A video now going viral around the country involves a Goodwill store which is inadvertently selling the personal tax records of a number of families who put donations in the Goodwill bins.
In this blog we usually concentrate on HOAs and the out-of-control tort industry. But as you watch this investigative report you’ve got to believe your personal information can be leaked when HOA boards or their attorneys dump their trash and files.
Anyway, watch this and suppress your urge to ‘freak out’.
Since becoming the sole caregiver of a loved one a few years ago, I’ve had to spend a little time in the kitchen trying to learn to cook. I passionately hate cooking. Recipes always seem suspiciously like the semester of chemistry I flunked in high school.
But in the past few years I’ve been amazed at the number of folks who know nothing about paper bag-baked turkeys.
My mother, God rest her soul, didn’t know any other way of cooking a turkey. You basically prepare the Thanksgiving bird in your favorite way. Open a brown paper bag, grab a stick of butter with your hand and smear it all over the inside of the bag. Then slide the turkey in and tightly seal the bag.
No, the bag won’t catch fire. And after the appropriate time in the oven you’ll taste an incredibly moist turkey.
Speaking of shopping bags, communities around the country are beginning to pass laws which essentially fine shoppers who ask for paper or plastic. But I promise you this: You cannot cook a turkey in a canvas reusable bag. Buttered or not.
In my new book, Neighbors at War, I delve deeply into the lust for power and how easy it is for seemingly normal homeowners to go crazy when they get their first taste of power over their neighbors. We’ve seen it among Nazi prison guards, we’ve seen it among those who guard our jails, we’ve seen it repeatedly in double-blind science experiments.
“Power corrupts. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.” (Lord Acton)
But Pennsylvanians, shattered by the recent “Cash for Kids” scandal are still trying to wrap their minds around this one. Two former judges, Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan, reportedly accepted millions of dollars in bribes from privately owned juvenile detention centers for sentencing thousands of juveniles to those institutions. “Good Lord!” you say. “Impossible!”
When you put someone into a position of power in your neighborhood, be very, very suspicious of that person. Never let down your guard. In our current system in HOA Amerika there are no checks and balances. None, whatsoever. There’s no court of last resort. There’s no Due Process. In the vast majority of Homeowners Associations there are few records, poor accounting, often no audits. Our board members have complete and total power over our lives. We try to pretend that board members are fiscally responsible for how they govern. But they really aren’t.
We’ve seen the stories: No mezuzah allowed on the doors of the Jewish. No angels standing in the rock garden in remembrance of the deceased. Now, it’s no Buddhist symbols or crosses in the flower garden for Chris Bumann who lives in the Covington Bridge HOA in Spring, Texas.
The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says the government cannot restrict our free exercise of religion. Yet, homeowners associations in Texas have a law that states they can regulate religious symbols at the homes of their members. EXCEPT, it also says they have to be in compliance with the Texas and United States Constitutions.
Of course, Chris can sue the HOA and take his case all the way to the Supreme Court per attorney Chris Tritico. That’s an option only if Mr. Bumann is willing to fund the legal battle. But even if he gets into court he will inevitably be told that when he signed his real estate papers he essentially agreed that the neighborhood’s covenants superseded his rights under either the state or federal Constitutions. At this point, though, he has 30 days to remove the statues he bought years ago. Or the HOA will get a court-order to remove them at his expense.
He feels bullied. I think he’s right.
Chris, you’ve gotten yourself on the radar screen of Covington Bridge! Selling out is the only way off. Say your prayers for a buyer to come along!
Finally, there may be a legitimate reason for a Homeowners Association! Some of my good friends will disagree, but it’s a free country. No, I take that back…it once was a free country.
Still, the story linked below might make you think some community rules might be needed, especially when former husbands and wives are feuding.
