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Press Release
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FORGET KHAN AND HITLER; INDUSTRY'S ROLE MODEL IS THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE
The Dice of the Legislature Are Always Loaded
February 03, 2006
By
Donie Vanitzian
(View author info)
Copyright Donie Vanitzian
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To "Username withheld from Pittsburg, California"
What you have the nerve to call "comments" are perplexing because YOU actually have the audacity to slam the author of that wonderful article, but then you carry on agreeing with her in your own comment? What's your problem?
It certainly cannot be THIS author. She donates her time toward helping thousands of homeowners and none of us gets a bill from her. She makes no money off of us, BELIEVE ME! In fact it's COST HER.
Contrary to the slanderous claims you felt free to make, she and her partner are on NO ONE'S PAYROLL. They "work for" no one. They published their own book to be free of industry. She supports herself without blood money. She donates the majority of her articles for publication to various publishers and does not get paid for them. If you bothered to read what she wrote, she is "right" in what she is saying. You owe her an apology. Don't take your anger out on someone who has been a friend to homeowners, take it out on someone else who deserves it. It was a fantastic article!
To the author of that article: Please do not let this one reader's comments deter you from writing articles for US, the HOMEOWNERS.
Keep them coming, please. More important, thank you to AHRC for allowing free speech to prevail.
Posted Feb 13 2006 4:48PM CET
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Username withheld
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While we are talking about writing to legislators - homeowners should take the time to do at least the following.....
Get a big red marker.
Get an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.
Write the following words on it:
NO HOA OMBUDSMAN!!
If you want to be really creative write:
HOA OMBUDSMAN
circle it and put a line through it.
Sign it. Date it.
NOW - go to the California.gov website and get the fax numbers of all the Caliphoney legislators. Start faxing. That doesn't require an envelope or a stamp. It only requires ONE SHEET OF PAPER and some time. So, put on FOX NEWS, sit back, relax, and start punching in those numbers!! Print out the fax log and keep it for your records.
There, done. Now, that wasn't so bad was it?
FLOOD THOSE FAXES!!
Posted Feb 5 2006 2:38AM CET
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Username withheld
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"Then there are the homeowner letters that Legislators bury or lose. We'll never know how many of us did try to have our voices heard. All are meant to discourage our attempt to obtain fairness in the laws."
I think if you read this article carefully, the author is pretty much saying exactly what you are saying - as written in the paragraph above and throughout.
Homeowner association living is not living, it's a job. A full time job that you will have for as long as you "own" in a homeowner association. It's hard work to protect your home and your rights in an HOA.
Unfortunately, there are homeowners who do just sit around and complain yet don't do anything to solve their problems. This is the apathy that is so prevalent in HOA's, likely due to fear, and perhaps rightfully so in their eyes. Everyone's tolerance of risk is as individual as they are.
Getting TOO involved in HOA issues could make you a target, could cause you to end up in litigation, lose thousands of dollars, make your life miserable, and could result in the loss of your equity and home. No doubt it takes GUTS, TIME, and MONEY, to want to get involved in attempting to solve HOA problems. Some people have all of those things. Some have none.
On the other hand, NOT getting involved can be just as risky. It is truly a double edged sword that is sharpened by homeowner fears and apathy.
We know there are a lot of homeowners who DO write and write and write their letters, and fight the good fight, but their efforts just never seem to get them anywhere. (likely due to corruption in the halls of justice where homeowner input seems to end up in trashcans) There are also homeowners who complain and complain and do nothing. These are the ones who have no right to complain in the end, perhaps when it is too late.
Homeowner advocates have been frustrated at times - spending hours and hours talking to a victim homeowner while they cry and are frustrated over their HOA problems but all too often, they just don't do anything. Whether it is fear, denial, just too much to handle, maybe they have full time jobs, children, family issues, etc. etc. - the list goes on - but it is still frustrating that many just don't take the time to do anything. Not even write a short letter to their legislators.
We sued our HOA and it was a horrifying experience. Sometimes I wish we had been one of those who just hunkered away. However, after several years of recovering from the trauma - we are damn glad we did. We didn't let those tyrants bully us into submission. Many homeowners just don't want to take the chance, or they simply can't afford to.
There are likely hundreds of homeowners who HAVE sent in their letters to the legislators, the media, newspapers, etc. But they go NOWHERE! The legislators are pandered, the media is bought by the realtors and developers (one Sunday newspaper's full color page ad for real estate is upwards of $30,000). Nobody wants to "dis" their advertisers and the one's who line their pockets. Homeowners are up against more than just crooked legislators.
In the end.....solving the HOA housing crisis is unfortunately not going to happen overnight. Maybe this is a no win situation. Likely there are homeowners who realize this and aren't willing to put forth any effort at all other than to complain. The frustration of homeowner advocates with homeowners who just complain yet never do anything to help themselves is valid indeed.
It's sort of like enabling an alcoholic - you want to help them up to a point, but when they aren't even willing to help themselves - you just have to give up on them.
For those of you who dare to put pen to paper and write and write and write and fax and fax and fax and mail and mail and mail and create websites and spread the word - KUDOS to you. You are the backbone of America.
I am reminded of the words of Abraham Lincoln - "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves".
C'est la vie.
Posted Feb 5 2006 2:28AM CET
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Username withheld
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It upsets me that someone in your position has the audacity to criticize the millions of people that live in CIDS. You ARE in a position to bring to the attention of the general public what is really going on by means of whom you work for. Instead you chose to write on AHRC that you are sick of all the whining and crying of homeowners.
Somewhere I heard you shouldn't have to be a lawyer to live in a homeowners association yet the mumbo jumbo legalize that is disclosed to us in our yearly documents far from fulfills the information a homeowner needs to knows. How many CID members know of the Davis-Stirling Act? How many know the civil, vehicle, corporation or business codes they are required to live under? How many can fight with a CID and win without hiring a lawyer? How many know the Board is immune from prosecution under the Good Business Judgment Rule? How many know the Management companies are immune from everything.
How many know of CLAC, CAI, ECHO? How many know the bills in Sacramento are always under the evil eye of CLAC? An example being SB61. CLAC intends to sponsor legislation aimed at cleaning up aspects of SB 61 dealing with elections. What is wrong with the bill now except they need more time to figure out a way to, once again, cheat homeowners out of legal elections instead of fixed elections?
How many homeowners can take a day off work, go to Sacramento, sit for hours in hearings and then get five minutes to speak. How many homeowners even know about hearings or committees?
How many homeowners have the money to stuff legislature pockets like Skim Daum and Karen Conlon do?
How many know the letters or emails they write never get past a clerk who decides what a Senator or Assemblymember should see?
How many homeowners have the time to sit on a computer all day long trying to find one tidbit of information that might give them a ray of hope?
The laws need to be changed about disclosure. They need to be changed so Boards and Management companies are responsible for their actions. They need to be changed, first and foremost, so the lobbyist and the companies they work for quit making millions off the destruction of our lives.
Writing letters isn't the answer unless they are on the first page of your newspaper with headlines reading HOMEOWNERS LOSE AGAIN! Expose CAI, CLAC and all the rest! But you won't do that. You would rather accuse us of not doing anything when we don't have anything to do it with.
Posted Feb 4 2006 8:27PM CET
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Username withheld
Pittsburg, California |
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