Whew! The racket coming from Clay County, Florida is pretty funny. The county is considering an ordinance that would allow homeowners to own up to four chickens apiece, just no roosters.
Backyard chickens are a growing fad all over the country. But three Homeowners Associations on Fleming Island are kicking up a fuss. They don’t mind chickens elsewhere, but just no chickens where gentrified people can see them. The excuses they give (in the story linked below) are pretty amusing. They’re afraid if a dog sees a chicken and jumps the fence it might injure a child. (Huh?) They’re also afraid a county ordinance would supersede their contractual covenant rights. (It won’t.)
All of a sudden, the boy arrested and kicked out of school for bringing a homemade clock to school is generating wild comments from columnists on both sides of the political aisle. “Racism!” yell some. “He deserved it!” yell others.
I’m among those who are appalled that this youngster was treated so harshly. And even though I was actually one of the reporters who covered the 1999 Columbine massacre in Colorado, I still think reactionary politicians are trying to create a national police state starting with our schools. Heck, when I was growing up we didn’t even get an annual school visit from Officer Friendly. Today, there are cops at every school doorway and inspections of every lunch box before kids can get to class. What gives? Is our society really so violent that we have be such knee-jerk fear-mongers?
For many months I have been following multiple news reports involving Blossom Park Condominium in Orlando, Florida. Blossom Park is a former motel that had been converted to condos about a decade ago. Its units were sold at “affordable” prices, most of them promptly leased to tenants. When the recession hit, so did mortgage defaults. Many owners stopped paying their condo assessments. The condo association couldn’t pay its water utility bills. Within a few years, the aging structure began to deteriorate. The stairways have been deemed unsafe by Orange County building inspectors. The building has been deemed hazardous. The pool has become a slimy green swamp.
I get email every day from frustrated homeowners who are being bullied by out-of-control HOA boards. I only wish I could tell all their stories.
The advice I consistently give is for people to recognize that by moving into a Homeowners Association you have essentially bought shares in a corporation where you have no rights under the U.S. Constitution. You have essentially put your net worth and the equity of your home up as collateral against all debts, legal judgments, and legal expenses racked up by your board members and its management company. You’re legally and financially responsible for paying expenses related to embezzlement and racketeering activities by board members. We saw that in Las Vegas over the past few months with the forty or so federal convictions of HOA thieves.
HOAs raise my blood pressure. But this story really hit hard. A 14 year old budding genius named Ahmed took an invention of his to school. It was a digital clock he made as an experiment. But something caused school officials to think he’d made a bomb and they called police. Ahmed was handcuffed and led away in front of schoolmates while the bomb squad dissected his science experiment.
