The four board members of the Twin Creek South Estate Homeowners Association may be among the stupidest people on Planet Earth. These knuckle dragging hominids in San Ramon, California might even qualify for the infamous annual “Darwin Award.” Their collective IQ points could easily be totaled up on one hand.
California is in the midst of a drought so bad that smaller communities are now running completely out of water. Many Californians are paying big sums of money for water brought in by truck from other states. Reservoirs are bone dry. Aquifers are drying up or becoming too saline to use. The collective weight of trillions of gallons of missing water has actually caused land along the San Andreas Fault to rise significantly triggering swarms of thousands of mini-earthquakes. The Legislature and Governor have had to enact a law forbidding Homeowners Associations from fining residents who don’t keep their lawns green. More food crops are grown in California than in any other state, but those crops are no longer being shipped to the nation’s grocery stores. That’s why you’re seeing record prices on store shelves across the country.
Yet the Twin Creek South HOA board members have the unmitigated gall to assess monthly fines against a homeowner who tried to create a drought resistant lawn.
When a KGO-ABC news crew tried to talk to these board members they refused to comment.
Of course they did. They’re too stupid to put three words together in a coherent sentence.
“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” -Robert A. Heinlein
People in Nevada know the name, “Vistana.” The Vistana Homeowners Association was ground zero for the massive FBI investigation of HOA corruption, rigged elections, racketeering, bribery, extortion, and maybe even a murder or two. Actually, they’re officially classified as suicides, but one of the lawyers who committed ‘suicide’ had his knees bashed in by ‘persons unknown’ inside his gated community. The kneecapping happened just a few months before his ‘suicide’. Ah, I forgot to add, this profoundly disabled lawyer was able to hang himself from the rafters of a barn. Suspicious? Hmmmm.
With the HOA scandal occupying all the headlines you’d think the current board and management of Vistana would be especially sensitive about obeying the letter of the law. But remember, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Yes, it seems the Vistana board needed to tow about 70 cars because of a paving project. Nevada has strict laws governing the towing of cars. But did the board follow the laws? Any of them? I’ll let KTNV reporter Darcy Spears answer that question in her HOA Hall Of Shame, linked below.
The State of Nevada has actually filed criminal charges against those responsible for the Vistana towing atrocity. Strange to think of a Nevada crime prosecuting body actually doing some prosecuting!
What if your condominium leaks like a sieve? What if the streets flood every time it rains? What if your condo building develops foundation cracks and unexplained build up of mold?
Owners may assume that reporting serious problems to the Board will result in sincere concern and earnest investigation of possible construction defects. They might expect the Board to insist that responsible parties pay for damages and repairs. But what if one of the association Board members is affiliated with the Developer?
Residents of Boathouse Condominiums, Bay City, Michigan, have complained of numerous defects but have run into resistance. Their Board has denied their request to seek defect claims against the developer of their 37-unit high-end boathouse conversion, Marina Place LLC. The Agent of the Developer’s corporation just so happens to be a member of the Board at Boathouse Condominiums.
So nineteen residents have filed their own lawsuit against the Developer and construction company, alleging numerous defects that allow water intrusion into the units, and a faulty foundation. But the lawsuit also lists the HOA as a defendant, for failure to address their concerns.
The Developer denies knowledge of defects, and seeks proof of damages.
Attorneys for both sides are already engaged. This battle could get expensive.
Yes, I know it’s wearying. But homeowners across the country just don’t realize how vulnerable their unregulated, uninspected, unwatched board members are to temptation. Egads! Give an ignorant board officer or property manager control over several million dollars in HOA funds….tell him or her that nobody’s watching, nobody’s prosecuting. Of course they’re going to steal! They will! In fact, they’ll steal more and more as long as they think they’re getting away with it. Obviously, I’m exaggerating, but not by much!
The latest embezzlement apparently involves hundreds of thousands of dollars missing from Rio Rancho, New Mexico.
LOL! As I recall, this neighborhood had a very shady reputation right from the beginning. Some very suspicious characters (former Florida swampland salesmen) bought up tens of thousands of acres back in the 50s and 60s for pennies an acre. It was absolutely dry, worthless desert land. They advertised on the radio and in TV Guide, “Buy a five acre ranchette in Paradise for just 199 dollars. Know how I remember? My own parents bought a parcel . In fact, it’s still in the family’s estate if anyone wants to buy it….cheap!
Anyway, decades later people actually started building houses, and Intel set up a big computer operation there to take advantage of the cheap labor. So fifty years later there’s actually a development….and a Homeowners Association. An Association that’s now complaining because some swine embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from the HOA bank account.
In my earlier guest blog this month, Uncovering The Real Community Associations Institute (CAI), I presented a number of CAI quotes on where it stood regarding constitutional protections for homeowners, and its claim that HOAs are not governments in fact. What does the HOA Establishment find so horrible, so objectionable, so damaging as to give rise to its rejection of our system of constitutional government?
The only arguments of any worth, regardless of how slight, is the false claim that HOAs are businesses and that this new form of government is what all the members signed up for and is the voice of the members. Really? In earlier internet postings on HOA Constitutional Government I presented the alternative of using special tax districts as a vehicle to return HOAs to the Union. This week I presented arguments that HOAs violate local home rule doctrine and are outlaw governments. HOAs violate even the most liberal of home rule statutes; statutes that would give the HOA concept all the local government control of the community, except its creation would now be subject to state approval and to our system of constitutional government.
As an example of how this approach is very do-able, I received info on Florida’s Community Development Districts, a form of taxing districts, but one not quite suitable for HOA governance. However, the MEADOW POINTE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT, GENERAL AND PROCEDURAL RULES document provides an example of the benefits and protections of creating HOA taxing districts. The Rules document spells out the procedures for managing the district under the state’s Administrative Procedures Act, Rule-Making statutes. It contains rules for record access, open meeting, board conflict-of-interests, etc. all under the municipality statutes. This is important as district boards and officers, as government employees, are subject to civil penalties of up to $10,000.
What it shows by concrete example is the protections of rights and freedoms for all the people; and a long standing legal doctrine or set of laws written not by profit-seeking lawyers and developers, but by people concerned with good local government under the constitution. It is an extension of the liberal home rule doctrine for local government and good for the people, the community and this country.
