CRCA Letter to BOD 2013

Don Alvarez                                                                                                        September 4, 2013

7424 W Dream Maker Pl. Tucson, AZ 85743

Reference:              CRCA Board of Directors Letter dated August 21, 2013

Attachment (1):       Alvarez letter dated July 24, 2013 Attachment (2):       Goodman Law Offices Letter dated June 12, 2013 Attachment (3):       CRCA Board of Directors Letter dated August 21, 2013

To the Continental Ranch Community Association Board of Directors, John Lambert, President:

I am in receipt of your letter dated August 21, 2013, although I did not receive it until September 3, 2013.  Thank you for responding to my 24 July 2013 letter and providing an answer to the second of the two questions contained in that letter.  I certainly have learned what it is like for a homeowner to have the audacity to question or critique the CRCA BOD—what a wonderful experience it has been.  The tactics you have employed in your written approach are certainly unique and I appreciate that you have chosen to share them with me.  While I could employ similar tactics, I choose to communicate openly and clearly, not obviate communication.

Your response to the first question in my letter regarding the legal purpose of the Goodman letter, although wordy and evasive, did not address my question.  Contrary to your contention that I answered my own question, I merely paraphrased the Goodman letter, which failed to identify any legal ground for invalidating the petition.  You stated that the Goodman letter informed the community why the recall “…was not going to be held”.  Goodman’s letter only reported a “…very disturbing trend” as grounds for invalidation.  Considering that only 19 of the 667 homeowners who signed the recall petition withdrew their support, it is difficult to understand how that qualifies as a “…very disturbing trend.”  Nineteen of 667 equates to a whopping .028% error rate, still leaving 648, or 97.2% of the petitions as valid; certainly more than enough to warrant a recall election.  In your letter, you explained that it was the board’s decision to proclaim dismissal of the recall petition in a “basic”, “informational letter to members”, and “…to make all residents aware of what had happened because the Board wanted to make sure the entire community is kept informed”.  You have used a lot of words to muddy the water; none of which address the question regarding the validity of the Goodman letter to provide a solid legal stance for cancelling the recall election.  I ask once again, that you provide a substantive answer to the first question in my 24 July 2013 letter.

While I agree that the Board had a duty to notify the members of the status of the recall election, it is apparent you took unilateral action to shut down the process because of a contrived “very disturbing trend”.  What is disturbing to me is that it appears the entire community was provided with deceptive information.  Since there were still an overwhelming number of valid petition signatures to warrant a recall election, it is doubtful that your unilateral action to shut it down would have survived the test of legal scrutiny.  Considering the ambiguity of the Goodman letter, had the recall committee retained the services of an attorney, it is likely that the letter would have been nullified and a recall election would have occurred.  In the final analysis however, the recall committee did not pursue the issue and the effort dissipated

A review of my 24 July 2013 letter will reveal that until receipt of the Goodman letter, I knew very little of the effort to recall the Board, and although, like most homeowners, I had little stake in the matter, I decided to investigate the issues involved.  The Goodman letter struck me as a poster child example of attempting to deceive low information homeowners to achieve an end result—and it worked!  Had the Goodman letter not been sent to the community, I assure you; the probability of me attending a BOD meeting would have been slim and there would have been no cause for me to draft the 24 July 2013 letter to the Board.

Your discussion regarding the anticipated cost of a recall election contained in the Goodman letter had nothing at all to do with the basis of my 24 July 2013 letter to the Board; it was merely a distraction not worthy of mention.  However, since you addressed the issue; it is my belief that inclusion of anticipated recall election costs in the Goodman letter was a scare tactic calculated to be effective on a majority of uninformed homeowners.  Listing the names of “…NON-Board members…attempting to force the Association to spend through their submittal of an invalid petition” is tacky and unnecessary, and as discussed in previous paragraphs, your reference to “an invalid petition” is disingenuous.

Regarding a topic you chose to discuss that was not in my letter to you—reciting the pledge of allegiance at the beginning of Board meetings: it was good that you could find it within your purview to lecture me about bullying—a trait you seem to understand.  You dedicated a lot of space to this topic, but alas, after all your haranguing and acquisitions of “bullying”, “antagonizing”, “rousing”, etc., you neglected to address the real issue: why is the pledge of allegiance not recited, and do you have plans to institute the pledge in the future?  Additionally, it was difficult to follow your (“…the Board meeting is a business meeting of the non-profit corporation…”) logic with regard to reciting the pledge of allegiance—not sure how that is relevant to the issue.

You have accused me of “bullying the Board”, “antagonizing the Board”, making “hostile attempts to rouse the Board members”, and having a “confrontational stance”—have you left anything out?.  You have made it most clear that it is unwise for CR homeowners to question or critique any actions of the Board.  Surely you understand that your strategy of reproach does not foster positive community relations.  I am amenable to discuss any relative matter the Board would like to broach in a civil, constructive manner, but judging from the aggressive stance of your August 21, 2013 letter, you may not yet be ready.  I believe it would be beneficial for all concerned to close this chapter and move forward.

Again, thank you for responding to my letter, answering one of my two questions, and facilitating my education and understanding of your tactics—it has been most instructional.  As a reminder, I still await a viable answer to the first question posed in my 24 July 2013 letter.

Regards, Don Alvarez  

cc:   J. Watson