CascadeLakesResidents.com

July 24, 2020:

Phil Kennedy wrote in three separate emails:

Is our Board of directors responsible for keeping our roads beautiful? The board asks us to be responsible for our common grounds what about their responsibility to their common grounds in our community? It's like lets not cut the grass and let it grow. We know the grass would look ugly like our roads. Lets ask the board to seal our roads and not have our community looking run down. The money to seal the roads is already in the general fund. Is it about not spending the money or not putting the time in to run the project?

It sure would be a perfect time to reseal our roads. The Board should address it now. I guess they are planning on waiting till the snow birds are back and the cars are back on our roads. Such a shame.

The money for resealing is in the general funds. I checked with Jeff Green. No assessment for the road resealing. It's been nine years since we resealed. Most communities do it every five years. We all know that the roads are good by our Engineering Dept. It just have to make the roads pretty again like our community. We presently have ugly roads. We look run down. Very run down.

Editor’s response:  Also see our dedicated page on Road Resealing.  The Editor thanks Phil Kennedy for keeping this issue at the forefront and suggests that he contact the Chairpersons of the following committees:  Engineering, Facilities, Long Range Planning.

Vicki Roberts, Editor, and Arthur Andelson, Roving Reporter, wrote: 

Clubs exist at the discretion of the Board, and their charters may be revoked at the Board’s discretion. One of the most valuable and potent HOA community resources is the official HOA website’s access portal, to which club officers are given access, for the purpose of sending mass emails to club members and to those residents who have checked off their desire to receive emails on a specific club’s club-related matter. 

Diane Green, president of the pickleball club, who was never nominated or seconded at the election meeting last December and mysteriously showed up on the ballot, and Sue Leonard, communications officer, have used and abused the portal for their own agenda. Are these pickleball club officers putting the club’s charter and the temporary pickleball courts at risk by abusing the privilege of using this HOA community resource, the official HOA website access portal, for purposes to promote their own agenda?

Their agenda included disseminating a threatening letter to the Board which was done on May 7, 2020 because they did not get their desired board vote on their issue at the board meeting the day before, and where the vote was expected in a certain way because the writers claimed that the clubs “helped the board out of a bind...when we furnished funds for a botched tennis canopy purchase.” The expected quid pro quo never came, and rage ensued. This also necessarily proves that these officers did not consider the funds given by the clubs for the canopies to be a “donation,” contrary to what the Board claimed and perhaps believed. Also, with respect to the threatening letter to the Board, these officers under the guise of a “leadership team” accused the Board of dishonesty without offering any evidence to support that claim.

Their agenda also included abusing their privileges of access to the portal to build up support on a non-pickleball issue, to wit, the reopening of the pool, said abuse having occurred on May 25, 2020, where they claimed to set up a separate faux (i.e., fake) organization for their own purposes and then used the portal to rally support for this non-pickleball issue. With respect to the mass email to the pickleball club concerning the pool on that date, the HOA website access portal was abused by the dissemination to all club members and others, through that portal, an email blast about the pool and about these officers’ displeasure with the rate and manner of reopening of the pool. We take no position on the issue of whether or not the pool reopening protocol instituted by the Board was reasonable or not. That is not the issue. The issue is using and abusing the privilege of the HOA website portal which was provided to the officers for the exclusive purpose of promoting club business, and instead using it to push an agenda on a non-club matter.

These two officers at the time were Chairpersons of the Entertainment and Long-Term Planning Committees respectively, and as such, already had special access to the Board and had power and influence in those positions. These Chairperson positions were also subject to Board discretion because Committees are in fact Board adjuncts. Recommendations by Chairpersons are taken seriously by the Board, as they should be. As the below post of June 9, 2020 reports, they are no longer Committee Chairpersons. You decide whether they resigned or were given an ultimatum to resign or be terminated forthwith.

In conclusion, the pickleball club ought to seriously think about calling an emergency meeting for the purpose of recalling these officers to avoid the potential loss of the club’s charter and the attendant temporary pickleball courts: i.e., no club, no courts.

The following people have “resigned” from their respective Committee Chairpersonships:  Diane Green, Entertainment; Jeff Green, Budget; and Sue Leonard, Long-Term Planning.  We note that two of these “resignations” (Diane Green and Sue Leonard) come directly after these individuals publicly attacked the integrity of the Board in a May 7, 2020 letter to the Board which was blasted to the pickleball club, and after one of them, Diane Green, posted publicly on Facebook her desire to essentially stage a coup to overthrow the Board prior to the next elections in March 2021.  Facebook is a forum that boasts 2.4 billion members. 

While we are all for free speech, it is also true that Committees are in fact adjuncts to the Board, and Chairpersons serve at the Board’s discretion.  Plotting a coup against the Board by an adjunct Chairperson and criticizing the Board’s actions constitute direct conflicts between those individuals and the Board.  These adjunct Chairpersons are responsible for recommending entertainment contracts, budget expenditures, and long-term planning for the community.  Their recommendations are often adopted by the Board, which rightly relies on them to be non-biased and supportive of, and complementary to, the Board.

Insurrections by adjunct Board members should therefore rightly not be tolerated by the Board.  These individuals are now free to continue to criticize the Board at their pleasure because they are no longer officially tethered to the Board.  Those who hear their criticisms (and their additional gossip) are likewise free to accept those criticisms (and additional gossip) on their face, challenge and ask questions about those criticisms (and additional gossip), or to reject them out of hand. 

We leave it to our readers to decide whether these were true “resignations.”  We note that often in politics individuals who are about to be canned are given the opportunity to resign in lieu of being terminated.

May 18, 2020:

Ratification Abuse/Board Private Meeting and Voting Flagrantly Contrary To Law and To Your Rights posted by Vicki Roberts, Editor:

The Board is prohibited from meeting and voting in a closed session.  The false argument that all rules can be suspended under the so-called emergency powers is just that:  false.  Also, this is not a license to abuse what the emergency statute, Florida Statute 720.316, actually allows.  The emergency rule states in pertinent part that the Board:

…may exercise the following powers:

(a) Conduct board or membership meetings after notice of the meetings and board decisions is provided in as practicable a manner as possible, including via publication, radio, United States mail, the Internet, public service announcements, conspicuous posting on the association property, or any other means the board deems appropriate under the circumstances…

There is no reasonable interpretation that would permit a secret, closed board meeting with later ratification at a future board meeting when all that is needed is 48 hours’ notice to the community.

The Cascade Lakes website, under the heading HOA, under “Board of Directors, Board Minutes & Video,” lists the next intended Board meeting as May 20, 2020.  This makes sense, since normally the Board meetings occur on the first and third Wednesdays of the month.  Your Editor emailed the property manager and her assistant inquiring as to when the next Board meeting was (since no notice of any meeting was received within 48 hours of May 20, 2020 at 9:30am); the responsive email stated that “The next board meeting is undetermined at this time due to the pandemic.”

We beg to differ.  The last several Board meetings have occurred without a glitch using the Zoom system.  It worked perfectly and there is no “emergency” that would justify suspending the 48-hour rule; even the statute frowns upon it in no uncertain terms.

Marion Weil, the HOA president, has repeatedly stated that the Board can vote privately as part of their emergency powers which they can then ratify at a later date: this is a gross abuse of the limited powers granted for emergencies.  An emergency potentially would be shutting down the facilities for health and safety, but certainly not opening them up.  All that is required is 48-hour notice for an open board meeting.  With the Zoom capabilities mastered by all Board members, who were seen comfortably using the system at the last several Board meetings, Marion’s claims are clearly and easily refuted.  This is nothing less than a sheer power grab to conduct business behind closed doors and in flagrant violation of the open meeting laws [Florida Statute 720.303(2)(a) and (b)] and your right to participate under the law.

This abuse of power is consistent and unending.  Please remember it at election time next March.  We will also remind you.

Re: HOA Taxable Event: Taking Money for Awnings

The following exchange occurred with respect to our above post concerning the taxable event created when the HOA took money from the clubs for the purchase of the sports center awnings.  We have removed the resident’s identity and replaced it with the word “Anonymous.”  The resident challenged our post, to which we invited the resident to explain why our post was not accurate, and the following interesting exchange occurred (we have edited out parts of the emails that had nothing to do with the issue, but otherwise we have posted the emails unedited):

Anonymous wrote:

Hello Vicki

…

Oh, perhaps I should mention that your posting about our HOA being subject to income tax was pretty much inaccurate.

Have a good day.

Anonymous

We replied:

Hi, Anonymous,

...

If you believe that the post on the taxable nature of the club monies taken by the BOD on behalf of the HOA is "pretty much inaccurate," please explain on what basis you make that assertion, as we are always willing to be educated.  The IRS rules and guidelines were pretty clear and we made sure to read them on the subject before posting that article.

Cordially,

Vicki and Arthur

CascadeLakesResidents.com

Anonymous wrote in response:

Ok, but I’ll be quite brief.

First, I see nothing disallowing a club, whose members are all members of our HOA, not be permitted to make a capital contribution to the HOA. (hence, no taxable income). It could be easily argued that this is permissible. For example, there is case law regarding a municipality contributing money to a developer in order to facilitate the creation of a park within the development.  Held, a capital contribution and not taxable. I realize that the developer was not an HOA, but it’s the same principal.

Second, even if it were Non-qualified income, the HOA is permitted to recognize certain non-qualified expenses, to defray the income. This is explained in regulation as well as form instructions which mention that, for example, an HOA’s management fees can be apportioned in some reasonable manner, against income. Also, direct HOA expenses, such as legal fees, to earn the income can be deducted.  Other HOA expenses would be subject to apportionment. It would be quite easy to allocate a sufficient amount of expenses to (more than) wipe out the income.

Third, to be technical, even if the donation were Non-qualified income and  and it had no expenses to offset the income, it still may utilize a $100 “standard deduction”. Not much different from your numbers, but nonetheless a difference.

This exercise would never get to my third point: just mentioned to be accurate.

Even if all my points Above were wrong, this activity would never be audited by IRS based on the size of the income. 

The IRS, although not acting in a reasonable fashion all the time, does try not try to raise issues which would both take time and, if successful, result in an assessment of practically nothing.

Anonymous

We wrote in response:

Hi, Anonymous,

Thanks for your email. We appreciate that you have taken the time to write in response to our post on the subject of the taxable nature of the monies the HOA Board accepted from the independent tennis and pickleball clubs for partial payment of the community’s awnings.

In response, we will also try to be brief but will endeavor to address each of the points you have raised.

1. Contrary to your claim, not all club members are in fact members of our HOA. Renters and ringers who pay club dues are not HOA members. 
2. The fact that most of the club members are members of the HOA is irrelevant. These are two separate and independent corporate entities registered with the Department of State.
3. These funds are not capital contributions to the HOA by definition by virtue of the facts stated above in numbers one and two.
4. HOA rules are specific and the rules regarding municipalities and developers are completely separate and have no precedential value to the issue at hand. Arguing case law concerning municipalities and developers would not impress the IRS, its Office of Appeals, or the United States Tax Court.
5. There is nothing wrong with having expenses against income, but that does not excuse the requirement to declare the income. Most of your comments entail the use of deductions against income, but the funds are still declarable income.
6. HOA expenses are to be paid by the HOA as a whole. Characterizing it against the influx of this income is also irrelevant and does not affect the requirement of declaring the income.
7. You state that management fees can be apportioned against income in some reasonable manner. How so?  Management fees are paid against non-income quarterly dues and special assessments, just like landscaping, attorneys fees, and the like. 
8. What expenses are you suggesting would wipe out this income that are not covered by the quarterly dues and special assessments? And even if these unidentified expenses wipe out the income as you suggest, that still does not excuse the failure to declare the income.  There are lines on the form for income, lines for deductions, and additional statements that can be added to the return with additional deductions and explanations.  None of this changes the fact that this is declarable income.
9. Your mention of a $100 standard deduction does not make sense to us here. Again, if there is a permissible deduction, then by all means the taxpayer has the right to utilize it.  It has no bearing, however, on the obligation to declare the income.
10. The IRS chooses to audit based on a number of factors, and if there were an audit for a reason other than what we have raised, the fact that this, too, was not declared would raise an additional red flag and might cause the IRS to look more carefully at other areas of the return. There is no reason to deliberately fail to include income on a return and invite scrutiny unnecessarily. Pure and simple, it is dishonest, and it is fiscally irresponsible for the Board to put the association at risk no matter the amount of the outside income it collects.

Now, if any of the above facts are inaccurate, please let us know, so that we can educate ourselves further.

We will be posting your comments and our response on our news site.  Please advise if you wish that your comments be posted anonymously as opposed to identifying you by name.  If you feel strongly about your position, there should be no reason to hide your identity, but we will honor your wishes if you desire anonymity.

Best regards,

Vicki Roberts, Editor and

Arthur Andelson, Reporter

[Editor’s note:  we did not receive any response to our last email.]

February 9, 2020:

At the last board meeting on February 5, 2020, the topics of tennis court pavers and an awning between courts 4 and 5 were listed on the agenda and discussed.  Because this matter is informative to the community, we are reposting the excerpts from our February 5, 2020 BOD Synopsis and Commentary here:

Item 3.  Tennis Court Pavers, Courts 4-5, $5,500: – Linda:  Pavers between courts 4 and 5.  Mark:  this is a reserve item, not a budget item.  Linda:  We want it to look exactly like what it looks like between courts 2 and 3.  The contract is $5,500.  It will give better access to the courts, so you don’t have to walk through the dirt, and will increase the beauty.  Eileen:  the grandstand is so hot.  Another board member:  that’s the next item.  Harvey:  would it make everything the same?  Linda:  yes.  Linda: motion to accept the proposal for APC to install.  Eileen:  second.  Jerry:  each place with a canopy and chairs is on a cement pad.  Why now pavers?  Which is more expensive?  Eileen:  it’s walking to the seating area, not under the seat area.  Alan:  there is a fence there, does it include modifying?  Another board member:  Has to be another contract, not included, has to be done by others.  Alan:  there’s a drain there, a significant sink hole, is that included?  Linda:  I asked Lee, it’s the same drain as in the other area.  Larry [Editor's note:  Engineering, from the audience]:  the water will drain and will not flood.  It’s called a French drain.  [Editor’s note:  per Merriam-Webster: “Definition of French drain:  a drain consisting of an underground passage made by filling a trench with loose stones and covering with earth, called also rubble drain.”]  Marion:  they don’t have that on here.  Jerry:  it has to be written or it’s not done.  Marion:  send it back, add the French drain.  Alan:  I need to see the fence in there.  Harvey:  let’s table for the fence removal and the French drain.  Second:  Jerry.  Eileen:  It’s been four years.  The grandstand, no one uses it.  I’m a little confused.  We pushed through pickleball, increased Lee’s salary.  This should be given to tennis players as an accommodation.  I encourage you to pass this and let them have the seating area they so deserve. [Editor’s note:  decisions ought not be made as accommodations based on an improper comparison, in this case, to pickleball.  First of all, pickleball enhances the value of the community and only takes up one court.  It has nothing to do with the issue at hand.  Second, the pavers are a benefit to the community and will allow access to the grandstand, and that should match the other grandstand access referenced as being between courts 2 and 3.  Third, this is not something that the tennis contingency “deserves” per se.  The community owns the sports center, all of it.  Decisions ought to be made on the proper criteria:  fiscal responsibility and enhancement to the community.  So, the proposal makes sense, subject to the fence and drain issue, and it stands on its own.  Conclusion:  base the decision on good common sense and value to the community, not some tit for tat based on a false analogy to pickleball.]  Harvey:  we need to complete the contract; the motion was to table.  Discussion:  proper aluminum fence removal and the French drain.  You’re right, they deserve it, they asked for it, they should get it, but we can’t vote on an incomplete proposal.  [Editor’s note:  same observation:  whether something is deserved is not the issue, and just because they asked for it does not mean they should get it.  The determination should be made based on good fiscal responsibility, and community enhancement.  Your Editor believes the proposal meets these criteria subject to the fence and drain issues.]  Mark:  the bleachers will stay?  Larry [Editor's note:  audience]:  yes.  Marion:  Motion to table and second Items 3 and 4 (Linda).  Motion passes 7-0.

Item 4.  Awning for Court, Court 4-5, $4,695: – tabled per Item 3 above.  [Editor’s note:  the awning is critical to have for the safety of the residents, who otherwise have to bake in the sun if they wish to use the grandstand.  Therefore, both the pavers and the awning should be approved.]

Now we have this latest post of January 29, 2020, one of several posted over the course of the last 24 hours, all mean and hateful against his fellow residents, your editor and her husband, and this site.  This latest post is also posted under today's date on our Calling Out Bullies page.

Bill Deitsch:  I have several questions pertaining to the budget and replacing sprinklers.  $19,000 last year and this year $23,000.  I’d like to know what this includes.  Does it include parts and labor?  Harvey:  Barry will address that.  Barry Gordon:  sprinkler heads we have four-inch sprinkler heads, we decided to go with six-inch sprinkler heads for better coverage.  The six-inch heads are more expensive.  Bill:  how did we come to $23,000 budget?  Marion: the cost of the six-inch sprinkler heads.  Bill:  it’s inserts.  Marion:  we replace them more than you think because of the mowing.  Barry:  $8.00 difference for the bigger head.  Bill:  insert:  it’s $3-$5.00 per insert.  I still want to know how you come up to $23,000 for sprinklers.  Mark:  a lot for labor.  If we have to replace, it’s labor.  Palm Beach Broward.  Bill:  the cost factor for labor is theirs, not ours.  Harvey:  any time you have a job done, it’s parts and labor, the labor is usually more expensive.  Mark:  $60/hour.  Marion:  we’ll have to research and get back to you with the numbers.  Bill:  how many heads were replaced last year?  What was the cost of the parts?  The labor?  If Palm Beach Broward [writer’s note:  the Landscaping Company] breaks a head, that’s their cost, not ours.  [writer’s note: great point!]  When you find out, how many heads in our whole property?  If you replace 1,000 a year, it would cost $23,000; I don’t think you replace that many.  Marion:  1,000/year, yes.  Harvey:  breaking, and things wear out.  Bill: table it under Robert’s Rules and get back to it.  [writer’s note:  Robert’s Rules of Order.]  Marion:  thank you, Bill.

Arthur Andelson makes the following critically important observations: 

It’s not just the change to a six-inch sprinkler head, and the longer sprinkler head has nothing to do with coverage per se.  And you cannot put a six-inch sprinkler head (the insert) in a four-inch chamber.  When you increase the length of the sprinkler head, you have to decrease the extension pipe from the head to the main water supply pipe underground, also known as a riser, otherwise the sprinkler head would be sticking out two inches above the ground in its closed state.  If you don’t do this, it will get mowed and destroyed every time the mower goes by.  So, it stands to reason that the labor cost must include also replacing the riser (the connection between the sprinkler head and the main water supply pipe) upon which the sprinkler head rests.  If they are breaking a lot of sprinkler heads, it could be because the mower blades are set too low.  In that case, they must adjust their mower blades or absorb the cost of what they destroy.  However, if the mower blades are properly adjusted to accommodate this issue, this necessarily means they will not mow as low and will therefore likely have to re-mow more frequently, which is a great cost to the community.  The reason why it is better to have a six inch sprinkler head, which has to be set four inches lower as further explained below so that it doesn’t stick up in its closed position (called a counter-sink so it is below the ground when closed), is that when you put in where it is counter-sinked, it can rest in its closed position slightly below ground level so as not to be damaged by mowing, but long enough so that in its extended position, it will cover the same as the four inch one.  It allows for the same coverage without breakage and damage by mowers.  You do not get greater coverage.  You get the same coverage without repeatedly breaking and damaging sprinkler heads, but this is only true assuming they do it properly by also lowering the risers (extensions) which connect the sprinkler heads to the main water supply pipe below ground.  So, you are no longer going down only two additional inches to the main water pipe; you are going down an additional four inches.  Let me explain why:  for example, if the main water pipe is 12 inches below ground, a four inch sprinkler head requires an eight inch underground riser to connect it to the main water pipe if you have the sprinkler head at ground level.  A six-inch sprinkler head, if it had a six-inch riser, would not solve your problem, as the head would still be at the same ground level and still get damaged and broken.  If you drop the riser an additional two inches, so that in this scenario, the riser is now 8 inches below ground, which makes it a four inch riser (four inches above the main water pipe), this means that the four inch riser plus the six inch sprinkler head equals 10 inches from the main water pipe, and that means that the six-inch sprinkler head in its closed position is two inches below ground level, and therefore will not be damaged by mowing.  When it is opened, it will therefore open six inches, which includes the two inches underground plus an additional four inches above ground.  You get the same exact coverage, but you don’t get damaged sprinkler heads.  Are they doing this for the $23,000 contract?  This does require a lot more labor.  However, if they are not doing all of this, then it is a total waste of $23,000 because you have not solved the problem.  If you do have the sprinkler head below ground in this scenario, there is additional care involved in making sure that the head does not get clogged by dirt and debris.

Via email [2 pages]                                                                                        January 15, 2020

Re:  Cascade Lakes Entertainment Contracts

Dear Board Members,

Vicki and I want the best for our community.  One of the Board’s primary goals is Fiscal Responsibility.  With that in mind, we formally requested and received the entertainment contracts for the years 2020 and 2021 and have now reviewed them.

Shortly prior to my improper and illegal suspension from the Entertainment Committee, at the time when I was still the Secretary of the Committee, I had mentioned that I was concerned about the contracts.  My suggestions on how to save the community money without compromising the talent were presented at the meeting.  When I endeavored to include those comments in the Minutes that I prepared, Diane Green, the Chairperson, deleted those comments from her final edit of those Minutes which she emailed to the Committee.  Thereafter, I was suspended from the Committee by an illegal in camera vote at what Eileen referred to as a “personnel” meeting of the Board.

Separately, prior to my illegal suspension, I emailed the Board two times requesting guidance on how to prepare the Minutes in view of Board Member Eileen Olitsky’s rule-breaking concerning the distribution of tickets to the show series.  This issue was part of the same Minutes that I was charged with preparing as Secretary of the Entertainment Committee.  Despite my repeated attempts to work with you on these issues, you all summarily ignored my emails requesting your guidance on this specific issue and instead voted privately and illegally to suspend me from the Entertainment Committee.

With the above facts in mind, we will now address the contracts that you all approved without any input from the Entertainment Committee as far as the 2021 contracts are concerned.  In fact, the Entertainment Committee was never consulted about the 2021 contracts which were provided to you surreptitiously by Committee Chair Diane Green and Committee Liaison/Board Member Eileen Olitsky, neither of whom have any expertise in legal contracts or talent negotiations.  Every one of the larger contracts, with the exception of Sarge’s contract, requires our community to pay the talent many, many, many thousands of dollars upfront regardless of ticket sales.  We then have to hope and pray that enough tickets will be sold so as not to incur a loss.  We have the Committee Chairperson running around begging people to buy tickets to try and stem any potential losses owing to inadequate ticket sales.  This is absurd and no way to run this type of business.

For the record, Vicki has been negotiating and drafting contracts for 36 years and both of us have been licensed talent agents since 2008.  We have represented many high-profile talent and negotiated their many, many contracts.  This talent includes Englebert Humperdinck and Jermaine Jackson, who are performers similar to the performers you hire for our community.  We have also represented and negotiated contracts for the late David Carradine, Gary Busey, Michael Madsen, Armand Assante, Michael Nouri, Lou Ferrigno, the late Don Kirshner, and others.  Some of Vicki’s contract language and clauses are now standard in many entertainment contracts.

Also, we were approached a number of years ago by Sarge, one of your headliners, to represent him in Los Angeles.  We declined that invitation because he could not commit to engagements in California owing to his commitments in southern Florida.  The payment clause in his contract with Cascade Lakes, however, is a great template and all contracts should mirror that clause in his contract.  It would not only save our community many thousands of dollars for every single contract, but it would also inure to the benefit of the entertainers, assuming they believed in their own talent.

Sarge’s contract requires a $500 deposit and then he takes 80% of the ticket sales.  Our community is guaranteed 20% of the ticket sales.  A 20% return on ticket sales could be broken down as follows:  5% could go for clean-up and refreshments and the other 15% could go towards utilities, insurance, wear and tear, and remodeling.  So, when the Board enters into a contract in the hopes of breaking even or making a little profit, in reality the community is losing money because there is no consideration taken for the cost of utilities, wear and tear, remodeling, renovations, etc.

When the Board voted on and approved the Entertainment contracts at the various Board meetings, did each Board member review the contracts?  Was the Board aware there was never any vote or discussion in the Entertainment Committee about what talent the Committee was going to choose for the 2021 roster?  Did anyone engage in any negotiations whatsoever with the talent or their representatives?  Based on the contracts we have received and reviewed, the answer is a resounding no.  This is not fiscal responsibility.

It seems to us that you were handed pre-written contracts presented by the talent or their agents and accepted them without any negotiation whatsoever.  The Sarge contract’s payment clause should be the model upon which all Entertainment contracts are based from this point forward.  If the talent refuses such terms, we find other talent.  Rest assured, the market is overflowing with hungry talented people.

Vicki and I are available to assist in the proper negotiation of talent contacts so that this community can be fiscally responsible with respect to entertainment contracts.  Since we are not going anywhere as we have stated to those of you who wish we would leave, we will be here to handle these matters and then report to the Board.  Are you willing to be fiscally responsible in the future with regard to Entertainment and other contracts?  Please advise via return email.  We do intend to post this on our website, CascadeLakesResidents.com, because our community owns the HOA and this is their money that you are charged with handling.

Cordially,

Arthur Andelson

At the last board meeting on January 8, 2020 where the issue of my suspension was addressed, the attorney literally cut me off when I raised this issue and attempted to advise the community.  He shut me down and stated over me: “We’re not talking about that.”  Here is what he did not want you to hear:

“Now let me explain why this entire process is actually discriminatory.  I am not here talking about myself; I am addressing all of the disenfranchised single Member/Owners who are deprived of community access to the entire message board if/when you suspend that Member’s access.  A married Member still has access to the community asset, the community Message Board, through his or her spouse, by simply inputting the spouse’s username and password into the system.  But the single Member is 100% locked out.  You have not merely disallowed them to POST a message, you have locked them out of the entire community asset, and prevented them from viewing other posts, and this is discriminatory in the application of your illegal discipline, as it is based on marital status and numbers of Members in a household.  You have prevented those single Members from knowing what is going on in and around the community, and that by itself is a safety issue.  That is the discriminatory effect of this asinine policy.”

That is what “our” HOA lawyer did not want you to hear.

January 1, 2020:

A True Volunteer vs. a Director on the Board of Directors 

-- By your friendly webmistress, Vicki Roberts

Let’s review and contrast the differences between a true volunteer and a director on the BOD:

A volunteer donates his or her time for the betterment of a third party or cause.  A volunteer may assist the Board of Directors with various tasks or undertakings.  A volunteer does not make policy decisions.  A volunteer does not make financial decisions that affect the HOA.  A volunteer is not an elected official.  A volunteer cannot penalize a member of the HOA, either financially or with other punitive action such as taking down message board posts.  The only power a volunteer has is showing up and asking what they can do to help.

The BOD is a governmental entity.  A director on the board of directors has both a legal and fiduciary responsibility to the members, today, yesterday, in the past, tomorrow, and every single day moving forward.  A director gets to decide how others’ money will be spent.  A director gets to decide a myriad of issues affecting others, including removing message board posts and dismissing volunteers.  A director must run for office and be duly elected.  A director cannot be dismissed (recalled) without following proper legal procedure.  A director has prestige and wields an enormous amount of power.  They even get their name on a plaque in the hallway of the clubhouse.

As you can see, there is a world of difference between a true volunteer and a director on the board of directors.