Harassment or bullying an HOA homeowner is a crime

It’s against the law for anyone to bully or to create a hostile environment for anyone in a Nevada HOA.

 NRS 116.31184  Threats, harassment and other conduct prohibited; penalty.

      1.  A community manager, an agent or employee of the community manager, a member of the executive board, an officer, employee or agent of an association, a unit’s owner or a guest or tenant of a unit’s owner shall not willfully and without legal authority threaten, harass or otherwise engage in a course of conduct against any other person who is the community manager of his or her common-interest community or an agent or employee of that community manager, a member of the executive board of his or her association, an officer, employee or agent of his or her association, another unit’s owner in his or her common-interest community or a guest or tenant of a unit’s owner in his or her common-interest community which:

(a) Causes harm or serious emotional distress, or the reasonable apprehension thereof, to that person; or

(b) Creates a hostile environment for that person.

2.  A person who violates the provisions of subsection 1 is guilty of a misdemeanor.

NRS 116.31184

Wait!

Why are Seddon and Clarkson exempted from this law in Sun City Anthem’s newly published policy?
Clarkson wrote the Sun City Anthem policy a bit too narrowly:  
The law says community manager, employees, and HOA agents are covered:     

     A community manager, an agent or employee of the community manager, a member of the executive board, an officer, employee or agent of an association, a unit’s owner or a guest or tenant of a unit’s owner shall not willfully and without legal authority threaten, harass or otherwise engage in a course of conduct against any other person

Did Clarkson misquote the law TWICE?

Opps! It looks like Clarkson accidentally forgot TWICE to make the law apply to himself or Seddon if they are accused of bullying .

Clarkson’s anti-bullying policy only applies to acts against them.

“Such a violation may subject the violator to a fine commensurate with the severity of the violation and any other appropriate remedies available to the Association”

Clarkson’s anti-harassment policy for Sun City Anthem owners

So, what?

Could it be because foreclosure could be an “appropriate remedy”?

I guess all Clarkson would have to do is deem my complaints against him and Seddon were health, safety and welfare violations that subjected me to a fine commensurate to the severity of  my horrific conduct.

Then, HOA attorney and debt collector Clarkson could impose other “appropriate remedies available to the Asociation” and foreclose on this house too when I refused to pay. 

The law says an HOA can’t foreclose on a fine unless the violation poses a threat:

The association may not foreclose a lien by sale based on a fine or penalty for a violation of the governing documents of the association unless:      (a) The violation poses an imminent threat of causing a substantial adverse effect on the health, safety or welfare of the units’ owners or residents of the common-interest community;

NRS 116.31162 (6)

Is it ethical for Clarkson to claim the anti-bullying law doesn’t apply to him or Sandy Seddon?

Short answer. No.

He should be fired immediately.

Clarkson knowingly revised the law to exclude himself and Sandy Seddon.
This is one more example of unethical self dealing.

Please consider this Nevada HOA retaliation case where attorneys claim to be exempted from being considered agents of the HOA under the retaliation statute NRS 116.31183.

“We conclude that an attorney is not an “agent” under NRS 116.31183 for claims of retaliatory action where the attorney is providing legal services for a common-interest community homeowners’ association. ” Dezzani v. Kern & Assocs., Ltd., 412 P.3d 56 (Nev. 2018). Link to Dezzani PDF.

The word “agent” is not defined in NRS 116.31183 or otherwise in NRS Chapter 116. SeeNRS 116.31183 ; NRS 116.003 –.095 (definitions). Kern points to NRS 116.31164, which governs foreclosure of liens, and argues that because NRS 116.31164 uses the words “agent” and “attorney” distinctly, it demonstrates that the Legislature purposefully distinguished an attorney from an agent under NRS Chapter 116. Therefore, Kern contends that the Legislature specifically omitted attorneys from NRS 116.31183, and the term “agent” does not include attorneys.

Dezzani v. Kern & Assocs., Ltd., 412 P.3d 56, 59 (Nev. 2018)

Given an attorney’s ethical obligations to be candid with a client and zealously represent his or her client, and the general presumption that an attorney providing legal services to a client is generally not subject to third-party liability for that representation, we agree with Kern and the amicus curiae State Bar of Nevada that the two relationships should not be treated the same in NRS 116.31183. Doing so, and imposing liability on an attorney for representing his or her HOA client, would impermissibly intrude on the attorney-client relationship and interfere with an HOA’s ability to retain an attorney and the attorney’s ability to ethically represent the HOA. Therefore, we conclude that the term “agent” in NRS 116.31183 does not include an attorney who is providing legal services to, and acting on behalf of, a common-interest community homeowners’ association.

Although the Dezzanis argue that the attorney-client relationship is different when an attorney and an HOA are involved because the HOA members’ fees are used to pay the HOA’s attorneys, we disagree. Kern represented the HOA, not its individual members. Thus, similar to counsel for a corporation, Kern owed fiduciary duties only to the HOA, not to the individual members of the HOA. See Skarbrevik v. Cohen, England & Whitfield, 231 Cal.App.3d 692282 Cal.Rptr. 627, 635 (1991) (“[C]orporate counsel’s direct duty is to the client corporation, not to the shareholders individually, even though the legal advice rendered to the corporation may affect the shareholders.”).

Dezzani v. Kern & Assocs., Ltd., 412 P.3d 56, 62 (Nev. 2018)

To whom does Clarkson owe a fiduciary duty?

Clarkson’s fiduciary duty is to the Association, not to me as an individual member of the association or to me, previously as a single elected member of the board.

Clarkson’s representation of Sandy Seddon’s interest vs. those of the HOA is a breach of his fiduciary duty to the HOA. Acting on his own initiative, or getting assignments or taking direction from Sandy Seddon, is usurping the authority of the Board.

Clarkson breached his fiduciary duty to the HOA, and that’s why I want the HOA to sue Clarkson for damages under the NRCP 23.1 shareholder derivative provision.

The Board doesn’t understand how he has breached his duty to the HOA and is not willing or able to protect the association from him. I can represent the HOA as a single member, but I just think it will be harder to prevail because Clarkson is so willing to defame me, turn me into a pariah and bury the HOA in fees to try to protect it from me. 

Respondeat superior is Clarkson’s escape hatch when he is usurping the authority of the HOA Board.

Here’s what Clarkson said in his 8/24/17 letter removing me from my elected Board seat

image.png

 Clarkson had no legal authority to remove me from the Board. The discussion in the Board executive session in the morning was to get the Board to respond to my notice of intent against Clarkson and my Form 514a complaint against Seddon and her sidekick Lori Martin.

8/24/17 Clarkson’s imaginary statement of the law that conveniently ignores the black letter of the law in NRS 116.31034, NRS 116.31036, NRS 116.31084(1)(a)(b), and NRS 116.4117,

8/16/17 Notice of Intent to file a professional ethics complaint against Clarkson

I served notice on 8/16/17 of my intent to file a professional ethics complaint against him to the State Bar of Nevada image.png

image.png

8/11/17 notice of intent to file an ethics complaint against Sandy Seddon

8/11/17 notice of intent to file Form 514a
image.png

image.png

Looks a lot like bullying & retaliation to me

Why do our HOA attorneys help crooks steal from the homeowners?

Really, I’ m asking.
I don’t know the answer.
I just know I’ve been in litigation for five years because they aren’t working for the client that pays them.

Yesterday I filed racketeering and fraud claims against Red Rock Financial Services

NONA TOBIN’S ANSWER, AFFIRMATIVE DEFENSES AND COUNTER-CLAIM VS. RED ROCK FINANCIAL SERVICES, AND CROSS-CLAIMS VS. NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC AND WELLS FARGO, N.A., AND MOTION FOR SANCTIONS VS. RED ROCK FINANCIAL SERVICES AND NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE LLC, AND/OR NATIONSTAR MORTGAGE DBA MR. COOPER PURSUANT TO NRCP 11(b)(1)(2)(3) and/or(4), NRS 18.010(2), NRS 207.407(1), NRS 42.005

PDF of my 131-page response when Red Rock sued me vs. voluntarily surrendering the $60,000 they stole from me in 2014.

I have been greatly damaged by our attorneys defending SCA’s agents and screwing over homeowners

So, it has come to this.

Mortal combat.

To the death.

The Table of Contents of my 131-page response below gives you all you need to know to see why I am livid at their gall.

None of this litigation had to happen.

It was caused by an abuse of power and the attorneys’ total lack of professional ethics.

Who told the HOA attorneys to refuse my 2017 offer to settle at no cost?

HINT: It wasn’t the Sun City Anthem Board.

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.

 

Being accountable for being good neighbors

Is a criminal-to-excellence measuring scale hard to understand?

It seems to be hard for the people currently in power here to grasp.

But, the association (meaning the membership) faces a very high risk if the Board, GM, and attorney are not held accountable for being ethical and fair.

With so much a secret, who can be held to account?

I invite you to look again at my  blog, The Cautionary Tale of the City of Bell.

Although SCA is a non-profit corporation that privately delivers municipal services rather than a city per se, SCA has hallmarks that mirror the City of Bell’s textbook case of municipal corruption:

  • laws are bent to serve executive’s private interests
  • those in power act in concert for self-interest
  • excessive executive compensation
  • disenfranchising of unsophisticated and inattentive voters
  • election interference
  • lack of transparency

Mmm…how can I make this clearer?

I know. Let’s discuss a fun fact about bestiality.

Did you know that until AB 391 passed last year, and became effective October 1, 2017, it wasn’t against the law in Nevada to have sex with a dog?

It’s pretty weird that it wasn’t illegal until a few months ago, but, I think we can all agree that,

just because you could have, doesn’t mean you should have.

Let’s take this tale a step further.
What if…

…before Nevada’s anti-bestiality law passed, a neighbor was disturbed by the noise of a dog whining. When the neighbor realized what was happening, he complained around the neighborhood that such conduct should not be allowed.

The neighbor complained strenuously that it was cruel and abusive to the animal, and offensive to community values.

Instead of apologizing or showing any shame or remorse, the “dog lover” was rude and insulting to the neighbor, flaunting his “rights” and saying in an arrogant and condescending tone:

“Shut up. I can do to my dog whatever I want. I do not have to change my ways just because some whiner complains about having to witness how much I really love my dog. My attorney says the law is on my side. You have invaded my privacy and defamed me. I’ll tell everybody you are a horrible busybody, and they’ll hate you. I’m going to sue you, and you will have to pay all my attorney fees.”

Your Ethics 101 Exam Questions
  1. How would you rate the dog lover‘s behavior on a criminal-to-excellent-neighbor scale?
  2. How would you rate the neighbor’s behavior?
  3. Should the neighbor have to pay the attorney fees?
  4. How could this situation have been handled better?

Even if the selfish dog lover had not technically broken any Nevada law, I think we can all agree that he was wrong to abuse the dog, and that he made everything about the situation worse by unfairly stomping on the aghast neighbor.

The moral of this tale

What the Board, the GM, and the attorney did felt to me as exactly comparable to how the dog lover retaliated against his neighbor for complaining. They bullied me, shunned me, threatened me with litigation and liability for attorney fees for speaking up when I saw things that were just plain wrong – just like the dog lover treated his neighbor.

SCA leaders must be held to a higher standard.

You can help. Vote. Raise our standards.
Bob Burch and Aletta Waterhouse should not be re-elected just because they have not had sex with their dogs.

Legal fees beget more legal fees – $80,000 in two months!!!

Giving attorneys a blank check = bad idea

In the first two months of the fiscal year, SCA’s spending $79,760 for legal services. Attorneys have burned through 40% of the $195,000 budget for the whole year.

Had the 2018 budget not be more than doubled from the 2017 level, the burn rate would have been a whopping 89%.

2017 Legal services budget was $90,000, an amount that prior Boards fond to be adequate for SCA’s needs.

Was the service SCA got worth it?

  • Do you feel like paying this attorney has improved the quality of your life in Sun City Anthem?
  • Do you think, as this current Board does, that the attorney must be retained to do work that is normally performed by a Community Association Manager, like propose towing or publication policies?
  • Do you believe that the Board is incapable of making decisions unless the attorney approves them?
  • Do you think SCA owners should pay for the association attorney to represent the GM to protect her “privacy rights” against owners finding out what she is being paid in 2018?
  • My best guess is that SCA has been billed in the tens of thousands of dollars for the GM to use the  association attorney to keep her secrets. I can’t be more precise because when I requested an explanation for spending $321,000 instead of less than $90, 000 in 2017,  the response boiled down to:

“We don’t have to. You can’t make me”

2017 legal expenditures exceeded $321,000

This was a whopping 3 1/2 times the $90,000 budget! So, one would think that the correct response would be to look at ways to bring that number back in line. But, that wasn’t what the Board did. They more than doubled the 2018 budget to $195,000. 

While a strategy of carefully calculating the increases needed in the budget to cover runaway costs may be prudent in a strictly fiscal sense, it completely ignores the Board’s duty to analyze the root causes of why we are wasting so much money on attorney fees.

Last year’s waste blew my mind, and this year is starting out even worse.

What I told the Board at the 3/22/18 meeting

The Board and the GM are using attorneys excessively, inappropriately and in a manner which is not serving owners well.

The Board is not following the business judgment rule if you:

  • Use attorneys to conceal from owners how our money is being spent when you are required by law to tell us.
  • Allow the GM to use the association attorney to serve her own purposes in violation of SCA’s bylaws and the Board policy manual, e.g., relieving the Election Committee of their duties in the recall election ($90,000 spent on her order), and at least $50,000 to conceal records from me as a director, and threaten frivolous litigation, and unfairly remove me
  • Accept without question demands for payment for unbudgeted services which others who are not being paid tell you, are not necessary or cost-effective if done by attorneys.
  • Ignore warnings of inappropriate expenditures
  • Refuse to allow any investigation by owners to determine the veracity of the complaints that these fees are out of line.
  • Refuse to have a Legal Services Committee to provide owner oversight to protect the Association.

The Board silently noted and (round)filed.

I predict no action will be taken to control the costs of control.

And another thing

Why did owners have to pay $43,022 to write-off bad debts last month?

When this amount was written off, Forrest said that it had largely been due to foreclosures by banks.

  • What properties were affected?
  • Why so much write off?
  • Was litigation involved?

My questions  could be answered if the Board would require the GM/attorney/debt collector to publish the quarterly delinquency report mandated by our bylaws and keep them posted on the website.

Refusing to manage the attorney instead of letting him run amuck is costing owners money unnecessarily. It is not a good example of sound business judgment.

Bylaws 3.21 (f) (5) Quarterly reporting requirement

…(quarterly) commencing at the end of the quarter in which the first Lot is sold and closed,…(v) a delinquency report listing all Owners who are delinquent in paying any assessments at the time of the report and describing the status of any action to collect such assessments which remain delinquent…

Publishing the required report would improve the cost-effectiveness of collection efforts significantly, reducing attorney/debt collector fees and uncollectible debts.

But this isn’t something you will hear from the attorney.

Telling lies, ruining lives

“As I understand it, Ms. Tobin was prevented from running for the Board not because she has opinions that are critical of the Board and SCA management, but ONLY because she is involved in litigation against SCA from which she might stand to gain a financial benefit.” -David Berman

Poppycock.

My unlawful removal from the Board was completely 100% done in retaliation for my complaints of harassment and retaliation.

I presented the issues formally to the Board, the attorney, the GM, and the former CAM and to blogger David Berman as statements of intent less than two weeks before they acted in concert, without cause, without authority and without due process to strip me of my legal rights and my Board seat and to disenfranchise the 2,001 voters who had put me in office.

While I was on the Board those interminable 116 days (5/1/17-8/24/17), the GM, the former CAM, the attorney, David Berman and 5 of the 7 directors acted in concert to marginalize me from day 1. (Art Lindberg should get a pass since he was the only one who asked the right questions. The attorney lied to him too., and the pressure to conform was very, very strong.)

They made my life miserable, shunning, lying, berating me, denigrating my contributions, making false accusations, publishing false and defamatory statements, and making it impossible for me to be an effective homeowner advocate as a member of the Board.

They only came up with the convoluted ruse that I had put matters before the Board from which I could make a profit because, even relying on Adam Clarkson’s tortured reading of the law, they couldn’t say they were getting rid of me because I was an outspoken pain in the ass.

Execution was a complete non sequitur

The 8/24/17 letter which constituted my walking papers, signed by Adam Clarkson, was the totally unlawful and unethical response to my notice of intent to file a Form 530 Intervention Affidavit alleging harassment and retaliation.

Before that letter came out of the blue, there were many disputes between me and five of the other Directors, the attorney, the GM and former CAM, most of which you will recognize. I was transparent and vocal as possible as I sounded the alarm on deferred attention to owners’ concerns.

It’s pretty obvious why I had to go

And it was not because I did, or even could, profit from being on the Board.
My profit = ZERO

Did I mention I never made a dime off SCA before, during or after my Board service?

How much did the attorney make for creating the ruse that I did?

Attorneys’ profit for 2017 = $300,000+

2017 legal fees for “Director Issues”  = $40,000
January 2018 legal fees = $38,000

but they won’t admit how much of that was to unlawfully block owners knowing how much the GM’s salary was bumped up in 2018

Deny. Deny. Deny.

Accept no responsibility for ANY problems.
Then attack your accuser.
And kill her.
Sample of the problems I publicly said needed correction
  • No restaurant -Failing to comply with the CC&Rs and good business practices about the restaurant space study, letting only a couple of directors work on it, refusing to use an independent expert, too cozy with one bidder
  • Owner oversight committees – Refusing to allow appropriate owner oversight in areas where going to self-managed and changing legal counsel and debt collectors caused a high level of risk – personnel, compensation, legal services, insurance, investments; getting rid of the Golf Course Liaison Committee, the Communications Committee, and decimating Property & Grounds, making the GM the Board liaison to Pinnacle and other groups
  • Board agendas – Refusing to put my items on the Board’s open or executive session agenda as required by law, by Board policy equal to other directors
  • Secret meetings -meeting in secret without giving me or other owners the rights guaranteed by law or confining executive sessions to the four permissible topics
  • Excessive executive compensation – Refusing to conform to the law for access to data, to evaluate according to professional standards, or to fairly consider evidence to rebut the appropriateness of those salary levels; giving Tom Nissen excessive authority in this area and blocking me totally from it despite our differences in expertise or the appropriateness of substituting the judgment of ANY one director for the judgment of the Board; spending thousands on using the attorney to hide what her actual compensation is from the owners.
  • No GM performance standards – Not holding the GM accountable for meeting measurable, publicly-adopted performance standards
  • No management agreement – Violating SCA bylaws and failing to protect SCA by having no management agreement or even any written terms & conditions of employment. Although the GM is an AT-WILL EMPLOYEE, allowing her to usurp additional privilege to the detriment of SCA.
  • Unfair complaint process – Going beyond NOT having a customer-service rating system to aggressively attacking the 800+ owners who signed petitions and refusing to answer any of their complaints on their merits
  • Evicting FAS – The process for evicting the Foundation Assisting Seniors was flawed. They ordered me out of executive sessions. They did not act in the best interests of the homeowners. The GM was not held accountable for the failure. Civil action without required owner vote.
  • Debt collection process – Failing to do proper due diligence on debt collectors; refusing to evaluate the expensive, inhumane cost of collection for a more ocst-effective solution
  • Ill-advised recusal demand – Overreaching demand for me to recuse myself on ANY collection matter because SCA’s attorney/debt collector alleges there might be an “appearance of a conflict” for me, however remote, while ignoring the current attorney/debt collector’s obvious actual financial conflict and the fact that the last debt collector filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy without telling SCA and continued doing foreclosures by morphing into another LLC.
  • Bullying -On at least three occasions in executive sessions, using bullying, shunning, intimidation, threats and other demeaning and belittling marginalization tactics to try to make me conform with nonexistent policies or legal requirements
  • Failure to investigate – When problems are brought up, they are dismissed out of hand without conducting, or allowing, investigation on the merits
  • Inaccurate official records -Causing, or allowing the official SCA records to be corrupted and/or error-prone ALWAYS against the interests of homeowners and usually to protect individual members of the Board or management
  • Concealing SCA records from me alone, i.e., giving me incomplete executive session Board books, refusing to respond to ANY records requests
  • Abdication – Allowing the GM to use the association attorney as her personal attorney in violation of NRS and SCA bylaws
  • Election interference – Allowing the Board president, the GM, the CAM, David Berman, and the association attorney to interfere with the recall election process and to UNLAWFULLY COST OWNERS $90,000 BY STRIPPING THE VOLUNTEER ELECTION COMMITTEE OF THEIR CHARTER DUTIES to pay a CPA to do the EC’s job poorly.
  • Undue influence allowed – As it served the interests of the Board majority and management, David Berman, spokesperson for OSCAR, was allowed to have greater access to recall election information than I received as a director; he was allowed undue level of influence over the Election Committee to cut me out in retaliation for my attempting to protect the rights of the petitioners, including falsely accusing me what he himself was guilty of;  misrepresenting himself as an attorney; falsely accusing me of releasing “personal director correspondence” further defaming me by creating the false impression that I had released a legally privileged documents (absolutely not!)
  • Sanctions without notice or due process -Having meetings to sanction me without notice and to enforce policies that don’t exist
  • Unlawful orders issued by the attorney against me, e.g., cease & desist from representing myself as a director, or asking questions that I was not “authorized” to ask particularly regarding personnel and GM compensation
  • GM’s frivolous litigation threats – Allowing the GM to threaten to sue SCA for damages and to threaten me with personal liability; refusing to indemnify me as a director; falsely claiming I had violated my fiduciary duty without any evidence, a hearing or a finding
  • Misinterpretation of “employer liability” – Allowing the attorney to represent the interests of the GM over those of the homeowners. Accusing me of violating my fiduciary duty because I criticized the GM’s performance and because I requested a salary verification from her prior employer.
  • Abdication to attorney acting in the GM’s or his own interest -Telling me that the attorney had the authority to declare that I, as one of the seven directors, could be excluded from the right to vote on, or even know about, matters under the Board’s decision-making authority, unless he approved it (which in most cases, he has never approved to this day).
  • Abuse of privilege -Allowing the attorney to declare ANYTHING to be “attorney-client privileged” regardless of the lack of its meeting the legal definition of privilege in NRS 49 or NRS 116.31085.
  • Falsification of litigation reports -Allowing the attorneys to publish false statements in the litigation reports to increase the appearance of a conflict or to defame me and refusing to correct after evidence was provided.

It’s pretty obvious why I had to go

How SCA agents need to be exposed like Harvey Weinstein was

And not how he exposed himself…

Last night during the Oscars, the comment,

If you can’t trust your agents, who can you trust?”

got a big laugh. Everyone knew that powerful Harvey Weinstein was brought down after decades of abusing his power broker position, as in:

You’ll never work in this town again!

Such threats, spoken or not, had long been sufficient to keep his “casting couch” an open secret.

And to keep those who were being hurt from being heard.

Same agent, different result

But uncomfortable laughter also came from many who knew that agents abuse clients in other subtler ways, such as by not protecting all their clients equally well thereby enabling a discriminatory system to endure and making big bucks while doing it.

Kevin Spacey was disappeared from the shooting of “All the money in the World” after being accused of sexual assault by some young men he was supposed to be mentoring. Scenes were reshot to put Christopher Plummer in to replace Spacey as the lead actor. Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Williams went back to work to do their parts again, but they were far from treated equally. A vast difference in compensation was negotiated by the same agency both of the two actors:

Mark Wahlberg paid $1.5M for film reshoot that earned Michelle Williams $1,000.

Wow. That seems so obviously not okay now, but it the not-too-distant past, it might have passed by unnoticed.  At least, for now, #MeToo and #TimesUp have created a cultural shift. The pendulum has swung to a point where such a disparity is worthy of comment.

Let’s hope SCA is able to move to such an awakening in my lifetime, and homeowners don’t have to face abuse at the hands of SCA’s agents.

Am I saying that some of SCA’s agents have been abusive?

Yes, actually I am saying that. And I’m saying it needs to stop now. Time’s up.

And I’m also saying that the current SCA Board, the current SCA legal counsel/debt collector and the current General Manager need to stop protecting themselves and each other.

Their job is to protect us. Homeowners should not have to spend one thin dime to be protected from them.

Why I am speaking up

Many Hollywood women came forward to expose Harvey Weinstein after one spoke up. I hope my story will resonate with homeowners, not just in Sun City Anthem, but also with homeowners in HOAs throughout Nevada and will inspire others to not be silent.

Bottom line:
SCA agents have had their hands in our pockets.

SCA’s former agents, without any of the prior Boards feeling a thing,  slipped a house or two that didn’t belong to them into their pants pocket, and one of them was mine.
Note: I’m not saying anything bad about prior SCA Board members. Not a single one ever took a dime. I’m sure of it.  And I don’t think they were negligent. There was so much chaos after the real estate market collapsed in 2008, no one knew the difference. I certainly wouldn’t have known or cared had not one of those stolen houses been directly under my care. 

Who cares now? 

When SCA replaced Red Rock in mid-2015, SCA went from the frying pan into the fire by hiring attorneys, Alessi & Koenig, to be our debt collectors. Then when I showed the Board and GM how bad these guys were, they did the unthinkable and made it worse by hiring a new debt collector to also be SCA’s corporate counsel instead of re-thinking the whole process.

OMG! David Alessi wasn’t licensed as an attorney in Nevada, was named in litigation by 500 of the 800 HOA foreclosures A&K did from 2011 to 2015 when SCA hired them. By 2016, they had morphed into another sham corporation, HOA Lawyers Group, before SCA finally let them go.

And still, SCA managed to get strapped into even a worse deal by contracting with the Clarkson Law Group to be both the debt collectors and corporate counsel.

In a stunning opening act of abusive overreach, Clarkson protected his business interests as well as those of SCA’s former agents by ordering me to recuse myself as a new Board member from ALL SCA collection matters.

Then, to protect the GM, he restricted my access to any SCA records and continues blocking access to GM compensation data to this day. He protected the Board majority from recall and caused the members to pay $85,000 for a CPA to bungle it.

Next, he used his corporate counsel magic powers to create a technical sleight of hand to knock me off the Board on false charges without a trial.

I’m the only attorney in this room. We’re in charge here. Shut up and get out.

How HOA foreclosures take money from all our pockets will be the next topic

A recent study showed that every home in that HOA loses an average of 1.7% of its value when there is a foreclosure by that HOA.

Next time I’ll break it down for you. I think you’ll see why Adam Clarkson, SCA’s current debt collector/legal counsel, is going to such extremes to try to silence me.

 

 

 

 

Election Committee TOMORROW 9 AM – pick order of names on ballot

Concord Room Anthem Center
9 AM Tuesday, Feb. 13
Election Committee
Board Candidate Orientation
Candidates draw for ballot order

I’ll be there despite Clarkson’s challenge to my eligibility. I have requested that I be treated as a candidate unless a State of Nevada official with proper legal authority rules that I am not eligible to be a candidate.

As you can see in the email below (which I sent to the SCA Board, the GM, the Ombudsman, the NRED investigator and others), I have requested, in respect for my advanced age and frail heart, that I not be treated unfairly or be subjected to a hostile surprise attack, be escorted from the room or face any other bullying or humiliation because I have the temerity to insist on my right to volunteer to serve as a member of the Board.

I encourage you to come if you are interested in ensuring that SCA is not the kind of place where a homeowner in good standing, acting in good faith, can be treated shabbily for simply trying to be of service.

Remember, this is not about me. 

This is about having a system of governance that is fair, open and protects ALL homeowners equally – no matter who is in charge.