MSNBC - SpaceShipOne wins $10 million X Prize
Sky Captain would be proud. Private space flight gets a huge boost in credibility:
MOJAVE, Calif. - SpaceShipOne soared to a record 368,000 feet early Monday, easily surpassing the altitude required to win the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, breaking an X-15 altitude record and creating a new astronaut in the process
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Remember the X-15? When I was a kid, I thought there was nothing cooler or more exciting than the flights of the X-15. I built the Revell model and everything.

Yahoo! News - SpaceShipOne a Flight Away From $10M Prize
MOJAVE, Calif. - SpaceShipOne is one flight away from clinching the Ansari X Prize, a $10 million award for the first privately developed manned rocket to reach space twice within 14 days.
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I hope this goes well. The first flight was successful, as I posted below, but there was some sort of unexpected spiralling that occurred. To a non-pilot like me, that sounds like a bad thing.

This reminds me of the new movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. The hero has a private air fleet, complete with giant hangars and all sorts of neat high-tech stuff. So he's a space privateer, but a good guy. Where does he get all that money? Don't ask such questions--just enjoy the movie. Hunter (my 13 year old son) and I saw the film last week and loved it.

Miramar, residents feud over fence: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Keeping up with the Joneses is so hard these days. Seems that to be au courant (I'm practicing my French in case Kerry gets elected and that becomes our official language), one must have "a nice wall." To wit:

A group of homeowners want the city to build a concrete wall in their Turtle Bay back yards, along Miramar Boulevard, but officials disagree on who should foot the bill. Neighboring communities, such as Estates of Miramar, Franklin Farms, River Run and Riverdale, already have concrete walls, built by their developers more than 20 years ago. "We have a wooden fence there now, and it's the worst-looking thing in the community," said Roland Bhola, who has lived in Turtle Bay for 10 years. "The other communities have a nice wall. We just want to be compatible."
...City officials also question who will maintain the wall. Several residents agreed to make it a community responsibility, but without a homeowners association, officials are leery. Moseley said that while researching the issue, it was determined a homeowners association was formed in 1981, but it never collected assessments and has not met since about 1986. "The city has made no decision about building a wall," she said. "But if the homeowners would like us to help get their association up and running, they can assess themselves, and then they can have a wall."


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Indeed. So if you want to look like a gated community, then jump-start your moribund HOA, assess yourselves, and put up your wall. Add in a moat and some alligators if you like. But don't expect "the city," meaning all the taxpayers, to foot the bill. I think that's the message here.

Centre Daily Times | 10/02/2004 | Binding covenants?
An opinion piece from State College, PA:

We live in Stonebridge, a covenanted community. According to the covenants signed by all homeowners, signs cannot be put up in front of houses.

We would like to put up political signs in our front lawns.

The president of the homeowners' association has warned us that putting political signs is against the covenants and is therefore illegal.

The president is backed up by the board of directors.
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The idea that in the USA, a month before a national election, your neighbors can make you take down your political signs seems to me such an outrage that I can't understand people submitting to it. Seems like these folks are ready to rumble. More to the point, what about the directors who do these things? What sort of person makes other folks take down their campaign signs? I just can't imagine the thought process or the values that animate such a decision. I think they should be ashamed of themselves.

CAI Press Release on Schwarzegger Veto (emphasis added by me)


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CAI Wins Critical Legislative Victory in CaliforniaALEXANDRIA, VA, October 1, 2004

“ Seven million Californians living inhomeowners associations have Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to thank for vetoinglegislation that would have jeopardized the financial stability of communityassociations throughout the state.Acting on appeals from countless homeowners, community associations and others,the governor vetoed a measure (AB 2598) that would have had the practical effectof legalizing assessment delinquency up to $2,500 and, ultimately, adding tothe financial burden of responsible, dues-paying homeowners."Thousands of Californians urged the governor to find a solution that helps themajority rather than AB 2598, which creates a process that's the wrong answer atthe wrong time," said Bob Browning, chair of the California Legislative ActionCommittee (LAC) for Community Associations Institute (CAI). A reservespecialist, Browning is a member of the CAI Board of Trustees."Speaking for millions of Californians, we're gratified that Gov. Schwarzeneggerhad the strength and foresight to veto this misdirected legislation," said CAIChief Executive Officer Thomas M. Skiba. "By recognizing the financial havocthis legislation could have created, the governor made the right choice forhomeowners, communities, municipalities, developers and lenders. CAI will workconstructively with state officials as this issue undergoes additionallegislative review." Schwarzenegger's veto message directed state agencies to work with interestedparties to clarify California foreclosure statues.Homeowners, associations and municipalities aren't the only ones who wouldhave been hurt by AB 2598. The legislation would have created businessdisincentives for builders and lenders, who are central to responding to thestate's population growth.Developers expressed concern that they would not be able to sell units if newbuyers could willingly avoid paying the dues needed to maintain the property.Banks and lenders said they would have stopped loaning money to developers andhomeowners associations because their loans could be impaired.In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said, "While the intent of this legislationis laudable and intended to protect homeowners from being foreclosed upon forsmall sums of delinquent assessments, this bill is overly broad and couldnegatively impact all homeowners living in common-interest developments.""We faced an uphill struggle on an issue of critical importance to our members,"Skiba said. "We didn't know if we could carry the day given the emotional appealof the bill and the timeframe, but we knew the facts were on our side. That –along with a lot of hard work – led to this positive outcome. We're gratefulto our LAC and the countless CAI members who stood with us in defense ofcommunity associations in California."After hearing about the veto, homeowner Sam Dolnick of La Mesa, said, "As an86-year-old retired Californian, I applaud the governor for opposing this bill.By doing so he has protected millions of seniors and folks living on fixedincomes. We thank the governor for finding a better solution." Dolnick is amember of the Board of Directors of the Foundation for Community AssociationResearch. For members and general inquiries, contact the CAI Direct customer service team:Community Associations Institute225 Reinekers Lane, Suite 300Alexandria, VA 22314Phone: 703-548-8600Fax: 703-684-1581Email: CAIdirect@c...MEDIA CONTACT: Frank RathbunPhone: 703-548-8600, ext. 261Fax: 703-684-1581Email: FRathbun@c...+++++84100104

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So it seems that, as I reported over the last couple of weeks, CAI was lobbying the Governator heavily after the legislature passed this bill. This veto suggests that the most revolutionary of the HOA activists have just hit a stone wall in their efforts to take power away from HOA boards in California. As long as Arnold is in Da House, he can be expected to use his veto pen like an Uzi on anything that looks like it would impair the financial viability of HOA living or make it hard for BODs to govern. That's the way I read it, at least. This veto is a watershed event and suggests that for the foreseeable future no dramatic reforms will be enacted in that state.

I support foreclosure reform, but it is clear that the next effort at foreclosure reform will have to be more modest. With such an enormous share of the state's housing being in CIDs, state and local governments just can't afford to have large numbers of insolvent CIDs, and mortgage bankers just won't allow that to happen either. So somehow the reformers have to prove that they aren't really out to wreck HOAs. Given the way some of the more extreme activists express themselves in various newsgroups, the moderates may not be able to carry that burden of proof because they will get tarred with the same brush as the Bastille-stormers.

Newsday.com - Long Island News:West Meadow Beach cottage conflict not over
The deadline for residents to leave their beachside villas is past but many say they won’t give them up

I have always been intrigued by the takings clause of the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution ("...nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation"). The idea is that property owners are protected from seizure of their property by government, which is required to pay fair market value for it. But here is an innovative use of the clause by, of all people, renters:

For eight years, Friday's date, Oct. 1 2004, has loomed over renters of the 93 cottages at West Meadow Beach. That was the deadline, set by 1996 state legislation, for the Town of Brookhaven-owned cottages to be vacated to make way for their court-ordered demolition...One motion, filed late Thursday on behalf of a group of cottage residents, challenges the 1996 legislation, which extended the vacate deadline to 2004. Thursday's motion argues that the eviction is an unconstitutional "taking" of property without compensation.
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TheDenverChannel.com - News - Granby Women Pose In Calendar To Help Rebuild Town
Here's an innovative approach to municipal fund-raising:
It was just four months ago when Marv Heemeyer used a makeshift tank to bulldoze through the town of Granby, causing destruction that would cost $5.5 million to repair.
Now, to help raise some of that money, some women in town are showing a little skin.
They may not be the same kind of women you'll see in the next issue of Sports Illustrated' Swimsuit Edition, but they soon be appearing in a calendar you can buy.
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My Way News:Construction spending hits all-time high

WASHINGTON (AP) - Construction spending surged in August to the highest level on record, fresh evidence that the housing market is helping move the economy ahead.

The Commerce Department reported Friday that the value of buildings put in place clocked in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.02 trillion, a record high. That represented a 0.8 percent increase in August from July's level.

The strength exhibited in August in part reflected a strong showing in residential projects by private builders, which hit a record high.
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And of course that means that CIDs are still being built in record numbers, despite all the bad press they are getting.

Veto message for AB 2598
He says the intent of the bill is "laudable" because it would "protect homeowners from being foreclosed upon for small sums of delinquent assessments," the bill is "overly broad and could negatively impact all homeowners living in CIDs." It could, he says, "result in increased assessments for other howeowners," a point I have made here a number of times to the distress of some owner-activists. He says there should be "more open discussion between homeowners and their associations" to resolve conflicts. He accepts the CAI position that foreclosure should be "the last course of action." He says that the foreclosure statute needs to be clarified but through incremental change, and I must confess that I don't know what he has in mind here. I hope somebody does, because apparently it's back to the drawing board. After the amount of time and energy spent on the two bills (Ducheny and Steinberg) and putting them together like this, you'd think things were pretty well thought through, but not to the satisfaction of The Governator.

AB 2598 Assembly Bill - Status

Just to confirm that AHRC had it right...
LAST HIST. ACT. DATE: 09/30/2004
LAST HIST. ACTION : Vetoed by Governor.
VETOED

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In other news, I have just been notified that I passed the Illinois Bar Examination. Yowzah.

From AHRC News Service: SCHWARZENEGGER VETOED ANTI-FORECLOSURE BILL AB 2598 TODAY
Hot off the presses. This is the Steinberg bill. I've noted a couple of times that rumors were circulating to the effect that CAI was lobbying The Governator heavily to veto this. I've also noted that he lives in a gated community. Looks like he has his own idea about the HOA foreclosure power. This is a major setback for the California activists. Arizona and Florida brought victories on this issue, but it looks like the industry still has the inside track in California.

The HOA Citizen
Check out George Starapoli's newsletter, with the lead story, "Mortgagor works with HOA foreclosure."

Yahoo! News - Private Rocket Ship Lands After Space Flight
How's this for privatization?

Sierra Vista Herald: American Border Patrol told to move from neighborhood


Many thanks to Fred Pilot for sending along this truly fascinating story that has one form of privatization pitted against another. You see, this is not the U.S. Border Patrol. Nothing so simple. It seems that "The ABP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to addressing border issues. It is not associated with the U.S. Border Patrol, but it does its own surveillance of the Mexican border and tracks down illegal immigrants, turning them over to the BP."

And with that intro, let's look at the story:


BISBEE - Glenn Spencer won't be using his home in the Pueblo del Sol Subdivision as headquarters of the American Border Patrol much longer.

Spencer's attorney, Michael Johns of Sierra Vista, told Cochise County Superior Court Judge Stephen Desens on Monday afternoon that Spencer will be vacating the premises he rents by the end of October.

Spencer and Johns were in court in response to an injuction filed on Aug. 24 by the Pueblo del Sol Homeowners Association against Spencer and REB Enterprises LLC, the owner of the house at 4814 Equestrian Ave. Roger E. Barnett is the managing member of REB Enterprises.

The association, represented by Sierra Vista attorney Joseph DeFrancesco, was granted a preliminary injuction - effective immediately - by Desens to preclude the defendants from conducting a business in the residential subdivision. Business activity are prohibited by the association's covenants, conditions and restrictions.
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So what we have here is an HOA--a private government-- evicting a tenant who was running a business enterprise called the American Border Patrol--a private police force--from his rented unit. Seems the ABP doesn't mind being evicted because they have found a better spot from which to police the border. But the point is that things along the border have begun to resemble something from Neal Stephenson's "Snowcrash." Yowzah.

Las Vegas SUN: Woman sues as homeowners association tries to sell her condo over unpaid fines
Here's another one of those "looks-like-foreclosure-abuse" cases that people in the industry keep telling us don't really happen. I don't know more about it than is in this article, and there may be another entirely different side to it, but read it for yourself and see what it looks like to you.

A woman has sued her homeowners association after receiving notice it planned to sell her condo -- which she owns free and clear -- for alleged nonpayment of $1,785 in fines.

Shaun Haydon and her attorney Orin Grossman will go before a Clark County District Court judge today and argue that her Henderson property should not be sold.

Haydon alleges that she was assessed more than $1,700 in fines because of broken lights and items left out on the back porch of the condo, in the 500 block of Sellers Place. Haydon rents out the 20-year-old condo that she bought in 1987 for $43,000 and that she said is now worth about $80,000.

She alleges that when she tried to pay the fines, the Summerfield Homeowners Association and its management company, American Family Real Estate Inc., refused to accept the payments.
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Yahoo! News - New Home Sales Jump 9.4 Pct in August
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. new home sales jumped a surprising 9.4 percent in August, the fastest acceleration of sales in almost four years, as a fresh dip in mortgage interest rates attracted buyers, a government report showed on Monday. Sales of new single-family homes climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.184 million units from a downwardly revised 1.082 million units the month before, the Commerce Department (news - web sites) said. It was the sharpest climb since December 2000.
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This is pretty impressive. As the story notes, given the storms in Florida nobody really expected such strong figures.

Sprawl May Harm Health, Study Finds (washingtonpost.com)
"Suburban sprawl affects your health," said Roland Sturm, a senior economist at the Rand Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif., who led the study, which is being released today. "That's really the take-home message."
...
The increase in health problems is presumably due to the fact that sprawl discourages physical activity, increasing the chances of being overweight or obese. In addition, sprawling communities tend to have more air pollution, Sturm said.

"This really seems to be due mainly to air pollution and physical activity," Sturm said.
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So, "sprawl," whatever that is, "discourages physical activity"? I wonder how come the further my family and I move from Chicago the more physically fit we become?

New York Post Online Edition: business: IS FANNIE MAE SCANDAL DEMOCRATS' ENRON?
Actually, I'd say the bigger question is whether Fannie Mae will melt down and need to be bailed out at taxpayer expense. If that happens, does it really matter whether that sorry event would help or hurt Democrat political interests?

September 26, 2004 -- Is the growing scandal at Fannie Mae about to become the Democrats' Enron? That's the hot question in Washington this week as regulators painted a scary picture of the huge home lender, detailing accounting shenanigans, including "cookie jar" reserves that smoothed out volatile results and paved the way for tens of millions of dollars in executive bonuses. For those, including Alan Greenspan, who have warned that this government-sponsored lender is a ticking time bomb, the revelations seem to indicate that Fannie's own management believed its operations are a lot riskier than they let on... The next few weeks will likely tell whether the scandal at Fannie Mae will blow over, or whether it threatens to blow up into a bigger mess that could potentially leave U.S. taxpayers exposed to a mammoth bailout. It will be interesting to see if Fannie's ties to the Democrats get as much ink as Enron's ties to the Republicans.

The New York Times > National > In Dying Desert Town, Residents Eagerly Await 'Terror Attacks'
Who says government is wasteful? Seems that Homeland Security has found a use for a ghost town--a planned community from the 1970s that has only about 50 people left in it. It will be a place to simulate terrorist attacks and how to respond to them.

PLAYAS, N.M., Sept. 20 - The Phelps Dodge mining company pictured a suburban utopia with a Southwestern flavor when it built this town for its employees from scratch in the early 1970's. It incorporated a six-lane bowling alley, a rodeo ring, a helicopter pad, a shooting range and a swimming pool into the community of 259 ranch-style homes.But the company shut its nearby copper smelter because of sluggish prices in the late 1990's. And these days, more animals than people can be found wandering the streets.
...
So the residents of Playas, all 50 or so of those remaining from the peak of 1,000, say they are more than ready for their town to become a target for pickups laden with explosives and simulations of suicide bombs, water-supply poisoning and anthrax attacks. In what might be the beginning of Playas's renaissance, the Department of Homeland Security is channeling $5 million to a small New Mexico engineering school to buy the entire town. The school, in turn, aims to turn the town into one of the country's top locations for antiterrorism training.
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Bright future for professionals behind the communal garden gate / Homeowners groups in need of managers, lawyers
This is an article by Deborah Rich that just appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. She graciously quoted me:

Looking for a surefire way to make money over the next 10 to 20 years? Try homeowner association litigation. Or if you don't cotton to going back to school and cramming for the bar exam, become a professional property manager instead. No degree or certificate necessary; a business card will get you in the door.

Both lawyers and property managers are certain to be in high demand as the number of Americans living in developments owned and managed by homeowners associations swells.
...
"Homeowners associations, being private organizations, cannot violate the Constitution, no matter what they do. They can tell you to take down your Christmas decorations, your American flag, whatever," says Evan McKenzie, political science professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, lawyer and author of "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government'' (Yale University Press, 1995)
...
"People go to see a new development and say, 'Wow, isn't this beautiful,' " says McKenzie. "They say, 'We have a pool, we have this, we have that, and it's all clean and neat because someone is enforcing all the rules and nobody is going to put a trailer in their front yard. Isn't this wonderful?' And, yeah, it is. And guess what? You have to run it. And the other thing is, isn't it nice that your neighbor's house looks so clean and neat and orderly and uniform. And guess what, yours has to look the same way."

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It's a long article, and I think it is interesting and well-written. And this McKenzie fellow sure seems to know what he's talking about.

AP Wire | 09/24/2004 | Governor signs bill aiding buyers in private communities
JIM WASSERMAN

Associated Press


SACRAMENTO - Prospective buyers eyeing homes in California's 37,000 private communities won new help Friday to get clearer pictures of what they're getting into financially.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, responding to numerous complaints of real estate agents, signed legislation requiring homeowners associations to better explain the true costs of living there.

The California Association of Realtors sponsored the bill, saying too many buyers are complaining of unexpected hikes in their monthly or yearly assessments soon after moving in. The bill makes associations specifically spell out for potential buyers the amounts of monthly dues and precise amounts that dues must rise in years ahead to maintain the community.

...Backers said the bill will help buyers in the private neighborhoods that represent 60 percent of California's new housing determine if they can afford both a mortgage and monthly dues that may rise in years ahead. Most Californians pay between $100 and $200 a month in assessments that maintain streets, buildings and landscaping held in common by all the residents.

...Schwarzenegger also signed legislation expanding the rights of associations and residents to mediate their differences instead of going to court or hiring an arbitrator. The bill, by Assemblyman Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, allows residents to appeal decisions made by their association boards, and says the board cannot refuse to meet with a resident over a dispute.

But the governor still has not taken a position on the year's biggest homeowner association bill, which would ban private communities from foreclosing on members' homes over unpaid debts under $2,500.



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Good for the bill's sponsor, John Laird, and also three cheers for the Governator, because this is a good piece of legislation. And now we'll see what he does with the big enchilada--the foreclosure reform bill. He has only until September 30, so we don't have long to wait. CAI is reportedly lobbying him to veto it.

Homes: Protecting homes, protecting people
The role of homeowners associations is changing with society in the early 21st century, and more change is on the way.
By JUDY STARK, Times Staff Writer
Published September 25, 2004

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Time was when people thought their condo or homeowners association existed simply to collect the monthly maintenance checks and keep the guy next door from painting his house purple.

But that's changing, a result of demographics and events in society, experts say.

After the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, people in master-planned communities said that safety and security were their No. 1 priorities. They didn't want to leave what they believed were the safe confines of their community for the dangerous wider world. They began to look to their associations to provide entertainment and activities, said Randy Jackson, a planner from Costa Mesa, Calif., at last month's Southeast Building Conference in Orlando.

"Formerly, associations were there to enforce the rules. Now, they're there to put on social events," he said.
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Let me see if I understand this. After September 11, people decided they needed a homeowner association to coordinate their social lives because they were too frightened of terrorist attacks to go off the HOA property? Yeah, sure. If you say so.

And they keep telling us that the mainstream media have all these layers of oversight and scrutiny to keep pure nonsense from getting in print. Dan Rather, calling Dan Rather...what is the frequency, Kenneth?

News-Leader.com True Ozarks Mosquito-breeding basins annoy residents, officials
Here's an item sent along by Fred Pilot that illustrates what I think will become a regular occurrence: HOAs asking for some sort of help from municipalities to perform functions that were originally given to the developer or the HOA. In this case it is about mosquito abatement. The article explains that the developer created an HOA but it never got going or collected dues. Now there are these nasty little detention ponds on the subdivision property that are home sweet home to zillions of skeeters, and no developer or HOA to fix them.

The city is turning to the courts to address problems with neglected detention basins in Turnberry Estates. But any permanent solution to the development's problem with swarms of mosquitoes bred in the basins remains elusive, and tension between residents and city staff has escalated.
Janell Milton, a Turnberry resident, appeared before the Ozark Board of Aldermen on Monday night, demanding city codes be followed. "For the city to enforce the law, it's every citizen's right," said Milton, who brought in a petition signed by more than half of the 297 households in Turnberry.
But the city faces a harsh reality. The company that developed the subdivision and retains the title over common grounds — Buster-Hayes Properties — no longer exists.
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Chicago moving to 'smart' surveillance cameras | CNET News.com
So, what was that all the lefties were saying about John Ashcroft being a threat to civil liberties, and those crazy folks living in gated communities having such an irrational fear of crime? You were saying, Michael Moore? Come on, I can't hear you.

A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it will also make them much safer.
...
Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.

Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it. Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send police officers to the scene immediately.

TheStar.com - Ambulances endure rough ride
A dozen speed bumps along Toronto's tony Bridle Path and Post Rd. are delaying critically sick or injured patients from reaching Sunnybrook hospital, say paramedics and residents in the Don Mills area.

Homeowners along the mansion-lined Bridle Path thoroughfare insist the bumps are needed to control traffic and reduce speeding.

For seven years the issue has simmered, but now ambulance, fire and transit officials are lining up with residents' groups in the Don Mills area in a campaign to "dump the bumps." It's a battle that pits concerns over emergency response times for thousands against safety and tranquility in one of the city's most exclusive neighbourhoods.
...
Bob Rose, former president of the Bayview Heights Residents Association, which represents homeowners in the area of The Bridle Path, says the traffic-calming devices are there to protect children.

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How many of you believe the part about "it's for the children"? That has a vaguely Clintonian ring, doesn't it?

FBI: Mortgage Fraud Is Rampant in U.S.

Fraud is running rampant in the nation's mortgage industry, with nearly three times as many reports of suspicious activity so far this year compared with 2001, a top FBI official said Friday.

"It has the potential to be an epidemic," said Chris Swecker, FBI assistant director for criminal investigations.

Through the first nine months of 2004, mortgage companies and banks have reported more than 12,100 instances of suspicious activity compared with only 4,220 in 2001. The FBI currently has 533 pending mortgage fraud investigations, compared with 102 in 2001.

Law enforcement officials say the lending and refinancing boom that accompanied record low interest rates in the past few years is a key reason for the increased fraud. The FBI has identified several "hot spots" around the country where fraud is especially prevalent, including Florida, California, Nevada, Michigan, Missouri and Illinois.
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Note the prevalence of fraud in three Sunbelt states where CIDs are the norm in new housing. Here, the victims are banks.

sacbee.com -- Politics -- Panel eyes oversight of housing groups
Here's the Sacramento Bee's writeup on the CLRC recommendations for administrative agency oversight of CIDs in the Golden State.

With more than 36,000 homeowners associations in California controlling $6.3 billion in cash, a state commission wants to take a closer look at how these private governments are operating.
The California Law Revision Commission will consider a proposal today at a meeting in Oakland to create a new agency to oversee homeowners associations and assist resolution of disputes.
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California Law Revision Commission recommends creation of Common Interest Developmetn Bureau in Department of Consumer Affairs
This is a significant event because it comes from a highly credible organization and recommends taking the major step of agency creation. I don't think the money is there to do it, but what do I know?

thedesertsun.com |Blind residents want pet rules amended for guide dogs-- Couple, home association go to court over dog droppings
You'd think HOAs would learn from the experience of other associations that get hammered into the ground like a tent stake. But no...this association is persecuting a blind couple because they have a hard time doing a perfect job of picking up after their GUIDE DOGS. Because they are BLIND, which means they CAN'T SEE. Get it, members of the BOD? How about some humanity, or at least a little common sense?

INDIO -- There may be an occasional dog dropping found in the street outside Dennis and Shirley Bartlett’s home, but it’s not because of a lack of courtesy.

The Bartletts,both completely blind, try to pick up after their guide dogs, Nebraska and Marna, the best they can, but admit they don’t always get everything.

"Sometimes you will miss little pieces just because (the dog moves)," said Dennis Bartlett. "You can’t get everything all the time."

It’s those times he’s missed, though, that have caused contention between the Bartletts and the Desert Grove homeowners association in Indio.

There is so much contention that the Bartletts have filed a small claims civil suit against the association’s former president, DelmarPierce, for harassment and prohibiting their guide dogs from defecating in the street -- the method in which they were trained to relieve themselves.

The Bartletts hope the civil suit is the first step toward getting the association to amend its rules and regulations --known as CC & Rs or Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions -- to protect guide dog users.
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AB 2598 Assembly Bill - ENROLLED
So, the big foreclosure bill has been enrolled. But I heard a rumor yesterday. A California journalist who shall remain nameless told me that the word is circulating to the effect that Governor Schwarzenegger may veto this bill. He is being lobbied by CAI and other groups, I am told. He has until the end of September, I believe. Stay tuned. A veto would tick off the HOA activists to no end. As I posted some time ago, Der Governator knows about CID living because he lives in a gated community.

Greta Grab-o!--New York Observer
Lifestyles of Fox News Rich and Famous in Condoland, Part Deux... First it was Geraldo, who is already PO'd at the BOD, and now it is Greta:
The Fox News real-estate stampede continues. Recently, Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren landed a one-bedroom condo at the storied Essex House on Central Park South. According to real-estate sources familiar with the proceedings, Ms. Van Susteren, the host of the prime-time program On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, went to contract on the property in July for $657,000. Her new one-bedroom apartment covers 850 square feet and has an open granite kitchen with a Sub-Zero refrigerator, a marble bath and a built-in washer-dryer. A Washington, D.C.–based anchor, Ms. Van Susteren plans to use her Central Park South perch as a Manhattan pied-à-terre when she visits the Fox News mothership in midtown.
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Let's see, $657,000 for 850 square feet works out to...$773 per square foot. Must be pretty nice. Now, I wonder what will happen if her condo board tells her she has to turn down the stereo.

Geraldo sues his housing development -- Concord Monitor Online

HACKENSACK, N.J. -Geraldo Rivera is suing the co-op board of the housing development he lives in, alleging members wrongly kept a $10,000 deposit on one of his properties and prevented him from buying another.

The Fox News senior correspondent owns two homes in the 26-acre Edgewater Colony, where residents own their homes but share ownership of the land.

Rivera said the board refuses to return the security deposit for construction of the first home he bought about five years ago, among other allegations.

"They are arbitrarily and capriciously interfering with my house, down to minimalist details like whether or not I should have a fish tank, or whether I should plant a certain kind of flower or tree," he told The Record of Bergen County for Saturday's editions.

Karen Painter Randall, a lawyer for Edgewater Colony, said the lawsuit is "entirely without merit."
[more]
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If Lesson Number One for the industry was "Don't throw elderly widows out of their homes," you'd think they'd know by now that Lesson Number Two is, "Don't P.O. internationally reknowned journalists."

But I guess that would be asking too much. I can't wait to see the Fox News documentary.

AB 2598 Assembly Bill - Status
The Steinberg bill is about to become law. The Assembly has concurred in the Senate amendments, and it has been sent to enrollment. After that it goes to Der Gubernator.

Missoulian: Law school faculty consider challenging Natelson ruling
I have reported on this before. Bob Natelson has written on property issues pertaining to condominiums and HOAs generally. He is a quality researcher and from what I gather a good teacher. His law school until recently wouldn't let him teach Constitutional Law. Natelson challenged that, claiming he was being denied this opportunity because he is a conservative, and he prevailed in a hearing held in August. Now faculty members are trying to overturn the ruling in his favor. Apparently the problem is that
University of Montana Law School faculty are talking about challenging UM President George Dennison's decision last week to appoint conservative lightning rod Rob Natelson to teach a class on Constitutional Law.

Some of Natelson's colleagues will meet Tuesday to consider filing a formal grievance with the university or appealing to the state Commissioner of Higher Education.
[more]

ABC7Chicago.com: Mayor outlines elaborate camera network for city
Hello, surveillance society. What I find so interesting here is that many liberals and leftists are terrified of Attorney General John Ashcroft, who they suspect of peering over their shoulder at the library and rifling through their trash. But here is Democrat mayor Richard Daley installing thousands of video surveillance cameras, all linked into some sort of network. Will the left complain? Let's see.

September 9, 2004 (Chicago) — The city of Chicago plans to network more than two-thousand surveillance cameras in public places to alert authorities to suspicious behavior or emergency situations.
Mayor Richard Daley says the plan announced today would give authorities what he calls "the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes." Daley says it's "the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."

The city plans to put 250 new cameras in places determined to be at high risk for crime or terrorism. They would be networked with existing cameras, including those at O'Hare Airport, on the city's transit lines and in public housing buildings and schools.

The system is expected to be in place by the spring of 2006 and will be funded with a five-(M)million-dollar homeland security grant.

Disabled boy wins right to front door
This one qualifies as a world-class and well-deserved legal spanking of a condo association by an advocacy group for the disabled and the US Attorney's Office here in Chicago. Good for them. Now, the question is whether all the other associations in the nation are paying attention.

For 10-year-old Jaime Trujillo, it was the modern-day equivalent of being forced to sit in the back of the bus.

But, as of Wednesday, the wheelchair-using Glenview boy no longer will be forced to enter his condo building through a back service entrance alongside a loading dock and trash cans.

Jaime instead finally can come in through the front door without fear of getting fined or yelled at, after a settlement was struck between his family and the Triumvera Tower Condominium Association.

The association agreed to pay $83,500 in fines, its president will resign, and its board will apologize to the Trujillos and throw out the rule that prohibits people who use wheelchairs from entering through the front door. A portion of the settlement, $10,000, will go to a previous tenant, now a widow, whose late husband also was kept from entering the 106-unit high-rise through the front.

Karen Tamley -- who heads Access Living, an advocate group for people with disabilities that sued on behalf of the Trujillo family -- blasted the association for having a rule she says was so antiquated it hearkened back to the days before civil rights reforms.
"This was akin to requiring African Americans to sit at the back of buses or use separate drinking fountains," Tamley said.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who later joined in suing the association, called the rule "blatant discrimination" and said the case sends a message that "second-class treatment for persons with disabilities will not be tolerated."
[more]
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UCLA Anderson School of Management | Media | UCLA Anderson Forecast Warns of Possible Recession in 2005 or 2006 for the US Economy
...and check out this language about California, putting it together with the preceding post about mass illiteracy in LA with no end in sight:

...
The state budget is the big issue in California, as the essential structural imbalance – spending more than revenue income – remains. In his overview of the state’s economy, UCLA Anderson Forecast Senior Economist Joseph Hurd notes that the imbalance is being “funded” by state borrowing of $15 billion (based on Proposition 57) from cities and counties across California.

“The economic implications of the budget mess are not good,” Hurd said. “In the short run, cities and counties will shed employment due to the ‘loans’ they are being forced to give the state. We expect total job losses of about 45,000 at the state and local level in 2004 and 2005.”

Hurd’s report, titled “California: Growing and Growing … But a Few Fixes are Needed,” assumes that Sacramento “solves” the budget problems by the next fiscal year. He speculates that it will be a combination of taxes, user fees and spending cuts, while “California becomes the gambling capital of the nation (and partly lives off casino income).”

Not solving the budget issue has a big impact on the annual long-term forecast, as the postponement of building maintenance and other infrastructure projects will be put off indefinitely.

[more]

L.A. Daily News:Illiteracy shockingly high in L.A. Half of workers unable to read
Continued immigration and a stubborn high school dropout rate have stymied efforts to improve literacy in Los Angeles County, where more than half the working-age population can't read a simple form, a report released Wednesday found.
Alarmingly, only one in every 10 workers deemed functionally illiterate is enrolled in literacy classes and half of them drop out within three weeks, said the study by the United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

"It's an emergency situation," said Mayor James Hahn, adding that poor literacy rates could jeopardize the region's economy by driving out high-tech businesses and other industries that pay well.

In the Los Angeles region, 53 percent of workers ages 16 and older were deemed functionally illiterate, the study said.

That percentage dropped to 44 percent in the greater San Fernando Valley -- which includes Agoura Hills and Santa Clarita -- but soared to 85 percent in some pockets of the Valley.

The study measured levels of literacy across the region using data from the 2000 Census, the U.S. Department of Education and a survey of literacy programs taken from last September to January.

It classified 3.8 million Los Angeles County residents as "low-literate," meaning they could not write a note explaining a billing error, use a bus schedule or locate an intersection on a street map.

And despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent in public schools over the past decade to boost literacy rates, functional illiteracy levels have remained flat because of a steady influx of non-English-speaking immigrants and a 30 percent high school dropout rate, authors of the report said.
[more]

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And despite gazillions spent on bilingual education. Can we call that a colossal failure yet? And note the minimal interest among these functional illiterates in learning English. The trajectory for the LA area is pretty clear, isn't it? Would you locate your business in Los Angeles, if it required a work force that could read? Would you send your kids to public schools full of kids who can't read and whose parents can't read? If you wanted to raise a family and couldn't afford private schools, would you live in LA?

Homeowners feeling trapped
Fred Pilot is on a roll with biblical plague stories. First rats, then poverty, and now there is a fungus among us. Mold. But not to worry: lawyers to the rescue:

ZIONSVILLE, Ind. -- When Sheri Weaver tells people she lives in the Brittany Chase subdivision, the reaction is almost like she's had a death in the family.

"Is everyone OK?" she is often asked.

"I just tell them my neighbors have it worse than me."

The subdivision of $200,000 to $500,000 homes has become the focal point for the mold problem gripping housing developments in some metro Indianapolis counties.

Fifty of the neighborhood's 127 homes are now vacant because the builder has bought them from their owners to eliminate the mold.

Some of the remaining Brittany Chase residents say they are trapped. No one will buy their homes, and their investments are too big to walk away from.

Judge Bernard L. Pylitt of Hamilton Superior Court will decide this fall whether to accept an estimated $24 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by homeowners against builder Trinity Homes and parent company Beazer Homes. The proposed settlement was made public recently.
[more]

Levitt tried for rules but failed (phillyBurbs.com)
William Levitt tried his best.

But this renowned builder who so carefully sculpted the first planned communities in America couldn't put a stop to the individualist impulses of his homeowners.

Despite his dismay and even legal efforts, Levittown homeowners began breaking the rules spelled out in their deeds within a few years of moving in. They put up fences, let their shrubbery grow taller than the 3-foot limit and erected sheds and home additions - all in clear violation of Levitt's vision.

"I think it was hubris on his part," said Curt Minor, a curator for the State Museum of Pennsylvania who worked on a historical exhibit about Levittown for its 50th anniversary two years ago. "He thought he could put these things down and people would follow them. I think he underestimated the will of human nature."

The problem, Minor said, was that Levitt planned for rules, but not an enforcer.

------------------------
As Austin Powers would say, riiiiiiiiiight....
OK, maybe "relatively" unknown, but (as I explain in Privatopia) the biggest builder of them all, Jesse Clyde Nichols, who founded the Urban Land Institute and built the Country Club District of Kansas City, had been using HOAs for this very reason for fifty years or so.

And this articlealso doesn't mention that Levitt also included one more deed restriction, as did Nichols: race restrictive (whites only) covenants.

Trouble in paradise (phillyBurbs.com)
Two from the Philadelphia suburbs:
On the surface, Ivygreene Run is like many neatly ironed communities that have sprung from former farm fields in recent years.

The 158 crisply veneered twin homes that go for $270,000 in Northampton are a uniform cream color with sparse landscaping and tidy door stoops. Little form of self-expression is seen.

But behind the trim exterior, a debate is raging in this development for those 55 and older. A group of homeowners is rebelling against a system of law and order it says is unfair, capricious and autocratic. They say the smallest details of their personal lives are under the scrutiny of an overvigilant homeowners association.

A military veteran was ordered to remove one of the two postcard-sized American flags on his lawn. A couple were told to uproot $150 worth of plastic flowers they've planted in their flowerbeds each spring for two years. And a computer programmer smacked up against a rule prohibiting plantings more than 5 feet from his house.

Leonie Rozenfeld had put in a grape plant, a symbol of his grandfather who spent 12 years in a Soviet prison for illegally selling wine. The Russian immigrant has been cited six times for breaking rules and fined $150 for refusing to remove the grape plant. He eventually did. "I leave Russia for freedom and what I get is prison," said Rozenfeld.
[more]

Board member: Know your rights (phillyBurbs.com)
He's been on the board for nearly three years and Bob Gore still wonders about the way his homeowners association works.

"It's silly," he said. Neighbors tattle on neighbors. Residents move in without knowing the rules.
[more]

Little Pink Houses...
Tired of living in a gray house among dozens of other gray houses, Debra Cullom painted her family's Leawood, Kan., home pink. We're fun, friendly and loving people, and we wanted our house to show that," she says. "It was pretty boring and bland before."

But neighbors are red hot about the new paint job and are circulating a petition to demand a change. Homes association members are debating the color choice.

"We have no list of approved colors or blacklisted colors," says Danne Webb, an at-large director of the neighborhood association. "However, the board's position is that the paint color isn't in harmony and conformity with the neighborhood."

Meanwhile, colorful exteriors are popping up in other young subdivisions where neutral hues have been the norm. Paint manufacturer Behr is selling lots of butter yellow, pale green and light blue exterior paint along with the standard taupe at Home Depot. Large, newer homes are being repainted in unusual colors like peach, purple -- and pink.
[more]

Poverty in the Suburbs
Yesterday it was rats. Today it's poverty. Fred may be right after all. Check out this article in The Nation from political scientist Peter Dreier:

Hidden in a Census Bureau report on poverty released in late August is a factoid with significant political and social consequences. Poverty has moved to the suburbs. Or, more accurately, poverty has expanded to the suburbs. Today, 13.8 million poor Americans live in the suburbs--almost as many as the 14.6 million who live in central cities. The suburban poor represent 38.5 percent of the nation's poor, compared with 40.6 percent of the total who live in central cities.

Las Vegas SUN: Rats haunt residents of upscale community
Fred Pilot think this may be evidence of a Biblical curse being visited on HOAs. I say you have no proof until you have a plague of locusts. What's your opinion?
Residents of the upscale Sun City Anthem retirement community in Henderson tolerate the coyotes, jack rabbits and desert squirrels that try to hang on to what once was their habitat, but homeowners draw the line at rats.

Roof rats, non-indigenous rodents that over the last decade have haunted posh Las Vegas communities including Spanish Trail and the Scotch 80s, are trying to establish themselves in Anthem at the south end of the Las Vegas Valley, scurrying about properties and at times working their way into million-dollar homes.

Several residents of the Pulte Homes/Del Webb community of more than 5,000 residences believe its homeowners association is not taking strong enough action to control the problem that has caused some homeowners to avoid their own backyards at night.

The developer and a homeowners association member say they are taking aggressive action to control the problem, noting that not only do they have to deal with the roof rats, but also indigenous rats as well as other desert critters.
[more]

Homeowners gaining rights | The Arizona Daily Star ?
Fred Pilot caught this good article, loaded with links to material on the new laws in AZ:

Associations finding their powers curbed
By Scott Simonson
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

When a Midtown homeowners association made Michael Bryan take down the sign in his window supporting Howard Dean for president earlier this year, Bryan struck a blow for thousands of homeowners in the Tucson area.

Bryan, who was finishing law school at the University of Arizona, did some research and found out that the no-signs rule in the Crest Ranch Homeowners Association, near North Campbell Avenue and East Prince Road, had state law on its side.

So Bryan talked to Rep. Tom Prezelski, D-Tucson, and they changed the law.

Bryan put up another political sign in front of his home on Wednesday, a day when eight of 10 new state laws took effect to regulate homeowners associations.

That sign will stay up, thanks to the new law that says homeowners associations in Arizona must permit political signs around election time.

The new laws also expand other rights for homeowners and require associations to assume more of the responsibilities of public governments, such as holding open meetings and avoiding conflicts of interest.

More changes may be on the way, according to two Tucson-area state representatives who helped sponsor much of the recent legislation, as HOA issues continue to be a topic in the new legislative session.
[more]

Missoulian: Natelson wins UM dispute
I blogged on this a while back. Robert Natelson is a law professor who wrote, among other things, an important law review article on the origins of the condominium form of ownership. He wanted to teach Constitutional Law at the University of Montana, where he teaches Property and other things. They wouldn't let him. He argued that it was because of his political conservatism--in other words, it was viewpoint discrimination. Now, here is the resolution of his complaint:

Conservative activist Rob Natelson, who claimed he was the victim of political discrimination at the University of Montana, has triumphed in a campus battle to teach constitutional law.

University President George Dennison announced Natelson's new teaching assignment Thursday after accepting a hearing officer's report concluding Natelson, a UM law professor since 1987, had been treated unfairly at the Law School. Hearing officer Donald Robinson found Natelson had been unfairly denied the opportunity to teach constitutional law, but stopped short of addressing the professor's complaint of discrimination based on his personal politics. Dennison appointed Robinson, a Butte attorney, as hearing officer after Natelson sought to take his complaint to the state Board of Regents in July. The regents declined to intervene.

"I am very pleased," Natelson said. "I think it's time to put the acrimony behind us."

Natelson's faculty colleagues reacted coolly to the decision, but Law School Dean Edwin Eck vowed to move beyond the contentious issue for the sake of students.

For Natelson, the outcome settles a long struggle with his employer. His grievance, which covered two distinct themes - political discrimination and violation of department hiring procedures - was given an expedited hearing at Dennison's request.

Natelson, who has twice run as a Republican for governor and led ballot-issue campaigns to limit taxes, accused UM of discriminating against him once his conservative political views became public in 1993.

That discrimination, he said, made itself known every time he requested to teach constitutional law and denied that opportunity as well as other job benefits.

After reviewing the conclusions crafted by the hearing officer, Dennison agreed that UM's Law School gave preference in the past to a few faculty members seeking internal transfers, a practice which Robinson identified as "collegial preference."

[more]

AB 2598 Assembly Bill - Status
This bill is now back to the Assembly, where it originated, and where they now have to concur in the amendments made in the Senate.

AB 2598 Assembly Bill - Vote Information
The Steinberg bill, which passed in the Assembly 69-10 on May 27, has now passed the Senate, 33-1. See my post yesterday (8/27), where I linked to the latest analyis after amendments. This is a major reform bill that changes the rules for foreclosure quite significantly, and also addresses signage and record access for owners. Here's the lead of the analysis:

"This bill enacts numerous changes to the Davis-Stirling Act. Most significantly, this bill prohibits the use of judicial or nonjudicial foreclosure to collect unpaid assessments under $2,5000 and implements new procedures to be followed when judicial or nonjudicial foreclosure is used to collect unpaid homeowner association assessments $2,500 and over. It changes the minimum bid price for a separate interest being sold in nonjudicial foreclosure to 90 percent of the exterior-only appraised value minus senior liens, and creates a 90-day right of redemption for a separate interest sold in nonjudicial foreclosure.This bill also extends the areas on which a separate interest owner may display certain noncommercial signs, posters, flags or banners, expands the categories of association records the members are entitled to inspect and copy to include contracts to which the association is or has been a party, and expands the categories of association records the members are entitled to inspect and copy to include the records of community service organizations."

TheStar.com - Man lay dead in bed for two years:Condo fees and bills were still being paid

Now, here's an example of good condo citizenship. He was dead, but he kept paying his assessments. Unfortunately, his condo community wasn't quite as solicitous about him as he was about them. They didn't check into where the heck he was. Note the way the condo board president allegedly reacted when the deceased's long-term absence was called to her attention...


WINNIPEG—His telephone number was still listed in the telephone directory and his condominium fees and bills were automatically being withdrawn from his bank account.

No one knew Jim Sulkers had died in his bed almost two years ago.

Neighbour Sam Shuster said residents in the complex often wondered where the man they knew only as Jim had gone, but were told his condominium fees were still being paid. "How can that happen, for God's sake. Two years!" Shuster said yesterday of the man who had been a resident in the building since the mid-1980s.
"I used to ask the president of the board of directors where in the hell is he? She said all she knew was the bank gets the monthly money so we don't worry about it."
[more]

AB 2598 Assembly Bill - Bill Analysis
This bill has been amended again. Here's an analysis of the way it stands now. Note that the prohibition on foreclosure for fines and penalties has been removed.

Citizens for Legal Responsibility - Exposing Attorney and Judicial Misconduct
Homeowner activist Monica Sadler of Moline, Illinois, lets fly with a web page for a new organization.

BocaNews.com:High cost of insurance giving condo associations a real headache
As president of the Casa Del Rio Condominium Association in Boca Raton, David Trimble says that he and the other 260 condo owners are actively looking for a way to curb their skyrocketing association insurance rates.
“We haven’t filed a claim in about nine years. Our insurance rates have gone up about 40 percent over the past five years,” Trimble said.
The association currently pays about $105,000 per year to insure their property.
“It is supposed to have gone down by $4,000. As far as I’m concerned, it’s legal thievery,” he said.
Trimble said he is awaiting a decision that would allow the property to be re-classified as not being within a flood zone. He hopes it makes a difference in their insurance rates.
Trimble said their rates have gone up as much as $20,000 in previous years and last year were increased by about $9,000.
He blames the high insurance rates on a number of factors – including costs that are passed on to the customers.
“A hot water heater exploded in one of the units and the contractor cost $4,500 but were only here two and one half hours to clean it. They charged the insurance company for that,” he said.
Mostly, Trimble says there’s just not enough competition between insurance providers.
“I’ve been told they’ve signed a pact that they won’t take customers from each other and that puts a monopoly on things,” he said.
[more]

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But...but...that would be (gasp)...WRONG!

Family seeks help with speeding vehicles
Here's one family that will probably buy into an HOA next time, after this experience with stereotypically slow response from local government:

The white plastic fence that used to line the front yard of Jon and Tracy Hall's home is long gone, the victim of one of the many cars that have barreled across their lawn after missing a curve near their house.

All that remains of the fence are broken stumps — what were once its main posts — sticking out of the ground.

Since September 2000, when the Halls moved to 1416 Peekskill Hollow Road, at least five northbound cars have failed to negotiate the left-hand curve on a slight hill just south of their house and careened across their front lawn. A stone ledge above one side of their driveway then serves as a launching pad, sending the vehicles flying into the woods.

The Halls have appealed to the town of Kent and Putnam County for help but said the problem persists.

Town Supervisor William Tulipane said he was in their corner and can't understand why the county won't install a guide rail in front of the home, as the Halls have requested.
[more]

AB 1836 Assembly Bill - ENROLLED
AB 1836, Harman. Common interest developments: dispute
resolution.
Existing law provides that a common interest development
association has standing to institute, defend, settle, or intervene
in litigation, arbitration, mediation, or administrative proceedings,
in various circumstances, including enforcement of the governing
documents. The Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act
requires, before a common interest development association or an
owner of a separate interest therein brings certain actions related
to the enforcement of the development's governing documents, that the
parties endeavor to submit their dispute to alternative dispute
resolution, as specified. Existing law defines and regulates
operating rules in connection with common interest development
associations and applies them to association procedures for
resolution of assessment disputes.
This bill would revise and recast the provisions described above
relating to dispute resolution. The bill would specify that a common
interest development association and an owner of a separate interest
may enforce governing documents other than the declaration. The
bill would create a new dispute resolution procedure for conflicts
between an association and a member, to be applied when the dispute
concerns specified subjects. The bill would require an association
to provide a fair, reasonable, and expeditious procedure for
resolving these disputes, as defined by certain minimum standards,
and would provide a procedure for associations that do not have a
procedure of their own that meets the minimum standards, among them
that the member not be charged a fee to participate in the process.
The bill would also require that the association provide notice of
its dispute resolution process, as specified.
This bill would revise the existing dispute resolution provisions,
described above, to clarify their application to other nonjudicial
processes and to broaden their applicability to include actions
enforcing the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act and the
Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation Law. Among other things, the
bill would also provide for the tolling of a statute of limitations
in certain circumstances, expand the permissible methods of service
of a request to submit a dispute to the resolution process, and
change the confidentiality protections applied to these procedures.
The bill would require that a common interest development association'
s procedures for the resolution of all disputes, not only those
related to assessments, satisfy requirements regarding association
operating rules. The bill would make additional technical and
conforming changes.
The bill would incorporate additional changes in Section 1357.120
of the Civil Code proposed by AB 2376 that would become operative
only if AB 2376 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective
on or before January 1, 2005, and this bill is chaptered last.

US wants to build network of friendly militias to combat terrorism
Is this a form of privatization? I'd say so:

The Pentagon has urged Congress to authorize 500 million dollars for building a network of friendly militias around the world to purge terrorists from "ungoverned areas" -- and warned Muslim clerics against providing "ideological sanctuary" to radicals.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee Tuesday the money would be used "for training and equipping local security forces -- not just armies -- to counter terrorism and insurgencies."

USATODAY.com - An unwelcome mat for free speech
Here's a good piece by Tony Mauro on the lack of freedom of speech in HOAs. There's a mention of yours truly down the page:

One of the bonuses of an election season is the lively debate that takes place on our front lawns. Political signs — some plain, some biting — mark the vitality of our door-to-door democracy.
Yet, for a growing number of Americans, that showcase of democracy is unthinkable. They are among the estimated 50 million people who live in communities governed by some form of homeowner association — gated, planned or retirement communities, cooperatives and condominiums. For the past several years, an estimated four out of five new housing units have fit this category. They are popular for good reason. They include access to shared services and shared property, such as pools and parks, and create a sort of instant community.

But there is a regrettable price to pay — a diminution of free-speech rights. In pursuit of noble-sounding goals such as avoiding visual clutter or keeping property values high, most such communities require residents to abide by rules against lawn signs, posters and banners of all sorts, including flags in many cases. When these communities were isolated enclaves, these private muzzles seemed less worrisome. But now that entire municipalities are beginning to be dominated by such community associations, and many more will soon be, it is time to be alarmed about what this trend is doing to our freedom to express ourselves.

[more]

Los Angeles Times: Ledger War at Leisure World
The battle between a determined cadre of Leisure World residents and managers of their Seal Beach retirement community escalated Friday after management lawyers vowed to sue to keep financial records secret.

Seven residents — who are members of the nonprofit foundation that runs Leisure World — went to small-claims court in June to compel the foundation to open its books, saying that because they pay monthly dues, they have the right to inspect the books to see where the money is going.

But in a small courtroom Friday, attorneys for the Golden Rain Foundation said they would preempt the residents' argument and file their own Superior Court lawsuit to keep the books out of the residents' hands.
[more]

Russian Alien Spaceship Claims Raise Eyebrows, Skepticism

So...Mulder and Scully were right, all along...

An expedition of Russian researchers claims to have found evidence that an alien spaceship had something to do with a huge explosion over Siberia in 1908. Experts in asteroids and comets have long said the massive blast was caused by a space rock.

The new ET claim is "a rather stupid hoax," one scientist said today. And it's one with a rich history.

The latest claim was written up by news wires and was making the Internet rounds Thursday morning. According to Agence France Presse, the scientists say they've found "an extra-terrestrial device" that explains "one of the 20th Century's biggest scientific mysteries," a catastrophe that flattened some 800 square miles of Siberian forest in a region called Tunguska.
[more]

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What does this have to do with HOAs, you ask? It's all related. You'll see how in the last episode.

Yahoo! News - Living in the clouds
Here is a wonderfully literary article sent my way by Fred Pilot. It is from the San Diego Daily Transcript, the legal newspaper for SD. Note the use of metaphor, imagery, and other things that tell you somebody with a background in English lit wrote it. Not your typical J-school grad, I'll wager.

Hundreds of condominium owners in San Diego own something nobody can see because it isn't really there. It's a fictional cloud in the sky designated as the common area.

The cube of airspace is located 50 feet from the ground above the property. Some people define it as a prism of air, others, a cone or a disk. The cloud is one foot thick and covers the entire property. Cloud condo owners have a shared interest in the airspace and are responsible for its maintenance.

[more--a lot more]

CNN.com - Zombie movie filming at Chernobyl - Aug 10, 2004

Some places are gated communities but don't need to be. Then there are the places that aren't gated, but should be. Exhibit A: Chernobyl, soon to be the set for "Return of the Living Dead IV--Necropolis." Let's take a vote on whether "Necropolis" is a good or bad name for a gated community.





CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (Hollywood Reporter) -- You might have thought that Chernobyl was off-limits, closed to the outside world behind a rigidly patrolled exclusion zone since reactor No. 4 went into catastrophic meltdown April 26, 1986, spewing radiation to the four winds.

Not a bit of it. The reactor's deadly core was buried in a concrete and steel sarcophagus, but the adjoining reactors carried on producing electricity until they were finally decommissioned a couple of years ago.
....
Now, for the first time, a Hollywood feature film -- the zombie movie "Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis" -- has gained access to the infamous site.
....
The zombie-free Chernobyl scenes are for the opening, in which a rogue ex-CIA agent is seen stealing the world's last five canisters of Trioxyn gas, the lifeblood of the living dead.

"Chernobyl is very spooky and serves our purpose -- we are shooting in all these abandoned towns and villages, with rusting equipment lying around everywhere," Fradis says.

[more]



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Yes, I'll just be there are lots of abandoned towns and villages around Chernobyl. What, I wonder, is the going rate for acting in a movie being filmed at the location of a major nuclear accident? How desperate for work can you get?

Bombshell from the California Law Revision Commission?

This report lays out the framework for a state agency to oversee common interest developments in California. Whammo. It's just a conceptual paper, but recommendations from the CLRC are taken pretty seriously. With foreclosure reform actually on the doorstep, could state oversight be next?

sacbee.com -- Business -- Opening the door to starter condos
Nobody can beat developers at coming up with euphemisms. Condo conversions are now "adaptive reuse." How sustainably diverse of them.

Sacramento developers often complain that sharp increases in land and construction costs have made it nearly impossible to build homes affordable to families of modest means.
For one local real estate investor, the Nehemiah Sacramento Valley Fund, the solution is to avoid the cost of new construction altogether.

The fund has invested nearly $4 million to help a developer buy and renovate a 20-year-old North Highlands apartment complex, where all 116 units will be resold as condos.
Plans call for the one-, two-and three-bedroom units to sell for $139,000 to $157,000. That's in line with Sacramento County's median price of $155,000 for resale condos and well below the $238,000 median for new condos. For all homes, the median is $305,000.

"With the increase in prices of land, building materials and labor costs - as well as the lack of government subsidies available - it's much less expensive and much quicker to get affordable units on the market by doing an adaptive reuse (converting apartments to condos)," said Peggy Jones, director of community development at the Sacramento-based Nehemiah Corporation of America, which created the fund.
[more]

Deadly condo dispute fuels mediation push
Yours truly is quoted in this story by crime reporter Frank Main, concerning the way condo/hoa disputes can lead to violence in the absence of some sort of intervention:



When Rita A. Hohmeier was shot to death last month in a condominium dispute in west suburban Franklin Park, the news hit home Downstate.

Monica Sadler -- a Knox County woman who says she's racked up more than $750,000 in legal bills fighting her homeowners association -- was horrified. Yet she understood the frustration of alleged killer Zdzislaw "Wally" Kuchlewski.
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Washington's Road to Outward Growth (washingtonpost.com)
Thanks to Daniel Bliss for passing along this link. Here we see Southern California-style long-distance commuting taking hold in the DC area. How many metro areas will develop like this?

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. -- The vast new home development under construction here lies so far beyond the last ring of Washington suburbia that even rival developers marvel at its audacity.

The 3,200-home Huntfield community has been laid out according to neo-traditional town planning principles and designed with nostalgic American home architecture. It boasts front porches, lots of parks and an obelisk at the entrance. New four-bedroom homes sell for about $270,000 -- at least $150,000 less than the cost of a similar house closer to Washington.

But the real-life price for the vast majority of residents is a daily commute that takes about an hour or more. The subdivision of super-commuters sits across the Blue Ridge Mountains and more than 25 miles from the nearest job center, in Leesburg, and even farther from offices in Reston, Tysons Corner and Washington.

AP Wire | 08/07/2004 | Foreclosure ban would make California first among Sun Belt states

JIM WASSERMAN

Associated Press


SACRAMENTO - If California bans the majority of its homeowner association foreclosures, it will become the great exception among major Sun Belt states where private communities thrive.

Like California today, associations in Florida, Texas, Arizona and Nevada all have authority to ultimately collect their members' unpaid assessments by selling their homes. Combined, the five states represent much of the nation's development and more than half its supply of association-governed housing.

In Virginia, where nearly all housing in new suburbs outside Washington, D.C., are in associations, nonjudicial foreclosure - actions taken without a judge's oversight - are also the norm. This year, the Legislature tightened the rules, giving homeowners more notice of a potential sale and requiring independent trustees to conduct it.

But the rest of the United States remains a mixed scene of varying laws and approaches.
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Another excellent Jim Wasserman story, this one showing the variety of approaches to foreclosure over unpaid assessments. There is one method he doesn't mention. Here in Illinois we use forcible detainer. In other words, the condo owner is treated like a tenant who hasn't paid the rent. The condo association takes you to eviction court and can throw you out of your own home if you don't pay. But you still retain ownership. Strange, but true.

SB 1682 Senate Bill - Bill Analysis
Looks like California is about to enact major foreclosure reform. Here's a status report on the Senate version of it, and this one has a good summary of the state of affairs.

Home and condo associations hit by soaring insurance rates: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
It costs a pretty penny to insure the lakes, walkways, swales, athletic courts and other amenities dubbed "common areas" that help lure buyers to private communities.

Homeowner and condominium association leaders in Palm Beach and Broward counties say insurance for master policies has gone up 50 to 300 percent in the past two years.

Only a few companies in Florida write master policies, and community leaders are demanding that the state investigate the skyrocketing rates.

[there's more...]


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This is a good article with lots of specifics. The situation is troubling, because on the one hand the associations are hitting the limit of affordability for liability policies, but on the other hand if they are uninsured they face massive uninsured judgments for slip and fall accidents by the pool or any other major injury.

Hate your homeowners association? - Apr. 22, 2004
Here's a CNN piece that I missed from a few months ago.

BEND, Ore. (CNN/Money) – Three years after moving into a new 4,700-square-foot home in Brook Hills, a gated community near San Diego, Sonni and James Bass are caught up in an expensive legal battle with their homeowners association.

Brook Hills is suing the Basses, who are returning the favor with a countersuit. Why? The association says they took too long to do their landscaping. Plus, they installed a light on their tennis court without approval.
"
All my clients have tried to do is enforce the rules," said Michael Kim, an attorney with Peters & Freedman, the firm that represents Brook Hills and about 500 other homeowners associations.
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The New York Times > Home & Garden > Tomb Trouble: Nimby Strikes at Woodlawn
LEONA HELMSLEY, the real estate heiress and boldface prima donna, is suing the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx for $150 million and planning to disinter and relocate the body of her dear departed husband, Harry. The late Mr. Helmsley must be moved from the family mausoleum at the historic burial ground, the suit says, because of the ruination of the "open view, serenity and tranquillity."

Mrs. Helmsley's complaint, first reported Monday in The New York Post, is that the "perpetual beauty" and "peaceful solitude" of the spot have been destroyed by the latest of many community mausoleums to be built at Woodlawn. But the view Mrs. Helmsley describes as forever lost is bleak: the access ramps to the Major Deegan Expressway, a traffic light at Jerome Avenue and 233rd Street, and locked gates where the cemetery's grand entrance once was.


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So the pursuit of status continues even after death. Ever hear of a dead guy complaining that his view has been blocked?

Are you irrationally exuberant? - Jul. 27, 2004
I would say a bubble is happening," said Robert Shiller, whose book "Irrational Exuberance" (Princeton University Press, 2000) warned, correctly, that the stock market was grossly overvalued by investors' unfounded optimism.

"When it's going to burst is the real question," he said. "It's difficult [to know]."

The Yale economist and principal at real estate firm Fiserv Case Shiller Weiss is now working on the book's second edition, which will among other things look at whether America's obsession with the stock market has been displaced by exuberance for real estate.

During a housing bubble, he said, buyers who would otherwise consider a house too expensive go ahead and buy anyway because they overestimate future price appreciation and underestimate risk. The bubble bursts, or deflates, when buyers are no longer so sure that prices will continue to increase.


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Read it all and see if you agree with Schiller. I think he may be wrong about this. I can see problems happening in California, where the prices are ridiculously inflated, but not in the South and Midwest. I think that certainly prices here (the Chicago area) reflect rational market forces.

Yahoo! News - Residents Poke Fun at Topeka With Slogans

Municipal boosterism at its most modest...

TOPEKA, Kan. - The city of Topeka is looking for a new slogan, but some residents just couldn't resist poking fun at their city's image.



Officials planned to begin a contest in October, with the winning motto to be announced around Dec. 5, Topeka's 150th anniversary.


But The Topeka Capital-Journal decided to get a head start.


Some suggestions that aren't likely to win official approval: "Topeka, you won't get a lot of unwanted relatives visiting you," and "Topeka — not as bad as you think."


Mayor James McClinton said Topeka has positive aspects like the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site and the Statehouse that it can promote and shouldn't get sidetracked by naysayers.


"There's so much about Topeka that we all know and that we've lived over the years," McClinton said.


The slogan will be used to promote the city so it must portray it favorably — unlike many of the suggestions that the Topeka Convention and Visitors Bureau has received already.


"I didn't think they were terribly positive," said Stephanie Wallingford, the bureau's marketing and tourism manager.


And if Terry Carpenter's suggestion — "City of morons" — is any indication of the prevailing sentiment, Topeka may just forgo a slogan entirely.


"No slogan is better than a bad one," Wallingford said. "Maybe we don't use one. Maybe we get our theme knocked out and get some graphic that we can use that says it all."

Chicago Tribune | Family of boy sues condo group
By Chris Young
Tribune staff reporter
Published August 1, 2004

A family with a disabled child sued their Palos Park condominium association Friday in federal court, saying the association refused to let them install a wheelchair ramp at the entrance of their new home.

The child, Phillip Baron, 14, cannot stand or walk by himself and needs a motorized wheelchair.

The Barons contend that the Baron Condominium Association, which has no relation to the family, illegally discriminated against them under the Fair Housing Act and Illinois Condominium Property Act.

"Under the Fair Housing Act, it's a reasonable request," said Barbara Baron, 40, the boy's mother. "We can't move in until the ramp is installed. It's upsetting."

The act requires the association to allow "reasonable modifications that enable persons with disabilities to use and enjoy housing on par with non-disabled individuals," the lawsuit said.

Barbara Baron submitted two ramp proposals and letters to the association, including one dated June 10 and drafted by an attorney, which the association has not responded to, she said.

The suit demands that the association let the Barons install the ramp and pay damages for "pain, suffering and humiliation" and "willful, malicious or reckless misconduct."
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If I live to be a thousand I will never understand why HOAs do this sort of thing.

Assault-by-smoke trial fires up today
Here's a report on some creative condo litigation from the Cleveland Plain Dealer...

Robert Zangrando claims he has been assaulted by cigarette smoke. The smoke that wafted into his condominium from the cigarettes held outside by his neighbor, Nicole Kuder, was willfully blown in his direction and invaded his home, he says, which led to his additional allegations of battery and trespass. The right to breathe smoke-free air is the focus of a trial scheduled to begin today in Summit County Common Pleas Court. It is likely to include a visit by the jury to the adjoining Stow condominiums, testimony from expert witnesses and testimony on how the errant smoke led to Zangrando's health problems and decreased the value of his property. In a case that is attracting some national attention, Zangrando, 71, is seeking more than $50,000 in damages from Kuder, 28, who is moving. Zangrando, who said he has emphysema, said his health was damaged during the two years she lived there.

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Expert witnesses, yet. I didn't know there were experts on second-hand smoke "willfully blown" from OUTDOORS into condominium units. Wow. Must be like some comic book character--Megalungs, or The Big Wind, or Superblow, or Captain Hurricane, or something. And it's not enough that defendant Kuder is moving out. No. It is still full speed ahead for the Zangrando Litigation Express.

Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Here's what the 36 "wall of shame" members of Congress should have read before putting their names on the ridiculous bill referred to below:

The constitution vests the whole judicial power of the United States in one Supreme Court, and such inferior courts as congress shall, from time to time, ordain and establish. This power is expressly extended to all cases arising under the laws of the United States; and, consequently, in some form, may be exercised over the present case; because the right claimed is given by a law of the United States.

In the distribution of this power it is declared that "the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction in all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be a party. In all other cases, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction."
..........
If it had been intended to leave it in the discretion of the legislature to apportion the judicial power between the supreme and inferior courts according to the will of that body, it would certainly have been useless to have proceeded further than to have defined the judicial power, and the tribunals in which it should be vested. The subsequent part of the section is mere surplusage, is entirely without meaning, if such is to be the construction. If congress remains at liberty to give this court appellate jurisdiction, where the constitution has declared their jurisdiction shall be original; and original jurisdiction where the constitution has declared it shall be appellate; the distribution of jurisdiction, made in the constitution, is form without substance.
..................
The authority, therefore, given to the Supreme Court, by the act establishing the judicial courts of the United States, to issue writs of mandamus to public officers, appears not to be warranted by the constitution...

Thus, the particular phraseology of the constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written constitutions, that a law repugnant to the constitution is void; and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.

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Read the whole thing. Everybody should. Especially the "Bonehead 36."

HR 4892 IH
Here's the text of the bill referred to below, including the names of the brain-trusters who co-sponsored it with Representative Istook.