Category Archives: Patriotism

Community Associations Institute (The Disinformation Institute)

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guest blog by George Staropoli

Think in terms of the Third Reich and the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Josef Goebbels in charge.

CAI is the modern incarnation of the Ministry. If, as has happened, CAI goes unopposed with its ongoing propaganda campaign about the grand and glorious benefits of HOAs without even whispering “constitutional violations” or “de facto private governments” who will believe anything is amiss?

What? Those malcontent, troublesome homeowners who don’t know how to live in a community with rules? That handful of trouble makers? They can’t even write decent legislation! Let the CAI lawyer/lobbyists explain the issues to you legislators so you can make better decisions.

Who would you believe?

Over the years CAI in Arizona has been basically silenced in the public media, because I would confront, challenge, and expose their lunacies and false statements whenever I could.

In the 2000 – 2005 time period the CAI repeatedly slandered homeowner advocates. We often heard statements from legislators like, “You’re just trying to get out of a contract.” “You agreed and you should have read your contract.” “Anyone who didn’t read or understand their CC&Rs and signed anyway was really stupid. I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Or even worse, “If you don’t like your HOA, just move out. That’s all!”

This year the Arizona Legislature approved SB 1482 without any questions being raised in committee. The bill was simply voted on and passed. Why? An almost identical bill was passed last year but failed in the courts. Also last year I repeatedly confronted and exposed CAI simply by quoting erroneous statements their lobbyists had made in public. Many legislators began to realize CAI was feeding them bad information. Of course, the previous law was eventually thrown out by the courts because it was fundamentally illegal.

However, CAI lobbyists still walk the halls of the legislatures whispering in each lawmaker’s ear, spreading the same old disinformation. This will never change unless voters contact their legislators and truly educate them on the issues.

More Reason For HOAs To Fear The Southwest Drought

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As I’ve said many times on this blog, our nation is facing a massive financial crisis involving a pending collapse of the dollar, with nowhere to hide. All it will take is a tipping point, just a single event. It could involve an investment gone wrong, a weather event, a crisis involving war between two nations anywhere in the world, or some moment where the world fears the stability of the US dollar. Mortgage companies will massively decrease lending for home purchases. And there’s no doubt these same mortgage companies know that the most fragile investments are in Homeowners Associations where property values can become wildly unstable because of misfeasance or malfeasance by HOA officers or managers.

But the science story linked below is one I’d never considered.

(link to drought induced earthquakes)

 

The HOA War Against Ham Radio

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Despite FCC rulings that support amateur radio hobbyists and the installation of ham radio antennas, Homeowners Associations have mightily resisted. Hobbyists have been harrassed, fined, and sued by HOAs which insist that neighborhood covenants don’t have to pay attention to federal law.

But there’s a new bill introduced in Congress which could prove interesting if it gets wide support. Republicans and Democrats are signing on to the bill. Hobbyists are mounting a nationwide campaign to get it passed into law. Of course, the HOA industry is fighting it tooth and nail, claiming such nonsense as “this is a bill that would invalidate all CC&Rs.”

But as our frequent guest blogger and commenter, Deborah Goonan, says, it’s an example of how going federal can bring results.”

Amen to that!

(link to story on amateur radio parity act)

 

Another Email Scam Warning

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Sorry that website operators have to keep warning folks, but the scammers who troll websites like Neighbors At War often send out emails to millions of people. Some are pretty convincing. But watch out for anything from the so-called U.S. Solar Department. It looks official. It’s not. All they want is your credit card number. I suspect our regular readers are a little smarter than the average folks who fall for scams. But you can certainly warn your kids and friends.

 
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Are Cities Exploiting HOA Owners?

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guest blog by Robert Frank, Colonel, USAF (Ret.)

Will Over-Taxing & Under-Maintaining Infrastructures Lead To Disasters?

Many cities claim to promote long-run ‘sustainability objectives’ following U.N. Agenda 21 policies. But, Homeowners Associations, CICs, CIDs, Condo Associations, acting as ‘private, quasi-governments’ wind up being over-taxed and under-maintained by cities.

The predicted results are windfall profits for industry and government, and failed CIDs. Is this yet another reason the HOA industry and local government is so hostile to those who question their policies and frequent overreaches?

We know that cities or counties charge the same property tax rates for all home owners. But, the costs to support HOA/Condo private property is much less than non-CIDs. This is particularly true in gated HOAs.

So, it can be reasonably argued that the local government organizations who dictate the requirements for CIDs and profit from receiving excessive taxes should either refund the surpluses to unit owners, or reserve the surpluses for future bailouts of failed CIDs.

Spending the surpluses for such unjustified things as vastly increased government worker salaries and pensions while the older CIDs are heading towards failure is unwise, selfish and immoral. This failing CID infrastructure situation for developments over 20 years old is well known.

Professor Evan McKenzie and others offer advice on CIDs to local governments and the industry. IMO those who create and highly profit from the terms, conditions and taxes created through the CID’s master plans cannot shed all responsibilities for helping to bail out failing CIDs.

We all want to avoid the kind of urban blight that happened (for somewhat different reasons) in Detroit, Michigan. But, CID common property structures seem to be designed to fail or require major (unaffordable) renovations within 20 to 50 years. This seems particularly true for gated CIDs and Condos. it seems that inventors and profiteers of such CID plans should be held at least partially responsible for enabling CIDs to sustain themselves over the long-run.

Is it not unreasonable, or at least unrealistic, to dump the total costs of common property replacement infrastructure on the backs of future unit owners using the almost unlimited power of CC&Rs during the last decades of structural life? What will that do to unit values in cities during those final decades?

As industry leaders have written, the future of CIDs is a predictable train wreck. If the HOA/Condo market is to be sustained, major changes are needed NOW in the master plans.

And, community planning is required NOW to build a balance of non-CIDs units where owners are individually responsible for their long-range planning?

Where are the better options? Industry and government demands for maintaining the “CID status quo” appears to be a formula for home owner disasters in our lifetimes!