OLCA lawsuit

[Chas]

In my opinion (as well as many others on here), the only way to solve the "private subdivision" mess is for all the subdivisions to join together and sue the county into taking over the roads.

HPP has been through receivership. I'm sure others have too. It solves nothing.

[kalakoa]

subdivisions to join together and sue the county into taking over the roads

The unintended consequences of which will be: massive property taxes to pay for all the new pavement, because County only knows one kind of "road", and that's a 40-foot paved surface on a 60-foot easement.

(The lack of available 60-foot-wide easement is left as en exercise for the reader.)

Besides which, no lawsuit is necessary; there exists a process for "Special Improvement District" -- this does, however, require the subdivision to have sane governance, lack of which is the root cause of the original problem.

[My 2 cents]

Wait....does insane times 2 equal sane?

[terracore]

quote:

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Originally posted by My 2 cents

In all fairness Terracore, your answer is a little vague. Can you further opine?

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The current system hasn't worked in the 5 years I've been in this subdivision. We need something to break the cycle. As others have pointed out receivership doesn't have to be permanent. Receivership by definition is only supposed to make decisions in the best interest of the members. The decisions in the last 5 years have been shell games based on personal agendas and shouting matches at the meetings. Nobody wants to participate in a Lord Of The Flies system of governorship. At this point, I would probably agree to a class of 5th graders leading the receivership.

Part of the problem is that people who aren't "paid up" aren't allowed to vote. This isn't a corporation. A lot of people stopped paying after seeing no road work done for many years in a row. And then more road work gets done in 1 year than all the previous many years combined, and its during the time when there are competing boards, frozen bank accounts, no legitimate accounting information given out, and unlicensed contractors used. So more people quit paying, because they are getting newsletters from different groups claiming to be the board, and we know there is a lawsuit going on.

As far as the argument that we can't pay a receivership to get as good of a value as a "volunteer board". I don't know. Look at how much money has been wasted in legal and administrative fees. When we used to get financial statements, the administrative fees seemed to be more than the amount spent on road work. And we don't know if or how much money has been embezzled or paid out to unlicensed contractors etc.

I would be able to have a better informed opinion if all the facts were available, but neither side is providing that. If I have to take a 1% haircut on my road fees to pay for factual accounting and logical decisions instead of shouting matches, where do I sign up?

[randomq]

Would a receivership not still be held to the bylaws and non-profit statutes? Would it cease to be a membership corporation? Can a receivership not be sued or harassed? Just doesn't seem like a silver bullet to me.

[My 2 cents]

Terracore, thank you for taking the time to give a thoughtful response. I disagree with some of what you say, and I think you are drastically underestimating the costs of receivership and overestimating the results, but we can discuss those later. For now I’d like to focus on a point that you brought up that I wholeheartedly agree with:

“Part of the problem is that people who aren't "paid up" aren't allowed to vote.”

This is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest flaws in the OLCA structure. When the fees were voluntary it made sense. If you don’t pay in, then you shouldn’t have a say in how the money is used. But when the fees became mandatory (another story that has a shocking truth), the game changed. It’s no longer a choice.

I have discussed this topic many times, and have gotten a nearly carbon copy response many times: “We can’t allow the non-payers to vote, because they will vote to reduce the fees or make them voluntary again.” Translated: “We can’t let them vote because they might not vote the way we want them to.” The reason for the uniformity of the response is because it originated with the attorney who represented OLCA in the (illegal) class action for mandatory fees. And the fact that the process of this case was violated so blatantly and is so well documented is the reason our collections have no foundation.

Apparently, not allowing the non payers to vote isn’t good enough. The Arthurs Group wants to limit the voting rights of the payers as well. It’s in the lawsuit, as part of the receivership request. I think this shows clearly that they are well aware that they are in the minority, and that they have no respect for the majority. In giving no respect, they shouldn’t expect any in return.

Fixing the voting issue won’t fix everything, but it’s a good start. I’d bet the farm that the receivers won’t touch it.

[kalakoa]

“Part of the problem is that people who aren't "paid up" aren't allowed to vote.”

Simply adopt the County system: one vote per acre.

[leo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Obie

Proxy voting is covered in " Roberts Rules of Order " !

Our subdivision uses proxy votes so we can achieve a quorum ! It's no different than getting a bunch of neighbors together to vote a certain way.

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Obie, your and my subdivision Hawaiian Paradise Park, doesn't allow proxy voting.

[leo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Chas

In my opinion (as well as many others on here), the only way to solve the "private subdivision" mess is for all the subdivisions to join together and sue the county into taking over the roads.

HPP has been through receivership. I'm sure others have too. It solves nothing.

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Obie had posted the Hawaiian Paradise Park receivership court documents on the HPP Road Maintenance thread. I saw a current board member for District 2, Ruth Mizuba was part of the receivership. At a meeting this person said it might be good for HPP to go into receivership again. Makes one wonder if the mismanagement of our roads and Dept of Health dust fines and so forth is the driving mechanism to such an agenda. Some old timers have said at least you knew where all the money was going and the roads were getting taken care of.

[terracore]

"This is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest flaws in the OLCA structure. When the fees were voluntary it made sense. If you don’t pay in, then you shouldn’t have a say in how the money is used. But when the fees became mandatory (another story that has a shocking truth), the game changed. It’s no longer a choice."

Your points in this matter are spot on. I would expand on them further by repeating that the current non-Arthur's group's newsletters have threatened repeatedly that they will be collecting from these non-voters using the judicial system including making them pay a stiff penalty/interest.

So in their mind, there will never be any "non payers". Just non-voters, ground up by their collections process, and then spit out with a lien plus interest. Aloha, and class act all the way. Our country was founded fighting a war against the crown to be freed from taxation without representation. I agree wholeheartedly that there should be a collection process in place, even against people who didn't agree with the vote, but certainly not in a situation where people aren't allowed to vote, and subsequently punished / preyed upon for failure to pay the "poll tax". I'm not entirely sure such a scenario would even be legal. The only case I'm aware of where OLCA tried to collect from somebody, they lost their case and ~$40k in legal fees in the process. These are the types of missteps a receivership could protect us from.

ETA: bold drama, minor tweeks