Category Archives: Government

Real Tragedy Developing in the Las Vegas HOA Scandal

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In four decades of investigative reporting, what always burned my butt was the sweet sentences given to white collar criminals by Federal Judges. A little personal confession here, one I probably shouldn’t make, but once I became good friends with a major white collar criminal who should have been sentenced to ten years, not ten months! I like this guy. I like him a lot. I consider him a great friend. But he’s an admitted crook who’s made that same confession on national TV. And he knows he skated with only a fraction of the prison sentence he really deserved. He took great delight in talking about how easy his sentence was. He considered it a vacation, a temporary escape from a difficult domestic situation and had the benefit of an admiring Federal prison warden who occasionally took him to town on weekends to meet women! In fact, he says he got more straight sex as a federal prison inmate than he did as an outsider.

Cut to the current Federal Organized Crime Syndicate in Las Vegas which has raped and pillaged Homeowners Associations up and down the valley. 39 suspects, four of them dead in highly suspicious ‘suicides’. And the federal judge in the case is beginning to hand out what the crooks all call “pussy” jail sentences for their involvement in this hundred million dollar scam. The first prison sentences look like they’ll be about a year in federal prison. Easy duty. Over before you know it. And if you’re a good crook and keep your mouth shut about your confederates there’ll be a few handfuls of big bills to get your new life started on the other side.

This Organized Crime syndicate stole a hundred million dollars from Las Vegas homeowners. As a homeowner, all you have to do is look at the current value of your home to know how much money they stole. But even today, the powers that be who won’t be named are two of the most prominent political names, men who made millions and millions of dollars for ‘ignoring’ or even participating in this vicious scam.

Folks, just believe this crusty, hardened, wizened 40-year investigative reporter: some very big people are being overlooked in the Las Vegas RICO investigation. The Feebies (FBI) are intentionally hiding their eyes. There are at least two names who, if indicted, would be huge.

One or two of these names could actually change the political balance of an entire country!

(link to latest from las vegas review journal)

No More Flag Stories?

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I may actually have to quit doing stories on HOAs that fine and foreclose on veterans who try to display the America flag on their homes. There are just too many of them. Despite my earlier promise to report on all these outrageous cases, I’d just end up doing several such stories a day and not much else.

So, I hereby reluctantly admit that the anti-American, anti-homeowner movement, CAI, Associa, American Bar Association, ACLU are too firmly rooted in our society to ever win back our right to display the flag on our homes. We might still be able to put flag decals on car bumpers, but that, too, is under attack.

Greed is a powerful taskmaster. When a lawyer knows he can automatically make a few thousand bucks every time he sues a flag-waving veteran like Larry McMurphree, when a morally corrupt HOA board knows it can put a few hundred extra bucks in the neighborhood kitty by fining any homeowner who even thinks displaying a flag is patriotic, then I guess that portion of our battle is lost.

The really weird thing is that if you displayed a Nazi Flag or the Rainbow Flag, or any of the flags representing the Islamic Revolution, you actually might have a stronger case in court.

The courts have long recognized that certain people groups have protected status under our Constitution and cannot be allowed to suffer the indignities sometimes shown to people of other belief systems. They’ll get free representation in court. The owner of a Stars and Stripes flag never will.

Stranger still, it’s absolutely OK to desecrate the flag, trample on it, burn it, those are all protected forms of speech according to the U.S. Supreme Court.

It hurts to say all this. It really does.

(Tampa CBS story on veteran being sued by his HOA)

(Elisabeth Hasselback talks about flag story)

(good news for flag-flying veteran)

Sentimental Journey Around Southmoor Gardens

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

I was near the area so on a whim I decided to carve out a few minutes from a very busy day and see…see what my old neighborhood looks like today. My very first house was one of the smaller ones with it’s big trees, a red brick ranch with zoysia grass, and hand-picked by my dad. He called it my “starter” home.

Together, we remodeled the kitchen and I worked every weekend on one project after another after Dad died. I had an arsenal of tools and endless energy. My neighbor lady told me her husband always said I was the hardest working woman he’d ever seen. According to her, he would see me pull up in my little sports car, jump out in my high heels and suit with my briefcase in hand, and race inside. 15 minutes later I’d reappear in my overalls with my aluminum ladder (another gift from Dad) and up I’d go to clean the gutters. Back down to mow the lawn and grab the extension cord so I could trim the shrubs. Occasionally needing a bandage for a cut or scrape and once the ladder dipped and caught the ground while I was carrying it and smacked me in the eye. I wore a really deep purple, red, and black eye for several days after that. I was always busy, but I never knew somebody was observing my routine until Mrs. Neighbor told me. Today, I don’t recall her name.

What I do recall was Dad making sure I did not buy a house with an HOA. After this HOA nightmare I have been living, I observed my old neighborhood with a peaked and open-minded interest. I had totally forgotten about the pink house! It was pink before I moved there in 1984. No two houses look the same. Many had American flags flying today…and always did. Some with swimming pools and others with porch swings. Some ranches, some two stories, and one that has totally gone away. Possibly earlier today? I don’t know, but the bulldozers were still there and the earth looked freshly dug but the house was gone from the corner lot.

Today’s visit confirmed one thing for sure; that this HOA-Free neighborhood did not lose its value. I sold for double what I paid and today that house is worth double that amount. The people that bought it still own it. The city records say the average price in Southmoor Gardens is $188K but there are houses valued at $500K. Imagine that! Houses holding that kind of value with basketball goals, American flags flying, various house colors…even a pink one…fences of different styles, every color in the crayon box for front doors, paver bricks and concrete driveways and even one with gravel. Swing sets, gazebos, and wrap around porches. Nothing looked “junky” but it all looked lived in. Every single house seemed to sing “Home Sweet Home” in Kansas as I passed by.

Do those 700 residents realize they are living in a piece of paradise? Do they realize how all the HOA and CAI snobs scream about the surefire guarantee of a pink house destroying the property values in the neighborhood? Well, it’s impossible to argue with happy neighbors and increased property values, isn’t it?

Southmoor Gardens I miss you now more than ever!

Rootin’ Tootin’ Bootin’ At Ridge Creek Condos

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

Boy, Oh Boy! Is Heritage Property Management and Ridge Creek Condos in Clarkston, Georgia trying for the Georgia State Stupidity Award???

Kayla Holland is a condo renter. Her car got booted because her landlord didn’t pay the HOA dues. She out-smarted them, she had the tires, boot and all removed! An unidentified owner has his dues debited from his bank account but he got the boot, too.

But we sent them a letter, says the goofball property manager! Did the letter say we have no right to do this but we are? Did it say we are going to hold your personal vehicle hostage and act like the “repo man” even though this debt has nothing to do with your car? Even though our CC&Rs don’t list your car as part of the contract you signed when you bought into this lousy loser of a condo complex, we are using every method we can dream up to collect our dues? Does it say our next step to collect will be kidnapping your children? What does that letter and their CC&Rs say? I want to read them!

What happens if an owner or renter gets called out? Let’s say it’s a doctor or a surgical nurse… and they race to their car and find it’s booted? And some innocent accident victim dies because they can’t get to the hospital. Or, they damage a tire or rim with that boot and the driver has an accident at 75 MPH and it’s determined to be caused by damage to the tire. Or, some guy gets a six pack and a few shots of tequila under his belt and decides to wait in his car for the “boot man” to arrive… and he has a loaded pistol. What, then, Heritage Property Management and Ridge Creek Condo Board of Directors? What then?

Here’s “what then!” All the condo owners are going to be liable for a multi-million dollar settlement from a nice, big nasty lawsuit. All over a boot that should never have been placed on the vehicle in the first place!

Good Gawd! Where does it stop? HOAs can take your home, wipe out your bank account, destroy your health, and now they think they can lock up your car!!!

A special THANK YOU to Amy Napier Viteri for reporting this story!

(link to WSBTV news story on booted cars)

Is This The Future Of Your HOA?!?!

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I keep warning about the impending crash of the American Homeowners Association as we know it. You bought into your HOA because you thought it would protect property values. A few HOAs actually did maintain their value for a while. But just give it time. Throw a few lawsuits around, fine a few dozen homeowners for petty violations that could easily have been handled in a more genteel way. But there’s a moment coming when homeowners will just lease out their homes to get away from screaming board members.

A funny thing happens when the number of rental homes reaches a certain percentage: Mortgage companies quit lending. Then more homes are converted to rentals. More nastiness from the board. At some point your $200,000 investment becomes worth about twenty or thirty thousand. Then you have a neighborhood like the one linked below. Imagine owning a home in TymberSkan on the Lake.

From Florida to Overland Park, Kansas to Nevada and Crooked California a growing number of once thriving Homeowners Associations desperately need to be bulldozed.

(link to Florida’s TymberSkan HOA nightmare)

guest blog by Nila Ridings

guest blog by Nila Ridings

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