I have lived in Ashlar Hill for 4 years and started becoming frustrated about promises that never seemed to happen. It wasn't until I read our By-Laws that I began to see what made things the way they are. Sometime in the past, the residents turned over the power and authority to the Board of Directors to make all decisions for us. We're lucky we had some people that would take on that responsibility.
However, today we have a BIG problem. Our current Board's numbers have dwindled down and all the authority has landed in one person's lap. It has been that way for so long that our Board President and, our outside management firm representative, Christy Stevens, feel they have no reason to interact with us at all. They show so little respect for us that that our questions go unanswered, our requests go unattended, and we are treated like children at our HOA meetings.
I made my mind up at the "Special Assessment" meeting on June 25, 2010, that I was not going to sit down and shut up anymore. The behavior of Butch and Christy at that meeting was appalling and illegal. Sound far-fetched? Let me tell you what happened and see if you agree. (All documents referred to are on the "Reference Documents" page.
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There was a preliminary discussion about insurance reform in MD. No particulars or "heads up" were given by Christy.
Problem - MD has made some big changes that affect every single one of us. See the doc "New Md Insurance Law for Condos H06" and "New Insurance Changes".
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From there agenda was centered around the assessment and the group had ostensibly been invited to give feedback. Christy told us that the assessment arises out of an expenditure made from our emergency fund for snow removal during this past winter. Payment was approved and made from the emergency fund which was now $28,000 short! We would all have to make an additional $50 payment for 6 months (July-Dec 2010)
The presentation of the problem was made by Christy Stevens, our CAM representative. It was basically that - hey it snowed. You all know how much it snowed right? Well it snowed a lot and that's how much it cost us to remove the snow. To which, Butch just nodded his head.
Problem - How does a $28,000 expenditure suddenly come up in a June HOA meeting without paperwork to support this claim? Christy did not have one piece of paper, bill, or cancelled check - nothing to show who got the money and for what. CAM has a contractual fiduciary relationship with us and MUST produce records that show how much they collected, where it was spent, for what, and to whom. Period.
Christy said that the only way we could avoid paying this assessment was to cut expenses somewhere else. The home owners started to try to come up with ways to avoid making this assessment. Good ideas and good discussion followed BUT nobody knew if these were good suggestions or not because, like children, we have not had a "real" budget to look at in the 4 years that I have been here.
I was waiting for a chance to jump in with the same question I have had for 4 years, where's an actual budget for us to look at? When I asked for it, I got the same response as always, well Ms. Pierorazio, if you came to the meetings, you would have gotten a copy of the budget. We went back and forth and Christy produced a "budget". It was a paper that I had seen before with a 2009 Proposed Budget and a 2010 Proposed Budget. Are you kidding me?
When I told her I wanted a budget with actual expenditures for 2009 and 2010 thru June 30, she said I can't give it to you without permission. I asked whose permission she needed and she said Butch's. I turned to Butch and asked him if she had his permission to give it to me. He just sat there and stared at me. No answer. To which Christy said, "they'll just knit pick it."
Now folks, if any of you think that you need Butch's or any other BOD member's permission to see where OUR HOA fees went and why, you are dead wrong. Go on over and read the MD Condo Act. It's simple to read and you'll see that there are plenty of other things that are being done that are illegal, lazy, and self-serving on both Butch and Christy's part.
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