No recall

Waterford Recall Election

Personal notes by Paul Raveling. In the interest of full disclosure, I am one of the prior Directors of the Waterford Owners Association but resigned at the end of November in order to be able to speak as openly as possible. These comments are not opinions of the Waterford Owners Association.

An example of speech that I had withheld or restrained as a Director of the HOA is the ability to say with total honesty and openness the group initiating the recall has been making many factually false claims. 

I have filed for election as a candidate for Waterford Board in the event that the recall succeeds. See my candidate statement for a 1-page summary of election issues, with this web-posted copy annotated by links to other SierraFoot information on this issue.

My top recommendation to Waterford Owners is to vote NO on the recall.
Reasons:  See the other parts of this special section of web pages. For the parts most relevant to issues of fact in roofing disputes see these three:
If the recall succeeds new Directors will be elected. These are my personal assessments. In some cases detail pages are linked to candidates' names The abbreviation "TBD" means "To Be Determined".  Anyone who would like additional information is welcome to contact me, preferably making initial contact by email to Paul.Raveling@sierrafoot.org. For best communication let's arrange to meet personally.

Two issues have emerged in checking qualifications of the recall-supporting candidates. These are belief versus knowledge and failure to communicate versus communication. Apparently they do not understand that both normal HOA operations and especially resolution of problems occur only through cooperative communication and clear understanding of objective reality.

Special attention for communication failures goes to Rob George, Gabrielle Guest, and Chad Guest. They are the first people to refuse to communicate with me in my 20 years in Waterford. During that time there have been at least two situations in which Ray Myers was the first to refuse to communicate with an owner.

Candidates Qualified?
Current and past directors:
    Diana Vaughn
    Paul Raveling
    Paul Matloff    		 All are clearly qualified and have extensive experience in the Waterford HOA,
with many years of responsibility to the community on record.
Others good candidates:

    Sean Hansen
    Robert Hoffman
 Neither has prior experience in the Waterford HOA.
From preliminary conversations with each,
    --  Sean Hansen seems reasonable and well qualified. However, he made errors
        of fact in his candidate's statement regarding past board actions.
    --  Robert Hoffman:  To be deterimend, we haven't talked yet.
    Larry KleinLarry Klein seems generally reasonable but is rigid in insisting unconditionally on enforcement
of CC&Rs "as written". Civil Code §1354(a) prohibits enforcement of CC&R content
which is unreasonable. Other sources of law often override specific CC&R contents. 
Problematic
recall supporters:

    Ray Myers
    Gabrielle Guest
    Rob George		 Not qualified.
All have demonstrated significant problems with communication, understanding of factual reality, and reasoning, including ad hominem bias and refusal to communicate.

--  Ray Myers has prior experience in the Waterford Architectural Review Committee.
--  Rob George has slightly more than 1 year of experience as a Waterford director.
--  Gabrielle Guest has no prior experience in the Waterford HOA.


The key provision of Civil Code §1354(a) can be stated concisely using structured syntax:

if a CC&R is not reasonable
    then it is not enforceable
    else it is enforceable (can be enforced as written)

A slightly more nuanced expression would be "CC&Rs are enforceable to the extent to which they are reasonable." This means judgment is required with respect to details within a CC&R, the choice is not just whether or not to apply an entire CC&R. Further interpretation is often required to interpret details specified only generally, and not specifically, in CC&R language. It is not apparent that the recall-supporting candidates recognize this.

Those candidates need to be aware that failure to recognize state law, or even exercising poor judgment in considering reasonableness, can be costly. Every HOA board owes duties of due diligence and due care to its owners. Consequences of negligence can include loss of a law suit, at a cost most likely to be on the order of tens of thousands of dollars.

Ray Myers presents a special case through his role as president of the Lake Forest Owners Association ("Master Association", "LFMA").  I have a pending request for Internal Dispute Resolution (IDR) with LFMA, see a summary of my IDR request for a summary.


Contact me by email
Read Authorship Statement
Return to SierraFoot Home Page