Boo! Homeowners are putting a scare into builders over errors, inadequate fees
AP's Jim Wasserman, for my money the best journalist in the nation on CID issues, strikes again, this time laying the smack down about construction defect litigation:


By Jim Wasserman, The Associated Press
ROSEVILLE, Calif. -- When Jim Viele moved to Sun City Roseville in 1997, he expected to be thinking more about golf than landscaping, drip irrigation systems and lawsuits.But as head of his homeowners association, Viele is mired in a lawsuit with Del Webb, the nation's premier builder of privately run adult communities. The association claims the developer saddled the 5,400 residents with defective water systems that caused trees and turf to die and the golf course to become soggy...Virginia lawyer David Mercer said cities that approve development projects and property management companies that run them should be more outspoken about the financial foundations developers leave for private communities, many thousands of homes. "They've created a little city in many respects," he said.
[read the whole thing]

The Globe and Mail: Ontario orders greenbelts...and HOAs

The 10 million people who are expected to live in the Greater Toronto Area in the next couple of decades will increasingly find it difficult to find an affordable house and will be concentrated more in condominiums and townhouses under a sweeping plan to protect another one million acres as a greenbelt around urban areas.
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So now we have yet another incentive driving the CID revolution--cramming people into high-density living arrangements with private governments so that lots of land can be left undeveloped. Why? Because some planners think that's how we should live. This is, of course, many an urban planner's idea of utopia--they design, we obey. Portland is the main example of this sort of thing in the USA. Seems that Ontario is using the same model. Says Premier Dalton McGuinty, ”This means no new subdivision paving over our valuable farmland. It means no new shopping malls carved out of our forests.” The only problem with this approach is that those troublesome, individualistic home-buyers don't understand what is good for them, to wit: Mark Parsons, president of the Greater Toronto Home Builders Association, said developers will co-operate with the government but warned that the plan runs counter to the basic desires of homeowners. ”Sixty-five per cent of Toronto and suburban GATE residents polled [by the association] said they would like to move into a single-family home,” he said. Well, they'll just have to get used to living in condos, because the government, acting on the advice of planners, won't allow SFH construction to meet that demand. It's all for the greater good, don't you see?

Thanks to Fred Pilot for pointing me to this story.

Macomb Twp. flag flap may go to resolution center - 10/27/04

Go, O'Brien!

MACOMB TOWNSHIP - A compromise may be at hand in the dispute between a veteran who wants to fly his Marine Corps flag and the condominium association that's trying to stop him.

John O'Brien, a disabled Vietnam-era Marine Corps veteran, has been battling Windmere Commons I Condo Association for the right to fly the American and Marine Corps flag in front of his house. Association rules allow only American flags.

After an exchange of letters and a $25 fine levied against O'Brien by the association, the two parties may meet in the Macomb County Resolution Center in Mount Clemens to resolve the dispute.
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Telegraph | News | Don't tackle burglars, urge police
Here's something from Great Britain to contrast with the self-helpers from the UFC in the previous post:
Police chiefs have urged householders not to confront intruders, but to call 999 and lock themselves in safely until help arrives.Their advice was issued last night after a judge defended the actions of a retired man who shot an intruder who had returned for the third time to break into his isolated country home...Rae, 22, who was jailed for seven years for a string of burglaries and other crimes, was shot in the leg by Kenneth Faulkner, 73, at his home in Ockbrook, Derbyshire. Mr Faulkner was only told shortly before the trial that he would not be prosecuted over the shooting....The [police] advice comes at a time when public confidence in the police has been severely shaken by recent incidents in which officers failed to take immediate action when called out to deal with gunmen...

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Hooray for Faulkner, hooray for the judge, and...well, what can you say about police who advise you to cower in fear in your own home while you wait for police who may not show up? Thanks for nothing, guys.

And what on earth is Rae doing running around burglarizing homes after a seven-year stint in prison? What is Great Britain coming to? First, I think we can safely conclude that disarming the police force is a bad idea. But beyond that, who wants to live in a place where people are reduced to an enforced total dependence on government, even to the point of facing prosecution for defending their lives and families against thugs who invade their homes? That is what the police, of all people, are advocating here. Good thing for Faulkner he defended himself--and good thing he had a shotgun. May things never come to such a pass in the USA.

The Daily News Online:Longview 'extreme fighter' nabs armed robber
Three cheers for self-help...and the Ultimate Fighting Championship:
Russell R. Rogers picked the wrong restaurant to rob Sunday afternoon, Vancouver police said. Professional "extreme fighter" Benji Radach of Longview and his training partner [UFC veteran Dennis Hallman] tackled Rogers, 64, after he tried to hold up Elmer's Restaurant with a gun, police officers and restaurant workers said...Radach, also known as "The Razor," felt he had a good chance of overpowering Rogers. The 25-year-old Longview resident is trained in Pankration, a combination of kickboxing, judo, wrestling and other martial arts --- in which the goal is to render the opponent helpless or senseless...As Rogers looked to his left and yelled that he had a gun, Radach moved behind him to his right. He grabbed Rogers with a wrist lock, relieving him of his pistol. Radach forced Roger's hands to his back and pushed him chest-first to the ground. Radach said he then knocked Rogers unconscious with a blow to the head. Radach said Hallman backed him up, making sure that Rogers had no other weapons as they manhandled him to the ground.
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Way to go, guys! I especially like the part about "knocked Rogers unconscious with a blow to the head."

Yahoo! News - San Diego now 'Enron by the Sea'
City Hall's Web site proclaims it "the most efficiently run big city in California." Howard Jarvis, architect of Proposition 13, California's landmark 1978 ballot measure capping property taxes, once said that if all cities were as financially prudent as San Diego, there'd be no need for a tax revolt.That was then. This is now: a financial mess dragging the nation's seventh-largest city toward insolvency, federal investigators looking for evidence of corruption, a $1.7 billion gap in city workers' pension fund and retiree medical benefits brought on by years of mismanagement and alleged sweetheart deals. The city manager and city auditor quit in disgrace. Allegations of conflicts of interest dog pension-fund trustees. The City Council and Mayor Dick Murphy, who's up for re-election Nov. 2, are accused of short-changing the pension plan to stem red ink and keep pet programs afloat, then shying from tough steps needed to close the gap.
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Thanks to Fred Pilot for sending this link. This is one of the main reasons cities privatize government services--they can't afford the cost of large staffs of government employees. Government employee unions negotiate contracts that cities and states can't afford in the long term. The problem in San Diego, according to this article, is municipal employee pensions, which are becoming an enormous problem for many cities and states. While city services deteriorate steadily, city employee pensions are quite lavish in San Diego, as the article notes:

Meanwhile, the average police officer, firefighter or clerk retiring after 30 years takes home a one-time $300,000 check from a much-criticized deferred retirement program established in 1997, plus a $50,000 annual pension for life, inflation adjusted. A few top officials have left with $1 million deferred-retirement checks and $144,000 a year for life. San Diego's benefits are "certainly on the high end of the spectrum," says April Boling, head of a pension-reform committee created by City Council.

A masterpiece of understatement, that last comment from Ms. Boling. Line employees are retiring at 55 with a massive cash payout, followed by maybe 30 years of a fat monthly stipend. Bigwigs get seven-figure lump sums and six-figures every year. Illinois has similar problems. So do other states and municipalities. Privatization, anyone?

It's OK, Officer...you see...It's an HOA matter!
Woman accused of stealing Bush signs says it's not political
an ABC Action News report 10/25/04
CLEARWATER - A Clearwater woman is accused of stealing her neighbor's political signs.
Homeowner Michael Pinson set up a hidden camera to catch the culprit after several of his Bush and Cheney election signs disappeared from his yard. Sunday afternoon the camera caught his neighbor taking a sign and then tearing it up.
ABC Action News confronted the woman in the video who said that the snatched signs had nothing to do with politics.
"I am trying to help him alleviate a $50 a day fine which is what they charge you in this homeowners association," explained Nancy Rapp.
Pinson has filed a complaint with police claiming his neighbor is trying to stifle his freedom of speech.

Condo resident fined over U.S. Marines flag - 10/22/04
Do you think the folks on this condo board are proud of themselves, now that they have taken steps to remove the USMC flag from their development?

MACOMB TOWNSHIP - John O'Brien figures he's already sacrificed for his country. All he wants is a little respect in return.

The disabled U.S. Marine Corps veteran is fighting his homeowners association for the right to fly the red Marine flag along with the American flag on the garage of his Macomb Township condominium.

The rules at Windmere Commons I condos allow only American flags, which O'Brien says violates his First Amendment rights.

O'Brien, 63, says he won't take down the flag he's been flying since July or pay the $25 fine levied by the homeowners association. He's taking his case to a state representative for help.

'I'M BANNED FOR LIFE': (from Bristol, UK)
A Golf club has banned a player for life after he wrote a message in its visitors' book insulting the state of the course. Tony Rooke, from Bradley Stoke, was attending a wake at Shirehampton Park Golf Club, in Park Hill, where he used to be a member, when he says he saw some dandelions growing on the bunker by the 18th green. On leaving the club Mr Rooke - who admits he had "a few drinks" - wrote a message in the book which said: "The course looks like a tip"...He wrote a letter apologising for his behaviour - but was then told that he would no longer be welcome at the Shirehampton club because of his "improper and offensive entry" in the book.
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Coming soon, to an HOA near you...

Yahoo! News - Political Yard-Sign Wars Rage as Election Nears
And I thought HOAs were hard on yard signs...
Campaign signs depicting support for either President Bush (news - web sites) or Democratic challenger John Kerry (news - web sites) are being burned, chopped down, spray-painted and commonly, stolen away in the dark of night. There were reports even of a hatchet left in one and a swastika burned into a lawn sporting a Bush sign.

Woman May Face Heavy Sanctions In Homeowners' Association Lawsuit
A lawsuit against a homeowners' association northwest of Tucson could now come back against the woman who filed it. Whatever the court decides, a Tucson legislator says it's one more example of how the state needs to regulate the associations more closely. After more than six years in Superior Court, the suit filed against Casas Adobes Terrace by a resident there could be an expensive lesson for Mika Sadai, who faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in court sanctions.
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Monterey County Herald | 10/16/2004 | UNEASY RETIREMENT
Fred Pilot sent this link. Once again, the Associated Press' Jim Wasserman proves that he is the best journalist in the nation on this issue. Here he focuses on the "time bomb" aspect of the CID revolution. I've been talking about it for almost 20 years. Jim lays it out in the clearest possible terms:

As developers build more planned communities, they are also turning them -- and their multimillion-dollar annual budgets -- over to residents and volunteers to run once the developers sell out. Often, development experts said, residents from California to Arizona to Florida learn they've inherited financial time bombs.

Cracks develop in clubhouses, tennis courts and roads. On the championship golf course that once lured buyers, grass either dies or turns soggy because of defective irrigation systems. Often, residents find the problems are due to construction defects and that the developer didn't leave enough money in the reserve funds to pay to fix them. Either the associations have to raise dues or collect one-time special assessments, often raising living costs beyond buyers' original expectations.
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Do these people ever learn?
From KOAA in Colorado:

A local woman is arguing with her neighbors about how she is allowed to show her patriotism. The Quail Ridge Homeowners Association in Pueblo West sent Judy Voytek a letter telling her that she is not allowed to have a flag pole in her front yard or drape American flags from the pillars of her front porch.
The neighborhood's covenants prohibit hanging blankets or laundry in the front yard, but says nothing about flags. The association voted in a meeting that flags can be flown in specific ways, but this was not one of them.

How can it be, in the United States of America, that "the association voted" to ban American flags not flown in the way they approve? The covenants say nothing about this, so all you property lawyers please spare me the usual contract rhetoric. Ms. Voytek didn't sign on for this, nor, I'll bet, did she specifically agree to surrender her basic rights of American citizenship to the whims of her neighbors. Not to put too fine a point on it, but where do people get off thinking they can do a thing like this? And what good is the court system, and the Constitution for that matter, if they can get away with it?

The backlash against homeowners' groups | csmonitor.com
For decades, such associations have occupied a murky niche as more than a private business but less than a local government - collecting taxlike "assessments" but subject to little public oversight. Yet as more Americans move into homes governed by associations, there are signs of a mounting revolt.

Stories like Best's are but one part of the issue, as residents chafe against the authority of homeowners' associations to determine everything from the appearance of patio roofs to the politics of lawn placards. More broadly, legislators are increasingly taking the issue into statehouses, seeking not only to clarify the laws governing homeowners' associations, but also how to enforce them.
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True. But if you've been reading this blog you've known that for a long time, haven't you?

Las Vegas: Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed
When privatization goes bad...

Employees of a private voter registration company allege that hundreds, perhaps thousands of voters who may think they are registered will be rudely surprised on election day. The company claims hundreds of registration forms were thrown in the trash.
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IFILM - Short Films: Fellowship 9/11
Thanks to Michael Moore, the truth about the Aragorn administration is getting out just in time for the election.

Michael Moore's searing examination of the Aragorn administration's actions in the wake of the tragic events at Helms Deep. With his characteristic humor and dogged commitment to uncovering - or if necessary fabricating - the facts, Moore considers the reign of the son of Arathorn and where it has led us. He looks at how - and why - Aragorn and his inner circle avoided pursuing the Saruman connection to Helms Deep, despite the fact that 9 out of every 10 Orcs that attacked the castle were actually Uruk-hai who were spawned in and financed by Isengard.

Eminent domain, eminent nonsense - The Washington Times: Commentary - October 12, 2004
Here's an unusual conservative take on the pending USSC case of http://www.jud.state.ct.us/external/supapp/Cases/AROcr/CR268/268cr152.pdf Kelo v. City of New London (link is to the 79 page opinion of the Connecticut Supreme Court that is under review by the USSC). This is a major land use case that deals with whether a municipality can use eminent domain to take private property, with compensation, for a "public use" that consists of increasing the taxable value of the land. For example, can the city use condemnation to take property from middle class owners to sell it to a commercial developer? They do it all the time with poor people, says the article I linked to above--why not with the middle class? But property rights advocates are supporting Kelo, saying that this is a violation of the 5th Amendment takings clause because increasing taxable value is not a "public use." Fascinating case.

Times-Herald - Condos demand payment
Homeowners inside Vallejo's premier waterfront condo complex say they must cough up $12,000 each for repairs by New Year's Day or face fines, liens and possible foreclosure, the Times-Herald learned Sunday. The Mariner's Landing Homeowners Association board notified all 94 homeowners last month that they must pay $12,109.76 each by Jan. 1 as an equal share of an estimated $1.1 million in emergency repairs to long-standing water damage. The notice was confirmed by the board president Sunday

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This is the side of private residential governance that they don't put in the marketing brochures, and that your realtor never mentions: you are on the hook for major repairs.

Even if Growth Slows Down, State Services Need to Catch Up
I keep saying that local governments like CIDs because they get taxpayers without having to provide services and infrastructure. This article documents the cost issues:
...in 2010 — if the state's latest projections are on mark — there'll be 39 million people here, instead of 40 million. In 2020, there'll be 44 million — not 46 million — fighting for freeway space, scarce water and classroom desks. Plus affordable housing within commute distance...The scary part is what else the story said: "State planners are reconsidering long-term needs for new schools and other public services."
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The point is that it is hard to see where the money will come from to build all the infrastructure and provide services for these new residents. Enter...private residential governance.

Yahoo! News - Finance: Losing the Right to Sue
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More and more businesses are sticking mandatory arbitration clauses into their contracts, forcing consumers to give up their right to sue if they want to conduct business, and consumer groups have made the elimination of these clauses a top priority.

The practice started with brokerage and credit card contracts but has become increasingly popular with mortgage lenders, car dealers, employers and even hospitals and doctors.


"These clauses are the single biggest threat to consumer rights in recent years, a de facto rewrite of the Constitution that undermines a broad range of consumer protections painstakingly built into law. No other consumer issue hits so many Americans where they live every day," said the National Consumer Law Center.

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Well, maybe not the biggest threat, but one of the bigger ones. How does this differ from the CC&Rs that strip away your right to fly the flag or put up a Nader for President sign? I also saw today that Fannie Mae is instructing mortgage lenders not to put mandatory arbitration clauses in mortgages, a practice that is common for high risk loans. And Smart Money had an article on mandatory ADR last month.