News: Leisure World residents win legal battle for openness : "Last week, the four-year ordeal was brought to an end when California Fourth District Appellate Court ruled in favor of the seven residents in a countersuit Golden Rain filed against them. The decision reaffirmed a lower court ruling that the GRF is indeed a common interest development so it must follow state rules on governing associations, such as homeowner's associations. State law requires that financial records of these associations must be made available to residents."
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I get so tired of hearing all the free marketers and industry flacks talking about how HOAs are local democracies. What kind of democracy requires you to spend four years suing them in order to see how your own money is being spent? And what kind of democracy is it when you, the owner, have to vote without knowing what is going on? Congratulations to these 16 folks who fought for transparency. People are getting stonewalled all over the country by HOAs who come up with all sort of absurd excuses and obstructionist arguments for not living up to legally mandated disclosure obligations.
4 comments:
Dr. McKenzie:
Your comment is probably a result of our limited education on what democratic principles are all about. We take most of them for granted except fo the "visible" elections.
Try a Google search with the phrase in quotes "elections are not enought". You will surprised about the large number of hits. Many describe evolving governments in third world countries. That may be an apt description of owners associations.
My list of democratic principles includes: preservation of rights under the federal and state constitutions; rule of law; defined rights of members; protection of the rights of all members; election of representatives and other officials; separation of powers; limited powers for governing organization; specific and limited authorities for boards of directors; separate legislative body; members' authority to vote on referendums; checks and balances; due process; fairness; justice; independent judiciary; open meetings; members' access to records (equivalent of FOIA); independent press; effective and low-cost means for members to force boards to adhere to the governing documents; reservation of authority to the members' to be involved in decisions that affect their rights, benefits, privileges, dues, assessments and obligations.
More ideas are posted at Democratic Model for Governance of CID/POA. Your ideas are welcome.
As you state, the "the free marketers and industry flacks" just don't get it.
Don Nordeen
Governance of Property Owners Associations
In political science we say that elections are a necessary condition for a functioning democracy, but not a sufficient condition. In other words, you can't have a democracy without elections, but having elections doesn't mean you have a democracy. "Demonstration elections" such as those in the former USSR and in Iraq (with Saddam Hussein getting 100% of the vote!) are commonplace. People need access to information, political liberties such as freedom of speech and association, and fair procedures--to say the least. Many CID elections are straight out of a banana republic.
Dr. McKenzie-
While there are always going to be terrible HOAs (because any situation where you give some people power over others will frequently lead to pettiness and corruption), I don't see this as a free market problem. Local governments (and state and federal) can be and often are just as tyrannical and secretive. At least between HOAs there can be competition.
Local governments have their problems, and some are awful. But most are pretty good, and they cannot be as secretive and tyrannical as HOAs and condo associations because local governments are constrained in ways that private governments are not. We have about 300 years of cultural, legal, and political experience that limits local governments. Constitutions, sunshine laws, Progressive Era reforms, civil service, and the professionalization of local government service are just a few of the limits. I, along with others, have chronicled so many abuses by HOAs and condo associations that the story tells itself now. The issue now is what to do about it, and you can look at the California Law Revision Commission's solutions as enacted by the California legislature: major reforms of architectural review, assessment collection, rule-making, and elections, with more to come. Ombudspersons, state regulatory commissions, and more. I have been warning the industry about this for years: if associations and their lawyers and managers keep on sticking it to the owners, sooner or later the hammer of regulation is going to fall. And now it is falling. It is called "reaping the whirlwind."
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