This is a transcript of an open letter that was sent to the residents of Fairway Village Community Association in Fullerton, California, in February, 2008.  Our property manager is AMMCOR

Picture the ad: Association dues: $330.00 per month. Amenities: Guarded front gate, secure RV parking area, acres of lighted paths, extensive greenbelts, three lighted tennis courts. Two jacuzzis, one sauna and two pools that are too cold to use because they are unheated. If you plan to include swimming as part of your exercise regimen, then you’d better add the cost of a YMCA membership to those monthly association dues, because you won’t be able to use either of the pools in the Village.

THAT ought to put us on a par with an old apartment complex, instead of portraying us as a community offering luxury homes.

When the builders of Fairway Village were trying to convince potential buyers of the benefits of a new way of group-living, called community associations, one of the selling points was that the association could provide not one, but TWO HEATED SWIMMING POOLS, so that all a resident of Fairway Village would have to do in order to enjoy a refreshing swim was walk a few blocks, to reach whichever of the two pools was closest to their home.

Some years later, another set of board members decided that heating both pools cost too much money and ruled to heat only one of them. They used to alternate which of the two pools was being heated, so that it would be both fair and convenient for residents to use a heated pool all year long, no matter where they lived in the Village. Then, somewhere in the years that followed, yet another board stopped heating the Westchester pool altogether. And then, only the Brookline pool was suitable for use in the winter.

Here’s the thing: In addition to the usual recreational swimmers, a lot of elderly residents use the Brookline pool (which is now the only heated pool in the Village), all year long, both to stay fit and as a means for therapy after having various surgeries.

If the current board of directors has mismanaged things so badly that, even with 281 homes paying $330 a month per house in association fees, we truly cannot afford the cost of heating a single swimming pool, then they should own up to it and raise the dues accordingly, in order to cover the expense. And before you cast your vote for ANY director this month, you should take a minute to find out how they feel about the board taking actions like this one, disregarding the impact on our property values and the reduction in the quality of lifestyle to the residents of the Village. If you don’t, the next time they need to make up for money that they decided to spend elsewhere, "your" board of directors might decide to get rid of one or both of the pools altogether or decide that we can do without the guard service at our front gate, too.

As one of the aforementioned people who used to use the Brookline pool to exercise every other day, I can attest that the water is now absolutely frigid!  I tried to tough it out, but - after a few minutes - was forced to have my husband help me out of the water because it was so cold that I lost the feeling in my feet.  Since we're going to have a new board of directors within a short time, I've been waiting to see what happens before attempting to fit a club membership into my already tight budget.  Maybe the new board won't be as incompetent as the sitting one and will be able to manage the budget better. Meanwhile, I've been exercising (sort of) in the jacuzzi.  It's exactly three of my steps from side to side, so I walk ... three steps forward and three steps back ... for half an hour.  But I have no desire to have to repeat my quadruple by-pass surgery and faulty knees prohibit "traditional" exercise so I'm reduced to doing whatever I can.  

Ridiculous, really - 281 of us, paying nearly $330.00 a month and (supposedly) we can't afford a single heated pool.  People who live in homes that aren't saddled with community associations and incompetent boards of directors can manage to heat their pools year round, pools that are at least as large as ours, and in one case of which I'm aware, larger - and they do so on a single income, too.  I swear, if we live long enough to be able to move away from here, we will never, EVER, have anything to do with a place like this again!

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And now it's 2009.  We have a new board of directors, the Brookline pool was heated to just above freezing -- the perfect solution for the board, because it is, after all heated, so they cannot be charged with letting it go.  The fact that it's not warm enough for most people to use gets shunted off to the side because, like the others before them, this board feels that it has more important things to do -- like cutting down as many trees as they can possibly afford before completely depleting the budget.

During the very same month that our Village Voice newsletter was delivered, The "Voice" being a couple of pieces of paper that contain a combination of articles, written by various board members who are really only patting themselves on the back for doing what they want everyone to perceive as their job of "representing the homeowners" (actually, the "job" of the members of the board is to represent the ASSOCIATION, which should, then, protect the interests of the homeowners ... but I won't quibble), one of the aforementioned homeowners here in Fairway Village contacted the management company to schedule a repair to the outside of her stucco-sided home because a portion of it had, in some manner, failed to the extent that it was allowing water to access her home.  Even though Article IX, Section m of our CC & R's clearly states that maintaining the exterior of our homes is the responsibility of the Association, and the water is clearly coming from the exterior of her house, to the interior of her house, the representative at AMMCO told the homeowner that it was up to her to initiate and pay for the stucco repairs!

The fact that if this homeowner were to believe the AMMCO representative and actually attempt to do this would put her in violation of at least two sections of our CC & R's, for which she would then undoubtedly be cited and fined by our current board of erstwhile directors, didn't seem to phase our management company in the least.  

Eventually, the homeowner called me, since I'm the one most familiar with our CC & R's to make certain that she hadn't completely lost her mind.

I had to inform her that she had already lost her mind, once she made the decision to move into any community association, but most particularly this one.  Then we got to the business at hand.  Here's what I told her:  

(1) It's possible that the representative at AMMCO didn't know their head from any of the many holes in our CC & R's and made an honest, albeit stupid, mistake.

(2) In the past, it had been the practice for the management company to automatically deny association responsibility for anything, the first time a homeowner called.  You know, like the insurance companies do ... hoping that maybe you'll simply die before you can actually file your claim.  If that particular practice had been reinstated, perhaps a second phone call would be all that was needed.

(3) Either this board of directors, or a prior one, had made a "rule" that placed the responsibility for maintaining the exterior of our homes on the homeowners, without bothering to inform the homeowners.  It's not as though, illegal as it may have been, it hadn't been done before, and more than once, too ... first with our mailboxes (now the responsibility of the homeowner), then with our exterior utility doors (now the responsibility of the homeowner -- we're just ignoring the word "exterior") and finally with the trim (now the responsibility of the homeowner).  It should be noted that not only was there no reduction in monthly fees as a result of the association shirking its responsibilities, but that, during the same period of time, the fees actually have gone up.  No matter how incompetent each successive board of directors may be, there are two things that they ALL seem to be able to do ... spend money on their pet projects like drunken sailors AND find ways to make the homeowners pay for as many things as they possibly can.

(4) No matter what the case, since it was Thursday night when all of this transpired, it was not going to be possible to determine if any of the above, in fact, is true for at least 3 more days, since even though there were no business hours listed for the management company in the Village Voice, I happen to know from past wasted trips over there that they only work for a few hours on Fridays and then close their doors for a nice, long weekend.  As the homeowner who initiated this is only available in the afternoon on Fridays, when AMMCO employees will be laying by their nicely heated pools, at their own homes, since certainly they wouldn't be dumb enough to buy a home in a community association, there's nothing to be done until Monday.  Fortunately, the weather is nice this weekend, so she won't have to spend three days watching her house flood.

I realize that this all has to sound like an absurd bunch of gibberish to anyone who hasn't had the misfortune of living in a place like this.  Until you experience it for yourself, you simply cannot imagine it.  Will the following make it more clear?  Perhaps ...

The president of the board said, in the current Village Voice:  "Each of our homeowners has a 1/281 share in that (common ground, specifically greenbelts).  Along with that benefit also comes a responsibility.  A small few of us have decided, and maybe even received permission from previous boards, to go beyond our boundaries to plant "attached gardens' on the outside of our back fences."  Blah, blah, blah and "Unfortunately that is not allowed and no board member has the right to tell you that it is."

Now, let's think about the above statement in context with the homeowner who has just been told that she is responsible for fixing the exterior of her home.

Our CC and R's clearly state that she does not have the right to do anything to the exterior of her home without submitting plans to the Architectural Committee and having that Committee approve those plans.  So, this homeowner has just been advised by the management company, hired by the board of directors, to violate the CC and R's, and ignore the Architectural Committee, all in one fell swoop.  And when this, or some future president of the board comes along and says that "no one has the right to tell you that it is okay to do this" -- what then???

The point, dear readers, is that it shouldn't be this hard to simply live somewhere.  All we're supposed to have to do here is pay our monthly fee ($330.00) and maintain the interior of our homes.  We were promised, when we bought our homes here, that (in exchange for our monthly fees) the ASSOCIATION would keep the guard at the front gate, take care of our greenbelts, maintain the tennis courts, heat both pools and spas, keep the pool, the clubhouse and the BBQ facilities in good repair, keep the streets and RV lot paved and in good condition, and maintain the exterior our homes, including the roofs.  As homeowners, we continue to keep up our end of the bargain by paying our fees.  The various boards of directors, however, through their gross and continued mismanagement, have allowed the association to continually renege on their part of the bargain.  Instead, they maintain less and less, while we pay more and more.  At what point does it stop?

Apparently we need another new rule, one that says that each board of directors HAS to devote their time to following the existing CC and R's and By Laws -- NOT looking for ways around things, so that they can spend their time on their own projects.  Maybe then, we can get some peace around here!