hostile homeowners

Ugh. It's no wonder I don't get involved in my homeowners association. They're all a bunch of retired-nothing-better-to-do ninnys that want to use precious airtime to slam and publicly embarrass each other. I've seen 8 year olds behave with better manners. Just so you can see the pettiness, I've posted the two, not one, but two emails I've received this week from a vigilante homeowner on a stupid litigation/fence issue. What you don't see, because I lost the formatting when pasting, is the awful use of bolding and large fonts (24 pt font) to get points across. Ridiculous!

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Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:40:26 -0700
Subject: UPDATE on 9/20 Special Meeting

The below 2 notices are updates on the website and will be handed out at resident doors we don't have emails for, over the following few days. It will be a lot easier once [website] & the Board can obtain every homeowner's email and simply email updates as needed. We have only around 1/3 of homeowner emails so far. So please ask your neighbors to go to [website] and sign the resident's directory to register their email. This will be forwarded to the Board after the Special Meeting for the Discussions, Recall and voting in of Board Members.

Sept 17, 2007
IMPORTANT NOTE on Special Called Meeting

Dear Homeowner: A Special Meeting notice was recently received by all Homeowners, confirming that the only option the Board will present to the Homeowners for payment of the $83,500 debt is:
· To borrow the money from our home replacement reserve account, which is used to handle repairs and maintenance on our homes and pay back this money to our reserve account with a $500 per homeowner assessment. There is currently approximately $300,000 in our replacement reserves. However, a substantial portion of these funds have been committed for various substantial projects, such as home siding, roof repairs and other necessities (to name a few). We would pay back the money to our reserve acct. at around 8%.

REASON we are loosing around 4% annual interest we likely are earning on these reserves, sitting in the bank.

QUESTION the Board was presented with the option of re-establishing our Association’s credit line and immediately paying these incurred debts over a longer period of time, so as not to be a burden on homeowners who are on fixed incomes. This option however is NOT listed as an option on the Agenda, nor will any vote or discussion of it be considered unless we vote to add it at the meeting.
· 2 nd The president of our Association and our Attorney who represented our Board were served by opposing council requesting method of how payment would be received. The Board had delayed for 2 weeks. Because the Board did not respond to the notice, opposing council has now entered a judgement against our Association with the courts on Sept. 14th , which will now cost us another $2,245. Our Board knew its options back on August 23rd, but the majority didn’t follow through calling the Special Meeting for almost 10 days and the Board’s attorney supposedly didn’t return calls by opposing council. Nor, did the Board make any effort to contact the [former Association President] to discuss "time to pay" issues.

o Since the majority on the Board is changing dramatically over the past short weeks (with multiple resignations), most of the current Board Members realize the need to move forward to resolve this instead of the continued use of stall tactics that cost us all more money.

o Therefore if you are considering signing your proxy to someone for the 9/20 Special Meeting, do NOT provide your proxy on this matter unless you know the person you are asking to vote for you, is going to request the longer term payoff option for Homeowners on a fixed income. They should not be penalized for the mistakes of our former majority on the Board. A website has been set up by informed, concerned Home Owners who realize the need to keep ALL homeowners informed on issues such as the above. Please review [website] and click on our Sign-Up Directory to be kept informed via email. Emailed notices will be infrequent and only when issues are not fully presented by the Board to homeowners.

The [Website] Group
Our Board’s Status At present - 5 Board Members, each who approved the spending of our funds to defend the “color of fence” issue, have recently resigned from the Board. They have done so either immediately following the loss of $80,000 in Homeowner monies, or in recent weeks.The Board currently has changed President & VP from:
· Former President (resigned as pres. But wants to stay on Board)
· Vice-President (resigned)

In addition, the following Board Members who followed the course that lost our Association’s money also have resigned over the past few months:
·[names deleted]

Congrats to -New President & new VPA petition for a Special Meeting to discuss and vote on a possible recall of some of the resigned and still remaining officers, was submitted to the THEN president . He proceeded to resign from the Board but retain his Board Member “at large” status, which prevents the Board from calling this Special Meeting until it just elected new President this past Thursday. Now that a new President is elected from a different thinking side of the Board, the “Recall Discussion & Vote” special meeting will be called, at which time new Board Members will be elected. PLEASE BE SURE TO BE AT THIS MEETING!

The Homeowners need your help to get us back on track. Email if you can contribute by being on the Board or any Committees.There is no need to form “sides” in our Association, or even for [website], if there is just openness and clear communications between the Homeowners and our Board!

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Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:07:31 -0700
Subject: Tearing down Special Meeting Notices - [named person's wife]

Just a quick note.

A notice of the Special Meeting this Thursday was posted at all mail kiosks Tuesday just before the mail was delivered. Those of you that we had emails on received this notice via email the evening of the 17th. We did not try and sequester our information from either recently resigned Board Members, or from those that supported these resigned Board Members. We sent the notice to everyone! Sequestering information is what has created our Association's divide.

UNFORTUNATELY, [named person's] other half - [wife's name] (at [address]) felt she had the right to tear down every notice of the Special Meeting and destroy every copy homeowners had the ability to take home from the plastic kiosk holders. This information was reviewed by Board Members for accuracy before posting and prior to every previous Special Meeting, there has always been a posted notice at the mail kiosks, to remind homeowners. We do need a large attendance to pass a homeowner assessment!

We are sorry that [named person's wife] felt she had the right to sequester this information from the Homeowners because [named person]was listed as a recently resigned Board Member associated with the lawsuit. His emailed agreement (amongst the former Board majority) to move forward on the lawsuit after a settlement offer was made last May by the [former Association president] to tear down their fence and both parties pay their own attorneys fees - makes him a part. If that is all [named person's wife] took exception to, she could have simply removed the "Board Status" page. Instead, her choosing to be the judge of what factual information homeowners should have access to, is the very action that divides our Association.

If we are civilized adults, we should stand up for our beliefs relating to this Homeowner Association, and take credit for the actions we take that affect others. The place to do this is at Homeowner meetings. Not by feeling we were put in certain positions of authority to determine what information homeowners have a right to and what we judge inappropriate for their viewing.

NOTE - after a 30 min conversation I had with [named person] Tuesday night, to his credit he was willing to talk and did offer to pay for the lost printing cost. However he wanted his name removed because he never voted to pursue any actions against the [former Association president]. The Board very carefully avoided a vote on the [former Association President] May '07 offer to tear down their fence. They did so by private email correspondence amongst themselves to reject the offer - so no vote would have to be taken. Should the homeowners rights to full disclosure of their options for a upcoming Special Meeting be held hostage because former Board Members don't like their names mentioned ?

[Named person] was a more moderate voice on the Board, but his vote to move forward still cost us a lot of money.If [named person], [his wife] or any other former or present Board Member, feels the homeowners have a right to hear their reasons for both official and unofficial correspondence that related to how we all lost approximately 15% of our annual operating budget to a lawsuit, the Special Meeting for a Discussion, Recall vote and voting in new Board Members will be the place to stand up and speak. Since nothing has ever been added to any Board Agenda meeting to allow question/answers from the Homeowners, it seems appropriate that the homeowners get to hear from resigned Board Members at that time.

As the last line of the Special Meeting notice (pg 2) stated,There is no need to form “sides” in our Association, or even for [website], if there is just openness and clear communications between the Homeowners and our Board!

Regards, webmaster