Since 2007 newspapers and TV stations around the country have been collapsing. Newspapers like the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News and many others have simply gone out of business. But I’m learning that the Las Vegas Review-Journal is thinking about growing and creating a new investigative team. As far as I’m concerned that’s incredibly good news.
Without the investigative reporting of staff member Jeff German this country would know nothing about the massive Las Vegas HOA scandal that sent more than three dozen people, including lawyers, cops and public officials to prison.
Sara Benson is reaching out to members of Congress and asking all of us to do the same. Pass the Amateur Radio Parity Act (S. 1685). National organizations that lobby to keep HOAs in business are on the opposite side. They’re telling Senators that HAM Radio enthusiasts destroy nice neighborhoods, something as ridiculous as saying that satellite dishes destroy neighborhoods.
HAM radio operators save lives when disaster hits. To forbid them from operating in a Homeowners Association is beyond the pale. When police radios and all cell phone service went down in New York during 9/11, who was getting out messages about where ambulances and rescue boats should be sent? I’d bet dollars to doughnuts it was HAM operators. Same thing during Hurricane Katrina and any number of other natural disasters. It happened in Colorado during the Boulder flood two years ago. It happened in my state in July of 1976 when a huge flood in the Big Thompson Canyon killed 143 people and trapped thousands for days. I was there. I saw it.
The Big Thompson Flood, Loveland, Colorado
Sara thinks it’s urgent that we overcome the cacophony of false information pouring into the U.S. House and Senate. Ask your legislators, no demand of your legislators that they pay serious attention to the Amateur Radio Parity Act. I agree.
It seems like all the weird stuff happens in Vegas.
People in the Spring Valley Homeowners Association are outraged after someone sent out letters, supposedly from the HOA’s law firm asking owners not to rent or sell their homes to Blacks, Orientals, Jews.
Obviously, such a letter wasn’t sent out by an HOA. It’s just an idiot sending out a hate letter meant to provoke.
On the other hand, that’s nearly identical to the verbiage in tens of millions of real estate deeds in HOAs all across America. It’s nearly impossible to get that old language taken out of property records. Our history haunts us, doesn’t it?
I actually do drive around Colorado neighborhoods in December looking for great light displays. It was always one of my family’s most favorite and most memorable Christmas activities.
In Westfield, Indiana another dynamic light display will be shut down this year. The Hamilton County homeowner says despite raising more than 20,000 dollars for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, he’s tired of the threats of legal action by the Village Farms Homeowners Association.
Rumors are that the mastermind of the 60 million dollar Las Vegas HOA scam has reported for his federal prison sentence. I’ve long predicted that Leon Benzer would never, ever report to federal prison. He knows how to get in and out of Mexico. He once owned a tequila company there. With a 15 1/2 year prison sentence would he not be tempted to cross the border?
I’m still not giving up my suspicion that Benzer will retire to a Mexican beach. He’ll only serve half his prison time, anyway, so maybe he actually will show up. And the white collar criminals I’ve known have absolutely loved their time in prison. They’re worshiped as heroes behind bars. Of course, Benzer knows that. But we’ll see.
And yes, I’ll admit it if my prediction was wrong.
The Big Thompson Flood, Loveland, Colorado
