It all comes down to the same thing: the associations
- a. Hire a management company to manage what they were elected to manage and
b. Give too much power to people who often abuse it.
My community has a new board, tossing out some board members who sat on the HOA board for a decade, there being no term limits.
One of the primary reasons the residents of the community revolted was the misfeasance or malfeasance of the management company and promises from the new board members that the company would be replaced.
Promises, promises
The new board claims it put out RFQs to several management companies and apparently the old management company came in with the lowest bid.
Normally, unless you are the U.S. government, all things being equal, the low bid wins — unless there are “extenuating circumstances.”
I am not on the board and I did not see the proposals/quotes, nor was I privy to the number of RFQs were solicited.
I DO know the new board engaged the old management group — the one believed to have managed the old board. According to the new board, the old company came in with the lowest bid.
To my mind, the old management group should have been prohibited from quoting and certainly not awarded a contract regardless of cost to the HOA.
That’s like New York City where a person commits a crime, is briefly jailed before being released sans bail, AND GIVEN A SWAG BAG, apparently to compensate the criminal for his or her inconvenience. (Does a recidivist get a new swag bag on each “catch and release?” Many such individuals could make a living selling their swag bag contents to the taxpayers who already were nicked for the goodies’ original costs.)
IN ANY EVENT, it seems irresponsible for the new HOA board to hire the old management company to continue doing what it did in the past.
12-hour work week
In order to keep the monthly tariff at the 2019 rate, the new board has allowed the management group to have an on-site manager on site only three days a week for a total of 12 hours-a-week.
The on-site person demands that residents make an appointment with her to discuss any issues. Somehow I thought this person worked for the home owners; after all, the homeowners pay her wages by the monthly Association membership fees. (Like a union, there is no option: all homeowners must pay the piper, regardless of performance.)
Since a girl has to make a living, this scrivener suspects she spends the balance of her work week at other communities managed by the same management company.
Don’t contact volunteer board
The new board members posted their names and positions on the community web site, but they carefully did NOT include any contact information.
I foolishly suggested that including contact information is appropriate but was informed, by the site manager during one of her 10-to-2 visits that “because they are all volunteers” they don’t share contact information.
Frankly, Scarlet . . .
If someone volunteers to represent others, that someone needs to be available to those “others.” Perhaps I was misinformed regarding volunteerism. Perhaps the new board members have plans to “volunteer” higher office where they can hide from even more constituents.
(Yes, I know our local, state , and federal pols have email addresses, offices, and published telephone numbers, but they also have staff that can, and do, redirect selected incoming contacts to physical or digital “circular files.”)
The “bottom line” for this community: If you don’t know them by now, you will never, never, never know them until they come begging again for a resident’s vote.1, 2
There always is next year
Fortunately, elections are held annually and if need be, the current board can be replaced, perhaps with members who WILL provide their contact information on the community web site.
Sources
1. Performance: https://youtu.be/zTcu7MCtuTs
2. Lyrics: https://tinyurl.com/ydvb9tgx
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
No comments:
Post a Comment