Talk is cheap, especially when you’re campaigning for public office. It’s easy to demean the performance of someone who actually has had to do the job; it’s another thing to accomplish the changes that you promised once you are elected. President Trump is finding this out now.
I live in a “country club” community in Southern California. It is called Bear Creek, and the centerpiece of the large development is the Bear Creek Golf Club, which was designed by Jack Nicklaus. Our community holds the distinction, I believe, of being the only Jack Nicklaus master-planned community where Mr. Nicklaus actually lost money. The reason for that was probably two-fold: it was a bit premature for the area, and there was a significant economic recession in the early years, which fouled up a promising start. Anyway, it is a beautiful place to live; Charlie and I have owned two homes here over the past 29 years.
There are a scad of homeowners’ associations in Bear Creek. One is the Master HOA, of which all property owners are members. And, then, there are a number of tract-level HOA’s, which serve the different condominium developments that were built within the community over the many years. Probably two-thirds of the Bear Creek population live in condominiums, while the remaining one-third reside on estate lots. The price of the condo units range from $350K to $800K, while residences on the individual lots sell for several million dollars.
From the beginning, the “estate” owners have made it a quest to control the Board of Directors of the Master HOA, and have had majority control for most of the past 30 years. It would have been easy for the condominium owners to dominate said Board, had they tried to, because they control two-thirds of the voting membership. However, I suppose there has been a deference to the estate lot residents, the “rich guys”, who are mostly successful captains of industry, business owners, and professionals. They talk a good game, promising to maintain a high quality of life in this prestigious community.
What has actually happened, over the years, is that the Board of Directors has usually supported ideas and schemes that benefit the estate lot owners more so than the condo owners. Lots of money has been spent (wasted?) on excessive security, fancy gym equipment, improvements to the private golf club, and lawsuits. The Board members seem to think that they are smarter than most people, and, yet, every time that they get involved in some matter, the HOA ends up on the losing end of a lawsuit, costing every property owner a bunch of money.
This has gone on for so long that the Board, no matter who is on it, has zero credibility. The members talk a good game, but never deliver the goods. More often than not, there’s flim-flam involved, a promise of one thing, but delivery of something entirely different in the end. That’s because they just aren’t that smart, and are bad politicians, to boot.
The latest example of Board futility is it’s attempt to cram a multi-issue ballot measure down the throats of Bear Creekers. On the ballot are several items: (1) clean-up of the CC&R’s; (2) consolidation of sub-association HOA duties into the Master HOA; (3) a large, expensive flood control project; and, (4) a change in the requirement that capital improvement items require a 75% voter plurality, lessening it to a 50% plus 1 bare majority approval.
There are something like 611 voting properties in Bear Creek, and I’ve yet to find any property owner that is voting “Yes” on this multi-issue ballot measure. I’m sure that a good quantity of the estate lot owners support the measure, but they are vastly out-numbered by the condo owners, and, for once, the “poor folks” aren’t bending over.
As usual, there is flim-flam involved. The centerpiece of the ballot is the flood control project. It’s very expensive, addresses a problem that we’ve never experienced here in Bear Creek, and primarily benefits 123 estate lots. The proposal is t0 spread the costs of this project evenly among all 611 property owners, so that the other 488 properties will be subsidizing the 123 “rich guys”. It’s communism in reverse, brought to us by a staunchly conservative Board. Their pitch: What could be more fair than spreading the cost evenly?
It’s a populist message, for sure; something that sounds right, but, upon close inspection, is wrong on so many levels. That’s how Trump got elected.
Anyway, as Twisted Sister says, “We’re not gonna take it anymore!”