with sexual overtones. This is the first and only club where we experience such behaviour.

Every club we ever belonged to presented its members with a member directory so we could know who to call and where. At Grove Isle management believes we are a secretive society or they are simply to lazy to prepare such a directory and make it available to the members.

How serious are you treating your members according to your promise, including a break on hotel rates? I simply made a mistake identifying myself as a “club member.” Had I not done so I could have gotten a better rate at the hotel for friends who came to visit us in Miami. So you are discriminating against members.

Here is my assessment of why the service is so terrible at the Grove Isle tennis courts, the Baleen restaurant and the two bars. The staff is not properly supervised. There’s no management. The staff has no one to look up to. Leadership does not exist. And here’s the worst assessment--management’s priority focuses on their own agenda in conjunction with laziness. Of course, there is also incompetence. Supervisors and managers do not know what it takes to serve the club members in a professional manner. That’s why the Grove Isle Club and Resort cannot be a first class private club.

In the restaurant and at the bars we are charged 18% gratuity. That is effectively a 24% tip we are forced to pay even when the service is terrible.

Your accounting department does a terrible job. We talk about it a lot at tennis. Charges show up on our monthly statements that are wrong and we have to fight to get it corrected. That’s why many members do not charge anymore. Strangely enough, these wrong charges are always in favour of the club. That’s shameful. We simply cannot trust our club.

Why have the unit owners received their club membership bill and the off island members have not? It just shows the unit owners carry the club budget load.

We go to the pool and the service is lacking. Often we can’t get service and can’t get towels.

A number of our neighbours do not play tennis and they are very upset because they do not get their money’s worth when they pay the $1500 club membership fee. All they get is the 25% discount at Baleen and the hotel--that’s not even guaranteed--and that just is not worth $1500 each and every year. Some of the reasons are identified above. They get much more and much better service for their money in fine restaurants located in the neighborhood.

I could be selfish and say that’s wonderful if all condo owners pay the annual fee so I can play tennis in style. I don’t think that is going very far. These people are going to rebel and stop paying the club dues. They are even talking about suing because they don’t get what they were promised and simply don’t get their moneys’ worth. My tennis friends would ostracize me if they knew I wrote this letter. They love having all those non tennis players pay the club dues.

I am reminded of my MBA days studying & observing the performance of the supervisory personnel: It’s the “Peter Principle” confirmed.

You should do a survey on how many of the condo residents eat at Baleen, visit the 2 bars or make reservations at the hotel.

Obviously, there’s something terribly wrong when we get a new “General Manager” for the club on the average less than every 12 months. That’s evidence proving the club’s poor management that can’t be hidden when it comes to a court battle.

I wish you the utmost best in your new endeavour.

GENERAL MANAGER MICHAEL ALLEN DID NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, TO FIX ANY OF THE PROBLEMS I BROUGHT TO HIS ATTENTION.
CONCLUSION: GREED IS EVERYWHERE AND YOU AND I PAY FOR IT.