Stuff that should be on the Board agenda, but is not…
GM performance and compensation is not on the open agenda but it is on the Dec. 7 @ 9 AM executive session agenda
Here is what I predict will happen tomorrow. The Board will:
continue to overpay the GM, including possibly another unjustifiable $20,000 bonus, without transparency or accountability to the owners
fall prey to the Halo effect to give excessively high ratings by giving her a pass on failing to adequately perform significant aspects of her job.
refuse to consider that customer service ratings might diverge greatly from their assessment of the job she is doing.
continue to ignore that there have been multiple incidents of actions on her part which would be just cause for her termination as a violation of her duty to the membership and violations of the standards of practice of her license.
fail to hold themselves accountable for paying her over $100,000 over the value of that job and allowing her to pay other SCA managers at excessive rates.
continue to refuse to allow appropriate owner oversight over the personnel system in favor of less qualified “Board work groups” controlling policy or abdicating too much authority to the GM.
continue to dismiss and trivialize the concerns of the 836 residents who gave the GM an “F” for owner relations and signed a petition of no confidence against the GM. The Board did not seriously evaluate one single criticism by owners to attempt to improve the division in the community. Instead, the petitioners were insulted and marginalized as if they were not members of the community of equal value. The Board treated them like just a bunch of whiners and malcontents and discarded the petition was if it was just unwarranted “negativity from small vocal elements“.
I hope I’m wrong.
Not even a recommendation regarding the restaurant space
SCA CC&Rs 7.2(b) requires that the restaurant (or any other amenity) shall not be discontinued without the written authorization of 75% of the owners. CC&Rs 7.9 define the process by which the Board can change the use of the space. Neither of these provisions have been followed.
The Board locked up the restaurant right about the time the GM was hired. Ignoring the owner vote needed per 7.2(b) to lawfully discontinue operation of the restaurant and giving the GM over a yearto just come up with a recommendation for the space was bad enough. Then, Rex made it worse by paying the attorney to opine in yet another no-good-for-owners violation of Board Policy Manual 4.10 that a temporary use of the space would require a vote of the owners. Then, the Board made it worse by letting her hire an unbudgeted consultant for an unknown amount of money to do the one job, by the one deadline the Board actually gave her.
So, what are we waiting for? How many excuses do we have to listen to? And how many people are we going to pay to not get the job done?
The GM is to blame for the big bill – not the SCA owners who must pay it
This huge expense is still climbing, but it was totally unnecessary, not legally authorized by the Board, and did not serve the best interests of SCA.
Both the GM and the attorney should be fired for spending our money to interfere with the integrity of the removal election.
This unauthorized expenditure is sufficiently egregious to warrant the termination of both the GM and attorney, but that won’t happen because the beneficiaries of the election interference by SCA’s agents included a majority of the Board which was apparently important enough to them to stand by and let SCA owners foot the huge and unnecessary bill.
While I was on the Board I aggressively attempted to protect the independence of the Election Committee, but alone and constrained by ethical boundaries, I was no match for the abuse of power by the Board President and SCA’s agents who were not so constrained.
A well-documented contributing factor to my unlawful removal from the Board was that I informed the Ombudsman on July 24 of my concerns about the need to protect the independence of the Election Committee (and also to protect owners lawfully collecting petition signatures) from the significant GM/CAM/attorney/Board interference I observed.
Berman’s constant improper placement of blame
David Berman continues to perpetuate the myth that these unnecessary and unauthorized costs were caused by the petitioners who (legally) called for the removal election.
This targeting of unit owners is obviously wrong. Owners don’t have enough power to be culpable.
Think about it.
If 1,200 unit owners had wanted the Election Committee to conduct the removal election, but the GM did not want it, would they have been able to make their wishes happen over her objections?
If any of the petitioners had come to the Board meeting and begged to have SCA fork out over $73,000 to pay an unknown CPA and the attorney to do the Election Committee’s job, would SCA have spent one dime?
Both the GM and the Board President had to want SCA money to be spent on agents of their choosing to run the removal election (incompetently or, more likely, unethically), or OUR money would still be safely in the bank.
The Spin Doctor at work
Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, David Berman persists in promulgating this almost laughable propaganda that unit owners could make the GM do something that doesn’t serve her interests. Smug in this delusion, today he blogged with a melodramatic and an almost audible sigh that this big $73,000 number would still be bigger when the attorney and CPA bills all come in:
Sad. SCA deserves so much better. But, wait, hope may be on the horizon:
CIC Commission recently held a GM accountable despite HOA attorney advice that action was OK under NRS.
If Rex and Sandy having Clarkson on speed dial is no longer as good an excuse as “the dog ate my homework”, then maybe…
AnthemOpinions blogspot reported about a case that was heard at the recent CIC Commission meeting which seemed to demonstrate the Commission’s repudiation of the “the attorney said I could” defense.
The Zeitgeist Perhaps, we are reaching a tipping point.
In the whole country, the public conversation has shifted seismically around sexual harassment. Suddenly, society-at-large is not just standing silently by while men in power abuse vulnerable people with impunity.
Maybe the tide is turning here at SCA too.
Now, owners no longer seem so resigned and no longer seem willing to tolerate inexcusable behavior or poor leadership. A critical mass is forming, and this is a necessary step to creating a healthier balance of power in our community.
As formerly discouraged and disenfranchised owners are more willing to speak up and stand up to bullies, SCA’s bullies will predictably face a Come to Jesus reckoning. A tectonic power shift will occur that, in retrospect, we will be surprised at how long it took us to take our power back.
Tale of two faces – The Board members subject to recall should be removed because they refuse to tolerate any criticism (from the homeowners) of Sandy Seddon, the General Manager (GM) and berate those who dare to speak in less than glowing terms about her performance. The board is thrilled with Sandy Seddon. Their experience with her is that she quickly handled the deferred maintenance issue, quickly transitioned away from the prior management company, responds fully to their requests, and is just an all-around great gal. However, the Sandy Seddon that the Board members see and experience is quite the opposite of what many homeowners experience and which was described to the Board in a petition signed by 836 homeowners and residents. The Board has refused to hold her accountable to address the problems identified in the petition against her or to take any action to improve homeowner relations and customer satisfaction. During the September Board meeting, Bob Burch yelled out, “Enough is enough!” and two pages of his diatribe about why no one should criticize the GM is in the Board Book. They should be removed as directors because they are protecting the Sandy Seddon more than they are protecting the homeowners paying the assessments.
Not fair to owners. The Board takes actions without hearing both sides, does not uniformly enforce the CC&Rs and By-Laws if it is outside issues like the color a house can be painted or how many trees must be planted. They fail to prevent problems and resist solving them, so the homeowners end up paying for the pound of cure. Look at all the bureaucratic hassles the Board has created for the clubs by requiring bizarre business license requirements and vendor insurance. They allow the GM to create bureaucratic hassles for owners and clubs and to set paid staff up as competitors to the clubs for booking dates.
Usurp authority of the owners to initiate lawsuits. Owners voted against SCA filing litigation on Liberty Center construction defects, but the Board ignored that and filed a lawsuit anyway. NRS 16.31088 requires an owner majority vote before SCA can initiate a lawsuit, but they did not ask owners to vote before they acted to evict the Foundation Assisting Seniors or to sue the Foundation for $40,000.
Transition to self-management is flawed. No adequate policy framework is in place to protect SCA, particularly as a first-time employer, and there are no written plans or timetables to complete the transition. Despite my areas of expertise in HR and municipal management, the Board unfairly excluded me from participation in any personnel policy discussions and claimed I was “not authorized” to see records relating to prior decisions of the Board or to examine such questions as:
Why is the GM paid $100,000+ over the appropriate salary for that job?
Why does the compensation for four managers eat up about 10% of the 2017 operating budget?
Why don’t we have performance standards and customer service ratings linked to GM compensation?
Board does not act lawfully. They have tolerated the restaurant being closed for nearly two years in violation of CC&Rs 7.2(b).They have issued several unlawful cease & desist letters against me to stop me from inspecting ANY association records, but there are numerous other examples included in the documents filed with the state enforcement officials.
Lack of method for requiring GM accountability. These board members should be removed because they have abdicated too much authority to the GM with no system for accountability. It is unlawful to hire a GM without a management agreement, but no agreement is currently in place. Without a management agreement, the GM is an at-will employee covered only by the personnel handbook. Poor business judgment to employ her without the specification of the required provision of NRS 116A.620. These directors should be removed, not just because they have failed to hold the GM accountable in areas beyond facilities maintenance, but because they have allowed her to threaten frivolous litigation against SCA and to falsely accuse me as a Director of defamation because I criticized her performance. She has also falsely accused me of violating her privacy rights and creating “employer liability” for asking about her compensation with her former employer.
Abuse by attorney. Why do we even need a Board if the attorney calls all the shots? The HOA attorney (Clarkson) makes quite a profit by getting the Board to believe that the budget does not have to be amended to spend, spend, spend. The Board refused to have board training conducted by the Ombudsman, and Clarkson conducted the training in a closed workshop, deemed it attorney-client privilege, was abusive to me and gave biased instructions, e.g., that the Board MUST get attorney approval before making any major decision, and it is an unauthorized practice of law (for me) to tell them they don’t need to go to an attorney for so much but to use their common sense.
Loss of control over the budget. The Board should be removed because they are allowing the attorney to represent the GM and not the association membership as a whole. For example, this attorney advised the Board (in violation of NRS 116.3106 and By-Laws 3.18 a and 3.20), that the GM can expend SCA funds for purposes other than what they were budgeted for without board approval. Clarkson’s legal fees for the first four months have amounted to $103,000, and much of that was expended for legal actions that never should have been taken. This does not account for how much the Board has spent to have him take over the Removal Election Process and strip the SCA Election Committee of their duties defined in the adopted Election & Voting Manual.
Lack of transparency. The Board allows the GM to refuse to give access to information in an easy, user-friendly way. They take the attitude that they are only required to provide the legal minimum, and you have to jump through hoops to get that if you are not considered an ally or if you are being punished because they think you MIGHT misuse the information.
Owner involvement in governance is diminished. The Board refused to adopt the proposed owner-oversight committees for Legal Services, Personnel, Insurance, or Investments even though these are areas where the expertise of community members is greatly needed and could be cost-effectively employed. They abolished the Fitness Committee, the Property & Grounds Committee, and the Golf Course Liaison Committee. Meanwhile, the Communication Committee is in limbo. There is a plan (only discussed in private so far) to have Pinnacle, Villas, and the service groups report to the GM instead of having a Board liaison. No attempt is being made to promote customer satisfaction or to institute “best practices” to improve residents’ quality of life or build a sense of belonging in the community. These Board members do not respect owners and abdicate to the GM.
Abuse of privilege. NRS 116.31085 (3) and SCA By-Laws 3.15A define the only permissible topics that an HOA Board can discuss in executive session. These directors should be removed because they circumvent this by making decisions in closed “workshops,” by using email for deliberations (despite having been issued a letter of instruction prohibiting it), and, at times, by unlawfully excluding a director from the deliberation and action (myself and Jim Mayfield before me). Rex and Sandy make excessive claims for confidentiality on ALL their SCA business emails even when the discussion is just about leaking pipes.
On January 25, 2017, I sent an email to HOA General Manager Sandy Seddon and to the Sun City Anthem Board of Directors warning them about the serious financial risks the association was facing due to the misconduct of its debt collectors. The GM and the Board ignored this warning.
Then they did everything wrong.
They added debt collection to the duties of the new Association Legal Counsel, The Clarkson Law Group without an RFP and without addressing the inherent conflict of interest this created.
The GM withheld debt collection records from me as an elected member of the Board
The Clarkson Law Group got the 6 other Board members to vote to order me to recuse myself from al HOA collection matters.
They made no investigation of the charges i alleged regarding the HOA agents stealing from the association.
2007-2017 Debt Collection Contracts were all flawed
Nevada Debt Collection licenses note that attorneys have an exception from the requirement to have a NRS 649 debt collector license
4/27/12 SCA contract with Red Rock Financial Services contains an Indemnification clause that is favorable to the HOA but this contract provision has never been enforced by Sun City Anthem managers and attorneys. This has resulted in at least $100,000 in litigation costs being shifted from Red Rock Financial Services to Sun City Anthem homeowners. HOA attorneys concealed this contract in discovery in my case. HOA attorneys (Clarkson) and Rex Weddle, Board President who aided and abetted the HOA agents’ unjust enrichment, prevented my bringing this issue to the HOA board as was my right under NRS 116.31087.
David Ochoa, Lipson Nielson attorney for Sun City Anthem in my case, A-15-720032-C, Joel A. Stokes and Sandra F, Stokes, as trustee of Jimijack Irrevocable Trust vs. Bank of America and Sun City Anthem Community Association, Inc., failed to disclose the applicable debt collection contract, dated, 4/27/12. Instead, he disclosed the 2007 contract as SCA 164-167, that does no have this protection for HOA homeowners.Most, if not all, of the $87,797 should have been paid by red Rock financial Services per the 4/27/12 unenforced indemnification clause.
Whose interests was David Ochoa representing when he disclosed the wrong contract? In my opinion, this “error”, combined with Ochoa’s other actions in my case, shows a pretty strong alignment of attorneys with HOA managers and agents against homeowners and the HOA itself.
4/20/15 Alessi & Koenig contract with Sun City Anthem – Alessi & Koenig held foreclosure sales out of their 9500 W. Flamingo office with no notice the SCA homeowners. All were sold to investors for a small fraction of their value. David Alessi was not licensed to practice law in Nevada and so should not have been exempt from NRS 649 licensing and oversight. A&K hid their assets, went Chapter 7, and morphed into HOA Lawyers Group.
8/15/16 HOA Lawyers Group contract with Sun City Anthem should not have gotten a no-bid contract expecially since they were A&K’s alter ego to evade creditors.
4/27/17 Board minutes #15A approved no-bid (without RFP) debt collection in the Clarkson contract. The Board’s giving “management” discretion over which matters remained with Leach should be noted.
5/23/17 Lipson quarterly litigation report Lipson handled the litigation related to many of the foreclosures. Upon information and belief (UIAB), Lipson worked for the insurance company (“carrier” ) that may have had financial reasons for supporting the interests of Red Rock. Further, UIAB, Lipson attorney Ochoa did not get direction from the HOA Board and acted according to direction from GM Sandy Seddon and/or CAM Lori Martin and HOA Legal Counsel/debt collector Adam Clarkson. All of them defamed me, damaged me and worked to obstruct my access to HOA records and to obstruct a fir adjudication of my quiet title case.
5/25/17 Executive session minutes contained an order for me to recuse myself from all HOA collection matters
Note that I am identified as a party to A-15-720032-A as “Nona Tobin, an Individual and Trustee of the Gordon B. Hansen Trust”. Ochoa later lied about this repeatedly into the court record in order to obstruct a fair adjudication of my claims and to prevent my access to the Nevada supreme Court on appeal.
Note that there are three other items on that executive session agenda that, in my strongly stated opinion, the Board was prohibited from discussing, or acting on, in closed session, and which contributed to the unjust enrichment of HOA managers and/or agents and which were detrimental to the HOA per se. I will give those items to the police rather than publish them n the internet to spare myself the grief of more abusive threats and harassment from the lying, self-serving attorneys.
POWER OF ATTORNEY from Marilyn to Gordon Hansen is significant because it is the only recorded power of attorney in this property record from 2003-2021
“limited to executing loan documents for purchase of home located at 2763 White Sage…power of attorney is null & void after execution.”
Marilyn Hansen in granting her power of attorney to Gordon Hansen solely for the purpose of purchasing their new Sun City Anthem home.
Marilyn 2 Gordon Hansen Power of Attorney is the only recorded power of attorney in this property record from 2003-2021. Nationstar disclosed it as NSM 117-120.
Nationstar did not record Power of Attorneys for the claims NSM recorded as “attorney-in-fact” for other entities on 12/1/14 (Bank of American), 8/17/15 (Wells Fargo), 3/8/19 (Bank of American), 3/8/19 (Wells Fargo) or 6/3/19 (American Trustee Servicing Solutions)
Sad. SCA deserves so much better.
