HOA rejects recall of embattled board, but doesn’t solve its problems | Opinion
The embattled board of the Fairmont Homeowners Association has survived a neighborhood recall vote, despite recent revelations of backroom deals, self-dealing and apparent multiple violations of state law and association bylaws.
Honestly, I’m not surprised. Nobody likes their neighborhood to be spotlighted for the kind of ethical lapses that have occurred in Fairmont HOA for years. And it’s a lot easier to blame the messenger than examine the evidence and take appropriate action.
Wednesday’s vote was closed to the media, so myself and a reporter from KWCH-TV hung out in the parking lot for about two hours waiting for the results.
When the meeting broke up, residents said it had been announced that the effort to recall the current board had failed, but the association will hold a regular election, as required in its bylaws, in October.
Baby steps, I guess.
The last election for the board, in March 2024, was five months late and the board is currently into the 17th month of a 12-month term of office. It’ll be 19 months in October.
But who’s counting?
The board published an agenda before Wednesday’s recall meeting. The steps were:
“Call meeting to order”
“Open forum for members comments/questions”
“Board of Directors comments/questions”
“Vote to recall directors”
But the board didn’t follow that agenda (big surprise).
In the event, only the board members were allowed to speak before the votes were cast. Comments and questions from the homeowners, including anyone supporting the recall, were relegated to the tail end of the meeting, following the vote.
Par for the course.
According to a recording of the meeting, board president Justin Thelen admitted errors had been made when the board executed contracts without holding meetings open to the homeowners; when board members (including himself) were paid for work around the property, which is prohibited by the HOA’s bylaws; and when board members waived their own dues.
“We found out we did wrong, and we’ve never stood up for ourselves. We’ve never made any comment about it, because every time we do something, we’ve been literally persecuted. We can’t do anything right, and it’s a shame. It sucks,” he said. “You know, I don’t know how many people here I have gone to in the middle of the night or in the day to help with some of you, because they knew they could count on me. So you want to say I’m a bad person, and that I do horrible things? Then f--- you, because that’s not who I am at all.”
Children were present at the time.
So laws and HOA rules were broken. Homeowner Shala Perez, who teaches criminal investigation and law at Butler Community College, found out about it and investigated. She shared her findings with neighbors, law enforcement and the media.
That got some other homeowners angry, not with the board, but with the whistleblower.
If you want to talk about somebody actually being persecuted, maybe we should be talking about the $3,565 that the board tried to bill Perez for requesting to review the association’s books (her legal right).
The records were so disarrayed it took $2,827 worth of law firm time to get them in some semblance of shape and then the board tried to bill Perez for all that, plus collection agency fees and late charges. The bill was absurd on its face and obviously an attempt to punish her for questioning the integrity of the board.
Before the board finally backed off — and their lawyer said it was mishandled from the get-go — they punished her for not paying by cutting off her access to HOA amenities for more than a year.
Judging from comments that were applauded later in the meeting, the problem was not that the board messed up, but the “newspaper situation” and that “outside people” found out about it.
Wednesday’s vote was a vote to sweep the board’s misdeeds and the resulting publicity under a rug.
They’re gonna need a big rug.
