It’s always a sad day when a person in a position of trust violates the confidence he or she is given. It’s even sadder when the victims are elderly homeowners who’ve worked all their lives to save their money for retirement.
Homeowners Association boards and Property Management Companies, though, probably have more embezzlers than any other industry in America.
The latest arrest of a suspected embezzler happened in early July in St. Augustine, Florida. This blogger will enthusiastically post her name: she is 57 year old June Elizabeth Supko. She’s accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from the Captain’s Quarters Condominium Association.
Hallelujah! It took years, but members of the Sunchase Condominiums in North Austin have decided to quit being stupid. Sunchase homeowners have been paying dues for years, but their HOA board and the property manager, Nancy Thompson, refused to show them the books! Last time I looked, Texas law mandated that HOA members be allowed to see where their dues are going.
Homeowners have poured more than a million dollars down a black hole that hasn’t been audited in more than five years. Readers of this blog know that I’ve got a very low tolerance for the stench rising from tens of thousands of HOAs in almost identical situations. And Sunchase stinks to high heaven!
Everybody else has reported on this already, but I should at least get my take on the record. So here it is:
In Aurora, Colorado, a Homeowners Association is threatening to ruin the family of a three year old girl who uses colored chalk to draw flowers and hearts on the sidewalks in front of her home.
Seems that some wicked witch in the cul-de-sac complained that the chalk drawings were against the covenants and destroying the value of the neighborhood. The child, Emerson Cohen, is mystified at the dispute, but her mother is furious.
How could I live if I didn’t occasionally run across these stories and have the ability to mock them?
But God is good, and He sends me lots of links.
The Massapequa Park Village Board has decided that unmowed lawns are more of a safety hazard than letting child rapists roam the streets.
That’s right, folks. Let your grass grow an inch longer than your neighbors, and you could soon be slapped with a 10,000 dollar fine. Let’s spell that out, so there’s no mistake about the zeroes: A TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE.
Yep, I know that’s an insect, an annoying little insect. Wikipedia says katydids disguise themselves brilliantly as dead rotting leaves complete with holes in them.
I do strain for metaphors once in a while, but an HOA manager in Katy, Texas, disguised himself as a worthless piece of dead, rotting debris when he decided to steal a million dollars from his neighbors. 34 year old Taggert Mayfield pleaded guilty to money laundering, scoffing at his fiduciary dutues, and bald-faced theft from homeowners who profoundly trusted him.
