Category Archives: Foreclosures

Nuclear Power: Coming To A Homeowners Association Near You

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With the burning of fossil fuels being blamed for global warming, scientists are madly scrambling to come up with new ways of generating energy to power the planet and its massive population growth.

Nuclear power has long been predicted to be the only real escape from the current energy crisis. The problem is that nuclear power plants are horribly expensive, terribly dangerous, and used fuel rods can remain radioactive for millions of years. But changes are coming.

The June issue of Popular Mechanics has a brief article about plans by Westinghouse to produce a miniature nuclear power plant that can produce 225 megawatts, enough to power more than 200,000 homes. This is a completely new kind of plant that can actually be buried underground in a ‘cooperative’ and ‘understanding’ community. It’s been more than three decades since the last approved reactor in the United States. Westinghouse promises that this reactor is different: It’s only 89 feet tall, it can be buried underground to minimize radiation release, and if it goes into shutdown (meltdown?) mode it doesn’t need electricity to cool down.

The word ‘meltdown’ is still pretty frightening to folks who remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. So there’ll be massive resistance by the public to bringing a mini-nuclear reactor to their neighborhood. Which brings up Homeowners Associations!  They’re a perfect fit. HOA neighborhoods are private non-profit corporations which do not have to follow most governmental restraints in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights. HOA boards pretty much do what they want to do, and three votes out of five on a board can control neighborhoods of thousands of homes.

Since a great many HOA board members are ethically challenged (as repeatedly documented in my new book, Neighbors At War), it would take almost nothing for a nuclear power producer to ‘buy’ the swing votes on an HOA board. Those board members could be slipped a few thousand shares of company stock. Or better yet, they might be given nice annual salaries as the Neighborhood Utility Technology Spokesmen, or N.U.T.S..

In any event, Westinghouse hopes to get federal approval for its first project in 2014.

Your HOA Protects Your Property Values

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What a hoot! Impossible as it seems, there are still homeowners who believe that bit of nonsense. When you buy a home in an HOA or Condo Association, you’re essentially pooling your net worth and life savings with a bunch of strangers, people you wouldn’t dream of inviting to lunch. Just go to any annual meeting of any HOA and listen to the yelling, the sarcasm, the accusations.

People in the Orlando, Florida area are talking about a neighborhood of elderly folks whose HOA went bankrupt in the housing bubble. An investor bought all 16 homes in the neighborhood. And now he’s jacked monthly dues up from 180 to 500 dollars. Obviously, these seniors are living on little more than Social Security. But if they don’t ante up with the monthly dues, well the investor just forecloses. There’s a killing being made in Florida, and Pennsylvania, and Northern Virginia, and Harris County, Texas, and Nevada, and California.

Yes, folks, you are looking at the future of HOA Amerika, where traditional Constitutional government has made a passive transfer to fascism and tyranny.

But my HOA protects my investment, doesn’t it?

If you say so.

http://tinyurl.com/m2wf9fh

 

The eBook is out!

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In case you hadn’t noticed, look at the left-hand column. You’ll see that our eBook is now out. If you’re a Kindle person, Please check it out! Click on it, enjoy! Then tell everyone you know that’s it’s now online.

Darcy Spears Pitches A No-Hitter

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Yes, it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out…..

And for a third time, Darcy Spears of KTNV TV has gone to the Southern Highlands Country Club area and learned it’s a community of frightened homeowners with a leadership of gangster-minded bullies. Maybe that just comes naturally for people who move to Las Vegas: Find out how to join the Mob! In her latest HOA Hall of Shame report she tries to locate the skunks who are trying to chase a black man out of the neighborhood.

Even though Louis Washington is one of the original residents of Southern Highlands, the HOA is demanding that he plant a couple of trees in his yard. Never mind that the country club just behind Washington’s house, has a few trees that clearly look like they’re dying, this monstrous HOA tyrant wants the homeowner to plant a tree right in front of his picture window, or they’ll fine him out of existence.

Darcy says this is the third time Southern Highlands has been on her Hall of Shame report, Readers of my book, Neighbors At War already know about Southern Highlands for the way it treats black families. Just go back and re-read chapter eight where I document the shameful history of Homeowners Associations and minorities. Southern Highlands is featured. In 2006, Troy McMullen, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal Online did an investigative story on how blacks are treated at Southern Highlands. It was called “Trouble in Paradise: Minorities Report Bias in Vacation areas.”

Some people just have no shame.

They’re too ignorant to have shame.

 http://tinyurl.com/mbcbgog

 One footnote: the management company which runs Southern Highlands brags that it sends out a thousand violation notices per month. Am I wrong, or does that sound a little fascist to you?

 

The Worm Turns…. (Henry VI – Wm Shakespeare)

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The victories are precious and few, but once in a while homeowners win a small victory against the fascists in HOA Amerika. An appeals court in California has issued a ruling that’s making the lawn Nazis twist in their graves.

The court ruled that all Homeowners Associations, when holding elections, must give homeowners with opposing views equal access to association media, when and if the board itself is taking a position in the election.

Amazing! This is one court in the nation that now says homeowners have rights. They cannot be shut out of the neighborhood newsletter or website. They cannot be shut up when trying to speak at the local board meeting when a campaign is in progress. The really stunning thing here is that a lower court ruled the exact opposite. But the Court of Appeals overturned the junk ruling from the lower court.

The Adams Kessler law firm, representing the HOA boards, adamantly opposed the Constitution’s Free Speech provision arguing that HOA boards have the right to stifle dissent during campaigns to amend the association’s by-laws. It argued that the HOA board was only “providing information” when it stomped on equal access provisions in California law.

The Appeals court essentially ruled that an association “board” is only a “member” of an association and does not have greater rights of access than any other member of the neighborhood.

Yes, it’s a subtle distinction, but no so subtle as to dodge the outrage of the Adams Kessler law firm. The Community Associations Institute routinely holds training seminars (think brainwashing) of the officers of HOA boards, during which it trains its puppets to always deny homeowners any access in newsletters, community bulletin boards or common areas if they hold an opposing view.

The Community Associations Institute is going to work its little black heart out to get this decision modified or overturned. CAI makes billions of dollars for its lawyers, its managers, its contractors, and its ‘training’ of board members. It simply cannot allow homeowners to regain any rights they lost to these fascist empires known as gated neighborhoods. And those billions of dollars will be thrown into the fight against this decision.

Still, my thoughts towards Adams Kessler: On this day, my friend, you lost.

The homeowners won.