Tag Archives: Homeowner Association

When Will These Useful Idiots Ever Learn?

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Seniors, seniors, seniors! You’re supposed to have learned a few lessons in life. How the hell did you decide to turn all your assets over to the Sun City Shadow Hills Community Association?

Shadow Hills is a few miles southeast of Palm Springs, California. It’s only for older residents, a 55 and older community. But now that this Del Webb development is all built and sold out, the Shadow Hills board of directors has sold out to the infamous Texas state senator, John Carona. All of a sudden, the residents say, the HOA managers have gotten heavy handed.

There are threats, fines, liens and all the other good stuff that goes along with life in HOA Amerika. But there are also questions about how the board and management company is, without transparancy, handling its nine million dollar a year budget.

Ah yes, I almost forgot to mention. The HOA private security guards use radar guns. They have police powers.

A Home Depot truck was delivering carpet to one of the Shadow Hills homeowners, the first of several deliveries that day. And the driver was going seven miles-an-hour over the limit. When he hit the HOA speed trap the make-believe cop asked where he was going. He gave the name and address of his first customer, and who do you think got the $50 speeding ticket? The homeowner!

But folks, that’s the way you’re treated in a neighborhood where Associa is the management company. Yes, dear friends, Associa is Senator Carona’s company. Oh, he’s got lots of subsidiary companies like banks, insurance companies, businesses which he can mandate that the 9000 Homeowners Associations he manages patronize. ‘Patronize’ is too kind a word for Carona since these conflict-of-interest businesses are jammed down the throats of homeowners. They don’t get a choice.

But seniors? And I’m one, too. Seniors, why are you idiotic enough to buy into a Del Webb or Associa-managed community? Are you dumb as a box of rocks?

By the way, Senator Carona looks a little fat in his pictures. But that’s not fat. It’s just that his clothing is stuffed with conflicts-of interest, ethics problems, deceit, sneaky tactics, and some of the billions of dollars that he’s raking in.

Good luck, Shadow Hills seniors! Good luck.

http://tinyurl.com/ozztld5

original source:

http://www.cvindependent.com/index.php/en-US/news/local-issues/item/376-evils-of-a-monarchy-residents-of-indio-s-shadow-hills-battle-an-hoa-they-say-is-heavy-handed-greedy

Another Crook Bites The Dust!

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Somebody’s gotta write a song with that title.

Yes, indeedy, a crook who’s been stealing money from Northern California Homeowners Associations has been caught with his fingers in the graham cracker jar. Chris Barna, of Manteca, California, figured no one would be the wiser if he swiped a million or so bucks from his employer, a company that manages many HOAs in that state.

Barna saved everyone the time and money it would have taken to prosecute him. He pleaded guilty in Federal Court and agreed to pay full restitution. But that’s a laugh. If he gets the 30 year federal prison sentence, which is the maximum statutory penalty for stealing a million bucks, it’ll be a cold day in Hell before he squares up with the folks he ripped off. 

Thirty years in federal prison is way too good for creeps like this one.

http://tinyurl.com/kxxxwnl

original source:

http://www.justice.gov/usao/cae/news/docs/2012/11-2012/11-28-12Barna.html

 

Thank God For The Foot Soldiers

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No army can operate without generals, officers and foot soldiers. It’s the foot soldiers who are thrown into battle and suffer the most injuries and fatalities.

My father, a Lt. Colonel who commanded a tank battalion in Europe in 1945, was massively wounded when a bazooka hit his tank in the German town of Kaiserslautern.

All his life we kids asked him questions about being an officer in the military and what the experience was like. He refused to answer those questions, always referring to the heroism of foot soldiers who paid the highest price in the war to defeat facism. His biggest love in life was the common soldier who fought on the front lines.

My reason for writing this: There are foot soldiers in the war for a return to Constitutional rights in HOA Amerika. They don’t have websites, they don’t get interviewed, they don’t write talked-about books. But their research into the ugly, systematic abuse of homeowners, along with their ongoing emails which inform us of abuses we’d never know about otherwise, are invaluable in our battle.

Cynthia.

Jim.

Brad.

Nila.

Jonathan.

And many others.

Our community is too small, because we’re able to identify most of our ranks by first names only. But it’s growing, I promise you it’s growing.

And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Embezzlement? G’wan! It’s a Living!

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Kay Sturtz gets 30 days community service after two embezzling cases where she stole more than $35,000. In the first case a couple of years ago, she swiped $10,600 from her Homeowners Association in Washington State. The judged dropped the case after she paid back the missing money. But she apparently got that money by embezzling $26,000 from her employer, the Blue Sky Landscape Service.

Thirty five thousand bucks! Wow! That’s more than a thousand bucks a day. And she gets to luxuriate at home.

Deterrence?

Give me a break!

 http://tinyurl.com/lh9afrt

original source:

 http://www.blscourierherald.com/news/208577171.html

 

Another Day, Another HOA Dollar

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No, actually it was about 283 HOA dollars a day. But the treasurer of the Stratford Homeowners Association in a well-to-do suburb of Augusta, Georgia, is facing theft charges.

Laurie Wainwright-Vanover now stands accused of stealing more than a quarter million bucks from her Homeowners Association over a four year period. She was treasurer of her association and had access to the dues paid by all her neighbors.

Of course, she’s not guilty until proven so in a court of law. Unless she pleads guilty, innocent by reason of insanity or….better yet? How about this for a defense: Since we’re living in an era of redistribution of wealth, all she was doing was trying to help carry out national policy. Who knows? People who embezzle from their neighbors sometimes come up with some goofy excuses for doing so.

http://tinyurl.com/a7o84qg

original source:

http://www.wjbf.com/story/22182589/treasurer-arrested-accused-of-stealing-hoa-money