Rush Limbaugh: What This Election Is Really About and What's Really at Stake - The Rush Limbaugh Show

MUST HEAR!!! Rush Blows the Lights Out in the Final Hour! What This Election Is Really About and What's Really at Stake - The Rush Limbaugh Show

I can't stand Rush Limbaugh, but this explanation of what the election is about for people like him is amazingly candid.  It explains the massive disconnect between the right wing base and the Republican Party and the rise of Trump. It explains why no candidate supported by the Republican "establishment," not even the far-right poster boy Marco Rubio, can get any traction in the primaries. It explains what all these "angry voters" are really angry about.

It comes down to this. The right-wing base is comprised of angry, frightened white people who are desperately resisting the gradual but inevitable transformation of the US from a white majority country to a multi-ethnic nation.There are many other issues in this election, but ultimately, Limbaugh is really saying, this is the only issue that really matters. This is the last chance, Limbaugh says.  He lays it all out: the Democrats and Republicans are collaborating to make the US a majority non-white nation full of layabout immigrants and others in the Democratic coalition (Limbaugh's racism has never been even slightly concealed) who will vote for socialism.

Limbaugh played twice this clip from Marco Rubio, and then he explained what it means to people like him. I put the key language in bold type.

RUBIO: As far as the 12 million here that are, look, I don't believe the American people support some sort of militaristic roundup of individuals, and I don't think you could carry it out, the sort of tactics that would require would offend the American people. And the good news is we don't have to do it that way. If you secure our border, if you secure our border, if you put in place mandatory E-Verify, if you put in place a mandatory entry-exit tracking system, if we prove to the American people that illegal immigration is finally under control, I think the American people will respond in a very rational, reasonable, but responsible way.

For Limbaugh, and for millions of other people, this is easy to interpret--it means that the GOP establishment (and remember that Rubio is now their choice) is complicit with the Democratic party in an effort to (1) not really close the border, and (2) give citizenship, including voting rights, to 12 million or more undocumented immigrants who are already here. Why? Democrats, he says, want voters who are dependent on government programs, which will guarantee their rule forever. The Republican establishment mistakenly believes that outreach to non-white voters is the only way forward for their party. They believe that Latino and Asian voters have enough cultural conservatism to find their party attractive.  Limbaugh says the party is clueless.  In truth, Limbaugh says, this is the road to ruin for the party.  If immigration isn't stopped and 12 million people deported, America as a white majority nation with a capitalist economy is doomed.  Here's the way Limbaugh said it:

"It's about preserving a distinct American culture which is under assault, which is under siege.  And it's being brought to us by the Democrat Party, which is trying to register all kinds of new voters all the time 'cause they need a permanent underclass of people incapable of taking care of themselves, incapable of providing for themselves who will always be counted on to vote Democrat to be taken care of... If you believe in a certain cultural America, it's under siege.  There's nothing to join with on the other side in preserving it.  They want to tear it down, transform it, and rebuild it.  They have to be defeated.  This is why the Republican Party's worthless.  They don't even think this way. The Republican Party's thinking about showing they can work together, they can cooperate, make Washington work.  Sorry; we're so past that, we're so far past that, it's irrelevant.  We're talking about holding on and preserving the country as founded."

He goes on to say that winning the election isn't enough, because "these people have to be defeated.  They have to be overwhelmed." There is no compromise, no middle ground, no "bringing the country together," because "We're too divided."

Understand that this is not just Limbaugh. Listen to Mark Levin, or Laura Ingram, or Ann Coulter, or Michael Savage. They all have millions of people listening to them.  They all say that immigration is the single most important issue facing (white) America. Eric Cantor, the second most powerful Republican in the House, lost his seat to a Tea Party nutburger over one issue: the slightest, most tentative indication that he might, maybe, be willing to go along with some timid immigration reform.  His district tossed him out over that one issue.  This xenophobia and racism is exactly what Trump has tapped into.  This is why so many different groups within the right wing base--evangelicals, cultural conservatives, ideological conservatives, neoconservatives, you name it--don't care about their differences with Trump on any of their issues. They don't care about his ignorance, lack of political experience, or any other mistake or gaffe or flaw. As Trump says, they wouldn't care if he murdered somebody. Because they know one thing: Donald Trump is a "strong leader" and the most outspoken, aggressive, angry, anti-immigrant candidate they have ever heard, and that is enough for them. This is the racist, xenophobic American right rising up against the changing demographics of the USA, and Trump has fired them up like nothing this country has seen since the 1920s, when the KKK had as many as six million members. They believe that if he gets to the White House, he will somehow preserve White America, even if he has to trample all over the Constitution, the laws, the media, and anybody or anything else.

This is the tiger that Trump is riding. I don't know if he has thought about how and when he gets off, which is always the challenging part. Talk show hosts and candidates just have to talk, but elected officials have to act. The congressional GOP is already the most dysfunctional major party in the developed world. Add to that a president with no experience and narcissistic personality disorder leading a rabble of tens of millions of scared and angry white people, and 2017 could be an interesting year.

20 forced from condo complex deemed uninhabitable | WPRI 12 Eyewitness News

20 forced from condo complex deemed uninhabitable | WPRI 12 Eyewitness News



"WOONSOCKET, R.I. (WPRI) — Twenty people were displaced from their homes Tuesday after a Woonsocket condominium complex was declared uninhabitable, and the city is now threatening legal action if the building is repaired. Many residents have called the Social District Condominiums home for years, but Tuesday was the last day they were allowed to stay in the three-story, six-unit building. Some were able to find another place to stay while others are having a hard time finding a new home. “I just need an apartment for me and my babies,” said Merlin Jackson. “Put a roof over their head. That’s what I’m concerned about and that’s what I want.” City Solicitor Michael Marcello said the building had more than $3,000 in unpaid water and sewer fees. Trash could be seen piling up outside, creating a fire hazard, and squatters were known to live there."

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Another busted condo project. Nobody knows how many there are. I know that here in Chicago there are at least 200 that came to the attention of the city. There are hundreds in Florida, probably hundreds in Nevada.

Eric Glazer: should Florida HOAs get the same protections as condos?

THE FLORIDA HOA & CONDO BLOG



Eric Glazer is a Florida attorney who says the answer is "yes."  Read his argument above, and see also this story about his efforts.

It's official: the presidential election is a horse race

The corporate media have decided to interpret this presidential race entirely as a sporting event. They have been trending this way for a long time, and now it is everything. They will talk only about opinion polling and election results. The presidential election is a horse race, and the only thing that matters is handicapping, and then reporting win, place, or show. Watching this coverage I feel like I'm sitting with my dad on the rail at Santa Anita. If you want to know what the candidates have done in the past, or what they promise to do if elected, I guess you will have to hunt for that on the Internet, because you won't see such things as Marco Rubio's insane tax policies and war plans exposed on television.

Market for Fixer-Uppers Traps Low-Income Buyers - The New York Times

Market for Fixer-Uppers Traps Low-Income Buyers - The New York Times



Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link:



"Dozens of these houses were scooped up after the financial crisis by investors, who then make deals with low-income home buyers unable to get traditional mortgages. The arrangement is something like buying a home on an installment plan, with a high-interest, long-term loan called a contract for deed, or land contract. But for buyers lured by the dream of homeownership, these seller-financed transactions can become a money trap that ends with a quick eviction by the seller, who can flip the home again. Before the housing crisis, low-income buyers got too much of a house that they couldn’t afford. Now, they are getting too little of a house that they can’t afford to repair."

Bernie Sanders Says Low Voter Turnout Led to Loss in Nevada | TIME

Bernie Sanders Says Low Voter Turnout Led to Loss in Nevada | TIME

"What I’ve said over and over again, we will do well when young people, when working-class people come out,” Sanders said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “We do not do well when the voter turnout is not large. We did not do as good a job as I had wanted to bring out a large turnout.”

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That's a bad sign for Bernie Sanders, who is right when he says he needs a "political revolution."  Bernie is in an incredibly difficult position because he doesn't have a party to lead. The Democratic Party is not a democratic socialist party, and Bernie has never been a Democrat. Now he''s running for the nomination of the party, but the party will fight him until he drops out. He, on the other hand, can't launch a full-on attack on the party, because he needs partisan Democrats to vote for him. And he can't really attack the last two Democratic presidents, even though both of them are against him, because a Democratic candidate has to say the last two Democratic presidents were successful. Bernie is trying to get around these problems by creating a social movement. But there are few things in politics harder to do than creating, sustaining, and leading a successful social movement. Bernie's movement is only a few months old and what they did in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina is impressive, but it is heavily reliant on demographic groups that are notorious for low turnout, especially young voters and low-income people. Bernie is trying to be a transformative figure in American politics, like FDR and Ronald Reagan. They remade their parties, creating new governing coalitions. But they weren't outsiders, like Bernie. Reagan had a record as a Republican governor when he ran for President, and FDR was a lifelong Democrat. Both had solid connections to powerful emerging forces within their parties. They were influential figures with clout, and didn't try to do end runs around their parties. The Democratic Party has intentionally sidelined its left wing for the last 30+ years. I don't see how Bernie can stage a takeover of that party, coming from outside it. I think that would take somebody who has a ton of credibility within the party. Maybe Bernie is starting something that will get picked up by others, but I just don't see his path to the nomination this year. 

Jeffrey Toobin on Antonin Scalia

Looking Back - The New Yorker



"Antonin Scalia, who died this month, after nearly three decades on the Supreme Court, devoted his professional life to making the United States a less fair, less tolerant, and less admirable democracy. Fortunately, he mostly failed. Belligerent with his colleagues, dismissive of his critics, nostalgic for a world where outsiders knew their place and stayed there, Scalia represents a perfect model for everything that President Obama should avoid in a successor. The great Justices of the Supreme Court have always looked forward; their words both anticipated and helped shape the nation that the United States was becoming. Chief Justice John Marshall read the new Constitution to allow for a vibrant and progressive federal government. Louis Brandeis understood the need for that government to regulate an industrializing economy. Earl Warren saw that segregation was poison in the modern world. Scalia, in contrast, looked backward."

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Toobin just eviscerates Scalia in this piece, and he's right. Scalia was one of the worst Supreme Court justices in a century. His so-called judicial philosophy was really just a smoke screen that he used to justify imposing his retrograde values on the country. He was not an originalist, or a textualist, except when it suited him.  Whenever he wanted, he ignored the text of the constitution and the imaginary "original meaning" of the words.  He was notorious for taking all-expenses-paid junkets on the tab of rich people, and giving bloviating speeches to the Federalist society where he would pronounce his dogmatic personal opinions on matters coming before the courts, and then he would arrogantly reject demands that he recuse himself for obvious bias.  Scalia's hypocrisy knew no limits.  He was a right-wing movement judicial activist with a totally predictable voting record who claimed to be a deep believer in judicial restraint, and just laughed when people pointed that out.  Listen to the screams of anguish at his passing from Rush Limbaugh and all the other right wing AM radio and Fox News loons. They knew exactly what Scalia was all about. That was the joke Scalia was always smirking about. He was a fraud, he knew it, and he got away with. It made him happy to do things like giving the presidency to Bush, empowering the gun bullies who are terrorizing the country, striking down the Voting Rights Act, denouncing gays and lesbians, and unleashing the tidal wave of dark money that is drowning what was left of democracy in the US.  The best thing that could happen to Scalia's judicial legacy is obliteration. He will go down in history as a reactionary sideshow who held back social and political progress.

Hickory Woman Accused of Embezzling from Homeowners' Association

"56-year-old Kim Elaine Lofton of 12th Street Drive N.W. in Hickory was served a true bill of indictment by Hickory Police at about 5:40 Friday afternoon (February 12) on one felony count of embezzlement. The charge dates back to July of 2014 when representatives of the Manor House condominiums on 12th Street Drive N.W. reported issues with the president of their homeowners’ association. The reporting parties believed that homeowner’s fees were unaccounted for. An audit showed a shortage of $140,000. The losses occurred from the time Lofton initially served as president in 2008 until the alleged embezzlement was reported in 2014."

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http://www.whky.com/archive/item/10023-hickory-woman-accused-of-embezzling-from-homeowners-association?utm_content=buffer47d80&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.VsYL6fkrKUl

Hillary and Bernie -- work within the system or change it?

In the last two debates between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, they have begun to argue about the most fundamental political choice there is.  If you are political person who thinks this country isn't all it could or should be, how should you spend your time and energy?

One path, the one Hillary Clinton has followed, says you should work inside the existing system, and to the extent you can, make it work for people and ultimately improve it. Make it less corrupt, more open,  more sensitive to the needs of the many instead of the few.  And as you work within that system, you rise up through its institutions until one day you will have real power.  At that point, you will be have real influence and can accomplish real reform. German student radical Rudi Dutschke called this the "long march through the institutions of power." This is essentially the argument that Hillary Clinton makes about herself and about President Obama. People like Clinton and Obama ultimately don't believe that rapid, major, social and political change is possible in the near term, so they try to do the best they can within the limits imposed on political choices by "reality," by which they mean the existing distribution of power. They get credentials from the best universities, enter the professions, take jobs that pay well, become wealthy and powerful, and eventually get to know the economic and political elites who run this country. Now Hillary Clinton stands at the doorstep of the US Presidency, and she promises to do everything that is possible if she gets that job.

And of course that is exactly what Barack Obama promised when he was running: hope and change. He talked like somebody who meant to make fundamental changes. But in truth he has always been somebody who works within the system. That's what he was here in Illinois as a state Senator, that's what he was as a US Senator, and that's what he was as President.  When he became President at a time of economic crisis, when he had the best opportunity since FDR to get the public behind him and make major changes, he didn't do it.  Instead, he settled for trying to deal with the crisis in the context of existing institutions. He continued Bush's wars and even escalated the war in Afghanistan; instead of nationalizing or breaking up the big banks that crashed the world economy, he continued the bank bailouts and did virtually nothing for home owners; in a futile effort to compromise with Republicans who hated him, he signed legislation that he promised he would never sign to continue Bush's tax cuts on the rich; he signed a health care reform bill without doing anything to fight for the public option that supposedly distinguished him from Hillary Clinton; he has done nothing but talk about the gun psychosis that is sweeping the nation; and on and on.  But (his defenders would say) look at what he accomplished--significant re-regulation of Wall Street; reducing US casualties in overseas wars and trying to make other nations defend themselves; the stock market soared, federal deficits and the unemployment rate have been going down steadily, millions of people now have health insurance, we are no longer a global pariah that invades countries based on lies.

So goes the defense of the "work within the system" approach.

But Bernie Sanders represents the other alternative: being an uncompromising radical who never abandons the quest for major social and political change. Bernie Sanders won't even call himself a Democrat and instead identifies himself as a democratic socialist.  He wants to change the system in fundamental ways and will never be satisfied with working at the margins.  People like Bernie view people like Hillary as sellouts who looked after themselves instead of joining the collective effort to change the entire system. It would take a massive collective effort, but if enough people joined, anything could be accomplished. That's what Bernie means when he calls for a "political revolution." He's talking about a mass movement that mobilizes up to 99% of the society against the plutocrats who really hold virtually all the real power.

If you look through the history of the US and around the world, you will see that such mass movements are few and far between. You will also find that they often end up taking strange courses that can be quite ugly. The standard conservative argument against radical change through mass movements is Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, in which he shows how the leaders of the revolution turned the people against the church, the monarchy, and all other institutions that they had ever respected. The result was a parade of human misery and eventual restoration of the monarchy.

Keep in mind that Clinton and Sanders are baby boomers, and so am I. We remember the way this eternal conflict--incremental reform versus radical change--divided our generation. People called each other sellouts, greedheads, hopeless utopian posers, and so on. This played itself out in the 1980s, when the neoliberals and the Democratic Leadership Council succeeded in steering the Democratic Party away from social democratic goals and toward southern white guys, big corporations, and interventionist foreign policy. Bill Clinton, Bruce Babbitt, Chuck Robb, Al From--they set up the playbook for winning elections with this so-called "centrist" approach. And Obama is very much a neoliberal, but one who uses progressive rhetoric.

And now here we are, at another moment in American history where tens of millions of people are just flat ticked off, and the eternal choice presents itself: incremental reform, or radical change?

If Bernie Sanders wins the presidency, Obama will be the last neoliberal Democratic president and we enter a new era of politics. But if he loses the nomination to Clinton, it will be business as usual for the Democrats.  If Bernie wins the nomination and gets obliterated in the general election, the left will not recover in our lifetime.  And that, of course, is Clinton's argument: I represent the limits of what is possible in this country, at this time. Vote for me or the Republicans take over every branch of the national government, and everything will be much, much worse. 

And now in 2016, Democrats are asked to choose once again between these two approaches. Given the political and economic circumstances in this country right now, the stakes are high.

How Flint, Michigan's tap water became toxic - CNN.com

How Flint, Michigan's tap water became toxic - CNN.com

"In 2011, Flint was declared to be in a financial state of emergency, and the state took budgetary control. Therefore, all the decisions made during the water crisis were at the state level, which state officials confirmed, not by the City Council or the mayor. "When the governor appointed an emergency financial manager (in 2011), that person came here ... to simply do one thing and one thing only, and that's cut the budget, at any cost," said Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee. Kildee said the water crisis is indicative of an attitude about industrial towns such as Flint that have seen hard times in the past 30 years. They're often just forgotten, he said. "This case shows that you can't treat cities the way you treat some corporation that you might just sort of sell off," Kildee said.

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So Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan has presided over a public health nightmare in Flint that is right out of the 19th century. He put the city on a different source of water to save money. Now it looks as though the children of Flint have lead poisoning. Snyder is one of these gimlet-eyed, "venture capitalist," anti-government rich guys who get elected governor. Sort of like Bruce Rauner, who is currently destroying the State of Illinois. And Rick Scott, who has been trashing Florida pretty effectively. They have a lot in common. They don't know how government is supposed to work, or what it is supposed to do, or why. They all think they are geniuses because they are rich, and running a state is just like running companies--into the ground that is, which is often how they made their bucks. That, and screwing working people out of their jobs and pensions. Ultimately, they are sociopaths who do not experience empathy when other people suffer. It will be interesting to see how much longer they can play this game. Snyder ought to be in jail for allowing people to get lead poisoning, but I imagine he will just run for President instead.

Injuries soar after Michigan stops requiring motorcycle helmets

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-helmetlaws-michigan-injury-idUSKBN0UL2JN20160107

"In the three years after Michigan repealed a mandatory motorcycle helmet law, deaths and head injuries among bikers rose sharply, according to a recent study. Deaths at the scene of the crash more than quadrupled, while deaths in the hospital tripled for motorcyclists. Head injuries have increased overall, and more of them are severe, the researchers report in the American Journal of Surgery...Among the accident victims brought to the hospital, the proportion of riders who had not been wearing a helmet rose four-fold, from 7 percent to 28 percent, the researchers found. About 10 percent of non-helmeted riders brought to the hospital died there, compared to 3 percent of those who had been wearing helmets. Among riders who died at the crash scene, the proportion not wearing helmets rose from 14 percent before the law was repealed to 68 percent afterward."
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One more thing deregulated, and the costs are apparent. It isn't just the biker who suffers--they have families, friends, people they work for or with, and so forth. Then there are the medical and rehab bills for people with brain injuries.

Why It’s Scary That the Mall of America Can Crush Dissent

Why It’s Scary That the Mall of America Can Crush Dissent

As I've been saying for many years...

"Mall of America’s ability to so zealously suppress the December 23 protest there highlights how, in a nation where more and more public life takes place in privatized spaces, the ability to exercise First Amendment rights has become increasingly contingent. From Zuccotti Park to Twitter, some of the last decade’s most iconic venues for dissent have been privately run. In cities like New York, privately owned public spaces have been proliferating for several decades, racing ahead of the case law that will ultimately decide their relationship to Constitutional rights. And legal experts expect social media to be a primary subject of First Amendment battles for decades to come.



“In the eyes of the law, those spaces for speech can be shut down and subject to arbitrary censorship in ways that the public square cannot,” said Teresa Nelson, legal director for the ACLU of Minnesota. “We either need to resolve to give up our First Amendment rights or get them to shift along with our changing technology.”

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This situation was, as many of you know, at the core of the Twin Rivers case that went to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Rutgers Law School Professor Frank Askin brought the case on behalf of homeowners who tried to establish freedom of expression rights on the private property of their homeowner-association run private community. I was the expert witness for the owners, the Committee for a Better Twin Rivers. And a similar situation exists in many shopping malls, which in many communities are the only public spaces available to contact large numbers of people for political purposes.

South Carolina lawmakers prepare to tackle divisive HOA issues | The Sun News

South Carolina lawmakers prepare to tackle divisive HOA issues | The Sun News

"A committee appointed by the South Carolina legislature to study contentious issues surrounding homeowners associations (HOA) identified numerous problems that require the state assembly’s attention, but failed to agree on solutions for key issues. There was no consensus on whether HOA managers should be licensed or certified, and the panel was split on the question of how long developers should be allowed to control an association."



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I think it's great that the SC legislature decided to set up this committee, and if you read the details you can see that they tried to address a number of serious issues. But when it came to solutions, they couldn't agree on some of the most basic things:

"The panel was specifically tasked with reviewing five categories: whether HOA governing documents should be disclosed to homebuyers, education for homeowners and board members, manager certification, the time period of a developer’s control of an HOA, and the need for a uniform planned community act. The panel did agree that HOA governing documents should be disclosed to prospective buyers, particularly for new home sales."


They managed to agree that prospective buyers should actually be able to see the contents of the rules they would have to live by. Wow. And what is the meaning of "particularly for new home sales"?  Why would people who buy an existing home be less entitled to know the terms and conditions?

State legislatures around the country take different views of their role with respect to CID housing. There are some states, such as California, where the legislature, guided to some extent by the California Law Revisions Commission, understands the need for regulation of HOA and condo boards. Some other states are more or less in that same camp--Maryland, Virginia, Nevada, Florida, Illinois--I'm not saying that these states have gotten everything right, but at least they have track records of dealing with significant issues and actually passing legislation. Then, on the other hand, you have these states where they don't seem to get the picture, or where the balance of political forces is such that they can't act.  For example, in Arizona it seems that the pattern is always a bunch of separate, piecemeal bills rather than a coherent package.

There are millions of people living in associations run by their untrained neighbors and often unlicensed and untrained property managers. Developers frequently leave associations in a bad financial position. Many if not most associations have inadequate reserves. There has to be a coherent public policy framework with adequate institutional support and oversight, or the owners can be placed in serious jeopardy.  The fact that the South Carolina legislature, at the dawn of the year 2016, can't  get itself together to resolve some pretty basic issues, such as the obvious need for property managers to be licensed, is frightening.

Supreme Court already ruled that feds rightly own occupied refuge | OregonLive.com

Supreme Court already ruled that feds rightly own occupied refuge | OregonLive.com



"Occupiers of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge question whether the federal government has unequivocal legal rights to own and manage that land, without regard to the wishes of local property owners and ranchers. Improbably, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on exactly that question, specifically regarding the lands of the original Malheur national refuge -- twice. Those rulings by the nation's highest court, in 1902 and in 1935, found that the federal government has an incontrovertible claim to the refuge's wetlands and lakebeds, dating back to the 1840s, when Oregon was still a territory. "Before Oregon was admitted to statehood, the United States is shown to have acquired title which it has never in terms conveyed away," Justice Harlan Stone wrote in 1935."

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The bonehead terrorist squatters claim they have "teams" looking into who owns the land, so they can give it back to them.  But the land has been in federal ownership since the 1840s.  The only people with any legitimate claim to that land, other than the federal government, would be Native Americans--if I'm reading the maps right, the Northern Paiute. But there appear to be no scruffy, ignorant, white guys in the chain of title to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. These clowns are squatters. Cliven Bundy and his sons are squatters and deadbeats. They have been grazing their cows on federal land without paying for it. People who use federal land for grazing, logging, mineral extraction get a much better deal than they would if the land were transferred to private ownership. They'd be paying some corporate landowner through the nose.  But these bums won't even pay the low rates the feds charge. Instead, the Bundy family has fabricated a bunch of tall tales that give them imaginary title to federal land. But the Paiutes? They may have a real claim. Native people in Alaska, Canada, and elsewhere have actually settled such claims with national governments.

Last defendant in massive HOA scheme sentenced to prison | Las Vegas Review-Journal

Last defendant in massive HOA scheme sentenced to prison | Las Vegas Review-Journal



"The last defendant in the long-running investigation into the scheme to take over and defraud homeowners associations was sentenced to federal prison Tuesday. Stephanie Markham, 57, who now lives in New York, was ordered to serve 15 months behind bars and spend three years on supervised release after prison for lying about her role in the massive scheme. U.S. District Judge James Mahan also ordered Markham to perform 100 hours of community service. Her sentencing officially ends the largest public corruption case federal authorities have brought in Southern Nevada. More than 40 defendants, including lawyers and former police officers, either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial. The high-profile case, which lasted more than eight years and led to several deaths, was overseen by the Justice Department's Fraud Section in Washington. The investigation became public in September 2008 when the FBI, Las Vegas police and IRS conducted raids across the valley."

The State of Cooperative and Condominium Law in 2015 | New York Law Journal

The State of Cooperative and Condominium Law in 2015 | New York Law Journal



Here's one interesting change in application of the business judgment rule. Even if the owner can show favoritism by the board of directors, they have to prove prejudice to their interests as a result of the favoritism



"In South Tower Residential Board of Mgrs. of Time Warner Center Condominium v. The Ann Holdings,6 the First Department subtly adjusts the standard for self-interest on the board. The court wrote, "However, even if, arguendo, plaintiff engaged in some favoritism…, defendant failed to show prejudice therefrom." This is a clear carve out from previous doctrine, but it leaves unclear whether a challenge to a board for violation of the business judgment rule requires showing for any violation that there is both a violation and resultant prejudice."

Thompson's Station residents sue over TV/Web service

Thompson's Station residents sue over TV/Web service



"A group of Thompson's Station residents is suing developers and a telecommunications company they say schemed — along with DirecTV and their respective homeowners' associations — to give the tiny Internet service provider a monopoly over their growing neighborhoods. Attorneys representing the homeowners are seeking class action status for the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court on Tuesday. It alleges that the developers of the town's Tollgate Village, Bridgemore Village and Canterbury subdivisions made arrangements with Crystal Clear Technologies to be the neighborhoods' sole Internet and TV-service provider."

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I haven't read the complaint so I don't know the details beyond what is in this story. However, historically developers have often made deals with cable TV companies that owners later found unsatisfactory.  One common practice was for the cable company run their cable up to all the lots in the subdivision at no charge to the developer, in exchange for the developer putting a provision in the CC&Rs that would prohibit all residents from using TV antennas. When HOAs enforced these bans, they would often think it was for aesthetic reasons, which I suppose is part of it too.  But when satellite came along and HOAs tried to ban satellite dishes as "antennas," the satellite industry persuaded Congress and the FCC to stop that. In this case, the owners are claiming that they are locked into paying too much for poor service from a small provider, when they could (they say) make a better deal with a larger company.

Thanks to the person who sent me this story--I hesitate to put people's names up here unless I know it is OK with them.

Florida: New Bills Impacting Homeowners’ Associations Filed for 2016 Legislative Session

From the Florida Condo and HOA Law Blog:

Here is your morning engine-starter:

"HB 7031, Relating to the Marketable Record Title Act (MRTA) has been filed by the House Civil Justice Subcommittee.  Specifically, the bill provides that covenants and restrictions of homeowners’ associations will not expire because of MRTA. This will save HOAs thousands of dollars by not having to “preserve” their covenants and restrictions or “revitalize” them if they expire. At this time, there is no Senate companion bill and it remains to be seen whether the title industry will support the bill. CALL is in support of this bill and we will keep you updated on its progress.

"Another bill of interest to HOAs, which some owners will like and others will not, is SB 1122 by Sen. Hays, Relating to Homeowners’ Associations. The primary emphasis of the bill is regulation of HOAs by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Among other things, it will:  (1) require all homeowners’ associations (HOAs) to pay $2.00 per parcel to the Department; (2) require mandatory binding arbitration of certain HOA disputes, including covenant enforcement, assessments, and official records; (3) increase the penalties for willful failure to withhold official records; and (4) change the triggers related to when a developer must turn over control of the association to the parcel owners.

"The 2016 Legislative session begins on January 12, 2016."

http://www.floridacondohoalawblog.com/2015/12/articles/assessment-collection/new-bills-impacting-homeowners-associations-filed-for-2016-legislative-session/

Suburban office parks are dying -- Mother Nature Network

Suburban office parks are dying because young people don't want to drive there | MNN - Mother Nature Network

There are several reasons, one of which is that urban young people are not getting driver's licenses like they once did.  This is an interesting study and you can read the whole thing here.

"Suburban office buildings that have become obsolete due to car-centric and removed locations — and which do not have some factor that will remedy these traits in the future (such as a planned transit station or new highway exits) — are unlikely to achieve market-average rents as leases roll. In extreme cases, properties that are incurably obsolete — primarily those at undesirable locations or with building sizes or for plates that tenants now find either too large or too small — may never lease again."

Bad bargain? Manufactured homeowners feel the financial strain | PBS NewsHour

Bad bargain? Manufactured homeowners feel the financial strain | PBS NewsHour

STEPHEN FEE: She bought this three-bedroom manufactured home for $113,000 dollars in a town where the median home value is $500,000.



CARLA BURR: “I chose to move here because it was a beautiful house. And I thought, man I could retire here.”



STEPHEN FEE: Now 61 years old, Burr – and her home – may need to move. While she owns the home — she made the purchase in cash — she doesn’t own the land underneath.



Every month, Burr pays rent to a property manager. Over the past ten years, that lot rent has gone up 30 percent, from $740 a month to $1,022 a month.



CARLA BURR: “I had no clue that the rent was going to go up the way it did. I mean, it’s to the point now where it’s more than half my Social Security. I would love to stay. And I would love to keep it right where it is. Because everything I have is here. All my church is here, my family’s here, everybody’s here.”

Armed protesters take over wildlife refuge in Oregon - CNN.com

Armed protesters take over wildlife refuge in Oregon - CNN.com

"(CNN) A group of armed protesters have taken over a building in a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, accusing officials of unfairly punishing ranchers who refused to sell their land, a spokesman for the group told CNN. The protesters occupied part of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns after a march supporting Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers who are convicted of arson. Prosecutors said the Hammonds set the fire, which burned about 130 acres in 2001, to cover up poaching. The father and son were sentenced to five years in prison."

-----------

This is like something from The Walking Dead, where groups of armed men take whatever they want, based on some crazy moral code.  Now this is happening in Oregon. And among these "I'm a law unto myself because I have an assault rifle" wanna-be warlords you will find two sons of Cliven Bundy, the squatter on federal land who provoked a standoff with federal authorities in May, 2014.  In that confrontation, people were aiming rifles at federal officers, and the Obama administration made an enormous mistake by letting them get away with it. Now, predictably, they are at it again.  Will the administration back down again, or finally do something about it?  I don't see how people like this can be allowed to arm themselves and take over federal property, and then get away with threatening law enforcement.

The Hammonds are not there. They say they are going to surrender themselves and serve the prison sentence that they deserve.  They slaughtered a herd of deer on federal land and then set a fire that burned 130 acres to cover up their crime, and there were witnesses to that, including the teenager they enlisted to start the fire for them.   They were convicted in a jury trial. So the Hammond case really has nothing to do with this so-called protest. These militia thugs just want to make the Obama administration back down again, they are using the Hammond case as a pretext, and I suppose there's a good chance that the administration will do nothing once again, in the hope of avoiding bloodshed. But sooner of later, these people have to be confronted.  Federal lands are for public use, and we can't allow people to take it by force for their own use and profit. That's what Bundy did--he used federal land to graze his cattle for free. The Hammonds used it for poaching. Now the militia goons are squatting in the administration building of a federal wildlife preserve. Enough. And take their guns.

The larger issue here is that people like the Koch brothers want to take federal land for their own use, and it seems that these highly publicized confrontations may be part of that effort.

Obama Program That Hurt Homeowners and Helped Big Banks Is Ending

Obama Program That Hurt Homeowners and Helped Big Banks Is Ending



"When President Obama announced the Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, on February 18, 2009, in Mesa, Arizona, he promised it would assist 3 to 4 million homeowners to modify their loans to avoid foreclosure. Almost seven years later, less than 1 million have received ongoing assistance; nearly one in three re-defaulted after receiving inadequate modifications; and 6 million families lost their homes over the same time period.



"Now the program is ending."

------------

To me, HAMP is a symbol of the Obama administration's disastrous decision to put the welfare of the big banks that crashed the housing market and the world economy ahead of the millions of homeowners who lost their home equity, their homes, their jobs, and their retirement security.  Obama had a historic opportunity to break up these predatory banks, send a whole lot of banksters to prison, make the banks refinance underwater mortgages so that people could stay in their homes, and set up much stronger regulation of a metastasizing financial industry that even now has us all at risk again.  Instead he decided to bail out the banks and insurance companies without insisting on structural changes.      

Harbours Condominium lawsuit finds no wrongdoing - News and Tribune: News

Harbours Condominium lawsuit finds no wrongdoing - News and Tribune: News



Well, that's one way to put it, but there seems to have been another outcome:



"Although the state office wasn't able to find fraud or serious wrongdoing, Attorney General Greg Zoeller said changes to Indiana law that the case inspired were the most important result. 'When we first started, we didn't have the authority to review the finances of the homeowners association,' Zoeller said.

The statute that gave the attorney general the authority to investigate and take action on nonprofit organizations excluded homeowners associations. In 2011, the Indiana Legislature granted Zoeller that authority, largely because of the Harbours case, a news release states. That law was expanded in 2015 to give members of homeowners associations better access to financial information."

Russia eyes trillion rubles from privatization in 2016: finance minister | Reuters

Russia eyes trillion rubles from privatization in 2016: finance minister | Reuters



Here's the way they tell the story:

"Russia aims to raise 1 trillion rubles ($13.53 billion) from privatization next year, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said in an interview aired on Thursday, signaling a major acceleration of plans to sell state assets. These plans, ambitious on paper, have largely ground to a halt over the last three years against the background of poor stock market conditions, exacerbated by a plunge in oil prices and Western sanctions linked to the Ukraine conflict. However, the same negative economic developments also mean that the government is increasingly strapped for cash, giving it an incentive to speed up privatization as an alternative to raising taxes, cutting spending or exhausting fiscal reserves."

------------

Privatization in Russia is basically another word for corruption, and here they go again. In the US privatization usually means contracting out, regulated monopolies, concessions, franchises, or vouchers. In Russia, as in Europe, it usually means selling off public assets that were built and maintained at public expense, and that now become the property of some plutocrat who is, of course, not paying huge bribes to government officials, so don't ask. In case you were wondering what could be left to privatize, after they sold off the government industries and farms in the early 1990s, the answer is simple: oil companies. After all, as somebody put it, Russia has become a big gas station that produces almost nothing the world wants except oil and gas:
 "He added that "in the first instance" the state oil firm Rosen (ROSN.MM) was being prepared for privatization. Bashneft (BANE.MM), a smaller oil company that was renationalized last year, is also under consideration."

Cintra, Macquarie file bankruptcy on Indiana Toll Road | Examiner.com

Cintra, Macquarie file bankruptcy on Indiana Toll Road | Examiner.com

This is from September, 2014, but I just ran across it. This article lays out the way the "private-public partnership" (PPP) works, using the vaunted Indiana Toll Road privatization as an example.  It starts when a state or local government decides that bonds, taxes, and user fees won't do to pay for a highway or other major infrastructure, so they consult some big investment bank about "creative financing" arrangements. The bank finds some gigantic pools of money floating around--sovereign wealth funds, hedge funds, and so forth--and they "lease" the asset from the state, using bonds to pay themselves back. The lease is for longer than the useful life of the asset.  They set up a shell corporation--called a concessionaire--to operate the highway as a toll road. The toll doubles so the consumer gets hit, the investors get huge profits up front during the next 5-10 years, and then, when the asset is used up and needs work, they bankrupt the shell concessionaire.  The losses fall on whoever gets stuck with the asset after the music stops, or the whole deal gets repackaged for a new investor.  As the article explains:



"They structure the deals to be extremely long leases so that they can depreciate the road as an asset on their taxes. They put very little of their own money at risk as the equity (a mere $800 million out of a total $3.8 billion), and allow the private bond investors and/or taxpayers to take on the risk for the vast majority of its debt. The companies get their own equity back with some profit in just a few short years of collecting tolls. This leaves the other investors to the take the actual losses just about when the road is going to go bankrupt, and often when the road is also in need of major maintenance or rehabilitation."



And at the point the public is stuck with a used-up highway or other asset that they actually need to use to, you know, get to work.  Now, you might think that this scam could be run only once, but it has been done many times. Does it surprise you that Texas thinks this is a great way to do things?  What is even stranger is that this sort of thing is all the rage in Washington. The Treasury and DOT produced this paper: "Expanding the Nation's Infrastructure through Innovative Financing."  It is quite enthusiastic about PPPs, despite the way they work out in practice, often to the detriment of the public:



https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/Expanding%20our%20Nation's%20Infrastructure%20through%20Innovative%20Financing.pdf



But then again, given that so many Americans have been brainwashed into hating the very idea of government, it is no surprise that they allow themselves to become victims of privatization schemes. All you have to do is promise people that "the private sector" is more efficient and that you will eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse," and ordinary people go along with schemes that cost them jobs and money and wreck the public assets they need. But don't try and tell them that, because they heard The Truth from Fox News or Rush Limbaugh.



If you need more, here is a three-part series that explains it.

Homeowners uncertain of next step for flooded homes | KOMU.com | Columbia, MO |

Homeowners uncertain of next step for flooded homes | KOMU.com | Columbia, MO 

This story is about Lake of the Ozarks, but it could just as easily come from any number of towns where people's homes are under water up to the roof line. The private and public costs to restore people's homes will be enormous.

'Trump Filter' Lets You Surf the Internet Without Seeing Donald Trump - Fortune

'Trump Filter' Lets You Surf the Internet Without Seeing Donald Trump - Fortune

Now if I can just get one for television.

Forecast for 2016 housing market

And the forecast is dinky condos for everybody under 40.
http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2015-year-in-review/will-housing-logjam-bust-2016-don-t-bet-mortgage-or-n487611?cid=sm_tw&hootPostID=4b446a66fb1cb79ce9b90b6d8e895280

FBI: Financial Fraud Inside the Investigation of a Las Vegas Construction Boss

"When a federal judge sentenced former Las Vegas construction boss Leon Benzer to nearly 16 years in prison in August, it marked a final chapter in a $58 million fraud scheme that took investigators nearly a decade to unravel. Over a period of many years, Benzer brazenly sought to gain control of numerous condominium homeowners associations (HOAs) in the Las Vegas area to secure lucrative construction and other contracts for himself and additional conspirators. To date, 44 individuals, including numerous state officials, have been convicted of crimes in connection with the fraud—which has been described as one of the largest public corruption cases in Nevada history."

https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2015/october/financial-fraud/financial-fraud

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This is a summary of the Benzer HOA takeover fraud investigation. The photo above is an undercover operative receiving a $20,000 bribe from one of the principals in the fraud. It was in a baby wipes box. How domestic.

Illinois condo law author arrested for 1973 murder

 "He helped craft laws on which hundreds of condominium associations in Illinois are based but he is also a suspect in two murders. On Monday afternoon, Dr. Donnie Rudd, age 75, will be in a courtroom in Rolling Meadows, northwest of the Loop, for his first hearing since being extradited from Texas."
---------------
Donnie Rudd is a man of many parts--lawyer, scientist, maybe murderer?  At one time he had a law practice in the Chicago area with 2000 clients, most of them HOAs. He was one of the co-authors of Illinois condo law:  "Rudd has degrees in law, bioscience, bioengineering, and chemical engineering. He has more than 40 patents, mostly related to cell regeneration, repair of human tissue, and curing diseases to vital organs. He has written 15 books and more than 160 professional publications. In 1983, with state representative Ellis Levin, he co-wrote amendments to the Illinois Condominium Property Act."

However, the police also think that he murdered two people, so there's that.

http://www.loopnorth.com/news/mobi/murder1221.htm

Isolated example number 12,345

DENVER - The owner of an Aurora-based community association management company voluntarily surrendered his license after there were complaints he was diverting homeowner association funds for his personal benefit, the Colorado Division of Real Estate announced Friday.

David W. Martin is the owner and designated manager of PMG Enterprises Inc., a community association management company. 

http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2015/12/19/owner-of-aurora-hoa-management-company-allegedly-diverted-funds/77631880/

Massive HOA faces claims of assessment collection abuse

"Poinciana Villages, with nearly 70,000 residents and 23,000 homes, would be one of the largest cities in Central Florida if it were a municipality. Instead, it's one of the largest private homeowners associations (HOA) in the United States. But now the HOA is under fire for what residents say is a persistent and ongoing effort by outsourced debt-collection agencies to inflate back dues with thousands of additional dollars in legal fees and late charges. Some of the estimated 4,000-plus homeowners whose debt was sold — more than 1 of every 6 homes in the association — say they've never received a line-by-line breakdown of what those fees actually are. And by the time they're able reach someone at the agency, their late fees and legal fees have doubled, tripled, quadrupled and more. At issue, residents say, is the possibility of thousands of owners losing their homes because of ballooning debts that were originally only in the hundreds of dollars."

-----------
Because there aren't enough stories of individual owners losing their homes in HOA foreclosures with bogus charges, so it is time for mass-production foreclosure, using private debt-collection agencies.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/osceola/os-poinciana-hoa-turmoil-20151219-story.html

HOA fraud king Leon Benzer gets 15 1/2 years in prison

"Former construction company boss Leon Benzer, the man behind the massive scheme to take over and defraud Las Vegas-area homeowners associations, was sentenced Thursday to 15 ½ years in federal prison.  U.S. District Judge James Mahan also ordered Benzer to serve five years of supervised release after prison and pay $13.4 million in restitution. Benzer, 48, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges, is to surrender to prison authorities Nov. 6."

------------
So ends the biggest white collar crime prosecution in the history of Las Vegas--eleven HOA taken over by a fraud ring and used to steal millions of dollars. But (see post below) we are not going to see the evidence, which remains sealed by virtue of the US Attorney's office and the federal judiciary. My view is the public needs to learn from this case. We have here the worst example ever seen of HOA private governments being taken over by vendors--contractors and lawyers, mainly--who used them like ATMs. These were people who knew the HOA industry from the inside--who knew how easy it can be for a small group of self-interested people to take over an HOA board of directors, because of the culture of non-participation that prevails in far too many common interest developments. This is a serious problem all over the country--in fact, all over the world.  Nothing is going to change this situation--most people just don't want to be bothered with paying attention to the affairs of their HOA. Their lives are too busy already.  The day will never come when owners live up to the ridiculous expectations that this institution imposes on them. The people who own units in CIDS are just consumers of a mass-produced product, and they need to be protected against the possibility that predatory industry insiders might take advantage of them. I realize that most lawyers, managers, and contractors are trustworthy, but owners have insufficient protection against those who are not. The prosecutors and judges need to open these files so the public and the media and the academy can see exactly how this scheme worked. Then legislators can take the necessary steps to fix this--starting with mandatory full public disclosure of the financial status of every single HOA and condo association.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/vegas-hoa-crime-kingpin-leon-benzer-sentenced-15-12-years-prison#st_refDomain=www.facebook.com&st_refQuery=/

Evidence in Las Vegas HOA prosecution remains sealed

"A total of 43 defendants either pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial in what prosecutors say is the largest public corruption case ever in Nevada. Prosecutors opposed dissolving the two protective orders — especially the one that covers the leak investigation, which focused on concerns that Quon was getting confidential information from the Nevada U.S. attorney's office and possibly elsewhere. The Justice Department in Washington took the reins of the HOA investigation after those allegations surfaced. The leak investigation delved into personal and romantic relationships of public officials who have not been charged criminally or disciplined administratively, Justice Department prosecutors argued. Foley shared the government's concerns in his order. "The government has made a sufficient showing that disclosure of these documents would potentially cause unfair prejudice to the individuals who were the subjects of the investigation, but to whom no charges, criminal or administrative, were ever brought," he wrote."

-----------
It has been reported since the start of the prosecution that Washington took over the prosecution because people in the local US attorney's office, and possibly one or more judges, were passing information to attorney Nancy Quon, one of the principals in the fraud ring. She committed suicide. And now the US attorney's office and the federal judiciary have decided that nobody gets to see the evidence in the HOA fraud case--6 million pages of documents.  Is that because it includes evidence that might make the US attorney's office and the federal judiciary look bad?

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/mass-evidence-huge-hoa-scheme-remains-under-wraps

Police bust weekly mahjong game played by elederly women

http://tampa.cbslocal.com/2015/11/24/police-bust-weekly-mahjong-game-played-by-elderly-women/

Local cops, having solved all the other crimes, decided to bust a mahjong game. The perpetrators range in age from 87 to 95. Who called the cops?  Condo management. It would appear that in fact they didn't violate any law, but I suppose the giant wheel of justice will have to grind all this into dust and answer that question.

When residents clash with homeowner associations, some states step in

"Has your homeowner association fined you for painting your house purple? Have you ignored requests to pay annual maintenance fees for your condo’s clubhouse and swimming pool? Has your association refused to let you see its financial documents These are the types of conflicts that frequently erupt between residents and homeowner or condo associations. Some can get quite heated – or downright nasty. A small, but growing number of states are trying to tackle the problem by creating ombudsman or homeowner information offices to handle the deluge of complaints that often land at state and local agencies. The goal is to educate residents and association board members about their rights and responsibilities under the law and help settle disputes before they wind up in court."

-----------

More state oversight of HOAs and especially condo associations is necessary, but it isn't clear what form it should take. I think ombudsperson offices are a good start, but not everybody agrees with that approach.

Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article41217018.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article41217018.html

SO MUCH FOR THE DEATH OF SPRAWL: AMERICA'S EXURBS ARE BOOMING

Joel Kotkin shows that sprawl and the exurban lifestyle are as popular as ever. This means more new HOAs and condos, so the die-hards who think they are going to abolish CID housing may want to read this.

"It’s time to put an end to the urban legend of the impending death of America’s suburbs. With the aging of the millennial generation, and growing interest from minorities and immigrants, these communities are getting a fresh infusion of residents looking for child-friendly, affordable, lower-density living."

New Jersey: More accountability for HOAs?

"More than 1 million New Jersey residents live in communities with homeowners associations. The top Republican in the state Senate said people pay hard-earned money in dues to these associations, and they deserve some transparency. Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean (R-Westfield) said he is pushing to expand and update the “Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act,” which hasn’t been changed since 1993.

“This legislation focuses on accountability as well as transparency,” Kean said. “It’s time to update a 22-year-old law.”

Kean has introduced the “Association Homeowners’ Protection Act of 2015″ (S3235). The measure would require:

• Homeowners associations to provide a copy of homeowners’ association insurance policies, which are needed to start personal home insurance claims processes. The association member would have to request the copy and it would have to be sent via email within 24 hours, or hard copy within 48 hours.
• Homeowners associations to offer a 24-hour emergency phone number for members.
• Homeowners associations to provide information including contact numbers for board members, as well as the most recent budget and all insurance information.

“That should be a transparent flow of information, so people have access to how their money is being spent,” Kean said. “The over 1 million New Jersey residents who are part of these associations pay hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars every year to be part of these associations. It’s simple common sense that they should have access to timely information.”

http://nj1015.com/do-you-like-your-homeowners-association/

Is that what you call R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

"Pontiac — A Bloomfield Township condominium association wants to foreclose on a property owned by legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin for non-payment of more than $11,563 in fees and maintenance assessments. The lawsuit, filed by the Hills of Lone Pine Association, an exclusive gated community in Bloomfield Hills, names Franklin, Ally Financial Inc. and CitiMortgage Inc. as responsible for the unpaid assessments on a 4,148-square-foot condo valued at $695,380."

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State condo ombudsperson offices becoming "a thing"

"Has your homeowner association fined you for painting your house purple? Have you ignored requests to pay annual maintenance fees for your condo’s clubhouse and swimming pool? Has your association refused to let you see its financial documents?

These are the types of conflicts that frequently erupt between residents and homeowner or condo associations. Some can get quite heated — or downright nasty.

A small, but growing number of states are trying to tackle the problem by creating ombudsman or homeowner information offices to handle the deluge of complaints that often land at state and local agencies."

--------------

Yes, they are. Because the old model--no regulation of the relationship between BODs and members except civil litigation--is failing.

http://www.columbian.com/news/2015/oct/25/states-stepping-in-to-help-resolve-hoa-conflicts/

Active duty sailor loses home to unpaid HOA fees

Here we go again:

"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The home Mark Bryant purchased in 2006 is modest but he loves it. "I worked real hard for my house," he said. While stationed at Mayport, the gunner's mate purchased the house in the Creekside subdivision with hopes of returning to Jacksonville when he retires.  "Now it is being taken away from me due to a wrongful foreclosure," he said. Bryant is still active duty in the Navy, stationed in Virginia. He lost his home because of $750 in unpaid homeowners association fees. "It has been stressful," said Bryant. How did this happen? His documents show he was stationed in Bahrain during the two years the fees went unpaid -- 2012-2014. Bryant said he was never notified. Court records show an unnamed woman was served in Virginia at a previous address. Bryant said the unnamed woman in the record is not his ex-wife. "When I got back from deployment October 2014," said Bryant, "there was an eviction notice on the property, and that is the first time me actually knowing." The HOA fees went from $750, but when you add interests, late fees, court costs, attorneys fees, it jumped to $4,734.03. The property was foreclosed and sold for $10,300."


http://www.firstcoastnews.com/story/news/local/consumer/on-your-side/2015/10/16/i-was-in-bahrain-and-never-got-a-notice/74078256/

Concord (VA) homeowners struggle to get roads paved

"The Holiday Forest subdivision in Concord has been fighting a 40-year battle to get all of the neighborhood’s roads paved."

Yes--but the state doesn't want to do it because they are private roads.  The picture concerning who is responsible for the hefty price tag now is complicated:

"A 1975 letter from VDOT to the then county administrator stated “I was amazed to find a number of streets constructed in a rather haphazard manner with apparently no regard for proper drainage design.” To pay for maintenance of the unpaved roads, the homeowners’ association collects $100 per house or $90 from an undeveloped lot. Goldman said they have an annual budget of $15,000 to $17,000 to maintain the roads. If the association were to raise rates, homeowners can cancel their membership in the association, as stated in association’s by-laws. The by-laws also state the association will dissolve in 2025, he said. When the subdivision was created in the 1970s, the old subdivision ordinance stated if all new lots were five acres or more, all roads within the subdivision were privately maintained and not maintained by VDOT. The subdivision was developed by Holiday Forest Corporation. “Also over the years, the homeowners have complained about the roads and decided they would rather have state maintained (roads),” said Campbell County Community Development Director Paul Harvey. About half of the roads in Holiday Forest have been taken over by VDOT but five miles still remain unpaved and under the care of the property owners’ association."


http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/concord-homeowners-struggle-to-get-roads-paved/article_0a4905df-0318-5aaa-8ce8-0ca284d65a6f.html

As flood recedes, skinflint South Carolina faces huge infrastructure tab, limited federal aid

"COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Long before the historic floods of the past week, crumbling roads, bridges and dams and aging drinking water systems plagued South Carolina — a poor state that didn't spend much on them in the first place and has been loath to raise taxes for upkeep. Now the state faces hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars' worth of additional bills to fix or replace key pieces of its devastated infrastructure."

http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2015/10/07/flood-slams-south-carolinas-already-shoddy-infrastructure

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Here we have before us the best evidence to date that the current rage for privatization of infrastructure is a terrible idea.  South Carolina has gone the full magilla with this approach and where has it left them?  

Halloween yard displays go over the top

It's that time of year again, when people decorate their homes in traditional fashion with simulated bloody torture victims wrapped in plastic. Nothing says Halloween like somebody nailed to a cross upside down in the front yard, with syringes jabbed into his neck. At least, that's what some people think. And then the neighbors freak out. No doubt the HOAs will soon swing into action. Personally I generally settle for a few pumpkins, which makes me popular with the squirrels.

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/10/graphic-halloween-decorations-too-real?utm_source=fijifrost%20facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cmcm&utm_content=inf_20_19_2 

Private dams = bad infrastructure

The US media love to run any story from anti-government propagandists about anything a local government does wrong. But look how they ignore the failures of privatization. Most of the nation's dams are privately owned and many of them are supposed to be maintained by HOAs. Here's a rare story where, if you read down far enough, you can get to the point. Developers built thousands of dams, didn't build them right, and private associations have been maintaining them, with results that are not impressive, as evidence by recent events in South Carolina: "...while states might pay or contribute to the repairs of those dams that are publicly-owned, most dams in the country are privately owned, which puts the onus on private parties and associations."

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/11/447181629/aging-and-underfunded-americas-dam-safety-problem-in-4-charts utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npr&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=2036

Condo owners to dump Trump

Trust fund baby and pseudo-populist charlatan Donald Trump is involved in lots of condo deals. Some say that he is no longer a real estate developer in the true sense of the word, and hasn't been since the early 1990s. Now he makes big bucks renting his name for other people's projects, which leads lots of ignorant, gullible rubes to buy in (probably the same dunces who think he'd make a great president).  If things go south and the project never gets built out, and the lawsuits rain down, he just says he was only paid to put his name on the development and has no responsibility. Here's another lawsuit with some troubling allegations:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/florda-condo-owners-trump

"The building's residents and condo owners had invested in the namesake, a 70-story waterfront tower along Panama Bay, on the strength of Trump's reputation. But during the four years that Trump Panama Condominium Management LLC had managed the property, Central America's largest building, a team installed by the Trump family was accused of running up more than $2 million in unauthorized debts, paying its executives undisclosed bonuses and withholding basic financial information from owners.

The Trumps had done all of this through fine-print chicanery, the board said. A clause in many residents' purchase agreements prevented them from voting against the Trump company's wishes. That allowed the Trumps to install their top employee as chairman and the residents' representative on the board — even though the Trumps' actual stake in the building's residential area was merely a storage closet on the 15th floor."

Why I've been off the air

I've been keeping up this blog since 2003, but this summer I went off the air for several months because of some events that absorbed a great deal of my time and energy.  My mother died in July at the age of 93, in Pasadena, California. I became the executor of her affairs, there have been many things to attend to, and the emotional side of a loss like that is never easy, as I'm sure you know.

At the same time, through a chain of unusual circumstances I ended up teaching an intensive summer course on urban politics at UIC. Then on the heels of that, I went to Australia for a week to give the keynote address at a conference on condominium housing (which they call "strata title").  This was a fantastic conference in an amazing country, but by the time I returned I was behind in my work. To add the final straw, I was made head of the Political Science Department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and I've been on the learning curve with those additional responsibilities, in addition to teaching two Fall courses with a total of 172 students.

All three of my children started at new universities--two as freshmen and one as a graduate student--and that meant move-outs and move-ins.  I certainly logged some travel miles--this summer I had trips to Israel, Australia, Phoenix (driving back with my oldest son in a 1997 Nissan Pathfinder with 200,000 miles and no air conditioning, in July), Los Angeles, and Springfield, IL.

So that is why I haven't been able to stay current with this blog--but I hope people will continue to send me items, because I'm back on the air.

Is living in a steel box the future of housing?

Coming to a condo association near you, someday?

http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/oct/09/living-steel-box-shipping-containers-future-housing

South Carolina: HOAs do a terrible job maintaining dams, causing massive flooding

I've been away from this blog for quite a while because events in my life made it hard for me to focus on it. I have a lot to report on and I'll try to get to it over the next week or so.

First up:  the media has reported extensively on the massive flooding in South Carolina. One angle hasn't been reported much, even though it is at the heart of the problem.  South Carolina is one of these states where they brag about how low their taxes are and how useless government is. But the reason the flooding is so bad is...privatization. They keep taxes low by not spending much public money on maintaining infrastructure like, oh...dams, for instance. Instead they trust developers to build them, and homeowners' associations to maintain them.  And surprise, surprise!  Many HOAs are doing a perfectly terrible job of maintaining the earthen dams that keep water from wrecking other people's neighborhoods.


http://www.thestate.com/news/local/article38043186.html

Feds fighting to keep Las Vegas HOA fraud files secret

"Federal prosecutors are fighting to keep secret the mass of evidence in the long-running investigation into the scheme to take over and defraud homeowners associations. Lawyers with the Justice Department’s Fraud Section in Washington filed court papers late last week opposing the Las Vegas Review-Journal’s request to dissolve two protective orders that withhold documents in the high-profile case from the public. Attorney Maggie McLetchie, representing the newspaper, argued in court filings June 9 that the public has a right to see the evidence, most of which has long ago been turned over to defense lawyers. With most of the 42 convicted defendants sentenced, the epic case is essentially over."

http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/feds-fighting-keep-las-vegas-hoa-fraud-files-secret

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Kind of makes you wonder what they don't want the public to see, doesn't it?  Permit me to do a bit of speculating. I have no special inside knowledge of any of this, but I have read the press coverage carefully, particularly Jeff German's exceptional reporting for the Review-Journal. 

When the scandal first became public, a number of story lines popped up briefly in the press and then were submerged as the prosecution went forward and the focus shifted to the way the case was unfolding, day to day.  I think these unresolved story lines are why the Review-Journal is after the records, and that may be why the DOJ is fighting to keep them secret.  For example:

1.  Did anybody in the justice system--prosecutors or judges, perhaps--tip off the fraudsters about what was happening inside the investigation?  There were stories suggesting that this may have happened.

2. Why did the DC office of the DOJ take the case away from the local US Attorney's office?  Why did the private attorney who blew the whistle on all this have to do his own investigation and present it to the government gift-wrapped in order for anything to happen?

3. Was this ring--with 42 convictions--not the whole operation? Were there other people involved who didn't get prosecuted?  

4.  Was this ring linked to organized crime at a higher level, as in what we call here in Chicago "The Outfit"?  There were suggestions of that in the press early on, but that angle was not pursued in the DOJ's case.

5. Are there other HOAs and other HOA vendors in Las Vegas or nearby where the same sorts of things are going on, but without prosecution or even investigation?  What turned up in the investigation regarding how prevalent HOA takeover by contractors, and sweetheart deals, really are, in Vegas and elsewhere?

So I hope and trust that the court will open up this investigation so we can have answers to these and maybe other questions.