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Chad and Gabrielle Guest refused to communicate.
Communication is the most
important skill for HOA directors, and listening is the most important
part of communication.
An appropriate quote from President Kennedy's words about the Cold War
in his inaugural speech is "Let us never negotiatae out of fear, but
let us never fear to negotiate." Without
communication there is no basis for mutual understanding, and without
mutual understanding there is no basis for mutual agreement.
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Chad and Gabrielle Guest made four highly significant errors in the
recent one-page note distributed to all Waterford residents:
- The Guests asserted that high quality dimensional
composition roofing harms property values.
It does not, and in fact type
of roofing in general has no effect on property values unless the roofing is not Class A fire retardant.
Condition
can have a small effect on the value of individual homes. Most of
Waterford's shake roofs have condition problems and are not Class A
fire retardant. The de facto result is that old shake roofing is the
only type that might harm property values.
- The Guests suggested that Waterford would be the first
neighborhood in our area (north of Green Valley Road) to have
composition roofing.
Several neighborhoods in our area have a total of at least 200 homes,
and more likely around 300, with composition roofing.
(All of these neighborhoods have recorded higher property values than
Waterford by the customary measure of dollars per square foot.; all
except one also have a record of higher property values than Waterford
in dollars per home sale.)
In the following points I am partly limited and partly enabled in my
legal ability to comment due to the fact that I am not a Waterford Director
at this time. What I can say is based entirely on discussion in the
open session board meeting referenced in the Guests' one-page
note to all owners, knowledge of California law and the
Waterford governing documents, and limited information gained privately
outside the scope of HOA business.
- The Guests claimed "We, along with many other home owners,
have tried to work with this board in understanding their reasoning for
this blatant breach of our CC&Rs."
-- As noted by President Diana Vaughn in at least two board
meetings, there was no breach of CC&Rs. A valid variance was
approved in accordance with CC&R Section 5.11. She noted that a
key reason for granting the variance is subject to confidentiality for
reasons of owner privacy. The Guests do not seem to
understand that information given to an HOA board in
confidence by a Member is essentially the property of that Member; the
choice whether to disclose or to maintain confidentiality belongs to
the Member, not the HOA. A
reasonable inference from the Guests' statement is that they have
inadequate respect for owner privacy.
-- I am not aware of this group having contacted the
Waterford board about this matter until, according to a private source,
Ray Myers had already engaged an attorney and raised the possibility of
litigation. Anyone who has been in a position of being threatened with
litigation
will understand that this generally results in attorneys demanding that
their clients say little or nothing about the subject of the potential
litigation.
Of the overall group making claims concerning roofing, to my
recollection only Ray Myers and Rob George had engaged with the
Association in more than 3 years of open session board meetings and in
the protracted series of open meetings of the Roofing Committee.
- The Guests claimed "Last night we attended our HOA board
meeting, where the board was repeatedly asked to explain why they ruled
to overturn this denial. The board offered no explanation for their
action in this case."
-- This confuses the processes of initial Owner application for ARC
approval and the separate process of Owner application for a CC&R
variance. Because I am not currently on the board I am not permitted to
comment on details of this specific business, but it is appropriate to
note in general that I have no knowledge of any violation of either
California law or the Waterford governing documents by the board.
-- As noted previously, President Diana Vaughn
concisely stated the reason while still maintaining confidentiality to
protect owners privacy. It would need to be the Guests to explain why I understood that statement clearly and they did not.
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A comment by Chad Guest at a CSD
board meeting, as recorded in the minutes, is unclear:
"Chad
Guest/Waterford – Suggested CSD website provide
guidelines for communicating to the Board that is Brown Act
appropriate." The lack of clarity could result from either the content
of Chad Guest's statement or from recording it in the minutes. The
Ralph M. Brown Act is the California Government Code's much larger
equivatent of the Civil Code's Common Interest Development Open Meeting
Act, which applies to HOAs. Both acts regulate board conduct of
meetings. The portion concerning commenting to
the board probably is limited to the requirement for open session
meeting agendas to include an Open Forum agenda item to accept public
comment.
Source: Minutes of April 9, 2009 EDH CSD board meeting
This
might possibly follow from an agenda item in the preceding CSD regular
board meeting, March 12, 2009, in which CSD's attorney reviewed 2009
legislative changes to the Brown Act.
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| At a CSD regular
board meeting, for an agenda item considering application by AT&T
to install a cell phone tower in Lake Forest Park, "Gabrielle
Guest stated she is surprised the park is being considered as a location and she is against the location."
Source: Minutes of the July 8, 2010 regular board meeting.
This
is a reasonable comment. It was apparent that most Waterford residents
would welcome better cell phone signal coverage from AT&T but did
not want the visual impact of even an monopine antenna in the park. I
supported that position in a CSD committee meeting. I also noted in
response to an expressed concern that my review of peer-reviewed
research earlier in this decade had shown no evidence of health impacts
from cell phone radiation. |