New Territory Sentinel
Sugar Land, Texas
Just for fun - sort of... http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=117457&title=Not-in-Your-Front-Yard
First State Texas Homeowners Conference
The first Texas Homeowners for HOA Reform conference brought homeowners to Houston from across the state. Also attending the October 11, 2008 conference was the nationally known host of "On the Commons" - Shu Bartholomew.
As many related the abuses and problems they have suffered, it became evident that these are not "isolated instances" but the norm. A power-point presentation of the updated HOAdata.org database confirmed that foreclosure filings, fines, fees, and other charges have increased dramatically. Although presented at the conference, the 2002-2007 information has not yet been posted to the HOAdata website.
The structure and secrecy surrounding HOA operations encourages the injustices and abuses suffered by homeowners as they have become the victims of embezzlement, discrimination, extortion, and economic terrorism. The primary beneficiaries of the HOAs are not the members but rather the vendors of the association.
Homeowners listed their problems and the solutions needed. A consensus for action will now be determined and sent to members for their approval.
FBISD's Science Problem FBISD Ordered By Texas Attorney General To Turn Over Requested "Global Science Center" Documents & Communications
God Bless HOA Reform and The Powerfully Informed, Iron-Willed Community of Meadowcreek! - A Beacon of Hope For All Homeowners
and A Fearsome Symbol To All Despotic HOAs
OOPs... the despotic leaches are still hanging-on !!!$$$$, but they cannot win with informed homeowners! The old guard's days are numbered, and perhaps a class action suit as well! But meanwhile, the Meadowcreek drama continues...
Saturday, January 30, 2010
AND THE MEETING WENT SOUTH
The “Special Meeting” of the Board of Directors was called to order on Saturday, January 30th at approximately 10 AM as planned. We know that this was a special meeting of the board, as the agenda provided to attending board members clearly stated that fact in the title section.
Ms. Mildred Mills, early in the meeting, made a motion that the meeting be closed, as a few folks other that the board were present. Mr. Whittaker seconded this motion, and the motion was submitted to a vote. Three members voted for a closed meeting (old board) and four members (new board) voted for an open meeting.
The meeting almost immediately took a turn for the worse, with some folks calling for an “informal” meeting (one where no actions could be taken) and others calling for an official meeting (actions taken would be binding). It was apparent that no consensus would emerge, and things continued to degrade. The old board members were each handed a copy of a Petition calling for the removal of three old board members (Mildred Mills, Claude Whittaker and David Hamner) and these were promptly tossed with no acceptance or acknowledgement of receipt by an old board member, including the acting President. The petition, signed by over one hundred sixty (160) residents was apparently not to the liking of the old board, so they elected to simply ignore it.
Then the meeting somehow gravitated to the parking lot, where a lot of discussion continued. Ms. Mills, apparently not at all pleased, once again called the police to come to the clubhouse to enforce something or other. While some voices were perhaps a little above average in volume, no threats or violence was noted, so it is difficult to determine exactly what she wanted the police to do. As no arrests were made, it seems clear that the officers who made the call did not feel that any laws were violated.
As no motion to adjourn was made and seconded, it is not clear as to how the meeting dissolved, but it did. It makes on wonder how an official meeting of a board of directors can abruptly end without proper procedures.
All of the members (residents) who took the time to sign the Petition for Removal should be incensed. They also need to attend the scheduled February meeting of the board. The board is elected to represent the homeowners – not rule them. The time to reclaim our board is long overdue, and the only way to do this is to insist on order and proper procedures.
There is NO “Homeowner’s" Association in New Territory!
We do, however, have a money draining “association of contractors” who will take our last dollar, while they control us with fear and manipulation about purple houses, and the need to turn-in our neighbors for better property values. Meanwhile, they harvest our equity in bloated annual dues, fines, fees, foreclosures, selling off our common property, and "waste, waste, waste."
Good communities are not built on economic and judicial terrorism, or the corruption and deception of embedded contractors, they are instead, built on informed residents supporting positive change.
Our HOA supported the CAI in sending 7 full-time lobbyist to Austin to lobby against a handful of retired people demanding basic homeowner rights against the abuses of unrestrained Home Owner Associations (HOAs). They also paid for busloads of HOA employees to come to the capital in support of Judicial terrorism and corruption. It is not surprising to many that Senator John Carona and many of our elected officials were supportive of these crimes.
Please, when you find that you or others are a victim of HOA crime, do not silently sell your house and not speak of the bitter crimes. When you do this you allow HOA crime to grow. Many of you will recognize real extortion at the closing table when you sell your home. You will probably see thousands of dollars that you must pay in fines, for trees or shrubs that you planted "without HOA permission," or your pool approval was lost, etc. Please report these crimes to the Attorney General, and all of your elected officials. They need to know of the crimes AND your strong disapproval about it.
I have three houses in Sugar Land with three different HOAs. I am all about property values and community. I am not about creating property value/equity to simply hand over to HOA vendors. Vendors who act like the tail that wags the dog. Vendors who receive contracts without bids. Vendors who are more concerned about monuments and flowers than a cemetery. Vendors who have never seen an overly planted area that couldn't use a hundred more $500. trees. Vendors who will keep proposing ridiculous new projects to "protect property values" as long as one homeowner has one dollar left. Vendors who are indeed, destroying people, values, and communities.
HOAs/vendors get by with this because we think that they belong to us and not we to them. This is not accidental. It may be a grammatical slight of hand trick by HOAs. For example,"Home Owner Association's values" (the vendors values) versus "Homeowner's association." (that would be an association belonging to homeowners) Verbally they sounds the same, but there is a world of legal difference in who owns the association or the right to your equity. Don't be fooled. It's all about who owns that ('s) and it is never the homeowner's interests that are being represented by the home owners association's interests.
New Territory's HOA takes it further and simply calls itself the New Territory Residential Community Association. They don't even pretend to belong to the homeowners. Please call your elected state officials and demand HOA bills that protect real home values for homeowners and not the HOAs!
Know that HOA and POA lobbyist and employees are paid to read these websites and make legislative calls in opposition to homeowners rights. Please support your homeowner's rights and call your elected officials for HOA REFORM now. Ask for:
Why do we need it in New Territory?
Why would an HOA be against it?
Why does the NTRCA board refuse to create a money saving, efficient, and healthy green-home approval process?
Why does our association refuse to allow "Sub-urban Harvest" access to our community?
Why does NTRCA's Beautification Committee complain that no one volunteers, but when master gardeners ask to be volunteers, just minutes after a board meeting, this committee quickly claims that there are no positions available?? Are these NTRCA complaints about lack of "volunteers" justification for something else more lucrative or controlling?
Has anyone else counted the flags for hundreds of $500. trees that NTRCA and their vendor "contracted" for? More problems with transparency and oversight again$$$. Kickbacks or gifts?
NTRCA can remove your dog from your own backyard while you are at work....CC&R link
Hmmm...who would allege that your dog is barking, if your dog rarely barks... How about that one fascist neighbor who doesn't like your politics - or religion - or ethnicity. No problem to your HOA, they will still make money by removing your dog and more.
A large percentage of US homeowners now live under the rule of a Homeowner Association. While some may manage effectively, many do not. My personal experience with HOA governance as it relates to water conservation is highlighted in the brief 3/18/09 Albuquerque Journal article below.
The Xeriscape Council is collecting data to try to determine to what extent HOAs across the country discourage or hinder water conservation efforts outdoors. I know that many still try to mandate high water use grass and require placing it curbside where it is never used as a lawn – only as a sponge. This continues even though most new research shows that good landscaping or xeriscaping is a more important factor than sod re home values! (In normal times, of course.)
Would you please contact me with any examples of HOA actions that hinder or prevent water conservation or forward this request and article to anyone you think may be interested or live in an HOA. This information will be a great help as the Council works to develop a strategy to try to deal with this issue nationwide.
Please refer this request to as many interested people as you can.
Thank you for your help.
Abq Journal
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Towne Park HOA Ordered To Pay $14,000
By Sean Olson
Journal Staff Writer
Scott Varner has won another round with the Towne Park Homeowners Association over water conservation.
The association has been ordered to pay the Towne Park resident nearly $14,000 for forcing him and others to pay for watering their neighbor's front yards. Varner and about 130 homeowners have replaced their yards with xeriscaping and aren't connected to the water system.
"I've been paying to maintain their grass," Varner said Tuesday, referring to the homeowners association board.
Varner has been an outspoken critic against the homeowner's association and an advocate for xeriscaping. In 1997, the homeowners association sued a woman for xeriscaping her front yard. With Varner's help, she countersued, and a settlement was reached that allowed her to keep the xeriscaping.
Towne Parke board president Glen Witt and the association's attorney did not return Journal messages Tuesday.
Arbitrator Timothy M. Sheehan wrote in his decision that Towne Park was "effectively restricting" water conservation efforts like installing xeriscaping in place of a lawn by charging a homeowner twice. Homeowners who use xeriscaping are required to disconnect from the Towne Park common irrigation system and pay their own water costs. They were also charged for the maintenance of the common irrigation system, Varner said.
Sheehan ordered Towne Park to repay Varner $84 for the last year he had to pay for maintenance. The association also has to pay for attorney fees and other costs associated with the arbitration, a cost of more than $13,000.
Hess Yntema, Varner's attorney, said the decision was only binding to Varner, but it would be "prudent and fair" for the association to stop charging other residents who xeriscape for water costs.
.......
Scott Varner
Executive Director
Xeriscape Council of NM, Inc.
www.XeriscapeNM.com
505-468-1021
scott@xeriscapenm.com
Formal Requests for NTRCA Documents, illegally refused, with impunity.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Mahatma Gandhi
What happens to forclosed property after Bill
Gammons buys
it ?
Coming Soon!
Alert
Alert
Alert
NOW
A “vendor association” with vendor interests owns you and your property. Homeowner associations increasingly create maintenance dependent projects to fund their vendors and themselves. For example, it is in your HOA’s interest to direct sprinklers toward brick fences, so that they can make expensive repairs or replacements. Expensive maintance made necessary from rusting interior wire mesh that repels bricks, and mortar decay from the lime in the sprinkler water. In addition, HOAs fertilize our grass (down to and around our lakes) three times a year, and then blame animals for the nitrogen buildup in the lakes. In this way, embedded vendors make hundreds of thousands for over fertilizing grass and for treating algae blooms from fertilizer runoff in our lakes, and from their fabricated need to destroy beautiful waterfowl. Take special note of who your maintenance director is and the other associations, and people, he has partnered with.
HOAs are not required to have open books and meetings. Therefore, they often make backward and no bid “deals” with other vendors. When homeowners show up for monthly meetings, the board simply goes into an executive session where the “real business” is covertly done out of the eyes of the public. “Reports” are often made through a hand-selected real estate agent who benefits from lucrative HOA advertising, for reporting HOA infomercials. Board members and their family members often benefit from similar contracts. In addition, it is common practice for HOA managers to purposely undercount houses in each subdivision. This was easy to hide or call a mistake, before “Google Map” made it easy for any interested person to get a correct count. The HOA undercount is often 4%. Where that extra money (hundreds of thousands every year) goes is anyone’s guess, but the loss is significant and consistent over time.
HOA vendors want (and get) far more money than your increasing annual dues can pay them. It is true that assigning fees for an almost unlimited number of issues produces much income, especially at home closings, but the real bonanza of “other income” comes from fines, attorney fees, and foreclosure proceedings against targeted individuals. These targeted neighbors are often targeted, not for breaking any more rules than you have; instead they are covertly targeted for ethnic, religious, or political reasons. These illegal practices are difficult to prove, especially when one prejudiced neighbor attacks another with a hidden agenda disguised as “keeping property values up.” The HOA simply pursues the victim, while the rest of us just keep to ourselves.
HOAs often hire private “constable” contractors over Sheriffs contracts, because constables specialize in “civil” suits. When HOAs want to foreclose, serve papers, or strong-arm homeowners, they have their civil-suit vendor in place. This is the last thing that these vendors want homeowners to know, so they keep reminding you that they (the constables) are contracted to “protect” you. Nothing could be further from the truth.
HOAs are not required to have fair elections, so they don't. Sham elections are done with manipulated proxy votes, board position “applications,” manipulated and appointed neighborhood representatives (who alone vote for board members.) In addition, an honest board member can be "voted out" of office at any moment, as is often the case.
Having a community association run by community members is not better or much worse than one run by a Professional CAI Management group. A positive difference that protects homeowners will only come from legislation that requires: OPEN BOOKS & MEETINGS - FAIR ELECTIONS, - NO FORECLOSURES, - and NO REAPPORTIONMENT OF ANNUAL DUES. Call your elected officials today.
At present, HOAs are privatized governments without transparency or accountability. Nevertheless, they appeal to city and state government officials because HOAs pay for parks, roads, utilities and other responsibilities that tax-strapped cities would otherwise have to pay. As the economy worsens, our constitutionally controlled government will legislate in favor of more unregulated privatized governments (HOAs) unless you demand OPEN BOOKS & MEETINGS, - FAIR ELECTIONS, - NO FORECLOSURES, and NO REAPPORTIONMENT OF ANNUAL DUES. These legislative changes will bring about the transparency and accountability that are necessary for our associations to serve the needs of homeowners.
Constables like Troy Nehls enforce and "streamline" Civil Issues, i.e. Foreclosures and Fines, etc. for the HOA. How "safe" do you feel knowing that, if they supported your rights against an abusive HOA, they would likely lose their nearly $400,000.00 contract with the HOA?
