RE: The Power of HOA's and a letter for homeowners. Should you Beware before you give or sign your Consent away? Real life experiences!
Hello Great Neighbors of Fairfield Farms,
I trust all are well after those wild winds and storms.
What a doozy!
As there seems to be a misunderstanding on a member or perhaps even members of a board's part,
there is a need to revisit so please bear with me.
Thank you for your patience!
A LOT is needed for this [no pun intended]!🙃
A board member writes after I show evidence of a number for the PMC they are hiring placed around on this facebook page and other places,
Instead of acknowledging this number was indeed brought up, he writes,
Melissa Anderson McGarity "did you read the minutes? The HOA management company suggested it. The board never considered."
Following is the full response I was not able to give in original post.
Be prepared as it covers a great deal!
His name shows up as a reply and I put the following;
This was already addressed.
I am game to address it again.
There seems to be a continued misunderstanding on your part.
From the first time you told me to, and I quote "Stop saying that number" [see verified image from August] even though others wrote this number well before I did.
It was evident you either
- misinterpreted the post [which I'm going with]
as surely you were not intending to - distract from the amount by falsely claiming I said something I didn't say.
Weird as you were claiming I was making a false claim, but it was the other way around.
It is evident in the post that I never mentioned anything about the board coming up with the number of course not, wouldn't make sense as the board is not the For Profit Company, but rather the customer.
The president and board are the ones PMC gave the sales pitch and verified number to, I did not have that reversed in the post as anyone who actually read and understood saw first hand.
Once again for you to claim I said otherwise is False as everyone can see the post.
All who were present at both the July and August Summer Meetings are aware they were
centered around discussing the Property Management Co. and board's attempted justification for hiring which went far beyond filling the Treasurer and Secretary position.
As I verified in a question in another post, even if they were filled by the neighborhood, the board still wanted to proceed with the PMC.
All present were told several times the board wanted to go with Associa,
even after many homeowners questioned their negative feedback and why a smaller, local company wouldn't be better.
Cindy herself stated she didn't like how one local company kept calling our neighborhood a condo.
There were not always specifics, but she made it clear she didn't like any of the other companies.
She went back to stating she wanted Associa.
If you were there at the 2nd meeting, and I'm fairly sure you were as Cindy had all board members come up and give a speech as to what they do for the HOA.
Cindy even had Taylor Swift on the screen and was having fun with an inside joke of, "Taylor Swift's in the house!"
All that were present know I brought up Associa's ethics by asking if Cindy or even those present knew who John Carona was.
Relevant because he is the owner, ceo and chairman of Associa.
Then proceeded to read from the Texas Tribune and Dallas Observer his conflicts of interests concerning homeowners as he was also a senator.
Didn't have a chance to get to a homeowner's story of what Associa did to him that was diabolical!
Also brought up that his son and daughter-in-law were arrested.
If you will recall the group assisted with my grandpa's statement "the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree."
In other words, it all comes from the top down, ethics that is!
If a leader's ethics are rotten then how would his company, worth a billion dollars be any different?
What kind of power do they have to back their poor ethics?
Cindy then stopped me as she wanted to put me on pause,
she indicated she felt if everyone dug deep enough into many other businesses they too would likely have bad issues.
Would they?
Should they?
Is that a red flag?
Is it a red flag due process was not done by the board? You decide!
Did a slick sales pitch hit it's mark giving a barrage of promises that resulted in not wanting to know more about the company?
If you have written predatory legislation as a senator to aid an industry [PMC's] in which you own a company [John Carona look him up]
and have been known by the press in your own state
to have a Conflict of Interest,
then it sheds light on how your company conducts business.
Business that is pro HOA board with a Property Management Company to reinforce what the board wants Even If all homeowners do not want it.
The kind that can allow for homes to be bought for pennies on the dollar after putting them through a cycle of revolving fines and fees from reinforcement and attorney's that work at the behest of the HOA board and NOT the homeowners,
but are paid with Homeowners' dues, fines and fees.
What you Chris and possibly the board are misunderstanding is
every HOA board,
by design of the developers are a mini government and
were set up by the developers to protect the interests of the HOA
over what others in the neighborhood may want.
Don't believe me?
Then why the work around when there was push back form many homeowners for the numbers presented by Associa and still push back when the board tried for a lower number to pay them?
Homeowners at the meeting, who remember being told we would vote were correct.
So why the change of plans?
You know why!
The board does not need a majority vote if they only increase fees by 10%
Great work around for the board,
not so much by homeowners who do not want the PMC at all and are questioning the fees they already pay as we are by design a "no frills added amenities" neighborhood.
It STILL stands that
once a property management company gets it's foot in the door,
they will only bolster MORE not less reinforcement.
As a matter of fact, this was a justification on the part of the president and clearly also the board as I could tell by last week's meeting [9.23.2024]~ they want
more not less reinforcements.
As all who were present at Summer meetings also heard they want
more reinforcement.
This has been proven to be a danger to homeowners.
Looking out for the interests of a board and what an HOA was set up to do
i.e.
regulations
uniformity
restrictions
violations
permissions for their own home and yard
is not homeowner freedom, but rather
a neighborhood ran by the few in power and not
the majority rule of the neighborhood.
When someone apologized to me for their reactions at the last meeting,
and let me know they felt people think the board is evil,
I believe homeowners may feel the hostility stems from the board conducting business in this way.
For example, - instead of transparency, the board has not only indicated on their website, but also at September's meeting that they are forging ahead with a property management company even though it has been indicated by many homeowners they do not want it.
Once again, after being led to believe there would be a vote.
No need to bother coming back to tell me that would only be if you increased it to a certain amount. I heard Chris, I was at this last meeting also. - There are plenty that were not at the meeting and people like clarity!
- People also appreciate being heard rather than marginalized.
- Homeowners being told they can not discuss things on the facebook page and the board trying to steer those conversations to a fb page they control.
There should be zero fear of transparency.
Transparency brings clarity,
attempts to control speech, not good!
Will try to go in and link original posts and other posts in the thread when you click on the images.
Have a Wonderful Weekend and stay safe out there!🙂😉