Author: nonatobin

If they had only known… Part 3

Owners pay a high price for Board ignorance

Basic ground rules the Board must learn by heart
  1. Association exists to serve the owners.
  2. Board exists to speak for the owners.
  3. Board may hire agents to act on behalf of owners.
  4. Association does not exist to serve the Board or management.
  5. Owners pay even when the Board or SCA agents make mistakes.
  6. Agents, including SCA employees, have no rights superior to owners’ rights.
  7. Rules exist to protect owners.
  8. Board must protect owners.
  9. The Board needs to learn the rules and follow them.

How can NRED training help the Board do right?

  1. Without proper training, the Board is ignorant.
  2. The Clarkson Law Group trained the Board to consult attorneys before ANY decision to the point of letting attorneys decide.
  3. Being ignorant, the Board has failed to protect owners from agents’ actions.
  4. Board needs to learn the rules set up to protect owners and follow them.

The process determines the result

Poor process = poor results

Board failures of the “duty of care”

The costly mistakes described below could have been avoided had the Board taken the training about the proper way to hire experts:

  1. The GM did not sign a management agreement with terms required by NRS 116A.620.
  2. The Clarkson Law Group hired as SCA debt collector without an RFP for  debt collector issued.
  3.  CPAs Ovist & Howard were paid $85,000+ to replace the volunteer Election Committee on the 2017 removal election without legal authority:
  4. HOA Lawyers Group LLC hired as SCA debt collector to replace the defunct and bankrupt Alessi & Koenig LLC
      1. without an RFP,
      2. without a Board-approved contract
      3. without competing with NRS 649 licensed vendors.

Board must learn the rules

Click here for the NRED training all directors should take to know how to prevent SCA being controlled by agents instead of by the elected Board: Hiring Experts and Professionals


Lessons the Board has yet to learn

1. When SCA became “self-managed”, the GM/CAM were hired without of a management agreement.
Not okay.

Absent a management agreement, the GM is an “at-will” employee and has no other rights than those bestowed by the SCA Employee Handbook.

2. RFPs are required for professional services not just construction or maintenance contracts per NRS 116.31086.

2.  The GM wasted $85,000+ for an unknown CPA, Ovist & Howard, to take over the recall election:

  1. without an RFP,
  2. without a Board-approved contract,
  3. without funding to pay for a CPA to do the recall in the adopted budget,
  4. without the Board amending the Election & Voting Manual to strip the Election Committee of its duties, and
  5. after the GM and attorney were both the subjects of active complaints that they were interfering with the independence of the Election Committee
  6. which resulted in diminishing the integrity of the election process.

Guess who benefitted. (P.S. It wasn’t the owners.)

  1. Four of the six Board members who allowed the GM to usurp the Board’s authority benefitted personally from unlawfully hiring a CPA to replace the Election Committee.
  2. Owners’ right to lawfully petition for a removal election was besmirched by the subjects of the petitions who wrongfully blamed the owners who petitioned for their recall for the huge cost of hiring a CPA that was done solely, 100%, by the GM under their watchful, grateful eye.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”   – Newton’s 3rd law

Hiring a CPA wasn’t the only way the GM sashayed in to usurp the authority of the Board, but to really take over, all dissent had to be crushed. These are things a properly trained Board would never have tolerated.

Action
As the liaison to the Election Committee,  I tried to get the GM, President Rex, and the attorney to leave the Election Committee independent and neutral to do their normal job during the recall.

Reaction
I was removed as the Board liaison to the Election Committee by the very people accused of interfering with the Election Committee’s independence.

Action
As a non-conflicted Director (not one signature, not one petition against me), I was one of the three Directors who should have decided

  • how the recall election was to be conducted,
  • whether the Election Manual should be amended for this one election
  • how best to protect the integrity of the election process

Reaction
The GM and the attorney decided to relieve the Election Committee from its duties despite having no legal authority to do so.

Action
I gave the Board notice of my intent to file a complaint of harassment and retaliation for all the actions they had taken against me in retribution for my recommending that the attorney and the GM be fired.

Reaction
The Board took the law into their own hands and kicked me off the Board without notice, process or appeal.

Kinda the same way Putin handled the one serious challenger to his re-election.

3. Restaurant RFP mistakes

  1. GM and one Director met with one competitor to give a leg up prior to RFP.
  2. Board was not informed of GM + director actions until it was a fait accompli.
  3. RFP issued to a hand-picked group of possible bidders
  4. Bids were not opened at a Board meeting.
  5. Bids were not not submitted on the same terms.
  6. After the number of vendors dropped to two, the “operating parameters” were adopted.
  7. Winning bidder who negotiated with GM in advance was allowed to change bid after the other bidder dropped out because the terms had been changed.
  8. No other bids were sought nor considered.

4. Last two debt collectors shouldn’t have been hired without RFPs

Doesn’t it seem like it’s a problem that

  1. HOA Lawyers Group became SCA’s debt collector without issuing an RFP to replace the defunct Alessi & Koenig, LLC?
  2. The Clarkson Law Group became the SCA debt collector without a RFP?
  3. The Clarkson Law Group, hired via the RFP issued to replace the Leach law firm as SCA legal counsel, used its “authority” as the SCA legal counsel to  “rule” that its own selection as the SCA debt collector did not require a separate RFP?

Who cares about debt collection?

We all should. Debt collectors are the source of huge expenses for HOA owners because of the weird way the Nevada courts allow HOA foreclosures to extinguish the bank’s security interest. While you might think this is good for HOAs, it is actually only good for the debt collector.

Remember, abdicating debt collection is:

  • a huge cost to owners
  • a violation of SCA bylaws 3.20 and 3.18(a)
  • foolish
  1. The cost of collection exceeds the amount recovered.
  2. HOA homeowners pay for the debt collectors’ fight with the banks.
  3. The loss of property value to each and every home in a Nevada HOA is, according to the UNLV 2017 study commissioned by the Nevada Association of Realtors, is 1.7% per foreclosure for delinquent dues.

 

 

 

If they had only known…Part 2

Board training is a MUST

NRED Power points are available for anyone to view on the training section of the NRED website. Check them out all out there or though future blogs.

Why be trained by NRED?

Learning from these FREE resources will reduce costly mistakes and transgressions by the current Board. In contrast, the attorney Clarkson trained the 2017 Board into handing over OUR wallets.

Look at this NRED training below that clarifies the Board’s job as the ounce of prevention that will save SCA a pound of excessive legal fees. A well-trained Board is a big – and necessary- step toward bridging the community divide.

Willful ignorance is a failure of duty of care

Here are two essential governance lessons that the 2017 Board REFUSED to learn.

  1. The buck stops with the Board. The Board MUST learn what its job is. The Board is not relieved of accountability by pretending  that management or the attorney have decision-making authority.
  2. The Board is restricted by law from delegating ultimate  accountability. The Board MUST define IN WRITING limits on the authority and actions of management and agents.

What’s wrong now?

Now, blurred lines allow the GM, the attorney, and individual directors (rather than the whole Board acting officially) to make decisions that ONLY the Board acting as a unit has the legal authority to make.

Requirements for a Board vote to be valid

Skip any of these steps, and no official Board action has been taken
Board action = motion, resolution, OR Board action item (BAI)
  • Notice to all Directors who ALL get to vote
  • Notice to all members who get a chance to speak
  • Agenda that clearly defines the action the Board is voting on
  • Minutes that say how each director voted

What if the GM says, “the Board decided…”,

but it didn’t follow the rules required for a valid Board decision?

THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS FAILURE TO ACT AS A FIDUCIARY

Here in SCA, these actions the GM took during the recall election diminished the integrity of the removal election process and could have biased the outcome in favor of the Directors who support her.

The modus operandi of malfeasance

  1. GM served the four Directors facing recall by removing people from the process who were dedicated to protecting the integrity of the recall election process (me as a Board member and the entire Election Committee).
  2. GM took away the authority of the volunteer Election Committee without approval by the only legal authority, i.e., vote by the non-conflicted Directors was required to change the Election Manual and spend un-budgeted funds.
  3. Rex worked with OSCAR to lie to the Election Committee to get them to remove me, a non-conflicted Director, as the liaison to the Election Committee after I attempted to protect the integrity of the election process.
  4. GM spent >$100,000 on a CPA and attorneys to do the volunteers’ job.
  5. GM allowed the paid interlopers to “lose” two pages of signatures which would have put Bob Burch on the recall ballot.
  6. GM disenfranchised the 2,001 voters who voted for me and kicked me off the Board without an official Board vote (on fake charges) at the EXACT SAME TIME as the recall process should have been controlled by me and the two other non-conflicted Directors.
  7. GM never officially notified the Board of the receipt of petitions to call for a removal election of four Directors who approved the GM’s double-the-market pay.
  8. GM never officially notified the Board of the receipt of a petition of no confidence against her.
  9. Right after the GM refused to notify the Board the petitions had been received,
    1. the GM used the association attorney to quash a subpoena in her divorce to prevent the petitions from being released in discovery
    2. AT THE EXACT SAME TIME that those petitions were released to OSCAR, the opponents of the recall of the Directors who support her excessive pay.
There is no end to this cycle without a properly trained Board.
Click here for the Powerpoint:
Executive Board Responsibilities & Fiduciary Duties
Click here for Powerpoint
Responsibilities of the Community Manager
Without training, SCA is doomed to repeat history.
  1. 2015 Board, including Rex and Tom, hired the GM at double the market pay.
  2. Rex claims that, as President, he has the right to control which directors get to participate in Board decisions and routinely excluded Directors with dissenting opinions.
  3. Rex appointed Aletta and Bob to study committees.
  4. On the advice of the GM and without consulting owners, Aletta and Bob decided that owner committees should be weakened or abolished under self-management.
  5. GM’s power isn’t controlled by written executive limits.
  6. Independent candidates are discouraged from running for the Board.
  7. Independent Directors will not run for officer positions.
  8. Rex and Bob keep the leadership roles.
  9. Rinse and repeat.

 

If only they had known…Part 1

New Director training

NRED Power points are available for anyone to view on the NRED website. Check them out all out there or though future blogs.

Learning from these free resources will reduce unhealthy over-dependence on attorneys.

Click here to link to blog:
Why SCA now pays so much in legal fees

Click here for NRED presentation:
Welcome to the Board 

If the 2017 Board had taken this class from NRED instead of being trained by attorney Adam Clarkson, would directors still have acted outside authority granted by NRS and the SCA governing documents?

Why SCA now pays so much in unnecessary legal fees

Adam Clarkson trained the Board,

and he has convinced them that the budget doesn’t matter when it comes to legal fees.

The Board, following Rex’s leadership, foolishly insisted that the 2017 Board training be conducted in secret by Adam Clarkson.

Despite the excellent free training programs available through NRED, the Board refused to allow owners to see how they were being trained to abdicate their decision-making authority.

And the the Board certainly didn’t want owners to be able to comment on the self-serving training that was provided by Clarkson so it was deemed “attorney-client confidential” even though the training packet began with a legal disclaimer.

NRED complaint still pending

The secret Clarkson training was a self-dealing disaster. It bordered on elder abuse, and my complaints about the abusive conduct at that July 25, 2017 “attorney-client-privileged, not-an-executive-session workshop” are still under investigation by NRED.

Naturally, Adam Clarkson is billing the association ($325/hour, thank you very much) to defend himself and the other perps from my complaints about being bullied and harassed in that session in retribution for my telling the lot of them that they needed to straighten up and follow the spirit as well as the letter of the law.

What was wrong with the way Clarkson trained the Board?

Setting aside the for the moment the attorney-led misconduct of the participants (shunning, threatening and bullying me), Adam Clarkson twisted the interpretation of the law so far as to assert that it was a violation of the Board’s fiduciary duty to act ON ANYTHING without the attorney’s blessing.

Reward for complicity

Adam Clarkson rewarded the Board members who fell for his money grab, by creating a punitive cone of silence around non-confidential, discoverable SCA records against the non-compliant Director. Clarkson has also given his blessing to the unlawful claims that

  • the GM controls which owner or Board member can access SCA records and can withhold records at will, including in violation of a court order
  • the GM, President or Secretary
    • can exclude a Board member from Board meetings, and
    • can prevent a Director from voting,
    • and can block a Director from placing items on a Board meeting agenda
    • and can falsify the minutes of those meetings
  • the President does not have to follow Parliamentary procedures and
    • can magically use non-existent “substitute motions” and
    • can block a vote on a Director’s seconded motion and
    • can prevent a nomination for an officer position that would compete with the President’s pre-selected slate.
  • Annual reporting of gifts is voluntary

What does “fiduciary duty” mean?

Adam Clarkson actually gave this self-dealing definition of fiduciary duty saying that being guided by legal professionals was required by law AS IF only lawyers were experts on every subject.

The legal requirement is actually to consult with appropriate experts of all types (not just attorneys) when it is prudent to do so. This means reserve specialists, HR experts, accountants, construction experts, not just attorneys. There is no legal requirement for a Board to delegate its decision-making authority to attorneys. In fact, it is prohibited by both NRS 116.3106 and SCA bylaws.

“Consult with appropriate professionals as necessary before making major decisions…”

And the definition of fiduciary really is focused on the duty of care that the fiduciary has to ACT SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE MEMBERSHIP.

A fiduciary is personally accountable for a duty of care and using good judgment to serve owners, not oneself.

It does not cut it to do (or not do) something that hurts the membership and then claim,

“The attorney made me do it.”

Defy the ruling of Judge (and jury) Adam Clarkson at your peril!!!

According to Adam Clarkson, attorneys are justified in verbally attacking and threatening a Director who tells the other members of the Board that:

  1. attorneys don’t have the expertise to assist on ALL Board decisions and that
  2. it is the individual Director’s responsibility to use common sense and ethical principles to evaluate courses of action to decide how to vote.

Give me a break. That’s idiotic.

We are actually paying $325/hour for that type of inane self-dealing pronouncement against a Director who tells the attorney to knock it off.

Guilty until proven innocent

“Unauthorized practice of law” for “advising other members that legal counsel is not necessary”????

“… will be deemed to have committed a prima facie violation of NRS 116.3103”?????

“Prima facie”  =  A fact presumed to be true unless it is disproved.

Quid pro quo = “something for something”

Quid

“Guilty until proven innocent” is the Clarkson pro forma edict he uses to bully Board members who are not in his or the GM’s pocket.

Quo

At the same time, Clarkson has protected the interests and defended the unlawful actions of the GM and those Board members who unquestioningly have agreed to pay whatever he bills with OPM (other people’s money).

“Prima facie” = “presumed guilty”

Here’s what NRS 116.3103 actually says

Clarkson is wrong

Telling the Board that the buck stops with it, and not with the attorney, is NOT a violation of a director’s fiduciary duty.

It is a true statement made on an informed basis, in good faith, and in the honest belief that

  • getting attorneys out making decisions for management or the Board, and
  • preventing attorneys from self-dealing or
  • serving the personal interests of a few individuals over the interests of the membership

is acting in the best interests of the association.

Per Rex: “Shut up. We’re in charge here.”

Rex Weddle’s’s May President’s Report in SCA’s Spirit Magazine is entitled (apparently unaware of the irony) “Keeping our nest clean“. Rex again  devotes his entire official communication to sharing with all owners and residents his personal and chronic whine about how owner complaints about him, the GM and the Board are ruining this community.

Boo hoo.

Bloggers called Rex and his buddies “thugs and bullies”. Private individuals  accused him, the Board, the attorney and the GM of unlawful conduct and criminal corruption. Rex belittles those who complain, but without specifically denying any of the charges.

What’s a poor, hand-wringing President to do?

Rex seems oblivious to his contribution to SCA’s problems. He did not suggest any way he could use his position of authority to address owner concerns or to heal community division.

Rex thinks that bullying bloggers into silence is the best course of action.

Rex apparently lacks any self-awareness of how inappropriate it is to use the Spirit, SCA’s official publication, to express his personal opinion and his personal hostility toward certain members of the community.

The President of the Board has a column in the Spirit which is intended to share with the entire community news about what actions the Board is taking, how the owners’ money is being spent, or to provide inspirational words of leadership.

Rex, unfortunately, has chosen instead to use SCA’s official publication as a personal soap box, to chastise residents for complaining about him personally or for criticizing actions of SCA elected official or agents that individual owners or bloggers believe are detrimental to the community.

Rex’s message: “My way or the highway“

Don’t you think it is ironic that Rex Weddle, speaking officially as the SCA President, uses the Spirit, the SCA website, Board meetings, and other official SCA communication channels, to shame and demean residents for expressing their personal opinions on blogs that they privately own, just because he personally disagrees with them?

Doesn’t it seem odd that he does not recognize that his claim that blogs have a negative impact on our property values is just his personal opinion, and one that has no data to back it up?

“Because they read like a bad restaurant review, the buyers may choose to go elsewhere.”    -Rex Weddle

That is like a restaurant owner blaming his bad Yelp reviews on the customers instead of trying to figure out why they are saying the food and the service sucks.

Bob Burch only hears those on his side

Don’t expect these Spirit President Reports to be any better now that Rex’s protege and probable puppet, Bob Burch, will have his name on the President’s report byline. Bob’s intolerance of dissent and his blind spot when it comes to equal treatment of resident’s are huge.

How can I say such mean things?

I am just defending myself and my rights and protecting the rights of ALL owners. I don’t see that as being mean. I do see what Rex et al are doing as being mean.

For example,

after the restaurant workshop, I forwarded a copy of a blog, “How to cook our goose” to all members of the Board. I wanted them to know I thought the restaurant vendor selection process was unfair and incompetent.

Here’s what Bob graciously emailed me back:

“You really are a very strange person.  In any case, any further emails from you will be considered SPAM and will be treated as such.”                -Bob Burch

And another example of responsive leadership

Here is the gratuitous observation Bob made (not to me, but about me, on the only community blog that Board members seem to think deserves their respect) in response to my blog, “Being accountable for being good neighbors“,

Ouch.

I wonder if Bob is so non-judgmental about all of his constituents, or if I am just special.

 

SCA Board officer selection orchestrated again

Officer elections over in a flash

  • No competition
  • No owner input
  • No surprise
  • No hope 

President            Bob Burch
Vice president   Rex Weddle
Secretary           Candace Karrow
Treasurer           Forrest Quinn

Why was last year’s officer election so bitter?

Simple answer. I committed the ultimate sin.

I volunteered to fix what I saw wasn’t working right in the transition to self-management. I told them the truth.

Unfortunately, changing the tone at the top means regime change.

OMG! Shut up!! You did not!

Yes, I did. Unlike this year’s newbies, I was totally unaware of SCA’s political realities. I never dreamed that volunteering to share my expertise would be treated as a capital offense.

How low will they go?

Frankly, I was surprised to see that Rex and his cronies would do anything – even break the law- to crush a political opponent.

And yet, here we are.

We have a full year of evidence that proves this point. This past year, we have seen VERY clearly many examples of how they have spared no expense (owners’ money, of course) to keep a death grip on the reins of power.

So, Dona Quixote, what did you say to tick them off?

I told them the incumbents were the bottom vote-getters so it was…

“a mandate to improve the effectiveness of the Board as a unified governing body“

That’s really bad.  What other evil did you spew?

I caused an uproar of outrageous indignation when I said that the vote showed an interest in changing the “tone at the top”

Yes, horrible as it was, I also said

the Board needed to be trained together to be guided by common, articulated goals.

You said what!!?

Actually, what I said is exactly what happened. The Board predictably devolved.

“…(absent proper training)…this Board will predictably devolve and return to a pattern of making backroom deals, abdicating its policy role to management, creating dissent in the community, and interfering with operational decisions which should legitimately be handled by staff.“

Examples of how my fears were realized.Obviously, you can’t be trusted to keep a secret.
Remember,

Snitches get stitches.

On the advice of counsel
Unbelievably, Adam Clarkson or his underling, John Aylor, said these things directly or helped the GM and her buddies on the Board do them.

  • the Board can act without voting
  • the GM has rights that exceed those of the membership
  • directors facing recall have more control over the recall election than directors who were not named in petitions because the attorney says so
  • it is okay for the GM to use the attorney however she likes, including to get rid of a director who is too nosy about her pay and protecting the directors who like her from getting recalled
  • owners must pay whatever the GM and the attorney sayYou are so arrogant and mean, and you lie.

Even if I were arrogant and mean, I am not lying. Everything I say, I will eagerly say under oath.You deserved to be kicked off because, obviously, you are making a profit from doing this.

Seriously. They said that.

No decent Board member should have to work with you.

Well, that hurts.

It shows how stunningly effective a marketing campaign to demonize me has been. It persuaded a lot of people to agree with both that unfair assessment of me and with the ridiculous claim that other directors are above me and special.

It’s really sad, but the smear tactics have been led by,
Guess who?
current and former members of the Board, with the full support of the GM and the attorney, and funded by guess-whose money.

I was forced to become a blogger to respond to GM-initiated defamation and threats of litigation.

And now, Rex put out another self-righteous editorial claiming that it is the bloggers that have destroyed our property values.

Exhausting.

Since Rex has aggressively blocked anyone having equal time to debate his self-serving prostelyzing on the Spirit, the website or at meetings or any other forum, the only way to get the other side of the story out is to blog.

Will Bob write patronizing, insulting President’s reports?

If his diatribes during director comment periods at Board meetings are any indication, he will invest a great deal of energy in verbally assaulting anyone who disagrees with him that tries to speak up.

But, I’m pretty sure the deal he made with Rex, our new Vice -President, was to be a version of co-Presidents so Rex can keep a grip of the reins.

By my best guess, as far as the written word goes, Rex will continue to treat the Spirit as his personal snide blog as he ghost writes the President’s reports next year for Bob.

Previously, Bob complained that he finds writing boring when, on May 1, 2017, immediately before I disturbed the peace of last year’s pre-determined officer election, he wrote

“I have no desire to be President. In my entire military and civilian careers, I have never found writing reports or articles in magazines very interesting. Therefore, writing monthly Spirit articles, monthly Board meeting recaps, etc., is not something I would look forward to doing.”

So, President this year,

Way to take one for the team, Bob.

SCA Board elects officers at 1 PM today

It starts in a half hour.

I’ve made here a few satirical comments about how Rex Weddle will probably orchestrate the election of officers based on what actually happened last year.

Then, I’ll force myself to go into that hostile environment to see for myself what actually happens at the meeting.

What could possibly go wrong?

If it’s anything like last year, Rex Weddle will have worked it out in advance so only his handpicked directors can even be nominated.

Huh? Last year?

Here are the simple steps Rex followed last year to make sure he stayed President and to control who else could run:

  1. Met with or had serial emails with directors to set up quid pro quo trades to elect incumbents who could be “trusted” to vote as a block.
  2. Pay the attorney to say that standard election of officer procedures and Board-adopted Parlimentery procedures do not have to be followed.
  3. Rex, while chairing the meeting as President, got Bob Burch to nominate him.
  4. No other nominations could be made from the floor.
  5. If any disobedient director tries to nominate someone else, Rex claimed that it required a non-existent type of motion: a substitute motion. This is a handy trick because, once Rex got the attorney to bless breaking that standard protocol, it was used routinely to block seconded motions made on other matters by that same disobedient, second-class director.
  6. Rex even went so far as to text the director sitting next to me to give him the exact wording of the motion and name of who he was assigned to nominate for Secretary.
Hypothetically, what would be the worst case scenario this year?

President

Bob Burch will again nominate Rex, by reading a dramatic, praise-filled motion. Rex will again abuse the authority of the chair to block other nominations. Bob will move that Rex’s coronation be by acclimation and that the position’s title be changed to KING.

All of the bad outcomes for owners and resistance to best practices that I predicted last year that already happened will continue. All future dissent by directors or members will be crushed by the attorney who is beholding to Rex.

Vice-President

Jim Coleman will be nominated for Vice-President, not for his outstanding leadership qualities, which are substantial, but to show that Rex and the other incumbents are really not racists, like that name-redacted guy.

Secretary

Bob Burch will be pressed into service even though (sigh!) he doesn’t want to.

Strategizing with his cohorts before the meeting, Bob figured it would be insulting to try and make “the woman” do it. Too bad, though, it would have been a perfect way to keep her from trying to steal Forrest’s Treasurer job that he sold his soul to get only last year.

Worse, Candace was the top vote-getter and has a strong financial background and a reputation for being outspoken. She might insist that the association’s records be accurate, accessible and that the laws be followed so owners’ rights are protected. She must be kept away from a chance to audit anything.

Treasurer

Forrest Quinn will be the Treasurer. He will continue to work full-time to do management’s job in an excellent manner. He will sing the GM’s and the CFO’s praises for the outstanding job he does for them.

Paying the GM and CFO double their value in the market and claiming that what SCA pays is a secret is a small ethical price to pay for the staff’s complete loyalty to him and their willingness to attack dissenters.

If other directors question the propriety of obfuscating the special pay arrangements privately agreed to, or if owners complain, he will have no problem encouraging the Board to sue the bastards for defamation and charge them with a CC&R violation that poses an imminent threat to health, safety and welfare,  punishable by a fine of $1 million dollars or a sanction of foreclosing on their house and their banishment from the tribe.

So what?

Ordinarily, controlling who gets officer spots would be no big deal. Most non-profit organizations are thrilled when anyone will accept any thankless duties on a volunteer basis.

However, here and now, trying to ensure that a small clique controls everything is a problem that is costing us a lot of money and peace of mind.

Under Rex’s leadership and this particular GM, SCA is going in the wrong direction. This is negatively affecting our lifestyle, our property values and ultimately, will increase our assessment costs.

Isn’t that just a difference of opinion?

Ordinarily, yes. Ordinarily, it’s no big deal to have different opinions.

But, here and now, it is a problem. Rex and his cronies are operating from the perspective that SCA is a private company and that the Board should operate according to the norms that are applicable to a business.

This is bad, but not catastrophic, until the Dear Leader’s point of view is weaponized as the official party line, and the rule of law is suspended to prevent alternative points of view to be expressed, let alone be openly debated.

Weaponizing a perspective also involves inappropriate use of the association’s resources for maintenance of personal political power, and this is being done, here and now, on steroids.

Quid pro Quo –
you scratch my back…

Why would SCA agents, licensed professionals, play favorites with Rex and his cronies?

OBVIOUSLY, if the GM and attorney were to only work for the Board as a whole is nowhere near as profitable. 

Further, if all Board actions were public, SCA’s agents could be monitored to ensure they were acting SOLELY AND EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE MEMBERSHIP OF THE ASSOCIATION.

Works for SCA agents to have a blank check, but it doesn’t work for owners
  • SCA spent over $100,000 on attorneys in the first quarter of 2018, more than double the recently doubled budget.
  • $40,000 attorney fees were charged to evict the Foundation Assisting Seniors, and more fees will be charged to fight over which non-profit pays them.
  • They admitted spending $40,000 in 2017 on “Director Issues”  to write me “legal letters” telling me to stop complaining about them violating the law and to stop demanding owners’ access to information affecting our lives and pocket books.
  • The attorney made money protecting the GM who protects him so legal prohibitions for their conduct are easy to bust through.
  • Both the GM and the attorney have violated the standards of their profession by claiming powers and rights that are not theirs by law, e.g., make certain policy decisions or expend un-budgeted SCA funds.  (SCA bylaws and NRS 116.3106(1)(d) prohibit the Board from delegating policy-making authority in five areas.)
  • There is money to be made whenever those who let the agents get away with it are kept in power and those who blow the whistle are silenced.

Time for a real change.

Click to enlarge agenda

New SCA Board – New chance to get it right

Congratulations to the newly-elected members of the Board:

  • Candace Karrow,

  • Jim Coleman,

  • Gary Lee.

Check below for why no congrats for Bob Burch

A message from Gary Lee

Nona …. I want to take this opportunity to thank any of your readers who voted for me in this election.

I recognize the fact that I do not have any “direct” experience on any of SCA’s committees or volunteer programs but … I do bring to the board an extensive background in the management of facilities, construction, budgeting, finance and human resources – all of which are basic to the operations of the SCA.

I promise to bring an element of “common sense” to the board and a diligent effort in exploring facts and conditions prior to voting on any subject.

I would welcome the thoughts and opinions of any of your readers. I will be open to receiving any input and I will certainly consider them in my decision making.                       -Gary Lee

All directors get an equal vote

I personally have great hope that Gary’s significant management experience will be treated with respect  as mine was not.

The restaurant negotiation

Will Gary’s substantial restaurant experience be used for the benefit of the membership to protect SCA from giving away the store in negotiating with the probably pre-selected vendor?

Or is Rex’s death grip on consolidating power so strong that his expertise will be rejected in favor of Tom Nissen and Forrest Quinn who have no restaurant or negotiation experience that is specifically on point as Gary’s is?

SCA experience is required only for some

Rex Weddle and Bob Burch, in particular, proffered the pretext that my not having been on SCA committees was sufficient justification to refuse to treat as an equal member of the Board.

Keep your eyes open, new directors!

The new Board members need to guard against the incumbents claiming to possess special authority over them. Or that the Board is allowed to have secret meetings on topics other than the four permissible topics in NRS 116.31085 and SCA bylaws 3.15A.

Abdicating and usurping must stop

There is a surprising willingness for the GM and the attorney to play favorites and play fast and loose with the rules so that decisions that are supposed to be made by the Board in open session, informed by professional managerial and legal advice, somehow get made by who know who and who knows when.

Be careful, it is very easy to get sucked in.

Which brings me to why no congrats to Bob Burch

I am having trouble congratulating the fourth person elected, Bob Burch, because ongoing NRED complaints against him have not been adjudicated since being filed over eight months ago. These complaints include serious charges:

  • interference with the recall election
  • harassment and retaliation
  • abuse of authority
  • concealing SCA documents from members, including a director
  • taking action by secret votes against owners without cause or due process
  • acting for reasons of self-interest or revenge
  • failing to disclose a potential conflict of interest and then repeatedly voting on the issue
  • and more violations of owners’ legally protected rights

Never heard about these charges?

Voters probably didn’t hear about these open complaints because they were concealed.

Unfairly, “on the advice of counsel” and on owners’ dime, the Board and the GM purposefully concealed  complaints against them, and the attorney from the membership.

They refused to place the complaints on an open Board meeting agenda as required by NRS 116.31187.

Board Policy Manual 6.1 was disregarded when they would not allow me, as an elected director, to discuss these violations in any open Board meeting.

They would not fairly even allow the complaints to be investigated or be fairly debated executive session.

When I tried to get the Board act lawfully, the Board’s official response was to kick me off the Board without notice or appeal.

Good luck to the new people.

Big surprise: G2G was picked to run the “closed only 2+years” restaurant

Lesson 4 – Process determines product

If you set up a process to be the same as the process that failed in the past, you can expect to fail again. As Edward Deming, world-renowned statistician and management expert, said,

Quick re-cap

  1. Sandy Seddon and Tom Nissen had a cozy relationship with one of the vendors, G2G, before putting out an RFP.
  2. They picked G2G.
Operating parameters –
decided after only two vendors had submitted proposals
  1. can’t have smoking,
  2. ok to have a subsidy of free rent
  3. can’t operate 24/7
  4. vendor can decide not to have gaming (who needs it if owners pay your rent?)
  5. coffee window is closed while restaurant open
  6. 100% catering is restricted to G2G in all three centers

Now, let’s make a deal.

Negotiating team is also a big surprise

Tom Nissen, Sandy Seddon and Forrest Quinn will now negotiate. Isn’t Tom going off the Board?

No problem.

A special exemption from the Rex only-buddy-director- work group philosophy was made to keep Tom Nissen, who is leaving the Board in two days, on the team with a death grip on the controls.

No other owners are included on the negotiating team. Board candidate Gary Lee who has negotiated many (I think I heard him say 500) restaurant leases, was not deemed worthy of participating.

But, good news! Rex did say that he was considering accepting help from Jean Capillupo, whose expertise is solely derived from her hand in the last failed restaurant lease.

Being a control freak sometimes backfires, Rex

Polly Anna, signing off.

 

Paying attorneys to disappear political opponents

Lesson 3 – Create a false narrative to win

or as Chuck Lorre, the creator of Big Bang Theory crudely put it in Vanity Card #586:

(Quote redacted)

Item 11 E – Quarterly Litigation Reports

Now that I have your attention, let’s discuss how item 11 E – quarterly litigation reports – is an example of how the Board wastes lots of our money to use the many SCA lawyers to control who sits on the Board. (I’m sorry. It seems I have to offend some people to keep everyone else awake.)

Only one Board candidate seemed to notice problems

In member comments, Board candidate, Gary Lee, pointed out some inadequacies in the reports.

Of the 15 cases reported, 9 are foreclosures. Is there a problem with the way we are handling foreclosures? There are inconsistencies.

Gary did not know what I’ll tell you below. In my case, that the defamatory and false statements were used as the pretext for kicking me off the Board and that the Board has refused my repeated requests to correct “errors” for a year.

Clarkson, SCA legal counsel and debt collector, lies like a rug

Clarkson Law Group has given the same false report for the last five quarters on the case that supposedly disqualified me from the Board.

Wrong!

  • The current status of the quiet title case is not as of 2/1/17. That is the date when the original cross claim was filed, but dismissed on 5/25/17.
  • This ignores that the claims of the Gordon B. Hansen Trust, by Nona Tobin, individual and trustee,  were dismissed by Judge Kishner at a hearing on 5/25/17, and that the order (due in June 2017) was not filed by the SCA attorney until 9/20/17, a month after I was ambushed and kicked off the Board on 8/24/17 .
  • The mere existence of this case is what Clarkson falsely claims disqualified me from serving on the Board. More importantly, what this lie has achieved is keeping my nose out of his debt collection business.

The Lipson law firm’s report is defamatory.

I was not removed from the Board “for cause”.
This is a horrible, hurtful lie.

It brands me “guilty!” without any finding of fact. It is a continuation of the harassment and retaliation I have been subjected to for over a year.

I was unlawfully removed by the other six Board members in a secret meeting based on the totally false and unsubstantiated allegation that I was making a profit from my position on the Board. Poppycock.

The FACTS

  1. SCA was a named party in 2015 by the plaintiff Jimijack, who has possession of the house and been collecting rents on Bruce’s house since 2014.
  2. Nationstar filed a second lawsuit against the buyer at the foreclosure sale of 2763 White Sage Dr. in January, 2016 and completed a failed mediation with  SCA a month before I showed up as the third lawsuit.
  3. On behalf of the Gordon B. Hansen Trust, I entered the case on 2/1/17 as a defendant in intervention on the two existing cases in order to regain the title for the trust.
  4. The 2/1/17 cross claim against SCA was to get SCA to void the defective foreclosure sale from which SCA’s former agents unlawfully kept $60,000 that should have been distributed to either Nationstar or the GBH Trust after paying SCA only $2,701.
  5. On 5/25/17, all claims against SCA were dismissed ($2,701 paid SCA in full in 2014 so SCA has no financial stake in the quiet title dispute), but the Lipson attorney did not file the 5//25/17 order until 9/20/17, a month after I was kicked off the Board on the pretext that the mere existence of this case disqualified me from being on the Board.
  6. I did not, and could not, make a profit from my position on the Board.

And yet, the Lipson report brands me

My request to correct false reports was not heard.

Click here to link to the request I intended to, but did not, bring to the Board.

I stayed silent.

The tone of the meeting and the mood of the crowd made it clear that there was a zero% chance that the Board would see through their prejudices and willful ignorance to treat me fairly.

There was a standing ovation for Jim Coleman who was shaken and outraged at being falsely accused of voting to kick me off the Board by lying, probably racist, Mr. (name redacted) blogger.

There was zero acknowledgement that I existed in the room, let alone was deserving of compassion as the falsely accused (of making a profit off my Board position) and the actually-injured (kicked off the Board without a trial or finding of guilt) victim.

Who cares?

Good question. The issue is way bigger than me.

The precedent puts homeowners in all 3,000 HOAs in Nevada at risk of losing control over who sits on their Boards if who they elect can be “disappeared” without cause, a trial or an appeal on a pretext.

Let’s face it

I was kicked off the Board because the GM and the majority of the Board did not like me telling them they sub-standard in their  implementation of self-management and that they were breaking lots of rules and needed to straighten up or I would tell on them.

So, they made up a story to get rid of me

If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere

All the directors in any HOA would need to do to get rid of a Board member they don’t like would be to deem their position vacant by operation of law.

It’s easy to kill a political opponent if you have attorneys willing to ignore all the other laws that exist to protect homeowners from arbitrary and capricious abrogation of their rights.

This precedent is especially risky for the state because Adam Clarkson is the president-elect of the Community Association Institute and claims that his firm represents 300 HOAs, 10% of those in Nevada.

Good-bye, democracy.