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Post by aztecbruce on May 16, 2011 10:52:56 GMT -8
Bruce is correct. It's often hard to get owners to serve on a board. Therefore you do not get good people, perhaps just those who have some private reason for wanting to serve. The other side of the issue is that perfectly reasonable HOA rules are frequently broken by tenants/owners who do act responsibly. Example: residents who give the gate combo to outsiders, which is a serious security risk. It can be a mess either way. AzWm Depends on where it is. Candidates at San Diego Country Estates use campaign signs when they run and there is never a shortage of candidates. =Bob Generally areas with more retirees have more candidates. Areas that have a pending issue that is considered a big priority has more candidates. Otherwise, quite often its the same people who fill the chairs. We have a maximum 2 - 2 year term consecutively and then you have to step down for at least 1 year before getting back in the fray. I found that 4 years was too much as most people get burned out on the bull$#!+ in about 3 years.
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 17, 2011 19:05:07 GMT -8
Depends on where it is. Candidates at San Diego Country Estates use campaign signs when they run and there is never a shortage of candidates. =Bob Generally areas with more retirees have more candidates. Areas that have a pending issue that is considered a big priority has more candidates. Otherwise, quite often its the same people who fill the chairs. We have a maximum 2 - 2 year term consecutively and then you have to step down for at least 1 year before getting back in the fray. I found that 4 years was too much as most people get burned out on the bull$#!+ in about 3 years. I spent 14 years on our local planning group so I certainly understand the concept of burn out. However, I think it's also true that HOAs are often used by control freaks. There is a rather fine line drawn between ensuring a given community does what's best for that community and simply demanding control for the sake of having political power. All too often HOAs are more concerned with the politics than they are with determining what's best. =Bob
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Post by aztecbruce on May 19, 2011 12:34:03 GMT -8
Generally areas with more retirees have more candidates. Areas that have a pending issue that is considered a big priority has more candidates. Otherwise, quite often its the same people who fill the chairs. We have a maximum 2 - 2 year term consecutively and then you have to step down for at least 1 year before getting back in the fray. I found that 4 years was too much as most people get burned out on the bull$#!+ in about 3 years. I spent 14 years on our local planning group so I certainly understand the concept of burn out. However, I think it's also true that HOAs are often used by control freaks. There is a rather fine line drawn between ensuring a given community does what's best for that community and simply demanding control for the sake of having political power. All too often HOAs are more concerned with the politics than they are with determining what's best. =Bob Just like everything else, it's a matter of opinion. I know when I was on the board I felt it was the board member's duty to 1/ Know the rules, 2/ Abide by the rules, 3/ Monitor the rules, and if the majority wanted 4/ change the rules. The problem many have is that they don't rule equally and fairly across the board. Some people get favors while others get picked on for whatever reason. That's not how I did it. everybody was treated equally based on the rules and not emotion. It was black and white and there was no gray area. Keeping with that made it fairly simple to do my job. Some people liked it and some people didn't. No biggee.
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Post by 78aztec82 on May 21, 2011 10:04:09 GMT -8
Generally areas with more retirees have more candidates. Areas that have a pending issue that is considered a big priority has more candidates. Otherwise, quite often its the same people who fill the chairs. We have a maximum 2 - 2 year term consecutively and then you have to step down for at least 1 year before getting back in the fray. I found that 4 years was too much as most people get burned out on the bull$#!+ in about 3 years. I spent 14 years on our local planning group so I certainly understand the concept of burn out. However, I think it's also true that HOAs are often used by control freaks. There is a rather fine line drawn between ensuring a given community does what's best for that community and simply demanding control for the sake of having political power. All too often HOAs are more concerned with the politics than they are with determining what's best. =Bob Another weak generalization. Prove that "...HOAs are more concerned with the politics..." You can't. Sure, there is a small number of HOAs in the country that are out there that are controlling but the residents chose their boards so frankly, if they don't like it, run and get elected. Mine has it's issues but also, the houses are kept up well, there are no broken cars up on blocks in the driveways, there is no crime (no gates here either), and people tend to talk to one another. Every now and then the board gets a little controlling and by the end of the year it is changed out. Over time, it has learned that the neighborhood has their limits of what they will accept and stays in check. On the other hand, it has enough power to regulate the crappy neighbors that normally the county won't do. I've been in three of these and it is usually this way.
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 21, 2011 18:27:13 GMT -8
I spent 14 years on our local planning group so I certainly understand the concept of burn out. However, I think it's also true that HOAs are often used by control freaks. There is a rather fine line drawn between ensuring a given community does what's best for that community and simply demanding control for the sake of having political power. All too often HOAs are more concerned with the politics than they are with determining what's best. =Bob Another weak generalization. Prove that "...HOAs are more concerned with the politics..." You can't. Sure, there is a small number of HOAs in the country that are out there that are controlling but the residents chose their boards so frankly, if they don't like it, run and get elected. Mine has it's issues but also, the houses are kept up well, there are no broken cars up on blocks in the driveways, there is no crime (no gates here either), and people tend to talk to one another. Every now and then the board gets a little controlling and by the end of the year it is changed out. Over time, it has learned that the neighborhood has their limits of what they will accept and stays in check. On the other hand, it has enough power to regulate the crappy neighbors that normally the county won't do. I've been in three of these and it is usually this way. Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob
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Post by aztecbruce on May 21, 2011 22:42:48 GMT -8
Another weak generalization. Prove that "...HOAs are more concerned with the politics..." You can't. Sure, there is a small number of HOAs in the country that are out there that are controlling but the residents chose their boards so frankly, if they don't like it, run and get elected. Mine has it's issues but also, the houses are kept up well, there are no broken cars up on blocks in the driveways, there is no crime (no gates here either), and people tend to talk to one another. Every now and then the board gets a little controlling and by the end of the year it is changed out. Over time, it has learned that the neighborhood has their limits of what they will accept and stays in check. On the other hand, it has enough power to regulate the crappy neighbors that normally the county won't do. I've been in three of these and it is usually this way. Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob Boob- Have you EVER lived in a HOA? yes or no? If so, when? Don't bore us with any long winded horseshit. Don't write 3 or 4 paragraphs deflecting the question or answer. Yes or freakin no?
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Post by 78aztec82 on May 22, 2011 4:41:15 GMT -8
Another weak generalization. Prove that "...HOAs are more concerned with the politics..." You can't. Sure, there is a small number of HOAs in the country that are out there that are controlling but the residents chose their boards so frankly, if they don't like it, run and get elected. Mine has it's issues but also, the houses are kept up well, there are no broken cars up on blocks in the driveways, there is no crime (no gates here either), and people tend to talk to one another. Every now and then the board gets a little controlling and by the end of the year it is changed out. Over time, it has learned that the neighborhood has their limits of what they will accept and stays in check. On the other hand, it has enough power to regulate the crappy neighbors that normally the county won't do. I've been in three of these and it is usually this way. Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob You have lost it. First of all, the thread was about HOAs, not local SD politics. Get a grip, listen to Bruce. If you've never lived in a HOA community, you are nothing but a hypocrite and YOU shouldn't weigh in. Not sure what happened to you but your recent punky trolls have really been sad. Oh, and I am a rare 5th Gen San Diegan, born and raised until Jr High. Then back for College and subsequently in my career. Grow up.
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Post by aztecbruce on May 22, 2011 13:12:57 GMT -8
Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob Grow up. He can't
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 23, 2011 15:48:16 GMT -8
Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob Boob- Have you EVER lived in a HOA? yes or no? If so, when? Don't bore us with any long winded horseshit. Don't write 3 or 4 paragraphs deflecting the question or answer. Yes or freakin no? First off, if I write 3 or 4 paragraphs, it's not to deflect, it's to ensure my response is clear. One-liners may play well, but they don't really deal with the nuances, do they? But to answer your question, I did rent a condo for 6 years that had an HOA but that's beside the point. I am not arguing that all HOAs are authoritarian, although I think the comments at the start of this thread suggest a lot of them are. What I'm talking about is my experience dealing with them on land use issues and what I have read. For instance, when I amended the County's sign regulations one of the things I included was no campaign signs in the public right of way. I got pounded by both sides from San Diego Country Estates in Ramona with both claiming the other side had gotten to me because they put up campaign signs when their elections come up. The fact was, I don't like campaign signs in the public right of way and most jurisdictions other than the County has banned them. They are basically street spam. But aside from that, the Scripps Ranch HOA tried to dictate the interior configuration of rebuilt homes after the fire. HOAs consistently ban cloths lines, which increases energy use from dryers. In many communities there is a serious political split between young parents with children and empty nesters who'd just as soon not have children around - hence banning kids from playing outside their yards and in extreme cases requiring children not be seen from the streets. Your HOA, which you apparently serve on, may well be different. All I'm saying is that during my 16 years at DPLU I spent a lot of time interacting with HOAs, including the one in Win's community, and quite often they are seriously unreasonable and rather drunk with power. So I'd bring the question back on you - outside of your HOA, how many other HOA communities have you lived in? =Bob
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 23, 2011 16:15:14 GMT -8
Stu, you've never engaged in land use and therefore you have no ideas about which you write. I don't care to read about cars up on blocks because most HOA communities don't have them - it's a bogus argument. It's all well and good that you have experience with three HOA controlled communities but that doesn't mean snot if you were to engage in and have to deal with the complaints those of us who did have to answer to. But aside from that, you are "from away" and as as near as I can tell, you only spent 4 years or so of your life in San Diego. You have no point of reference regarding how it works here. This is not Virginia. If you'd care to weigh in on local politics, move back here and then maybe you'd have the cred do so. =Bob You have lost it. First of all, the thread was about HOAs, not local SD politics. Get a grip, listen to Bruce. If you've never lived in a HOA community, you are nothing but a hypocrite and YOU shouldn't weigh in. Except that I rented a condo for 6 years and condos, by law, have HOAs. But my comments had nothing to do with San Diego politics, they had to do with internal HOA politics, which far too often pit one group of homeowners against another. When my ex-girlfriend and I repainted the trim on her house in Mira Mesa, we blew it a bit and used what we thought would be relatively mild shade of blue but turned out brighter than we thought. Her next door neighbor, who she thought was a friend, saw the color and charged back into her house to check to see if that neighborhood was covered by CC&Rs; it wasn't, but sure as Hell if it had been she'd have run straight to the Board to complain. And that's the problem. One person's belief in what enhances or detract from property value is another person's belief that it doesn't. If I allow my lawn to go fallow in the summer, that's my choice. I will never live in an HOA controlled community because the people running the HOA figure they have the power to tell me what I should or shouldn't be doing with my farking property. And quite frankly, I find it rather ridiculous that people would make a decision about buying a home based upon what one property in a neighborhood loks like - well, maybe not true if that neighborhood has multiple houses with cars up on blocks, but that's the extreme. As for my comments about you being from away, it's something I ponder from time to time about Northern New York. I have 8 generations in the ground there but if I were to move back there for some insane reason, I wouldn't immediately understand the politics even though I had some idea of the political culture. Things change. When you lived here, San Diego was solidly Republican; now it's majority Democratic with 5 of our 8 city council seats held by Democrats. But again, I wasn't writing about San Diego politics, I was writing about HOA politics and each HOA has its own political dynamic and Virginia HOAs may be quite different than San Diego or California HOAs. My arguments often tend to be blunt and lacking in tact, but stop assuming that everything I write is a personal affront aimed at you. If I thought you were stupid, I wouldn't bother to argue with you. If I didn't think you could handle it, you'd never see an argument from me. =Bob
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Post by Bob Forsythe on May 23, 2011 16:17:04 GMT -8
Grow up. He can't Gee, I'm mortally wounded, but then again, that's a better response than the vague threats you usually make about meeting me at the tailgater. =Bob
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Post by aztecbruce on Jun 25, 2011 17:45:22 GMT -8
Gee, I'm mortally wounded, but then again, that's a better response than the vague threats you usually make about meeting me at the tailgater. =Bob There's nothing vague about what I've said OVER AND OVER AND OVER. You blast the crap out of everybody on these boards with your short pier bull$#!+ but you have never had the guts to say anything like that to anybody in person. WTF is so complicated about that? Maybe I'll bring you a dunce cap the next game.
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Post by Bob Forsythe on Jun 26, 2011 18:37:05 GMT -8
Gee, I'm mortally wounded, but then again, that's a better response than the vague threats you usually make about meeting me at the tailgater. =Bob There's nothing vague about what I've said OVER AND OVER AND OVER. You blast the crap out of everybody on these boards with your short pier bull$#!+ but you have never had the guts to say anything like that to anybody in person. WTF is so complicated about that? Maybe I'll bring you a dunce cap the next game. Um, when I respond on here I am responding in a virtual face to face. I really wouldn't care to get in a 2 hour long argument with you or anyone else at a tailgate and I doubt you would either. Clearly you serve on your HOA and it may well be that your HOA is quite reasonable. The only point I was offering is that many of them are not reasonable which I think was shown by the first several posts in this thread. If people challenge me then yeah, I blast them but I do keep in mind that those people have their own point of view based upon their own experience - to do otherwise would be engaging in Aristotelian thinking and that leads to unsanity. All I'm doing is challenging arguments as I was challenged in grad school. It's not a LWSP challenge, it's simply offering a counter-argument that has nothing to do with LWSP. =Bob
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Post by aztec70 on Jul 1, 2011 22:37:31 GMT -8
I hope I never live in a HOA controlled community again. I did for seven years. I much prefer controlling my own property and not have deal with a HOA. Nonetheless, let me spoke for the board members. I served on the board and it was a thankless task. Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to serve the entire membership. Our association had to maintain streets, buildings, streetlights, grounds, and recreation areas. It was really like a small town. The problem was that many, if not most, members had a short term outlook. They did not want to fund for future maintenance or improvements. The board had to think long term. That was a constant conflict. The outcome was that the association was always underfunded and unable to take care of all the problems that developed.
It was my experience that members wanted three things. First they wanted any problems fixed right now, after all, that is why they paid dues. Second, they wanted nothing to do with the business of the association, after all, that is why they pay dues. Third, they want to pay less dues.
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Post by Bob Forsythe on Jul 4, 2011 12:55:35 GMT -8
I hope I never live in a HOA controlled community again. I did for seven years. I much prefer controlling my own property and not have deal with a HOA. Nonetheless, let me spoke for the board members. I served on the board and it was a thankless task. Board members have a fiduciary responsibility to serve the entire membership. Our association had to maintain streets, buildings, streetlights, grounds, and recreation areas. It was really like a small town. The problem was that many, if not most, members had a short term outlook. They did not want to fund for future maintenance or improvements. The board had to think long term. That was a constant conflict. The outcome was that the association was always underfunded and unable to take care of all the problems that developed. It was my experience that members wanted three things. First they wanted any problems fixed right now, after all, that is why they paid dues. Second, they wanted nothing to do with the business of the association, after all, that is why they pay dues. Third, they want to pay less dues. Quite true, although many communities do have public roads; it's the gated communities that have private roads. And yes, I do recognize that serving on the boards can be a thankless task, but far too often they come up with restrictions that are insane, usually in the name of property values. =Bob
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2011 14:26:23 GMT -8
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Post by Bob Forsythe on Jul 20, 2011 18:28:18 GMT -8
This is a large part of the problem - HOA boards may well be run by sincere individuals as Bruce's apparently is, but quite often they don't understand court cases. Signs are a form of free speech and take my word for it - the sign industry is always on the lookout to sue if they think any regulation violates the 1 st Amendment. Obviously I'm not a lawyer and it might well be that people living under the "jurisdiction" of HOAs are held to the contract they signed but it does seem to me that far too often their boards use the "property value" excuse to ban anything they don't like - read working class. Hell, most of them ban clothes lines for no good reason other than to show prospective buyers that their community isn't "working class". It's all bull$#!+ because it assumes class distinctions that shouldn't exist. =Bob
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Post by tuff on Jul 23, 2011 8:24:49 GMT -8
After visiting a relative in Poway yesterday, I'm glad I live in an HOA. I can't believe in all the pos neighborhoods.
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Post by aztecwin on Jul 23, 2011 15:54:33 GMT -8
Our HOA has that kind of rule. I don't think many folks have all that much problem with it. I do notice several commercial vehicles parked outside our Community Entrance gate and that is both not secure and is also almost as unsightly. For me, the biggest complaint we hear at HOA meetings is the vague nature of notices that homeowners get. Those who serve have a tough job, but they should give the effort to be clear about what they want homeowners to do.
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Post by tuff on Jul 23, 2011 17:03:24 GMT -8
The problem people have with HOA's is that the VAST majority of buyers don't read the CC&R's prior to closing. They usually skim it at best. Then when a so called problem comes up they bitch and moan. When I was on the board I always told a homeowner to go home and read the rules and regs then come back. In 12 years only one came back, and he wanted to see about amending a provision in the CC&R's. If anyone can't handle living in an HOA, don't buy into one. Geez.....
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