Well, the Community Associations Institute is raising its ugly head in the California drought debate. The state is desperately short of water. The rain’s not falling, the water canals have either dried up or been diverted to rescue the obscure delta smelt. Southern California is a rat’s nest of Homeowners Associations.
But let’s not let those lush grassy HOA lawns go unwatered. As California assemblymen debate ways of forcing HOAs out of the lawn watering business, the CAI is lobbying heavily against more drought-tolerant landscaping.
The CAI says any changes in green grass would “ruin the ambience” of neighborhoods. It would lead to a “patchwork quilt of individual landscape designs.”
Justin Beiber apparently hasn’t been the most wonderful neighbor in his ritzy California Homeowners Association. Talk about a neighborhood war. His speeding and loud parties have attracted not only HOA attention, but after eggs were thrown from Beiber’s property onto the home of a next door neighbor police snagged a search warrant and used a battering ram to get through his front door.
Beiber wasn’t arrested, although cops are continuing to search through home security video. Since this is a felony assault charge Beiber could face some time behind bars.
One of the most bald-faced embezzlers in the country has been told he’ll be spending a little time in prison.
I wrote previously about Chris Barna, who swiped almost a million dollars from the California company where he worked as controller. His firm handles the finances of a number of Homeowners Associations in California. The parent company is Associa, the HOA management firm run by Texas State Senator John Carona.
Earlier this year Barna pleaded guilty to embezzling 980,000 dollars that came out of the accounts of California Homeowners Associations
Homeowners across the country have wonderful ways to track the criminals who get themselves elected to positions of power on HOA boards. It’s heady power, indeed. And according to one of my regular searches on the web, they frequently arm themselves to take down enemies.
The greatest Google search is simply…. HOA president arrested.
That’s all! And it turns up a treasury.
The most recent incident happened last month in a Homeowners Association in the San Diego area. A 59 year old HOA president apparently didn’t like the work done by a man hired to do some work in the neighborhood. The HOA president pulled out a blade and stabbed the younger man. This gem of a neighborhood leader was arrested.
You can’t get any closer to organized crime than this one! A former city manager in a small suburb of Los Angeles has pleaded no contest to dozens of counts of fraud, embezzlement, rigging city elections and a bucket load of other felonies connected with a scandal that has rocked people across Southern California. Five former city council members, a former assistant city manager, and the former mayor of the City of Bell are still awaiting trial. More charges and indictments could still be coming, including possible federal indictments by the U.S. Attorney.
