At this weekend’s board meeting, my presence was warmly anticipated by the Board making sure that Chuck Sexton, the GGRC attorney, was there while I was there.  He, unfortunately, left right after I left.

While Chuck was argumentative about many of my 17 issues, as it turns out, his presence worked in our favor in several ways.

Three Good Victories + One MAJOR Victory

During my presentation, we got Chuck to get the Board to capitulate on four of our points we have been pushing for.  The first three:

1. The Board and Joey HAVE to give the names and current addresses in writing for ALL owners to any owner who wants them.  The Board, and especially Joey, have been fighting this issue against me, Neil and Todd.  Chuck make it clear to Luther that he had no choice.  Luther ended up asking, “Is that right?” about three times before it finally sunk in.  I had to fight this same issue three years ago.  I told Luther I wanted the list.  He said he would get to it when there was time.  Same old slow roll.  But now he KNOWS from his own attorney that he is breaking the law.
2. The Board, at Chuck’s urging, capitulated on owners FINALLY having private mailboxes that are only accessible by the owner and the US Postal Service.  Finally, no more mail tampering at Deer Ridge.  Joey even committed that the mailboxes would be installed within the two weeks.  This is a big deal to all owners who actually live here – so this is a big win to check off the list of demands!
3. The Board finally capitulated on their absurd two week notice requirement.  Now, ANY owner can show up at any Board meeting without ANY notice.  FINALLY, this is as it should be.  The current official requirement was as follows:“*All board meetings will be open to all owners. Owners who want to attend a meeting must indicate to the secretary two weeks before the meeting in writing their intentions to attend. Additionally, agenda items must be submitted in writing two weeks prior to the meeting.”

THE REALLY MAJOR WIN FOR ALL OWNERS

When I pressed that Article XII of the Bylaws REQUIRED a 75% vote of ALL owners for ANY improvement to Deer Ridge and that Joe’s Folly Pavilion was illegally built and funded by GGRC HOA fees, I was surprised that Chuck seemed surprised by the wording and its requirement.  However, after reading it, he pronounced that I was right and that it did, indeed, REQUIRE 75% of the owners to give PRIOR approval for any improvement.

This means that the Joe’s Folly Pavilion was illegally funded and constructed, the office and pool area improvements were illegally funded and done, the maintenance shed that was just completed was illegally funded and constructed, etc.  All totaled, this adds up to more than $120,000 of OUR money that was WRONGLY spent by Joe Thomas at Deer Ridge.  Think how much would be available from this to help fund the current Asinine Assessment?

To me, this alone is justification to FIRE Joe Thomas on the spot.

What this MAJOR victory means is that the owners FINALLY have the power for decision making for improvements back in their hands where it belongs.  It means that Joey and the Board can no longer go off and spend tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of OUR money on their splurges for improvements…and maybe tell us about it, after the fact.

This is HUGE.

So huge, that it is already making an impact on the upcoming Asinine Assessment.  The Board was going to go off and replace all of the wood railings with aluminum (an ugly, unaesthetic, expensive solution that would not tie in with the natural wood setting of Deer Ridge.)  Now, they are already planning on sending out a letter asking for a 75% vote of approval after Ed Palmer rightfully pointed out that this replacement had a different look, hence it was an improvement and not a maintenance cost.

As readers of this blog know, this 75% vote right has been one of the major issues I have been pushing for – and I am very happy to say that we at least got that one complaint noticed and resolved – primarily due to their attorney being at the meeting.  Chuck, thanks for your help on this!

Four GREAT victories this past weekend – but we still have miles to go before we are done getting this property’s operation back under control of ALL owners.

As to the illegally spent $120,000, I want my portion of that money back – and will be pursuing my legal remedies!

For one thing, more and more units are being occupied by full time residents – and those residents have as much right to this property being run as an owner occupied property as those who choose to operate their individual units as rentals.

Deer Ridge, itself, should NOT be in the rental business since every dime expended on the rental business is squandering the money of those of us who do not benefit whatsoever from RML and its huge drain on the GGRC bank account.

One of the major issues I have with the Board is that Luther and the Board consider Deer Ridge to be a 100% rental property or as he calls it, a condo-hotel. In his September 1, 2009 letter to owners where he hits us with the ill conceived and poorly managed current assessment, he states,

“One of the ways to off-set this assessment as well as some other expenses is to participate in the RML program.”

Luther, a significant number of us do not want to be in the rental pool.   And, I for one, resent the implications by you, and others, that it is the fault of us owners not using RML that we have the financial issues we have.

The fault is all the money that is being squandered trying to keep RML going – and hiding the operating deficit by increasing our HOA fees and now hitting everyone with this poorly managed subterfuge called an assessment.

NOTE:  New Page Added At Top Of Blog – Click I Want To Hear What REALLY Happens! to hear the quality of a sample recording with the proposed recorder.

Why is the Board sooooo dead set against having audio recordings of all Board meetings made available to all owners to hear?

I personally have the Olympus DS-30 shown in the photo.  It does a GREAT job and is under $90 at Amazon.  With the way that the Board squanders money on RML, wouldn’t it be worth $90 total for all owners to be able to REALLY hear what happens at Board meetings – especially when they are spending YOUR money?

On top of that, Neil has offered to even buy the digital recorder…and I have offered to take the digital recordings and post them for zero cost on this site so ALL owners can play them online or download them and play them on their own computer, iPod or other MP3 players.  That way, EVERYONE could know everything that occurs during the meetings that affect OUR property and OUR personal investment.

So, what POSSIBLE excuse can the Board have for saying NO???

This is all that was reported during the last Board Meeting Minutes reported by Luther:

Digital Recording of Board Meetings. Larry Ohm and Marge Duncan both stated they felt the minutes of the Board meetings are being recorded well. The Board decided it is at its discretion as to how the minutes of the meetings are recorded. At this time the current methods of recording have been deemed sufficient.

Well, golly gee whiz, Larry and Marge – you all are THERE.  Most owners are not.  You would think anyone could understand that difference.

Likewise, I understand that the Board has gone on record that an Owner can’t even record any Board meeting using their own equipment.   Do any other Owners find this position as outrageous as I do?

The current haphazard, incomplete and I believe intentionally vague recap of the meeting shenanigans are NOT sufficient by a long shot – and the ONLY reason I can think of why soooooo much resistance to this ZERO cost issue is SECRECRY and SIDE DEALS and LIES to all the owners.  There simply can’t be any other reason NOT to provide this record to all owners.

Could it be that the Board knows if the meetings are recorded, then the subterfuge about the assessments are being partly done as  a way to cover “operating deficit” caused by the Board continuing to feed OUR cash into RML?

I suggest that Owners consider filing a lawsuit to force the Board to provide this record.

At our condo in Florida, not only do they digitally record the meetings – they just started doing a live webcam broadcast than ANY owner can watch from anywhere in the world.  Plus they are recorded, so, like You Tube, owners can watch the Board meeting videos anytime they want – as often as they want.

Isn’t it about time that Deer Ridge joined the new millennium for the benefit of ALL owners – and be COMPLETELY transparent?

NOTE:  New Page Added At Top Of Blog – Click I Want To Hear What REALLY Happens! to hear the quality of a sample recording with the proposed recorder.

On April 12, 2008, I went out on a limb and made some very specific predictions of the future.

You can still see that same prediction, unedited from the time it was posted, by clicking Prediction or by clicking the tab at the top of this page.

It’s now almost 18 months later….what do you think?  How did I do so far – even though we still have 15 months to go?

Robert

PS:  Luther’s and Larry Ohm’s comments and counter predictions made at the same time can be seen by clicking Huh?

Comments anyone?

Just some initial thoughts about the asinine assessment letter sent out by Luther:

The assessment is based on VERY rounded numbers…like EXACTLY $50,000 for “nuts and bolts” (that’s a LOT of nuts and bolts) which makes me think they don’t even have real bids…PLUS…the “contingency” is about $400 a unit on the current assessment….that is huge…and the $36k is probably for RML coverage but being called a contingency…yet another subterfuge by the Board and Joe.

Back when I was a rocket scientist with NASA, we had a term, “SWAG” = Scientific Wild Ass Guess – when we didn’t have enough data for any logical conclusion.  Looks to me like SWAG is alive and well – and used to “guess” at the huge Asinine Assessment that you and I have to pay – even if the Board is unconfused by facts as to the real costs for what they THINK needs to be done on the property.

What needs to happen is that all the finances for the past 5 years be reallocated…and properly split out between what is RML related costs – like the pavilion, etc…and that there be two tiers of assessments – one for all of those using RML…and one for the rest of us owners who do not benefit from RML whatsoever….obviously, ours would be substantially lower…plus if those using RML had to shoulder the entire burden they would understand my long standing recommendation to sell RML ASAP.

Matter of fact, i think all non-RML owners should consider filing a small claims court action for up to $15,000 (Tennessee has one of the highest limits for any state for small claims) as money damages against GGRC and RML…we are seriously considering doing this if they don’t do a two tier approach on the assessments.

http://www.seviercountytn.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=15

We can all even file our small claims action online for a total cost of under $60, including all filing fees, at this site:

http://www.civiltree.com/small_claimez/smallclaims_pricing.php

That seems like a great deal…..if we have 10 or 20 of us willing to spend $60 to file suit, i think even Joe and board might get that message.

Luther told me that this property is operated as a “condo-hotel”….and that everyone knew that going in….I told him that it is NOT…..there is nothing in the Master Deed that states that it is anything of the kind…and we did not buy here with that intention.

The board, and all owners, have got to realize that it is not the same set of condo-hotel rules for all units – and that owner occupied and owner operated units don’t owe a penny for anything having to do with RML – no matter how the Board tries to hide things.

MUCH more coming on this subject when I have the time….

Robert

PS:  You can download the complete Luther Letter – including the Board Meeting minutes, as scant as they are – plus the assessment letter as asinine as it is – by just clicking El Toro Poo Poo

Comments anyone?