“Heads will roll if lips aren’t sealed about GM pay”

Or, anyway, that was the threat, before…

Contact13’s Darcy Spears highlighted Sun City Anthem’s excessive executive compensation on the “HOA Hall of Shame” on Channel 13 action news last Thursday.

Living in Las Vegas can cost more when your home is in an HOA, but where does all the money go? Contact 13 looks at who’s getting a big slice of the pie in one of the largest communities in Southern Nevada. Click on photo to watch 3 1/2-minute video.

Threatened with legal action? Really?

Did you catch that report at the end of the video?

Neither the GM or the Board would even answer KTNV’s call to explain how the SCA Board justified such big payouts.

“Instead, they had an attorney respond who claimed State law prohibited the HOA from discussing anything about salaries and we learned the HOA threatened legal action against some owners after Contact13 started asking questions about manager pay rates.”

Is any of that true?

It is 100% true that the GM has used OUR attorney to threaten legal action to try to keep her pay a secret.
  • against me personally,
  • against other owners,
  • against the association itself, and
  • in this case, against a TV station,

But, it is 100% legally and morally wrong to use our SCA attorney to unlawfully hide from owners how much of OUR money is going into her pocket.

Are any SCA employee salaries/ benefits confidential by nevada law?
Short answer:       No.

Per NRS 116.31175, most personnel records are confidential, but not compensation.

…4(a) The personnel records of the employees of the association (are confidential), except for those records relating to the number of hours worked and the salaries and benefits of those employees;

Why would the SCA attorney say employee compensation is confidential when the law clearly says the opposite?

In my view, he is simply representing the wrong client.

As the SCA association attorney, he is being paid by the owners to act as OUR agent, not to be the GM’s agent.

In fact, there is a law specifically prohibiting him from representing the GM because it is a conflict of interest. See NRS 116A.640(6). He is duty bound by law to act, solely and exclusively, in the best interests of the association membership as a whole.

But, is he?

I certainly don’t see it. I see the GM approving tons of unnecessary attorney fees that owners pay to protect her imaginary privacy rights.

And like Ricky Ricardo, I think Adam Clarkson has some ‘splainin’ to do.
Why did I get a threatening letter because of this story?

I was told this story was taped, after the fact, last October, but then nothing happened, and I forgot about it.

On 12/22/17, I submitted a written request for SCA to update the 2017 employee compensation table that had been given to another resident on 1/31/17. The budget was ratified in November, and I suspected the Board had given the GM another bonus in secret despite the petition for a vote of no confidence signed by 825 owners and her failure to meet the 12/31/17 target about the restaurant.

When CAM Elyssa Rammos emailed me around 1/15/18 that the 2018 salary table was ready to pick up at the front desk, I was in Mexico and asked for it electronically.

When I got no response, I asked Ruby Leong to pick it up and email it to me before the MLK 3-day weekend. They gave her the run around.

“It’s not ready.
We gave it to someone else.
We have to make changes.”

None of which was true.

The reason for the stonewalling was exactly what Darcy Spears said. Between the time Elyssa Rammos had notified me that the 2018 employee compensation chart was ready, and Ruby Leong could drive a few blocks to pick it up, Sandy Seddon had gotten a call from someone at KTNV.

Quick as a flash, Adam Clarkson manufactured an absolutely false legal interpretation out of thin air that the 2018 version of the previously-released 2017 table was now confidential because Contact13 was doing a story.

Wow. It’s magic.
Documents become invisible, and our money disappears.

SCA’s $325/hour attorney blocked the release of the 2018 update of the 2017 SCA employee compensation table that was already in the public domain. SCA homeowners had to foot the bill for Clarkson to write “legal letters”, in SCA’s name, in January to threaten legal action against me if I told KTNV what the GM’s pay was (even though they already knew) and against KTNV if they ran the story.

There was no Board action authorizing this threat of legal action – unless, of course, they took the action in a secret meeting.

And, by the way, NRS 116.31088 requires a VOTE of the membership, before SCA can file a civil action. But no big deal.

This is a provision of the law that Adam Clarkson made disappear when the SCA Board filed a civil action to evict the Foundation Assisting Seniors. I’m sure Adam Clarkson’s convoluted reading of the law will come up with some magical way that allows the GM to use him to threaten litigation, against anybody or everybody, in SCA’s name, and on SCA owners’ dime.

What did I do about this “legal letter”?

I filed an affidavit under penalty of perjury on 1/31/18 with NRED.  I requested that this complaint be incorporated with the ongoing investigation into the harassment and retaliation complaint which precipitated my unlawful removal from the Board on 8/24/17.

It is my understanding that these complaints will be heard by the CIC Commission on November 6, 2018.

More to come.

The next few blogs will discuss the magnitude of the GM’s misuse of the association attorney to act as her personal fixer.

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