President Fuller reported at the last open Board meeting on 5.21.18, that a homeowner who had received a $200 penalty for rules violations, had sued the HOA for $10,000 – $200 to have the $200 penalty returned and and additional $9800 for damages. The homeowners’ chief complaint was that he had not had a proper hearing according to the law.

The Judge found in favor of the SCSH Homeowners Association and specifically cited California HOA law and what procedure is necessary for a hearing in an HOA. The SCSH HOA was found to have followed the law.

Advice: Please consult a California HOA attorney before making threats or suing our SCSH HOA. These threats, even when remaining just threats, cost all of us. Click here for more information

 

A little over 4 years ago, the Information Advisory Committee, was given its charter to provide all homeowners with accurate information in a timely manner. A new Digital Newspaper website was built and tested by homeowners, Info TVS were placed in the Clubhouses, a phone app was was created, a community podcast was developed and last — the Monday morning eblast was put in place.

7 homeowners volunteered for this committee and working in concert with the Board, Advisory Committee Chairs and Management Companies, wrote several informational articles a day, answered homeowner questions 24/7 days a week, posted critical info on the INFO TVs and created tons of podcasts. Each month this committee provided a report to the Board of all questions asked and their associated answers, so they could be aware of what residents were thinking.

Unfortunately, about 2 years ago this Advisory Committee ceased to actually function. The original membership left and the committee floundered. This is one of the reasons that CHOSH began to put out factual information to the community.

Fortunately for all of us, our current Vice President Fera Mostow, had also been a member of the original IAC. Now as Vice President of our Board, she has been charged with reconstituting this committee so that it might be restored to its original purpose.

This committee was formed due to the vast amount of misinformation that as being spread throughout our community. Its purpose was to ensure homeowners knew the truth.

While we know it will take some time to get this committee with all new members up and running as it once was, we feel confident that Fera has the skills to do this.

We feel that no matter who you are, you have a right to understand and know the facts about our finances, decisions the Board has made, California HOA law, and that this information should come from the people with the facts.

The covenants committee is the committee which is responsible for making decisions concerning violations of our governing documents. When our community was first being built, this committee was made up of general homeowner volunteers – our current Vice President, Fera Mostow was one.

But somewhere along the line, this was changed and the Board itself became the Covenants Committee. The Governing documents ad hoc committee had recommended that this be changed so that the committee would once again be made up of general homeowners and NOT the Board itself. If a homeowner who went before covenants did not agree with the decisions of the covenants committee, under the new structure, that member could appeal to the Board as a whole.

At the 5.21.18 Board meeting, President Fuller announced that a new covenants committee would be formed after the next Board meeting.

Thank you to Treasurer Bruce Marley and Member-at-Large, Bob Israel, who interviewed approximately 20 homeowners who applied to volunteer to serve in this new committee and 7 were selected. According to President Fuller, a vote on the membership of this committee will be taken at the next Board meeting.

*Our community is governed by a number of governing documents such as the CC&Rs, the Rules and Regulations, Club Rules, etc. When you purchased your home you were provided copies of these documents and agreed to abide by them. If you no longer have them and would like a copy, please go to the official Sun City Shadow Hills Digital Newspaper at www.scshca.com, login to enter the “Residents Only” area and you will find copies of these governing documents which you can download.

There was a time when the poisonous rhetoric of politics was limited to national political discourse over highly emotionally charged issues such as abortion, immigration, welfare, equal rights, war and other volatile issues that polarized our nation.

Today, however, it seems to be commonplace for the broadcast media, state government, local government and even private homeowners associations and some non-profit boards to engage in such vitriolic behavior- which sadly reflects on the rapid deterioration of basic civility in our society overall.

I am distraught that many of my fellow citizens are losing the ability to discuss anything that divides us with any inkling
of civility.

Civility to me means treating people with respect, being courteous and polite to others and listening to others with genuine and sincere consideration, even if you don’t agree with them. Incivility, on the other hand, means being rude for rudeness sake, leveling personal character attacks, talking much louder than necessary, and not respectfully listening to other points of view.
What distinguishes civility from incivility is as clear to me as the difference between black and white, day and night, and a nice and not-so-nice person.

Civility is an indispensable component to maintaining a democracy such as ours, since we live in a pluralistic and very diverse society with different cultural norms, religious beliefs and perspectives on life in general.

In a democracy, while it is OK to recognize and acknowledge these differences, for an effective, meaningful and enduring democracy we must work on being civil with each other so we can understand each other better, which will help us determine where there is room to reach consensus on resolving certain issues that divide us so that we can live peacefully and happily together in our communities.

Resorting to uncivil behavior, particularly in a public setting, whether on the dais or from the floor by a member of the public is counterproductive in the context of the democratic decision-making process. Uncivil behavior gets in the way of learning the truth, learning about good and workable ideas, learning about the needs of others and learning how

to contribute in “alternative” positive ways to making our communities better places to live, work and play.

Such uncivil behavior not only closes the mind of the “not-so-nice” person, but it also shuts down the minds and ears of those decent people who are the targets of the uncivil behavior simply as an automatic defense mechanism against the pain and distress of being unfairly ridiculed and disrespected in a public setting.

The public decision-making arena should be a forum for temperate, thoughtful and intelligent dialogue and debate with the objective of finding common ground on matters of public interest. This means that tolerance for opposing views is crucial. which requires the ability to treat others with respect, the ability to be courteous and polite to others and the ability to listen to others with sincere consideration.
In essence, public discourse in any public setting should be
a bastion of civility which dictates that everyone involved -decision- makers and members of the public- display genuine respect for those who have positions with which they may disagree with.

So, while every citizen may have a Constitutional right to speak their minds (with some exceptions), we should all remember that “incivility” is not a constitutional right, but rather it is simply a choice- and an easy one at that. Be nice instead.

By: Steven B. Quintanilla
President, Law Offices of Quintanilla & Associates
Source of publication: The Desert Sun Newspaper

This article will appear in the May issue of the View in our Resident Column.