Frightened by Reviews???

In a comment to one of my posts, "Anonymous" wanted to know if I have an opinion on the property management company. They said "I've very new to BLMH....I know a lot of this blog is about the board of directors, but I was hoping you could respond to this comment with a quick summary of the HOA company".

Of course I do have an opinion. Everybody has an opinion on just about everything! But posting all of my opinions here poses a problem. The WWW is an open and largely un-moderated place. People post their opinions, which frequently support their hidden agendas, all the time. Some of what is posted is true and some is not. It is my goal to post items here that are accurate, verifiable and are consistent with my stated purpose for this blog. I have posted letters and my interaction with candidates for the board and with the management company. I always advocate the use of letters for anything other than an emergency.

I provide a lot of data in my posts, to substantiate what I am saying. Data includes numbers, dates, places, background information and stuff that people would normally call substantiable “facts”. The WWW has no rules about that. So a lot of what we read, especially that which is written by “anonymous” writers or does not includes names, dates and places must be questioned. If I report on a meeting, you can also attend meetings and compare what I post to what you observed at the meetings. I flag my “comments” so that the reader knows when I have crossed from “facts” to something else.

If you are a concerned unit owner, then I suggest that you attend board meetings.

When I go to public web sites where anyone can say anything about anybody, I know I have crossed into the “Twilight Zone”, that place which, according to Rod Serling, “is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition. And, it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge”. So it is with the un-moderated world wide web. Statements made by unit owners at board meetings sometimes fall into the same category. It’s my word against your word, my opinion versus your opinion. We might as well have two TV sets running and facing each other! It would be naive to assume that everyone who uses the web and posts there, does so with altruism. There is ample evidence to the contrary. Ditto for board meetings. Not everything that everyone says is truthful or can be substantiated. That is the nature of certain debates!

I also must point out that while you say that you are “very new to BLMH”, you could be anything but. You could be merely an interested bystander, or a board member. You could also be someone at another homeowners association with an agenda. Who knows?

As a unit owner, I certainly have a bias. I have something at stake at BLMH. Only you can tell me your bias.

Regarding our “board of directors”. These people are the ones who are willing to put their time and personal agendas aside, and be “of service” to our association, or so they have stated. For that I have the utmost respect. However, human beings are also motivated by powerful forces which include fear and greed. "Anonymous", you posted because you say you are "frightened", which could be some proof of what I say. Only you know your true motivation.

I cannot state what motivates each member of our board. But actions do, it is said, "speak louder than words". That is why attending board meetings is of value to unit owners. So that we can see the various members of the board, and other unit owners, at the meeting and observe their actions, interactions, biases and so on. The board is definitely of more interest to me than the management company. Why is that, you might ask? In reply, it is the board that decides what is to be done by whom at BLMH. They hire and fire and they ultimately determine our rules and rule changes, our annual budgets, determine our assessments and determine how our assessments are spent. So the board has a lot of power at BLMH, and my interests rest with those who have the ultimate power, and I am interested in determining if they are acting for the good of the association or not. I have published data which suggests that boards do not always act for the good of the association. They can be and are pressured by unit owners. They can have good intentions and make mistakes. Long term underfunding of reserves was just such a mistake, voted by past boards. The current management company and recent boards were, I understand, instrumental in turning that around. I have written about that elsewhere on this site.

I have observed that some unit owners prefer to ignore the reserve problem as cause for our recent assessment increases. Some also ignore their complicity in the problem; I suppose they would say "the board did it". When a unit owner comes to the board meeting and begins complaining and making statements about "rights", "privileges" and demands for "service" I do have to wonder where they were 15, 20 and 25 years ago. That was a time when the board was awarding negative assessments (giving money back to unit owners) rather than saving for our roof repairs. Now there are those who would have me believe that the recent financial problems are all due to the recent boards and our current management company. The data doesn't support that view.

Currently, there are unit owners who are very unhappy about our assessments. I am certain they are doing all that they can to influence our board and other unit owners. Our board members are also unit owners. They have the same concerns all of us do, but as board members they are to operate to a higher standard and act "for the good of the association". It is unfortunate however, that ethical standards vary greatly. It is also true that one of the best ways to promote a personal agenda is to be elected to the board.