Special Master recommends Orchidland receivership

[alaskyn66]

I think it's more about being in the clique.

[My 2 cents]

The collection of a percentage of these fees that the “Wirick Group” was prepared to write off could cover the expense of a Court Appointed Master Receiver.

She should have finished her sentence with "if they were legally collectable." The reason these fees were written off is because they are beyond the statute of limitations, and attempting to collect them would put the association in jeopardy of counterclaims. We already went down this road with Murikami. This was one of the more sane moves by the Wirick Group, imo. Is Ms. Cabral suggesting that the statute of limitations should be ignored? More importantly, will she accept full responsibility for the repercussions?

Hopefully the benevolent dictatorship is short-lived and some bylaw safe-guards are put in place to avoid future abuses (aka pulling a HPP)

Indeed, the Cabral/Day Lum receivership of HPP didn't fix anything. I would even suggest that a major root of their current problems could be traced back to that bylaws revamping. And now it's our turn. Yippee.

[My 2 cents]

From the Cabral reoprt:

By their ownership in the subdivision each individual lot owner is a member of the Association.

Not true. Membership in OLCA is based solely on the payment of the road fees, which is a legal issue in itself, but that is how the bylaws are written. She is quoting the structure of a "Planned Community Association", which OLCA is not. I would have expected the Special Master to, at the very least, understand the basic fundamentals of OLCA before making recommendations for our governance.

She also says that both groups are violating the bylaws, although she only scratched the surface, and that the 2 groups cannot work together. On these points I can agree.

[My 2 cents]

I almost forgot...thanks for posting this, Terracore.

[terracore]

"Those that pay their share get a vote; that's how most of the associations are structured."

You mean the ones that "pre-pay" get to vote. What about the ones who pay after the vote? (insert poll-tax argument).

[ironyak]

The reason these fees were written off is because they are beyond the statute of limitations
I had not heard before that this was part of the Murakami outcome. Do you have a link/source for this?

You mean the ones that "pre-pay" get to vote.
The other option is that those who do not pay their fees have a say in how the money paid by others is spent & who is in charge to make related decisions? It's unclear how this would be considered more "just".

[My 2 cents]

Terracore wrote:

The thing that did in the “Wirick Group” in my mind was the newsletters that said if you don't pay, you'll go to collections plus pay an extra 12% per year. But if you fall into this group, you're not allowed to vote. There will be no non-payers, just non-voters. And the voters will determine what the non-voters pay.

I agree about the voting structure, but I don't understand how the Wirick Group is responsible or why they should be singled out for blame. The Arthurs Group has done the same thing and would do it again. So has every other board since 1992. The reason is because it's in the bylaws. If anyone is to blame for this it would be the board that was involved in the 1992 class action and restructured the bylaws in this way. It immediately became a "catch-22" situation, i.e., to change the bylaws back to allowing everyone to vote requires a membership vote, but until the bylaws are changed only the paid up members will have a say on who gets to vote. It is unlikely that a majority of "paid-ups" would vote to allow "unpaids" to vote.

By the way, both groups are suggesting bylaws changes but neither group is looking into this one.

[My 2 cents]

The reason these fees were written off is because they are beyond the statute of limitations
I had not heard before that this was part of the Murakami outcome. Do you have a link/source for this?

It wasn't part of the court's decision because the court didn't rule on the amounts owed. The court merely said that it was done wrong and you need to start over. The issue of statute of limitations was conceded by OLCA's attorney after Murakami's deposition of Steve Starnes. Here is the link to Stuart Oda's explanation of the court's decision and recommendations for future procedure.

http://www.orchidland.org/pdf/MurakamiJu...sponse.pdf

[ironyak]

I see what you mean now - because a judge's ruling is (now) needed there is a six-year statue of limitations on pursing such debts. It would be informative to know what window of time was used by the Special Master to come up with the $600K total in unpaid fees (past 6 years, since Jul 2008, since 1992, forever, etc)

Thanks for the link and explanation.

[terracore]

"The other option is that those who do not pay their fees have a say in how the money paid by others is spent & who is in charge to make related decisions? It's unclear how this would be considered more "just"."

Everybody should be paying their fees, regardless if they pay the poll tax or they get sent to collections. That's why I don't understand why the "pre-payers" get to vote and the ones who will be paying interest plus back payments don't.

I understand that some people have never paid- that is the fault of past boards not using legal collection procedures.

It just seems to me like the system is rigged to always favor more and higher road fees, and the ones that can afford that the least are the ones who don't have any voice.

eta: clarity