Churchill dropped from England's history syllabus - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Sir Winston, who was British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955, was famous for his defiance to the Nazis, stirring oratory and trademark cigar and "V for victory" sign. In 2002, a BBC poll with more than one million votes saw him voted the Greatest Briton of all time.

N.J. senator proposes toy gun ban--Would make it illegal for anyone under 18 to purchase toy gun7Online.com: New York City and Tri-State News from WABC-TV

"The margin between a child's stupid mistake and a tragic ending is far too thin," said Sen. Nicholas Scutari.

OK, but what is the margin between a legislator's stupid idea and a nanny state?

cbs4.com - Homeowners Fees Turns Into Foreclosure Nightmare
Fred Pilot sends this example of what we have been told doesn't really happen: impending foreclosure over an unpaid $106 maintenance fee and $4000 in HOA attorney fees. Check out the video.

East Valley/ Scottsdale Tribune: Mesa HOA's towing prompts lawsuit
Fred Pilot sent this account of a strange public/private connection: in Mesa, AZ, where HOAs are mandatory in new construction by government policy, HOAs are towing cars from public streets and dunning the owners for payments. A state legislator tried to ban the practice but failed.

FT.com / Capital markets - US mortgage problem fears spark sell-off

This may lead to higher interest rates for home loans.

Fears of further problems in the US mortgage industry and the broader economy flared on Tuesday, triggering a sell-off in credit markets as investors sought safe havens. Markets were rattled when Standard & Poor’s, the ratings agency, threatened to downgrade the credit ratings on some $12bn of bonds backed by US subprime home loans. This raised concerns of a broader repricing of risk in credit markets, leading to heavy losses for some investors, particularly in derivative markets.

Global warming strikes again: Buenos Aires sees rare snowfall

Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, has seen snow for the first time in 89 years, as a cold snap continues to grip several South American nations. Temperatures plunged to -22C (-8F) in parts of Argentina's province of Rio Negro, while snow fell on Buenos Aires for several hours on Monday. Two deaths from exposure were reported in Argentina and one in Chile. In Bolivia, heavy snowfall blocked the nation's main motorway and forced the closure of several airports. In Argentina, several provinces in the Andes have been placed under a storm alert, according to the national weather centre.

This fence makes angry neighbors | floridatoday.com | Serving Brevard County and Florida’s Space Coast

The "Space Coast"?

Residents in Wickham Forest are fuming about a 10-foot-tall stockade fence erected recently by Melbourne businessman Larry Dennison. Paralleling a shared property line, the 48-foot-long fence comes within inches of the homeowners' association's century-old oak tree. Moreover, the barrier likely would keep northbound motorists from seeing the association's planned $20,000 entrance sign.

Top Global Warming Advocate: Jupiter & Saturn Closer To Sun Than Earth
No wonder people are skeptical. He really said this:

ALEX JONES: "The polar icecaps of Mars are receding at several miles a year, much faster than ours and that the moons of Saturn and Jupiter are melting, in fact several of their moons were ice and are now liquid seas - how are SUV's causing that David Rothschild?

ROTHSCHILD: "Because those planets are closer to the sun, my friend."

Fast-Growing Common Interest Developments Spurring
Cottage Industry for Homeowner Advocacy: Northwest Reporter
Fred Pilot sent this piece, which has a plug for Joyce Starr's self-help book, and also a few choice comments from yours truly if you keep reading:

Love 'em or loathe 'em – homeowner associations (HOAs) are a part of the everyday lives for a rising number of Americans. The growth of Common Interest Developments (CIDs) and "managed communities" is spurring the emergence of homeowner advocacy groups, watchdogs, legal specialists, books, blogs and other resources aimed at helping individual owners assert their constitutional and property rights. One such book is described by its author as "the first self-defense guide for condo and homeowner association members." Not surprisingly, Dr. Joyce Starr, the author/publisher, was inspired to share her experiences and insights after winning a two-year legal battle with her condo board involving toxic mold, whistle blowing and pets. "Defend Your Condo & Homeowners Rights! What You Must Do When the Board Turns Your Life Upside Down" is sold separately or as part of a trio of works on "homeowner defense strategies." In addition to the "Defend" title, the 3-part set includes "Creating Home Owner and Condo Association Documents: How to Protect Your HOA and Con-Dough" by David Goldenberg, Ph.D., and "Condo Board Elections Revolt," by Valmore Lucier, "the first Condominium Ombudsman in America." (For ordering information: www.drjoycestarr.com)

Condo boards, residents tangle | Home News Tribune Online
Fred Pilot found this. But I thought these things were "isolated incidents"?

In July 2002, Vastola had put up a white Pella Midview storm door, pretty much the same style she had seen around her complex — one was even in teal blue. Members of the condo association told Vastola the association's rules prohibit that style of storm door, and hers would have to be removed. They were right. Vastola's case is hardly an isolated incident. In fact it's one of a legion of conflicts on record for residents of condominiums throughout the nation — residents who often find themselves fighting grievances with condo boards that some residents believe have too much power and too little accountability. Those who live in condominiums sometimes buy their units without reading the regulations that can contain strict rules. Conflicts arise, and owners are frequently stunned to find themselves in violation of such provisions as the design of a storm door, or their ability to put political sign on the lawn in front of their dwelling.

And note the summary of where things stand on the legislative front in New Jersey:

Vastola credits the Common-Interest Homeowners Association for helping her through her fight with her condo association. The C-IHC is an independent, nonprofit organization that was founded to bring reform to residential associations. Measures designed to address problems between condo association boards and their homeowner members have stalled in the state legislature. State Sen. Ron Rice, D-Essex, said he is working on getting a homeowners' bill of rights out of his Senate Urban and Community and Affairs Committee this year. The bill (S1608), called the "Owners Rights in Common Interest Developments Act," or ORCID, seeks to bolster existing laws in the areas of condo board elections, improve ease of access to records of condo boards and establish a mechanism for alternative dispute resolution. Rice's bill is at odds with another bill (A798), called the "Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act," or UCIOA. Its acronym is pronounced "yew-KWI-ah," and it was sponsored by Assemblyman Wilfred Caraballo, D-Newark. UCIOA has already passed the Assembly, and its backers are hoping now for its passage in the Senate in the form of S805, sponsored by Sen. Joseph Doria, D-Jersey City, and Sen. Nicholas Asselta, R-Vineland.

Boing Boing: First Amendment mob of photogs hit Silver Spring on July 4
Thanks to Mystery Reader for this amazing photo of photographer civil disobedience, a followup to the news about Silver Spring, MD, privatizing public space and the first amendment going bye-bye, from Boing Boing.

Officer suspended after arresting woman in clash over dry lawn in US - International Herald Tribune
Fred Pilot sent this. Here is another municipality acting like an HOA. These requirements to water your lawn during drought conditions are a point of contention in many HOAs out west. Here is a municipal ordinance to the same effect.

The mysterious case of the disappearing plastic men
More signs of impending anarchy in Maryland. You'd think with all those HOAs around that people would have learned to behave themselves.

Barking fines as noisy New York repents | International News | News | Telegraph
A better headline would be, "Fussbudget Mayor Runs for President...and not of his condo association." This just proves what I've been saying: cities are emulating HOAs.

Barking dogs and lawn mowers are among the main targets of anti-noise laws which have just come into force in New York. Having cleaned up the city's smoking and eating habits, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's civilising tendencies have turned to its famous din. From now on construction companies will have to put up "noise mitigation plans" at building sites explaining how they intend to minimise machinery and other noise. Rubbish trucks must stay at least 50ft from residential buildings between 11pm and 7am while ice cream vans can only play their jingles when the vehicle is moving.Noisy dogs will be penalised whether moving or not. Pets that bark continuously for more than five minutes at night or 10 minutes during the day could leave their owners with fines ranging from $50 to $175 for a first offence. Lawn mowers cannot be used before 8am and after 7pm on weekdays, or before 9am and after 6pm on weekends and public holidays. Loud music will be subject to fines ranging from $50 for a portable stereo offender up to $24,000 for a restaurant which ignores a first warning.

Boing Boing: Silver Spring's downtown is "private property" - no photos allowed
Amazing story from Mystery Reader about privatization run amuck. Who was that crazy guy who said that privatizing public space was leading to loss of civil liberties?

The town of Silver Spring, Maryland gave a private company $100,000,000 to redevelop its downtown area. Now the company claims that the entire downtown is a shopping mall, under its absolute control, without any civil rights. It has barred photography by the public, and insists that it has the right to treat citizens as mere customers.

Headlines: Owners ordered to vow HOA support or face suit | board, hoa, covenants - Gazette.com
Fred Pilot sent this charming story of HOA combat:

BLACK FOREST - Along the trickling headwaters of Cherry Creek, just beyond the pine trees of Black Forest, homeowners are squaring off against each other. A judge will decide who runs the Cherry Creek Springs Homeowners Association and its three-member board of directors. In the meantime, the HOA board is trying to force residents to take sides. Many residents of the upscale homes on 5-acre lots are outraged. “They are making us sign a loyalty oath,” said Haze Hutmacher, who built his home in 1998 and is among the original owners in the subdivision.

Telluride Daily Planet -At Ski Ranches, a subdivision divided
Fred Pilot sent this along:
This is your neighborhood, the Ski Ranches, an idyllic subdivision riven by boiling rhetoric, complaints about spending and charges that the homeowners’ board has been illegally seated. Welcome home. Of course, not everyone’s leaping into the lobster pot. Many of the residents, part-timers and investors who make up this community of 148 homes and 55 lots, are staying out of the fray. Board members blame a “vocal minority” for sparking the turmoil. Still, the conflict has left bruises, residents said. Finding volunteers has gotten harder, and one board member is stepping down to get out of shooting range. Some owners are even reluctant to build, and real-estate agents are hesitant to show homes in the Ranches.

Todays Local News for Logan Utah and Cache County
Thanks to alert reader Neil A. who found this article addressing the issue parking on one's lawn, noted below in a post on Houston TX. This one is from Utah.

Notes on HOAs in China
Since Friday, June 22, I have been in Beijing, China, attending the “International Conference on Community Governance: Multicultural Perspectives.” The conference was held at Renmin University, which translates as “People’s University,” an institution that has traditionally been the place where future Communist Party officials are educated. The conference was organized by the University of Southern California’s School of Policy, Planning, and Development, which was formed fairly recently in a merger of the School of Public Administration and the School of Urban Planning. These are my unedited and hasty thoughts on the conference, started in the Beijing Fellowship Hotel and finished back home in Lindenhurst, IL.

The actual purpose of the conference is to come to a better understanding of the rise of private communities in China. The conference brought together a variety of American, British, and Chinese scholars of political science, law, and urban planning; a number of Chinese practicing attorneys and community organizers; and many Chinese homeowner association members, consumer activists, and other concerned citizens. We spent two long days, running from 8:15am until late in the evening in formal and informal presentations and meetings. The USC delegation visited the homes of some Chinese homeowner association members and leaders. All told, we have learned a great deal about events in China, and I hope we have been able to convey a good understanding of the US and British experience. I am setting this out descriptively, but in truth this has been an intense experience with some dramatic testimony. I am going to summarize what I have learned without attributing particular statements to individuals.

It is important to understand that the current situation, while far from perfect, is probably an enormous improvement over the past, and the country is making progress. Hundreds of millions of people are now able to become owners of property (that means something different than in the US—see below), and to use that property as a financial asset that they can sell down the road. Also, millions of people have moved from the countryside and the hard agricultural life to work in cities, where they are saving money and thus accumulating wealth, even though by American standards it might seem that the wages are very low. Keep in mind that nearly all these folks are buying units in high-rise condominium buildings.

However, there are some pretty significant problems, and that is why this conference was organized and a lot of western social scientists and planners were brought over to talk about the situation.

From my standpoint, it has been important to understand how private communities work here in China. There are similarities and differences as compared with the US experience. Let me first explain who the players are and then try to explain how they interact. There are basically six key participants:

1. Local government: also referred to as “subdistrict” government
2. Real estate developers: these are private entities, but many of them were government and/or Communist Party officials in the past
3. Property management companies: these entities manage the private communities and have a great deal of power. Many of them were in the past government employees charged with managing public housing projects on behalf of the state.
4. Resident councils or committees: these are officially recognized organizations that are supposed to be owner organizations, but in reality they are an arm of local government, and they are for the most part led by Communist Party members.
5. Homeowners: the owners are struggling to be recognized as such. They pay assessments to the management company. They do not chafe at living under restrictions, as many Americans do. But they are very concerned about the way their money and property are being (mis)used in many cases.
6. Homeowner associations: these are voluntary organizations set up by owners to assert their rights as owners collectively.

In China, people do not actually own land. Agricultural land is owned by agricultural collectives. All urban land is owned by the state, and where residential land is concerned it is owned by the local government, which has the power to sell the right to use the land to real estate developers for a term of years. The developer in turns sells that right to the homeowners. Recent changes to the law at the national level provide for renewal of those rights, but it remains unclear what the term of renewal is to be, and whether those who have purchased housing units from the developers will have to pay the local government again for that renewal.

Clearly the national government wants to create a genuine real estate market. The hitch is that local government is making money off some practices that may make it harder to get there. The local governments want to attract developers, many of whom are former government officials. That’s fine in itself, but the opportunity for local officials to profit from that situation is obvious. The developer hires the property management company which runs the development, and in theory you have the government-affiliated resident council to represent the owners. No problem, if everybody took their job seriously. But they have the problem of what seems to be fairly widespread corruption, where people use their positions as local official, developer, or property manager to profit handsomely at the expense of the owners, who are at the bottom of the ladder in terms of political influence and economic power.

What about the HOAs? Well, these are voluntary organizations, for real, that are actually created by the owners to represent their real concerns as property owners, because they feel that the resident councils are part of the government, the government is eager to keep the developer happy, and the management company is an extension of the developer. The HOAs do not have the power to enforce the rules and regulations, which is done instead by the PM. These PM firms are very powerful and politically connected. They also control the ubiquitous private security firms that police the projects. Some of the HOAs, though, have filed and even won lawsuits to enforce their rights as owners.

Here are some examples of practices that Chinese HOAs complain about:
a. The property manager and/or developer convert 16 residential units to rental units that they lease to commercial enterprises and pocket the money
b. The PM and/or developer sell the common area, such as open space, to somebody and pocket the money.
c. The developer sells most of the units and then never finishes the building to the point where it can be occupied, so the owners can’t move in. The developer disappears.
d. The owner of a top floor unit in a 25 story building knocks out the roof and adds a story to the building, giving himself a two-story unit. The PM doesn’t do anything about it, presumably because he/she was greased in advance.
e. The owner of a unit knocks out load-bearing walls to enlarge his unit. The roof of the floor below begins to crack badly and water leaks in. The owner of that unit is afraid to complain for fear of being beaten (see below). An engineer recommends putting somebody on the roof if it snows to sweep off the snow so the weight doesn’t make the building collapse.
f. When owners complain or get involved with their HOA, the property management firm has the private security guards beat them up.
g. Owners can’t get to see the records of their own development, which are kept by the management firm. So they have no idea how their money is being spent. It seems that often some of it being pocketed by the PM and/or developer.
h. Owners can’t fire the developer’s property management company and hire one they trust without a difficult court fight.
i. Owners with the right connections don’t pay their monthly fees and get away with it.

The HOAs have a problem getting people to become involved because they are afraid of physical violence and they believe they have no chance of success. However, it seems that they have in fact rung up some lawsuit wins, and we heard from one attorney who specializes in representing HOAs in these fights (interestingly, he said when he was in the US he couldn’t find any lawyers who represent the owners—a familiar story). Some of the present and former HOA leaders we met are very impressive people.

Obviously there is room for this situation to improve. The single most important improvement, I think, would be to professionalize the property management firms so that they do their jobs instead of profiteering on their own behalf and that of the developer. They should not be extensions of the developer at all, but should be independent and guided by standards of professional responsibility. Beyond that, somehow the general problem of corruption has to be addressed. It undermines the integrity of the whole institution of property ownership. Everybody knows this, but making it happen will take some time.

Yet, somehow people are so determined to become home owners that they brave all this and put their capital at risk. In China people do not like to borrow money to buy homes, so they save and put cash into it. They find our 10% down and 90% loan arrangements absolutely bizarre. So, we have a lot of owner enthusiasm despite a level of risk that would probably deter most American buyers.

I will try to post more on this, but here you have the big picture.

Civic groups embrace plan banning lawn parking | Chron.com - Houston Chronicle
For Houston, this is progress. Next up: a ban on refrigerators in the back yard?

Jet Pack - 2 New Rocket Belts On Sale - Personal Flying Machine - Popular Mechanics
I've been waiting for this since I was 9 years old. But I was expecting more than 33 seconds of air time.

California Looms | New West Network
California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now.

Star-Telegram.com | 06/15/2007 | Three barred from trailer homes
There's a headline you don't see every day. It takes some serious dysfunction to get tossed out of a trailer park.

Kibort met with complaints at first meeting - Glendale Heights, IL - Glendale Heights Press
The reception for Glendale Heights’ newest Village Board member during his first board meeting was hardly a warm one. While some fireworks were expected on the board in light of longtime village critic Scott Kibort’s election last month to the District 3 trustee seat, the bulk of the action last Thursday came not from him or his fellow trustees, but from residents. Shortly after officially assuming his seat, Kibort was met with complaints from residents who accused him of spreading lies in an attempt to drum up support to disband a local homeowner’s association.

Couple denied parking space receives $7,000
KIHEI – Following a finding of discrimination by a condominium manager, a couple involved in a dispute over their need for a wheelchair-accessible parking space have received $7,000 in compensatory damages in a settlement with the Menehune Shores Condominium.
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One of the great joys of condo living is having your BOD expose you to unnecessary liability.

2 arrested in multi-million dollar fraud scheme at Hallandale Beach condominium: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Another isolated anecdote...

TCPalm: Local News: condo association manager arrested for lack of license
Nice mug shot.

HOA Takes Exception To Memorial Day Banner
Isolated anecdote Number 25,487.

Condo owners looking for fraud: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
More of those isolated anecdotes...

TCPalm: Real Estate:Views vary on legislative and homeowner and condo association bills
That headline shows a genius for understatement.

Zen and the art of management - Los Angeles Times
Life increasingly begins to resemble a Dave Barry column:

The Los Angeles Housing Department has paid thousands of dollars to a Zen Buddhist priest from Hawaii for management training that includes teaching breathing with sphincter control, learning "how to stand" and playing with wooden sticks. Norma Wong, a former Hawaii state legislator and leadership consultant, has been paid $18,819 since 2005 to conduct at least four training sessions for executives and other staff. The most recent one was last week. Mercedes Marquez, the general manager of the department, said the training was designed to help "center" Housing Department managers and teach them to react nimbly to problems such as the city's housing shortage

Allstate to stop insuring Calif. homes - Yahoo! News
More good news for California homeowners, to go with the falling prices, bad schools, high taxes, HOA assessments, and loss of the traditional perks of ownership.

Pasco: Homeowner groups and county clash over lawns
There's a drought on. Watering is allowed just once a week. So the homeowners are being told they'd better water their lawns - and they'd better not. "It's a Catch-22," Dick Ortiz, the county's code enforcement director, said on Friday. "Either we write them a ticket for watering or the association writes them a ticket for not watering. So what do they do?"

Around globe, walls spring up to divide neighbors | In Depth | Reuters.com
Looks like the world is turning into a patchwork quilt of gated communities.

Circulation at the Top 20 Newspapers: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
This is amazing. Of the 20 largest newspapers, only two show an increase in circulation--USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. The rest are in serious decline. The LA Times circulation is down 4.2% in the last six months, in one of the fastest growing regions of the nation.
PS: I'm backlogged with posting here despite having a load of great things sent to me by many people. I am struggling with end of the academic year logjam, which happens every year. I'll get caught up tomorrow or Wednesday with a little luck.

Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of HB1878
This bill just passed the Illinois House of Representatives today by an overwhelming vote. It is called "The Bill of Rights for the Homeless Act."

No person's rights, privileges, or access to public services may be denied or abridged solely because he or she is homeless. Such a person shall be granted the same rights and privileges as any other citizen of this State.

Then it goes on to list all the rights and privileges. It goes on forever. It includes the right to refuse medication and, of course, the right to keep all the details of their lives confidential.

Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Man No Longer Allowed To Hunt For Food...in his back yard
This is like something Ernest Hemingway would have done.

A judge in Easton yesterday ordered a couple to stop shooting in the backyard of their Lower Saucon Township home. The preliminary injunction prevents the two die-hard hunters from firing at targets or pigeons or whatever. And why did the neighbors seek an injunction against the backyard hunters? "How would you like to have a picnic at your home and have this guy shooting 18 feet away?" But things aren't all odd quotes designed to elicit a "I wouldn't like it" response. Township police filed 19 gun charges against the hunter, Richard Seruga, but 17 of them were thrown out since he didn't violate any local gun laws. The township responded by banning shooting within 450 feet of any residence. Sergua is, naturally, claiming conspiracy and has filed a lawsuit. Ain't this country grand?

Lindenhurst Choice 070415 PRESS RELEASE: Betustak supporters steal opposition signs
Bystander catches thievery on camera;
DeAngelis boasts of taking signs
You may recall that I posted a while back about a contentious election in Lindenhurst, IL, where the incumbents are being taken to task by a slate of challengers over the (mis)handling of a major real estate development proposal, and the incumbents proposed a mutual ban on yard signs. That would have benefited the incumbents, of course, so the challengers refused to do it. Well, check this out. The incumbents' supporters seem to be taking down the challengers' signs. The article has a neat photo showing one of the culprits walking down the street with a sign under his arm.

(Lindenhurst, IL)—After attempting, in vain, to get the Lindenhurst Choice Party to refrain from using signs in its campaign against incumbent Mayor Jim Bestustak, members of his Lindenhurst Community Party have found another way to achieve their goal. At least two of Betustak’s supporters have taken about 60 Lindenhurst Choice opposition campaign signs from county and village locations.

The Nonprofit Industrial Complex
Here is something to make you think. It's by Gerard Alexander and is in the Weekly Standard. He focuses on universities and foundations, but he could have added in almost 300,000 residential private governments.

Western countries have already been transformed by industrialization, the rise of the service sector, and the growth of big government. The result has been wealthy economies, middle-class societies, and vast bureaucracies. Our country might now be transformed again by the spread of what Richard Cornuelle dubbed the "independent sector." The growth of nonprofits--from the Getty Museum to Seattle's Children's Hospital, Emory University, and your aunt's country club--has created the world's largest sector that is neither business fish nor government fowl. It has the private sector's diversity and independence but the government's lack of a profit motive. It is a different way of doing business. It may be a different way of making a country. But is it a wholesome one?

Homeowners association loses bid to keep $60,000 trucks under wraps
Fred Pilot sent this along. Man, would I love to have that truck in my driveway. How can a luxury vehicle hurt property values? And what a ridiculous rule, anyway.

PALM CITY — For two years, Mark Kirk and his 2002 Cadillac Escalade EXT lived the perfect suburban life. Kirk swung the luxury sport utility truck in and out of his driveway in his gated community with little more than compliments from neighbors and friends. But in 2005, on the heels of a leadership change in his community's homeowners association, Kirk and another Escalade owner received messages from community leaders. Because the cargo areas on their $60,000 trucks made them look like pickups, association leaders said, they would be able to keep their vehicles only if they stashed them as far out of public view as possible. Association leaders took their battle against the Escalade owners to court, asking a judge in September to grant an injunction forcing Kirk and another homeowner, Darrell Willson, either to shove their 19-foot trucks into their 20-foot garages or get rid of them. The dispute culminated in a weeklong trial before Circuit Judge Robert Makemson last year. An attorney for the Preserve at Hammock Creek homeowners association argued that the Escalade owners violated association rules against "boats, trailers ... motor homes, golf carts, motorcycles, pickup trucks or recreational or commercial vehicles" in any area visible to passersby outside the home. Stuart attorney Bill Ponsoldt, representing Kirk and Willson, brought in documents from General Motors and local dealers who classified the vehicles as either a sport utility vehicle or a sport utility truck. On Friday, Makemson issued ruling in chambers siding with Ponsoldt and the Escalade owners, saying that if the makers of the EXTs don't classify the cars as pickups, neither should the homeowners association.

Snow won't dampen global-warming rallies
Right. Neither will any other form of evidence.

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Business -- March home sales down, but prices go up
San Diego got hit hard by the real estate slump. Here's some mixed news, which is better than all bad news. But take a look at the little snippet on HOA dues at a place called "Bridgeview." Does $180 a month seem low?

March home sales turned in their biggest year-over-year decline since 1995, but the region's median sale price rebounded to $490,000 in a possible sign that San Diego County's housing slump is easing...The overall median price of $490,000 was up $10,000 from February, but still 4.9 percent below the median a year earlier...The monthly homeowner association dues [at Bridgeview], relatively low at about $180, also are considered a plus.

Chicago Business News, Analysis & Articles | ComEd proposes condo association relief | Crain's
ComEd wants to help? Sounds like that old joke about the scariest words in the English language being "I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help you." Read closely and you can see the proposal is that ComEd will satisfy itself with a 24% increase in condo rates if the state legislature agrees not to pass a law to roll back the increase to last year's rates.

Commonwealth Edison Co. told state lawmakers Thursday that it wants to help condominium associations socked with higher-than-expected electric bills since the utility’s rate hike went into effect this year. At a hearing in Chicago before the Illinois House Electric Utility Oversight Committee, ComEd President J. Barry Mitchell laid out a $4.5-million plan that would bring increases for about 850 condo buildings, mainly in Chicago, in line with the 24% average hike being paid by most Chicago-area households. The proposal is part of a funding package being negotiated by Senate Democrats and ComEd, its parent Exelon Corp. and Downstate utility Ameren Corp. to aid those hardest-hit by this year’s electric rate hikes. The condo aid won’t be available if there’s no overarching deal with lawmakers, a ComEd spokeswoman says. A deal would be aimed at heading off legislation to roll rates back to last year’s levels and freeze them there for at least a year.

Benny L. Kass - A To-Do List to Keep the Condo's Books - washingtonpost.com
Benny Kass is one of the few community association law specialists who represents owners as well as associations. He has always seemed to me to be a level-headed and very knowledgeable attorney. Here is his latest Washington Post column with some advice on avoiding misuse of association funds.

Florida Attorneys David G. Muller and Yeline Goin Named Co-Directors of Community Association Leadership Lobby

This is the organization that was set up by the law firm of Becker and Poliakoff to counter the influence of CCFJ and other real HOA owner organizations, who regard CALL as "Astroturf Roots" as opposed to grass roots. Both these attorneys are with B&P.

E! News - Martha Stewart Living with Opposition - Martha Stewart
Mystery Reader put me onto this story. Interesting situation:

Martha Stewart's plan to trademark the name of her hometown of Katonah, New York, is not a good thing, at least as far as some of her neighbors are concerned. The Katonah Village Improvement Society voted Monday to allow its trademark committee to take the necessary steps to block the domestic diva from securing rights to the town's name. The vote authorized the committee to spend up to $200 in legal costs in order to file formal opposition to Stewart's trademark application. The town has until Apr. 11 to make its case before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The homemaking maven has been the subject of ongoing controversy in the posh Westchester County community since revealing in January that she wanted to license the town's name for use in her various business ventures.

George F. Will - Fuzzy Climate Math - washingtonpost.com
Tom Skiba referred me to this George Will column. It has been unseasonably cold, and on Wednesday here in Chicago we got hit with a major snow storm. I was giving a talk on HOAs at a conference on urban theory at UIC. I started it by speculating that Al Gore must be in town giving a talk on global warming. Remember "the Gore Effect"? As I sit here Saturday the snow is still melting off.

In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a " serious problem." Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.

Realty Times - Canada: Consumer Complaints Drive Amendment to Condominium Law

Fred Pilot sent this. It was originally posted to the HOAs Yahoo group. Did you know that 40% of the new housing in Ontario is in condos?

Rosario Marchese, MPP for Toronto's Trinity–Spadina riding, has put forward Bill 185, An Act to amend Ontario's Condominium Act of 1998, which is currently working its way through the legislative process. On March 22, it passed second reading and was referred to the Standing Committee on General Government. This system relies on MPPs receiving consumer feedback to encourage their support or rejection of such a Bill. Those with personal condominium experiences to share, should contact their MPP. Marchese believes that the intensity of debate and attention focused on creating and passing the current 1998 Condominium Act did not produce a law which fully protects consumers who buy and own a condominium of any type. This Act replaced Ontario's first condominium law enacted in 1978... According to records from the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, Marchese justified his Bill by saying:"In fact, 40 per cent of all new housing [in Ontario] is condominium-related, and so it isn't a surprise to me any longer to find that there are a whole lot of condominium owners who are concerned about their relationship to developers in particular ... . They think and they believe [that] they are not being heard, and they're right. This Bill is an attempt to address that problem and to address the growth and the lack of changes that have not kept up with that growth."

deseretnews.com | Flag-flier OK under law, official says
Fred Pilot found this one. After 9/11 HOAs across the nation were making people take down their American flags. Dont' ask me why, but they were. So Congress passed a law protecting flag display rights against HOAs. But we still get examples of HOAs trying to do it anyway. If I live to be a hundred I will never understand this anti-American flag nonsense from community associations. Even CAI tells them not to do this.

DRAPER — A Utah homeowners association will be breaking a federal law — or at least the spirit of the law — if it doesn't allow a Draper veteran to continue flying the American flag on the front of his home, a congressional spokeswoman said.
Lisa Wright, press secretary for Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., said the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 was written to ensure that Americans such as Draper's Kevin Capito are able to fly the flag at their homes.
The legislation was sponsored by Bartlett, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush on July 24, 2006.
Capito said he believes that law is being violated by the Village Townhomes homeowners' association, which, through a property-management company, has ordered him to remove the flag mounted at a 45-degree angle above his front door.
Community Management, which manages the townhomes, notified Capito that the external mounting is in violation of the HOA's covenants, conditions and restrictions because it was not an approved exterior improvement.

thedesertsun.com | HOAs bilked; 60-year-old arrested
Another property manager scandal story, from Fred Pilot:
A 60-year-old Cathedral City woman has been charged with embezzlement for allegedly taking more than $361,000 in a homeowners association scam. San Bernardino sheriff's deputies arrested Mary Lambert Clark, also known as Mary Jacquelin Clark, at 57-459 Buena Suerte Road in Yucca Valley on Tuesday, according to San Bernardino County jail records. Riverside County investigators had issued a warrant for her arrest. Clark managed nine homeowners associations with at least two in Palm Springs, according to a felony complaint filed at the Riverside County Superior Court.

Daily Herald - Man claims law lets him display US flag in condo
From Nancy Levy:
DRAPER, Utah -- A man who spent four years serving in the Air Force says his homeowners association told him to remove his American flag from over the doorway of his home, despite a federal law that protects such displays. "Basically, they said they would put a lien on my house if it wasn't taken down," said Kevin Capito. "Personally, I don't feel it's unreasonable to want to fly the flag."

Sip some wine, mingle, maybe buy a house
Think of this the next time somebody tells you that people who buy into HOAs know exactly what they are getting into. Nice photo of prospective homebuyer chugging wine while looking at a picture of the house of his dreams. No copy of the CC&Rs in sight.

It's common enough for an art gallery to serve wine, or a wine shop to show art, but pairing wine with selling homes may be more unlikely. Yet in downtown Kirkland Thursday evening, visitors to Windermere Real Estate's new Living Room sipped shiraz beside paintings of flowers and pictures of local homes for sale. It's a low-key way for people to start a home search, office owner Aaron Shriner said. "This is their opportunity to come, get information, ask questions then tell us who it is they want to work with."
...Shriner pointed out, without being asked, that he's not going to get buyers drunk so he can sell them a home.

Subprime bailouts would get costly - Apr. 13, 2007
What the heck. We bailed out the S&L industry (well, liquidated it might be a better choice of words). Now the proposal is to bail out the homeowners who gambled and lost in the subprime mortgage market on homes that they couldn't afford. I wonder if there will come a time when somebody proposes a taxpayer bailout for HOAs that didn't set aside enough in reserves to maintain their common areas.

NEW YORK (Money) -- Want to pick up the check for every homeowner who got saddled with a risky mortgage? It's a big one - on the order of $120 billion. Lawmakers and consumer groups in recent weeks have been calling for assistance for those at risk of defaulting on their mortgage. On Wednesday, Congressional Democrats led by Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) advocated steering hundreds of millions of dollars into nonprofits to help the growing number of homeowners who are having trouble paying their mortgage. But economists and industry experts say the cost of a bailout would be significantly more than that. Christopher Cagan, director of research at First American CoreLogic, says rising mortgage payments on adjustable rate loans will force 1.1 million homeowners into foreclosure over the next 6 years. He estimates the cost of paying off the debt for those borrowers would be $120 billion.

Rising foreclosures reshaping communities - USATODAY.com
Here is a Fred Pilot find from USA Today on the impact of the high and rising rate of mortgage foreclosures on neighborhoods, not just the folks who lose their homes. From what I have read, I'd say we aren't yet seeing the light at the end of the foreclosure tunnel. And of course many HOAs are trying to figure out how to handle non-payment issues.

And as thousands of homeowners across the nation are learning, it's not only home values that are being affected by the foreclosure crisis. When foreclosures rise, as they have in Water's Edge and other middle-class areas amid the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market, they can unravel the social fabric and reshape neighborhoods. The crime rate can rise while the quality of the schools goes down. Homeowner associations can see their treasuries drained. Nearby businesses close their doors, and local tax revenue suffers. These problems used to be concentrated in poor, urban and minority neighborhoods where mortgage defaults are more common. The real estate boom, turbo-charged by looser lending standards that began in 2000, changed that. Communities across the country, including some exclusive neighborhoods, have begun to feel the collateral damage of the pandemic use of adjustable-rate mortgages, or ARMs, that required little or no down payments or proof of income.

adn.com | wildlife : Frozen bay turns otters into easy prey
More global warming. I think we all need to dismantle suburbia, scrap our cars and make the tires into sandals, and return to a hunting and gathering economy.

An extra-cold winter on the Alaska Peninsula has frozen sea otters out of the bay and pushed them onto the tundra near Port Heiden where they're easy prey for wolves, humans and hunger.

Urban Dictionary: Gore Effect
I found this link on Instapundit. Now I understand why it is so cold.

Gore Effect



The phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming. Hence, the Gore Effect.

- Australia, November 2006: Al Gore is visiting two weeks before summer begins. The Gore Effect strikes: "Ski resort operators gazed at the snow in amazement. Parents took children out of school and headed for the mountains. Cricketers scurried amid bullets of hail as Melburnians traded lunchtime tales of the incredible cold." (The Age)

- New York, March 2004: "Gore chose January 15, 2004, one of the coldest days in New York City's history, to rail against the Bush administration and global warming skeptics... Global warming, Gore told a startled audience, is causing record cold temperatures." (NY Environment News)

Hillsborough: There goes the neighborhood
This is the nightmare that some Tampa Palms homeowners have been dealing with for four months: Cows. Lots of them. Trampling all over their nice lawns and destroying plants in their gated townhouse community called Palma Vista, where homes run from $300,000 to $450,000. The cattle belong to Abram Cuesta, 52, who rents space on the neighboring 640 acres belonging to the widely known Tampa developer, Giunta Group. No one seems to know exactly how or why the cows are getting into the 80-home Palma Vista complex, but people there want it to stop - so much that the homeowners' association recently filed for an injunction to stop the cows and a lawsuit against Cuesta.

The News-Herald - MultiVest VP admits guilt
Nancy Levy sent this follow-up on one of the property manager embezzlements currently moving through the criminal justice system:

Woman pleads guilty to mail fraud for role in bilking homeowners associations out of more than $3.5 million: A Mentor woman admitted Friday
to playing a role in defrauding more than 70 condominium and homeowners associations throughout Northeast Ohio. Kathleen DeSalvo, 52, stood in a Cleveland federal courtroom filled with attorneys, former employees, victims and U.S. District Court Judge Christopher A. Boyko, and pleaded guilty to a federal charge of mail fraud Friday morning.

Condos Feel the Mortgage Crunch - washingtonpost.com
Nancy Levy sent this piece that documents what I've been concerned about with the housing market headed south. People who find themselves short of cash are shorting the condo association. This will mean more foreclosures.

In a sign that the turmoil in the subprime mortgage industry is affecting entire communities and not just individual homeowners, condominium association officers, property managers and real estate lawyers throughout the region say they are noticing more delinquencies in monthly fees. "If someone is not paying their mortgage, they're not paying their condo fee, and the condos need money to pay bills," said Jeffrey van Grack, a community association lawyer with Lerch, Early & Brewer in Bethesda.

AccuWeather.com - Record-Shattering Cold Threatens Crops
I got your global warming right here:

A brutally cold surge of arctic air into the eastern half of the United States will easily bring record-low temperatures on Easter morning and could cause significant losses in some of the nation's most prolific agricultural areas.

Florida attorney general orders Lauderdale condo to allow Jewish mezuzahs on doors: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Here is another isolated anecdote that is totally unrepresentative of the Nirvana that is community association living. This time it's another chapter in the utterly brainless condo association war on mezuzahs, with the Florida AG weighing in heavily on the side of religious liberty. Apparently the association responded to the bad press by allowing the original complainant to have his mezuzah. The Florida AG says, no, everybody should have the same right.

Just in time for Passover, Laurie Richter won the right to keep her mezuzah on the doorpost of her rented Fort Lauderdale condominium. But that's not good enough for Attorney General Bill McCollum. He gave the association at The Port Condominium, in the 1800 block of Southeast 17th Street, until 5 p.m. today to change its rules so all its Jewish residents can hang mezuzahs...Neither condo board president Ronni L. Rosenberg nor association attorney Henry Howell Fox could be reached for comment. The association's rule prohibits anyone from attaching, hanging, affixing or displaying anything on the exterior walls, doors, balconies and windows, which are considered common property controlled by the association.

Times Community Newspapers - Homeowner dream turned nightmare
This is a detailed account of how a middle class couple in Virginia went from relative riches to rags, starting with buying a condo using two interest-only mortgages. Things were going fine until life didn't go as planned...

They are a fairly typical Loudoun family. He is a 35-year-old engineer for a technology company in Fairfax, pulling in $80,000 a year. His wife teaches yoga. College-educated, they have two daughters: a 5-year-old and a newborn. In August 2005, the housing market in Northern Virginia is piping hot. The couple buys an 1,100-square-foot condo in a brand-new Ashburn community for $336,000, using two interest-only mortgages. The plan? To live there for a few years, build equity, then move to a bigger house where the family can grow. But that's not what happened to this family, who would not allow their names to be used because of the sensitive nature of the situation. After a year of spiraling financial problems, the man said, the bank foreclosed on their condo, and now banks, collections agencies, hospitals and homeowners associations are after him for tens of thousands of dollars.

Ailing Margate widow, 85, fights condo board to preserve her independence: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Here is another one of those isolated anecdotal-type things that are so unrepresentative of the blissful life millions of people are enjoying in condomiminums:

Rose Normoyle worked as a real-life Rosie the Riveter in an aircraft factory during World War II, building the planes that helped America preserve freedom. Now, she's fighting her condo board so she can maintain her own freedom.At 85, her memory is failing, she is confined to a wheelchair and she must have 24-hour care. But Normoyle, a widow, doesn't want to move into a nursing home. Instead, she wants to remain in the apartment at Lakewood on the Green I, in Margate, that she bought in 1988 after moving from Long Island. With no children and living only on Social Security -- she gets no pension from her jobs assembling aircraft between 1941 and 1982 -- she can't afford caretakers. Her closest friend, retired New York City firefighter Louis D'Agostino, 69, of Coconut Creek, is paying two people to watch over her around the clock. He is half owner of the apartment. But the board considers the caretakers to be "unauthorized and-or transient occupants" and on Feb. 8 filed a lawsuit alleging their presence in the apartment violates association rules.

AlterNet: Will Vermont Secede from the Union?
I have written from time to time about the idea of suburban secession, which is usually associated with middle class or wealthy suburbanites seeking isolation from the starving urban masses (many of whom are struggling with obesity as we speak, but that's another subject). Now we discover that the folks who want to secede are the hippies who fled to Vermont after Nixon beat McGovern in 1972. Who knew?

he winds of secession are blowing in the Green Mountain State.

Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world, toward its own citizens and toward local democratic institutions. It has abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded Americans' fundamental freedoms. Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire. Some of us therefore seek permission to leave.

Foolish Forum: Homebuilder Havoc [Fool.com] April 03, 2007
Don't know if you can access this without a subscription, but it is worth a read, from The Motley Fool. Here's a snippet:

The housing situation in the U.S. seems to be unraveling. Homebuilders have reported nothing but cancellations and asset writedowns, and even the staunch bulls aren't seeing a bottom. Here to discuss the housing situation is homebuilder analyst David Lee Smith...[Smith]...many of the mortgage industry's lending practices clearly had become absurd. Imagine furnishing the funds for someone to buy something as expensive as a house and not even requiring proof of employment or income! In a very real sense, the builders' cavalier approach to land and inventories, coupled with that sort of mortgage-lending foolishness, has resulted in a perfect storm that's now battering the housing industry.

Man, 102, takes out 25-year mortgage
This is the triumph of optimism over reality if I've ever seen it.

A pensioner aged 102 has been granted a 25-year mortgage despite the fact he would have to live until 127 to pay the loan back. The property investor from East Sussex has taken out an interest-only £200,000 mortgage and hopes to meet the £958 monthly repayments with income from rent as he joins a growing army of retired people hoping to cash in on buy-to-let schemes. Most lenders set a limit at 75 years for mortgage applicants but a handful, including Woolwich, and Bristol & West, have no such restrictions. This has led to a rush of applications from older investors.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | 'Zombies' bear down on Brisbane
Here is a new social movement that bears watching. Draft some anti-zombie covenants and ordinances before they parade through the streets of your neighborhood.

Horror film fans dressed up to look like an army of the undead have been stomping the streets of Brisbane, Australia, in an annual Zombie Walk. Spattered with fake blood and their faces painted a deathly white, the "Zombies" staggered across the city to the botanical gardens. The event originated in North America and is in its second year in Brisbane. Its website explains that it is not an April Fool's joke "but serious, in a flippant sort of manner". Zombie Walks in Canada and the US have attracted hundreds of revellers. An event in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, drew nearly 900 "Zombies" in October 2006.

Veterans condemn El-Alamein golf resort plan | International News | News | Telegraph
Sometimes I feel like there are real estate developers who plan their projects while reading The Onion and smoking funny cigarettes. I think a naming contest for this development is in order. And I do agree that 20 million mines and a zillion massive bomb craters will make for challenging fairways.

The desert battlefield of El-Alamein, where Field Marshal Montgomery's Desert Rats famously defeated Rommel's Afrika Korps in the Second World War, is being developed into a golf resort by Egyptian businessmen. British war veterans reacted angrily yesterday after hearing of the plans to turn the historic site into a complex including luxury villas...Not only will massive bomb and mine craters provide extremely challenging fairways but, say developers, the project will be the perfect excuse to get rid of millions of mines which have blighted the region since 1942.

Criticism of boring suburban lifestyle is nearly timeless | Chicago Tribune
Interesting historical essay...

FCC proposes rule limiting HOA power
Nancy Levy sent this link. I'm going to follow up to see which "associations" have been "questioning the Commission's ability to do so."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposed to regulate the ability of homeowners associations to make exclusive video programming contracts to serve multiple dwelling units (MDUs). Some associations have begun questioning the Commissions authority to do so. The FCC also seeks comment on the current competitive landscape among video providers within MDUs and asks whether further FCC rules would improve or impede competition. In rural areas, regulations on exclusive contracts could affect service providers’ plans for building out Internet protocol television (IPTV), especially those that may seek exclusive video service contracts with new housing developments.

Condo Redondo!
From Fred Pilot:
The Redondo Beach rezoning initiative is the product of citizens who want to protect our quality and life and attract business to Redondo rather than convert business property into condos. A recent city survey shows 60 percent of Redondo voters feel Redondo has too many condos. Only 6 percent feel we need more. Most Redondo residents are concerned with residential growth.

With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming | Showbiz | This is London
But he has a great idea! Space travel and dome cities (no doubt run by hoas), and don't miss the photo of his house with two jets parked next to it:
But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway. Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions – nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally. Travolta made his comments this week at the British premiere of his movie, Wild Hogs. He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" – after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson. Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business.

newsobserver.com | Autism can't bend subdivision rules: covenants anger parents who need fences to protect kids
Nancy Levy sent this along. I think people need legal protection against being treated like this. But the industry would say their only recourse should be to mobilize other like-minded residents and elect a new board of directors. Not so easy when only 1 out of 150 kids is autistic, according to the article.

CLAYTON - Hunter Guyader, 2, shows signs of autism, and he is a climber. He broke out of his crib when he was 11 months old. He almost fell from an upstairs window while scaling a couch. Michele and Rene Guyader hoped to build a 6-foot fence to keep their fast-growing boy from falling into a sewage drain hole at the back of their steeply sloping lot. The homeowners association of their Clayton subdivision turned them down.

China's real estate market up 69 percent in 2006: report
Now, that's what I call a real estate boom. And this report just covers commercial real estate. The same sort of thing is happening in residential, where you find enormous numbers of the Chinese equivalent of common interest housing, including private management companies.

Transactions in China's real estate market surged 69 percent in 2006, funded to a great extent by foreign investment, a leading research firm said Wednesday.
"There is increasingly more investment going into industrial property," Kenny Ho, a Shanghai-based head of research with Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate money management and services firm, told AFP. Despite government measures to cool the real estate market, China's heady growth in the past and strong potential for the future have made it "a magnet for cross-border investors," said a report by the firm.

China's real estate market up 69 percent in 2006: report
Now, that's what I call a real estate boom. And this report just covers commercial real estate. The same sort of thing is happening in residential.

Transactions in China's real estate market surged 69 percent in 2006, funded to a great extent by foreign investment, a leading research firm said Wednesday.
"There is increasingly more investment going into industrial property," Kenny Ho, a Shanghai-based head of research with Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate money management and services firm, told AFP. Despite government measures to cool the real estate market, China's heady growth in the past and strong potential for the future have made it "a magnet for cross-border investors," said a report by the firm.

No end in sight for quiet community riven by feud - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz
You think HOA feuds are bad? Try this. And check out the T-shirt...

In a quiet street in Grenada North a war between neighbours is entering its third year, with little sign of resolution. In the past two years police have dealt with more than 70 incidents in Tobago Crescent in the north Wellington suburb. There have been allegations of animals disappearing, bottles being hurled at houses, intimidation, assault and death threats. Hostile T-shirts have been distributed, one man has been evicted from his Housing NZ home and "urgent" neighbourhood meetings have been called. The dispute will feature on a television show, Neighbours at War.

KOTV.com -Living Next Door To 'Mister Ed'
A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can build a subdivision about a horse, of course...That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) -- A man who owns the property where famed television horse Mister Ed supposedly is buried wants to take advantage of its notoriety and develop it. Tahlequah homebuilder Todd Carroll has a monument to the horse on his 16-acre property in Tahlequah, where the horse may, or may not be, buried. His plan is to build 12 to 15 log homes and create a subdivision, with the entrance going past the Mister Ed monument.

Coulee News -A messy situation: Flooding along private road raises questions
Fred Pilot sent this article about the joys of private streets:

When you live on a private road, getting emergency help is a little more difficult than a homeowner would think. Folks who live in the Scenic Valley Addition near Maple Grove Country Club found that out last week when snowmelt overwhelmed their storm sewer system and flooded streets and basements along Ceresa Drive. “Trying to get help out here was a nightmare,” said resident Curt Edwardson. He spent hours wading through water in hip waders to find the manhole covers and clear them. His wife Janelle said she was on the phone three hours trying to get help. “I don’t know whether to siphon the two-feet of water in the basement through the bathroom or the utility room or where,” said Margette Longworth.

Boing Boing: Cavalcade of homeowner holdouts
Here is a Mystery Reader post on "nail houses," which means houses that remain behind when all else is gone or redeveloped--they stick out like nails.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a couple of entries about people who refused to give up their homes to new development and ended up being surround by a parking lot, freeway, or airport. Many readers offered stories of other holdouts. Here they are.
Here's a long interview with 40-year-old Mrs Wuping, the owner of the "nail house" (called that because it sticks out of the pit around it like a nail).

Boing Boing: Slideshow for hellish "Haven of Contentment"
Mystery Reader swoops in with this blast from the past that she labels, "Privatopia: The Framers." Touche.

The fine folks at Swapatorium recently picked up a bunch of 1960s Moose Lodge slide shows. The slide show for "The Haven of Contentment" depicts a place that brings to mind a Stepfordian community populated with lobotomized families who are unwittingly taking part in an intensive secret government neurochemical mind-control experiment. The Dharma Initiative in Lost isn't nearly as creepy as the Haven of Contentment.

Governance of Property Owners Associations: Statement of Rights
Here'a a corrected link to Don Nordeen's Statement of Rights.

Fed Faulted For Inaction On Mortgages - washingtonpost.com
On the foreclosure and subprime lender front, Nancy Levy sent this report on Democratic Senators grandstanding on the issue. I realize there is a problem here, but blaming the federal reserve for the actions of subprime lenders strikes me as a major stretch. To me, this is just Sen. Christoper Dodd (D-Mass), et al., woofing and barking at Alan Greenspan to get their names in the paper. But maybe I'll be proven wrong by the Democrats miraculously solving the problem of people borrowing too much money on risky terms to buy more house than they can afford.

Senators yesterday accused the Federal Reserve and its former chairman, Alan Greenspan, of a "pattern of neglect" that fostered a crisis in the mortgage industry that is putting more than 2 million families at risk of losing their homes. Members of the Senate Banking Committee said the Fed had power to regulate risky lending practices but did not choose to use it even as exotic mortgages given to buyers with checkered credit helped drive up housing prices across the country. The mortgage mess has rattled markets in recent weeks and spurred a broad reassessment of lending practices.

Governance of Property Owners Associations: October 2006
Don Nordeen has a Statement of Rights for CID owners that is worth taking a look at. One of these days I'm going to put all these various Bills of Rights side by side and write something about them. Right now I'm getting ready to go hog hunting in Michigan with my son, so the writing will have to wait until Tuesday.

Foreclosures Force Suburbs to Fight Blight - New York Times
Nancy Levy sends this story with a dateline in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a very nice suburb of Cleveland that has long been known for its racial integration maintenance efforts. Now the story is the municipal response to mortgage foreclosures and resulting vacant properties.

SHAKER HEIGHTS, Ohio — In a sign of the spreading economic fallout of mortgage foreclosures, several suburbs of Cleveland, one of the nation’s hardest-hit cities, are spending millions of dollars to maintain vacant houses as they try to contain blight and real-estate panic.

Firm Under Scrutiny to Be Sold - washingtonpost.com
Nancy Levy sends this example of an HOA management company in trouble. But, hey, it's just another one of those isolated anecdotes. No need for regulation or anything. Just move along, nothing to see here.

The Fairfax City company under state and local investigation for possible embezzlement of more than $800,000 from Northern Virginia homeowner associations will be sold to a Herndon real estate management partnership, presidents of both firms said yesterday. Robert A. Koger said Koger Management Group, which oversees the finances of more than 300 homeowner and condominium associations, has reached an agreement with National Realty Partners. National Realty will take over day-to-day management of Koger Management, and the purchase is to be completed about July 1.

Quad City Foreclosures
Here is a slice of life from Rock Island, IL, where you can see what is going on with foreclosures in middle America. The creative mortgages are coming home to roost:

Mortgage foreclosures spiked in Rock Island County and inched upward in Scott County in 2006, and are on track for another barn burner if all else stays equal, court records indicate. Of the 1,955 mortgage foreclosures in Rock Island County over the past five years, there were an average 430 cases a year from 2003 through 2005. But the number spiked to 537 cases in 2006, court records indicated. The number of Scott County foreclosures have inched upward steadily since 2004, and court record keepers say the number of filings have been brisk since the first of the year. The loss of jobs, unexpected medical expenses and divorces are the three most common reasons people get into financial difficulties that often lead to losing their homes, said Moline attorney Thomas Blade, who represents banks and other lenders in mortgage foreclosure cases. Most of the homeowners in financial trouble own homes valued at no more than $150,000, he said. "They are like 60 percent of the American population living paycheck-to-paycheck," he said...Rock Island attorney Bruce Buckrop said he has definitely seen a rise in the number of his clients facing financial difficulty because of adjustable rate mortgages (ARM). The trend toward ARMs and aggressive mortgage lending practices has increased over the past five years, he said. Some borrowers are wooed into an adjustable interest rate by an attractive low starting rate of 5 percent interest that increases six months later to 8 percent and then 11 percent, he said. An 11 percent mortgage rate is "a killer rate" that can take a $400 a month house payment to $950, Mr. Buckrop said. Sometimes the only thing he can do to help clients is to put them through bankruptcy if they want to save their house. Bankruptcy laws protect the homeowner from losing their homes, if it is a first mortgage, but rids a creditor from credit card and other debt.

A new approach to NIMBYism
Fred Pilot sent this along with the heading, "They shoot condos, don't they?"

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese man angry that a new apartment building put his house in the shade was arrested after shooting about a dozen bullets at it with a competition rifle.

'Political correctness is killing our freedoms' | International News | News | Telegraph
This is a fascinating story. If the speaker were Rush Limbaugh, you'd yawn. But guess what? That is a quotation from the President of the European Commission, one part of the European Union government. And check out the comment on people who try to establish "private moral codes":


Europe's citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph. The former Portuguese premier and centre-Right politician is concerned that freedom can be the loser in European culture wars over climate change, cheap air travel, Islam and free speech. "We should be aware of people who, sometimes for good reasons, try to establish what I call private moral codes, for this or that, be it climate change, religious behaviour or any kind of social behaviour," he says.

Inman Real Estate News - Study predicts 1.1 million foreclosures among ARM loans
Thanks to Shu Bartholomew for this link. This reminds me of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise bought a house he/she could actually afford, with a plain vanilla fixed rate 30 year loan. The hare bought a McMansion that was far above his/her means, using a clever interest only adjustable rate loan. Then the hare made a fortune. On paper, that is. Unfortunately, we live in reality and not on paper. In reality, the hare got stuck with a house he couldn't afford to live in or sell, as prices fell and interest rates went up. You do remember that story from Aesop's Real Estate Fables, don't you?

National Ledger - Global Warming: Moving Towards Metrosexuals
At last some good global warming humor. This is worth reading from start to finish. But hurry because the earth is melting.

Many environmentalists believe that the earth is a living organism, personified by the Greek goddess Gaia. Conveniently, it turns out that Gaia is a shrew, who demands that her men be reduced to henpecked, metrosexual noodles. Manliness makes Gaia angry, and we wouldn't like her when she's angry, because she'll turn into a green monster and start smashing everything to bits. Hell hath no fury like an earth goddess exposed to excessive cattle-produced methane emissions.

Lindenhust Choice website
A while back I posted about the proposal by some Lindenhurst, IL, incumbents to have no yard signs in the runup to the April election. The challengers wisely turned down that proposal. Seems that the webmaster for the challengers ran across the post and liked it, so he linked to it from their website, which you can visit by following the link in the title. Thanks to Dave Holle, Lindenhurst Choice webmaster. And good luck on election day.

Cold snap to freeze England
Global warming alert:
SNOW and wintry showers replaced the mild, sunny early spring weather when bitter Arctic winds swept in from the north in England. The Met Office said the cold snap will grip Britain until at least Wednesday. After a mild spell of sunshine that brought early flowering daffodils and flocks of migratory birds, temperatures will plummet by 10C. Snow could reach depths of up to 30cm in parts of the Scottish Highlands and cause disruption on roads across much of the country.

Interfaith group braves storm in climate change trek - Boston.com
So the global warming march is cooled a bit by a snowstorm. But nobody's mind was changed, you can bet on that.

"It was windy and cold. I was walking on the front of the line and I felt like I was bow of a ship with the wind just coming into my face," said the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas of the Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, where the group warmed up on bowls of lentil and minestrone soup after walking eight miles in deep snow from Northampton to Amherst.

Daily Herald | News: If you can run an HOA, why not a city?
Here's an interesting self-recommendation: an HOA president and a "life coach." That must be almost like having a job. But what is an "End Times Revival Center"? Who or what is going to be revived? If I recall the Book of Revelations, when the end times come there is already Somebody responsible for doing the reviving. Maybe the idea is you buy some revival insurance or something, in case you don't make the cut.

Six candidates are competing for three open seats on the Hanover Park village board...Toni Carter: age not given; executive administrator for End Times Revival Center, Schaumburg; founder of Empowered, a life coaching company. President, Hartford Square Homeowners Association; domestic violence victim’s advocate...
Carter.: I will bring the experience of running a homeowner’s association with an annual budget of close to $100,000 a year. Since our administration has been organizing and leading the directives in Hartford Square, we have saved over $51,000 in two years. Before our administration, the previous administration had not put one dime into our reserve account for several years.

POST-TRIBUNE :: News :: Association, condominium community in war of words
POST-TRIBUNE :: News :: Association, condominium community in war of words
I think this is a northwest Indiana story. Is it a good idea to fire your management company without making provisions to keep the necessary activities going on?

MERRILLVILLE -- A dispute between the homeowners association and the management company of a condominium community has left residents with overflowing Dumpsters and without premises insurance, snow removal and other services for the last four weeks.
The board of directors of The Colonies homeowners association severed its ties with Schererville-based KMC Management, alleging that the company billed the association for services but didn't pay the vendors, leaving residents without day-to-day services such as trash pickup, shoveling, street light maintenance, roof repairs and insurance on the building exteriors. Residents in the 100-unit community, built in 1975, are not only worried about the full Dumpsters causing sanitation problems and attracting wild animals; they're also worried about property values. One woman had to take her condo off the market because the community no longer has premises insurance, and another can't refinance because of it.

A climate of fear - In Depth - theage.com.au
Isn't it obvious that these environmental doomsayers are deliberately trying to manipulate people? They are intentionally using scare tactics to panic people into going along with their bizarre public policy agenda. But this article deals with a good question: "how afraid should we be?" Maybe a little fear isn't such a bad thing where technology and climate are concerned.

It makes sense that the mushroom cloud, the great spectre of the 20th century, would return to spook the 21st. Bill McKibben, author of a foundation text of the climate change era, The End of Nature (1990), explicitly links the last great fright to the new one. Climate change is "the single biggest challenge facing the planet, the equal in every way to the nuclear threat that transfixed us during the past half-century", he wrote last year. Some don't buy any of this "climate porn", as a UK think tank recently described such talk. Al Gore's movie is "bullshit from beginning to end", according to Ray Evans, a former Western Mining executive and author of the Lavoisier Group's Nine Facts About Climate Change (2006). For Evans and many others, man-made climate change panic is a bugaboo, perhaps even a hoax. Either way, the debate over climate change is now about fear. How afraid should we be? It's a valid question, because a sensible reaction to any threat begins with fear. Fear can help propel us towards solutions, as it did in the case of ozone-depleting CFCs. But we don't want to respond to a threat with asymmetric alarm.

High-Cost Home Loans More Common in Pr. George's - washingtonpost.com
This is a troubling report. The article discusses several different explanations.
Residents of majority-black Prince George's County are much more likely to be saddled with high-interest home loans than residents of predominantly white areas in the rest of the region, placing them at greater risk of financial distress and foreclosure. About 43 percent of Prince George's County residents who refinanced their homes in 2005 received high-cost loans, compared with 24 percent of homeowners regionwide, according to Federal Reserve data compiled for The Washington Post by the Consumer Federation of America. Similarly, 43 percent of people buying homes in the county in 2005 financed their purchases with high-cost loans, compared with 20 percent regionally...People can find themselves with high-cost loans for many reasons. Prince George's County is the nation's wealthiest majority-black jurisdiction, and housing costs there are high. If homeowners also have high car payments, student loans or credit card balances, that could raise their debt-to-income ratio, forcing them into costly loans. Overspending or paying bills late can also hurt people's credit.

AHRC "Editorial": HOA HACK!!
Here is a vague "editorial," whatever that means, from the AHRC site claiming (without any evidence offered) that AHRC was down because it was "hacked" by person or persons unknown. But the author of the piece has a whole list of possible culprits to speculate about:

On January 18th, 2007, the homeowner advocate's American Homeowner Resource Center (AHRC) website was hacked into and shut down. The spell binding mystery and intrigue of this 'HOA Hack' adds a new twist and chapter to what have been referred to as the HOA life dramas: "The Stepford Lives" and "As the HOA Turns". The tales of "who dunnit" are many - pointing the finger to greedy HOA lawyer groups, angry political opposition, corrupt property managers, a rival homeowner advocate green with envy over AHRC's growth, HOA "bored of neighbors", and even bored cyber sleuths.

The Star Beacon; Ashtabula, Ohio - Charges filed against condo management firm co-owner
More on the Ohio property management firm scandal:

SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP - - The co-owner of the firm that managed Mariners Point Condominium Association has been charged with one count of mail fraud. Kathleen DeSalvo, who co-owned MultiVest Management Inc. in Willoughby with her husband, James, is accused of transferring funds from MultiVest's clients' bank accounts and depositing the funds into MultiVest's accounts since 2000. She is also accused of creating false bank statements which reflected inflated balances in the clients' accounts. Kathleen DeSalvo allegedly provided the false statements to the accounting department which unknowingly created false financial statements that were mailed to MultiVest's clients each month, according to the information filed against her by the U.S. Department of Justice. No charges have been filed against James DeSalvo yet.

Water-use restrictions start next week in South Florida: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
I think this will be the Summer of the Brown Grass in the sunshine state. All those common area open spaces will look like one of those orange pool tables they used to sell at Sears.

City inspectors, armed with citation books, will cruise the streets ready to pounce if they find a sprinkler operating illegally. Neighbors will be encouraged to rat each other out for watering on the wrong day. Helicopters will hover above farms and golf courses, taking satellite coordinates of pumps operating in violation of water-shortage orders. This is the new era of water restrictions. It begins next Thursday, when rules approved by the South Florida Water Management District take effect...Almost half of all drinking water in South Florida goes toward watering lawns, according to the district, which controls water supply and drainage for 16 counties in Central and South Florida. District officials said the restrictions may become permanent and that tougher rules may be necessary.