This is the second part of my 6/6/18 email to the NRED Chief Investigator and Ombudsman to clarify NRED’s process for ensuring that
1. the rights of homeowners in HOAs are protected,
2. Nevada statutes are uniformly enforced, and
3. Board members or HOA agents suffer consequences when they fail to act as fiduciaries.
Issa Anale’a didn’t make us wait as long as NRED
Why has NRED needed more than nine months?
Tomorrow, I’ll see what NRED Chief Investigator’s perspective is on the 6/6/18 email I am sharing below in Part 2 “Secret meetings”, in the previous blog, “Why so quiet?“, and in the final part 3, “In case you don’t think this is enough evidence”
Part 2: Secret meetings in general
The second complaint was that the Board deliberates in secret meetings. This complaint being dismissed perfunctorily is also problematic. It appears as if NRED condones a pervasive pattern at SCA of decisions being made by the Board, the attorney, the GM or individual directors without proper action by the Board in open session.
It also appears that there are no consequences if SCA Board is not compliant with NRS 116.31083, NRS 116.31085, or SCA governing documents.
NRED previously instructed SCA on this point
Previous NRED officials have issued letters of instruction (attached to previous email) to require statutory conformance (with owner protection laws) which SCA now ignores.
I, as well as other SCA residents, have alleged that, currently, many Board decisions are made improperly, i.e.,
- in group emails,
- in “workshops”,
- in improperly noticed meetings,
- private Board training (no notice, agenda or minutes) sessions which are
- deemed “attorney-client” privilege while
- simultaneously are deemed to NOT be executive sessions, but of which recording is prohibited:
- meetings or email chains involving only a few Board members or which pointedly exclude dissenting directors
What does it mean when the NRED investigation of these complaints just stops without a finding?
Obviously, the SCA Board was notified that SCA has won by default, but apparently the owner who complained was not.
As Bob Burch said,
Both complaints were closed without any action being taken against the Association when the division determined that there was no good cause to continue with the investigation. In other words, we prevailed.
This is essentially what has occurred in 100% of the cases filed in the past year.
Is that NRED’s intent?
- Does NRED really intend to say that this Board conduct, that has generated many owner complaints, is permissible despite the Board’s failure to meet the requirements of NRS 116.31183 or NRS 116.31085?
- Or are you not convinced that the complainants accurately reported impermissible acts?
- Does NRED’s investigative protocol permit your investigator to rely on information provided by the HOA, but prohibit further investigation by seeking additional information, or at least a response, from the complainant?
Whose call is it anyway?
NRED needs to be aware that at SCA, Board decisions are routinely made by the GM or attorney in policy areas in which the Board is prohibited from delegating by SCA bylaws 3.20 and 3.18 pursuant to NRS 116.3106(1)(d).
These wrong parties (the GM, the attorney, a subset of the Board) falsely claim the Board made decisions that the Board didn’t make correctly, or worse, didn’t make at all, e.g.,
- hiring debt collectors without an RFP (competitive process),
- increasing group exercise user fees,
- failing to comply with the Election & Voting Manual in the 2017 recall election,
- hiring a CPA without a contract or an RFP to do the volunteer Election Committee’s job,
- paying that CPA and attorneys, at a $100,000+ un-budgeted combined cost, to usurp the recall election process,
- over-expending the legal fees budget by $200,000+ in 2017,
- taking punitive actions, without legal authority, against me as a Board member and unit owner, i.e., threatening letters and kicking me off the Board in retaliation for my complaints and records requests,
- authorizing the use of owners’ money to pay for the association attorney
- to appear in the GM’s divorce and
- to withhold SCA records in discovery that had been previously released to OSCAR, the anti-recall group.
When the NRED investigation into these actions just stops, or maybe never even starts, what does it mean?
- Is abdication and usurping of Board authority okay in NRED’s view?
- Does NRED need more documentation and more specific examples to establish that this practice is occurring?
What else does NRED need to stop this?
Here is a link to a www.SCAstrong.com blog, “If they had only known, part 3” that gives some examples of GM decisions that resulted in election interference, hiring bankrupt or conflicted debt collectors without due diligence or following proper procedure, a biased selection of a restaurant vendor (that is not proceeding for unknown reasons, leaving SCA with no restaurant for 2 1/2+ years and counting).
I can also provide you links to the actual documents that are are evidence of these and other specific incidences if NRED needs more documentation to make a finding and prohibit agents from taking advantage of SCA.
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