Can you imagine the horror of talking over the phone with your wife while her building collapsed under her? And you never heard from her again? Click here for the story.
Now can you imagine that you were on the Board of the Champlain Towers Homeowner's Association ("HOA") that had the responsibility to prevent the deaths of many of your residents?
At the time of this article, 24 deaths have been confirmed and over 100 people are still missing.
I served on the Board of a large Eagle County Colorado HOA for almost four years. Most of the issues we faced were trivial compared to large buildings with structural integrity and maintenance issues.
Nevertheless, our HOA property owners were similarly passionate about issues within the purview of our declaration and their interests. Accordingly, our Board struggled to resolve disagreements with select property owners ("members") while maintaining support of most members of the HOA.
Most HOAs do not deal with such dramatic life and death concerns. Often HOAs do have to contend with controversies with outsized objections.
It is a familiar dilemma: the HOA board has information on some financial, policy or structural issue that needs prompt attention. The Board develops a consensus. Then, several vocal and agitated members of the association do not agree with the Board's consensus and demand reconsideration. Instead of moving ahead, the Board's actions stall out and nothing may happen for months or years.
Colorado has 2.3 million residents living in common interest communities. Over 60% of Colorado homeowners are part of HOAs. (Source: I Property Management - click on this link.)
When homes are in HOA's there is a recorded title restriction, called a declaration, which contractually assigns legal duties and responsibilities to the association and its Board of Directors. HOAs are quasi-governmental associations because of the Declaration agreed to by property owners when the community and HOA was formed. All purchasers in the area of the HOA become subject to this deed restriction.
Typical HOA functions are the duty to maintain common areas, to enforce restrictions spelled out in the Declaration, and, to control and approve changes to individual units. HOAs also collect dues and special assessments needed to carry out these responsibilities. Most HOAs are governed by a volunteer Board that may hire professional managers.
In Colorado, the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act provides a legal structure around the operation of HOAs. A legislative summary discusses what HOA's exist for:
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| Champlain South Condo After Collapse |
"The Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (CCIOA) was established in 1992 to form a clear, comprehensive, and uniform framework for the creation and operation of common interest communities. Within CCIOA, homeowners’ associations (HOAs) are given the authority to manage the commonly owned property and regulate the use and maintenance of individually owned homes within the community (“units”). However, HOAs are limited in what they can require of a homeowner and what they can prohibit a homeowner from doing or owning." (CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR SUMMARY)
A core issue that most HOA Boards will face is the conflict between the effects of transparency to HOA members and the responsibility to act on behalf of all HOA members. No one should promote limited transparency to members. In fact, most state laws require transparency. Transparency helps the Board to inform the community, maintain consensus and to gain the support of members.
What our Board often experienced, was that transparency resulted in ill-founded objections from members. HOA members would challenge the Board on pending decisions with a portion of the relevant information to decisions. These objections were amplified by recruitment of other members to object with similar limited knowledge.
Association members usually are unaware of the complex factors that impact issues before an HOA Board. And members do not have the legal responsibility to make decisions for the best interests of the association and all of its members.
An HOA Board may have many sources of information that informs their decisions. The obvious types of information includes the declaration and other governing documents, Colorado law, Colorado case law, legal advice, financial implications, past practices, and, engineering reports and recommendations. Most of this type of information is supplemented by technical experts who advise a Board over time.
The reality is, that most HOA members do not have the time to attend all meetings and consider all of this information. In some cases, the Board has information, that by necessity must be confidential and out of reach to members.
The legal responsibility falls on the elected Board members to be informed and exercise due care in their decision making. A lawyer can better explain the legal nuances around the intersection of Board decisions and legal responsibility. What most Board members know is that they have a moral and ethical duty to inform themselves and use their best experience and judgment to do what is right for the association.
Therein lies the dilemma. Should Board members allow the sentiments of association members to unduly influence their responsibility and authority to make decisions? Should the consideration of members input slow down or defer Board actions?
I can say these delays happened to the Board I was on, and, it happens in many Boards. Each Board member is a property owner like all others. Board members may doubt whether their point of view is any better than anyone else's.
I suggest it is. At least, it is likely to be.
An elected or appointed Board member has experience or knowledge that most members of the HOA cannot have. Sitting through long Board meetings, studying budgets, listening to legal counsel or other experts, all inform Board decisions. The responsibility to reflect on all of the information has a large bearing on the decision a Board should make.
None of us are able to evaluate the actions and timeliness of the decisions made for Chaplain Towers in Surfside, FL. The Champlain Towers incident may be an extreme example, and wake-up call, to many HOA Boards to adhere to their responsibility and take action when needed. The reported facts in the Washington Post article (HOA Board Resignation Ahead of Tower Collapse) was that debate continued since 2018 when serious structural concerns were reported to the HOA Board. Dissension among association members resulted in catastrophic delays and resignations of Board members during the process.
In America, we have the chance to learn from experience, even when horrific. All too often, we see catastrophe coming and fail to "duck." I encourage all HOAs to learn from the current Florida news events and reassess the role of transparency and Board responsibility.
With the benefit of hindsight, HOA Board members should put their "responsibility" ahead of the consequences of transparency. Timely and appropriate decisions must be made even when association members have passionate concerns or objections.
Not Simple Facts But Simple Truth
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| Townhall Magazine |
Click on this Link to see the article.
"Bottom Line: All in all, sending military forces into a non-permissive environment in a blue city is a recipe for disaster."".......... What do the troops actually do [without local approval and support]? Patrol? Got to wait on our vehicles. Do they go arrest looters? For what? If the looters violate federal law – like crossing a state line to riot – that’s easy. You hook them up, turn them over to the federal cops and the US attorney prosecutes them. But what if they commit a state crime, which most routine crimes are? In LA ‘92, we grabbed a crook and handed him over to the LAPD and he went to jail and got prosecuted. But the Portland police will be ordered not to cooperate. Moreover, the Portland DA will not charge them, much less prosecute them. What do you do with them? How do the feds hold a rioter for a state crime that he is not charged with?........"
Global Warming means that we need the Green New Deal or it will be in the end of the earth. Right?
NOT!
There are endless critiques of the policies promoted in the name of Green New Deal and Global Warming. Many arguments can be made against the policies Democrats promote as needed policy. One of the most rational analysis of the issues can be found in the book: Apocalypse Never
The key point of this post is to listen to the podcast. Very Important Information.
Here are some descriptions of the book and author:
"Apocalypse Never is an extremely important book. Within its lively pages, Michael Shellenberger uses science and lived experience to rescue a subject drowning in misunderstanding and partisanship. His message is invigorating: if you have feared for the planet’s future, take heart." (Richard Rhodes, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Making of the Atomic Bomb)
“Environmental issues are frequently confused by conflicting and often extreme views, with both sides fueled to some degree by ideological biases, ignorance and misconceptions. Michael Shellenberger’s balanced and refreshing book delves deeply into a range of environmental issues and exposes misrepresentations by scientists, one-sided distortions by environmental organizations, and biases driven by financial interests. His conclusions are supported by examples, cogent and convincing arguments, facts and source documentation. Apocalypse Never may well be the most important book on the environment ever written.” (Tom Wigley, climate scientist, University of Adelaide, former senior scientist National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS))Key points will be added here when time permits.
The author discussed the issues around Climate Change and the irrational ideas were discussed in a long podcast that you should listen to. It is worth the time.
Here is the link to a very good podcast on these topics. This is a must listen policy issue.
This is deeply troublesome. California often leads other states with new "progressive" policies and taxes.
All too often, if you see California do it, then other states follow like Colorado, Washington, Oregon, New York and New Jersey. That does not mean California ideas are good ideas. Often they are not.
Over time California has established high taxes, excessive regulations, overbearing environmental regulations and restrictions on individual liberties. These California Policies almost always lead to an exodus of people from the California to other states that are more friendly to jobs, residents and businesses.
Here come a new one: The Wealth Tax. This has been tried and failed all over the world. It appeals to some voters who want to "make the rich pay their fair share." But there are serious conceptual problems. These include:
One of my preferred economists, Brian Wesbury of First Trust Advisors, published an analysis of proposed tax policy and its implications to the economy if enacted. Most of these policies cannot be enacted without Democrats taking control of the House, Senate and White House. The analysis implies that some proposals may not have a significant adverse affect while others will. Without question, these proposals, or other versions, will usher in another round of job killing economic policies of Democrats. Keep in mind that all of this would be on the heals of one of the worst economic calamity ever forced on the economy by Democrats. Here is the analysis.
"What many investors are focused on is a scenario where Biden wins and the Democrats also take the Senate. In that scenario, the Democrats could use the special budget process on Capitol Hill to raise taxes permanently (meaning no natural sunset) with a simple majority, like President Clinton did in 1993.
Biden's team has made plenty of tax proposals, but we're going to focus on what we call the Big Five:
- Raising the top income tax rate on regular income back to 39.6% from 37%
- Raising the corporate tax rate to 28% from 21%
- Ending the step-up basis at death
- Treating long-term capital gains and qualified dividends as regular income for those earning over $1 million
- Applying the Social Security payroll tax on incomes over $400,000+
"The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimates that the disease has a 10 percent death rate. Compare that with COVID-19, which is still being studied but has an estimated fatality rate of 1 percent or less, according to Timothy Russell, PhD, a mathematical epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, commenting in the journal Nature.“The death rate for Legionnaires’ is much higher than what we’ve seen so far for COVID-19, and the complications following infection can be quite debilitating,” says Dr. Pruden, who has studied how corrosive tap water in Flint, Michigan, contributed to outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease there."
In the contentious debate over opening schools, there is almost no mention of the youngest learners—children 2 to 5, who attend day care, nursery schools or prekindergarten programs. That’s a terrible omission. What those children need to accomplish can’t be done in isolation or in front of a laptop, and it has to be done during a brief developmental window that closes around age 5 and never opens again.
The learning needs of the youngest students in pre-K programs are easy to underestimate, because their schoolwork consists of playing together— pretending to be a princess or a superhero, playing house, digging in the sand to create a dinosaur park. Just as older students must work to succeed, pre-K pupils must play, and they must play with each other. As the developmental psychologist Jean Piaget put it, “Play is the work of childhood.”
