Clarification re Funds Paid to Carol Ebsen

It's looking like the board members who voted for a $250 payment to Carol Ebsen have the responsibility of getting the money back into the maintenance fund. I'm not sure who made the motion to pay Carol, but only a few people make motions on the board. Isn't that right GEORGE!
I'm certain that Carol had some outside discusions regarding this. It will be fun to see how they deal with this. My guess is that Carol will pay back the money and come up with some receipts showing us all her loss at work. I know she doesn't like people to know how much money she makes but we can count on me studying the expenses.

Remember, when you vote for the conclusion on how to handle this, be careful. Think of the consequences rather than the Carol factor. You guys are becoming a poor example of a board of directors. This reminds me of Enron mini. I can't wait for the next home brew newsletter. Carol needs to be removed from her position. She will kick and scream, but she has to go.

Thank you for the board members who listen and think for them selves (you know who you are). And for those of you who simply attend without saying a word (you know who you are), start speaking up and lets get this stuff right for a change.

Court Case#2 Decision is made

Carol Ebsen is required to immediately return the $250 she was paid by the board for her last court case appearance. Riverview Third Association is directed to pay my court costs of $60.00

My case regarding the $25 weeds fine failed since I did not prove that RV3 violated state stat 515B 1-112. They violated other laws but not this one.
Both parties have until November 16th 2006 to appeal. I shall study the weeds fine and try it again.

Total cost so far caused by a stubborn board who don't listen:

4 hours (estimated) for Gene Sullivan @ $120/hour = $480
Court Costs = $60

Return of Carol Ebsen money = -$250

Total cost to Riverview Third = $290.00

Hopefully they will get the message soon that members have a right to be heard or have a third party hear them.

Good Meeting

Three people missed the meeting tonight. Carol the President, Greg and Lori. A motion was made to remove Lori with some discussion from John Rettger who was wondering if we should talk to her. The vote was as unanimous as it can get for a 5 person vote. Lori has missed 5 months and I agree that this person is a silent board member which does no good.

George Plew moved that Marlene should be voted in. Marlene who stated that she was only there to observe, accepted the position and thanked the board. She sat in Carols chair.
Our new manager is Paul Bozonie. Apparently, Paul is a VP at New Concepts Management.

I asked why the meeting had changed date without informing members. George explained an anomaly which created this.

The meeting was run by Pat. She did a very good job and this has to be the best, non-emotional, respectful meeting I have ever attended. Board members were allowed to talk without interruption and people listened.

Congratulations. Now if we could only pass this expertise on to the missing members.

Pizza Notes

3 people are selected to run for RV3. Everyone is unanimous in that fines are required and everyone is unanimous that the boards methodology behind fines is against State law. People need an opportunity to be heard and an opportunity to resolve their issues before being fined. We will know about this after our court conclusion.

An issue that came up was one regarding the fact that too many people call board members at strange times in the evening. This wears out members and causes people to quit. There is an answer to this which is: People need to address their concerns to the management company. Of course, that has been difficult because the management company rarely responded in the past.

Discussion regarding people wanting to put in large gardens. What about when these people leave? They have typically left the next owner to tend the garden and the new owner may not want to work the garden. This issue covers a lot of items that may be requested by the owners. The answer to this problem is simple. The board can offer that the owner pay a deposit. That way if the owner leaves the property "out of compliance", then the board may use the deposit to correct the issue. If the owner returns the property to the original condition, then the deposit is returned.

It turns out that we have an owner occupied home in RV3 which is a meth house. Anoka county raided the building but broke into the wrong place. Oops.

A discussion regarding RV3 as it pertains to being a business. This business is running with an income of around $266,400 per year. This association is not run like a business. Poor planning has been sited as the problems and the reason we only have $400 per home for maintenance. Members rarely came to a meeting with something nice to say about the board except when requested to read a prepared statement by the president. Most arrive ready to fight. Businesses don’t normally operate in this mode. Businesses normally have more compassion.

There were concerns that our management company are charging too much. No one is going out for bid on insurance, land maintenance (grass/snow etc). This is a very high priority for most businesses. Companies are on the continuous trail for better bids. Even a 3% savings on grass/snow would equate to around $2000 savings.

The board members got their orders from Carol that the meeting this month is moved to October 16th. Plus, the meetings have changed from the rules book directive. Yet again board action contrary to standards of conduct set out by our rules. No one knows that the meeting this month is early and people may arrive on the wrong date. People are not important though. Board members want to gather and discuss the upcoming court conclusion and prepare. It’s them against us.

Riverview Third hired Gene Sullivan to appear for Al Dittbrenner and Carol Ebner in Anoka County Court last week. You can download the presentation here: Court Action Items

The issue of paying Gene Sullivan (New Concepts Owner) $120.00 per hour is still up for grabs. State Law requires associations to provide indemnification insurance. This insurance is supposed to cover for law suits. It provides a professional Attorney to present the arguments. Yet again we have blatantly disregarded State law, and the president has directed the people we pay to protect her. Hopefully, you can understand the conflict and why State law dictates indemnification insurance. Our management company wants to keep the business and any resistance to what the president wants may jeopardize that business. So they comply with board decisions. The presentation was very poor and I would have expected that Gene spend at least a few hours researching the issues before his presentation.

What really needs to happen is that Gene Sullivan needs to approach the board and state:

“We like your business and want to keep you as a customer but, you can’t operate in this way and things need to change. If you don’t want to comply with the rules and covenants and State law, I will have to terminate our relationship.”

Now that’s what I call a strong moral company who I want to do business with!

Jury is almost in

The court action against Carol Ebsen and Al Dittbrenner is complete. I can say with confidence that this is going to be a slam dunk. The 2 areas of concentration for the judge were as follows:

The judge eluded to the fact that the recipient of a weeds fine deserves the opportunity to resolve the issue and be heard before the fine is applied. The boards' representative Gene Sullivan (New Concepts Management) produced a document which he said was sent to the plaintiff. The judge pointed out to Gene that this document simply states that "a fine will be imposed" and there is no chance for the recipient to react. The conversation was clearly in response to our state laws in 515b which particularly discuss the issue of warnings and requests for action before fines are levied. It was also argued that this document was not sent out. My guess is that the document was sent to the rental property and not the billing address which is my home. This has been a problem issue for most of the time.

Regarding the $250.00 payment made to Carol Ebson for her time in court. The judge held his hands up in the air and told Gene "how do I know what her real costs were?" Then he asked Gene if he would be opposed to making Carol return the money to the maintenance fund. Gene said that it would be ok and that Carol would probably be ok with that as long as "she was able to come up with her real documented cost and get paid". He just let everyone know here that she simply picked a number out of the air and can probably come back with a more realistic number.

Gene who was paid $120 per hour to appear in court will be paid around $480.00 if he includes his driving time. His case was weak and he simply pointed out parts of the "rules" that state "fines can be levied" and various other irrelevant items. I term them irrelevant since the declarations and covenants always rule when there is a discrepancy. Clearly, there are discrepancies. For an owner of a management company getting paid $120 per hour to defend board members, I would be ashamed of his presentation. They will be even more ashamed when the case is lost and documented. Gene told me that he needs to be neutral however, he clearly does not understand the laws as they pertain to homeowner associations and is clearly on the side of the losing board. I conclude that he is only trying to keep the account and keep the president happy. Too much "old boy" network going on if you ask me.

This will be time for Carol to reflect on her actions and realize that she goes too far and should resign after having the court direct her to return the funds she obtained. This will be her second loss this year where she is slapped.

Rest assured that any pay stubs produced from her employment will be copied to me since I have a right to all documentation. This will be scrutinized to the Nth degree since Carol is a part owner in her business and in essence can write her own ticket. As the judge asked "do you have her pay stubs?" I will also be watching for an effort to push this off onto either management or "the other board members" We will deal with that too.

We are in wait mode and I expect a quick decision within one week.

Will All Homeowners leave. We Need Our Secret Meeting

What do they have to hide from all of you homeowners?

Yes folks, tonight the meeting is secret. 2 homeowners were present, They had to leave. I suppose that the secret meeting was probably something to do with either one of those homeowners. I just realized.... It's me!. Yes, they are discussing the up coming law suit and how they will handle it. They are also discussing how they are going to handle me in the future because this is really wearing them down. I keep applying pressure and they don't like it.

Anyway here are the highlights for the 10 minutes worth of homeowner input:

Funds have been allocated for the year and they are apparently over budget. Poor money management? I suppose. No need to go to any more meetings regarding repairs because your request may be denied since they have no money. They will argue the expense of the blacktop and roof repairs and I will argue lack of foresight from the past. This has all happened on Carols watch.

Al Dittbrenner had his garage door and light repaired and wanted reimbursement. I suppose that's OK but then he requested money for the electricity that the workers used. They spent 5 whole minutes on this. They had no idea how to figure out how much electricity costs. This is a subject that they all should know. Have they never looked at an electric utility bill and tried to figure it out?
Our management company representative said that they should get the Electric bills for the month before and pay the difference. Won't that be a surprise if the last months bill is actually higher! Does that mean he owes us money?

They wanted to pay him $25.00!

Thank you George for suggesting that we find out how much money was spent before actually paying the bill.

For those of us who are interested in continuous improvement, here is how electricity figures:

Electricity in the State of Minnesota costs 9.15 cents per killowatt hour. Thats 9.15 cents per hour to run a quantity of ten - 100watt light bulbs. Your off peak charges are 3.95 cents.

So, if a drill was used we have to know the power a drill consumes. This is 850 watts or .8KW. So in order to run the drill for 1 hour, you would need to pay .85 x 9.15c = 7.7 cents.

Lets make this clear, in order to spend $25.00 on a drill, you would need to run it continuously for 13 days for the 24 hours each day. Since workers only put in 8 hours, that means that the drill needs to be on for 40 days including weekends.

Come on Al! get real. $25.00 is half of your electric bill man. Don't accept it! you won't feel right!

The Court Date Is Set

Tuesday October 10th is the date for our court case. By now both Al Dittbrenner and Carol Ebsen have the summons to court.

You would think that they would simply return the weeds fine since the court cost to the association will be large. I did send a warning shot across the bow and let them know that this was pending but they took no action.

The arrogance persists.

Next court action is now pending

I filed for court action today against Riverview third. This after they spent a whopping 6 seconds on my request to refund $25.00 for weeds. Thanks to George who actually reminded the board that they needed to make a decision and discuss my question. Obviously, the last law suit was not incentive enough for them to sit down and start listening to complaints.
Also sited in the suit is Carols $250 charge for her day in court. I have requested that this be returned to the general maintenance fund where is came from.

We should get a court date in about 2 weeks.

See yall there.

Board May Approach Helmuth & Johnson to Get Money Back

Our incompetant board hired Helmuth and Johnson to put liens on properties. This is typically done when situations get very bad. In our case, we do it because Al Ditbrenner wants to get home and simply lien everyone. It is also due to the fact that dominant board members don’t know what they are doing.
Helmuth and Johnson do not care if the Association is acting outside of the law because the concequences are the concern of the association and not the Law Firm. So, the money won't be coming back.
One day, some of the board members (they know who they are) will step back and realize that people simply dislike them because of their incompetance and power hungry ways.

More huge costs for RV3 Association

Yes folks. The lack of reason and empathetic listening is costing Riverview Third thousands of dollars. This leads me to believe that we may be at the critical point where incompetant board members will be let go. Here is the latest blunder which has cost a fortune:

Just got off the phone with my attorney. The good guys win again.

My story is this. Last August I was presented with a bill from the association for $400. This included 3 fines for police calls in July, 1 fine for littering, and 2 fines for damage to the siding and the $250 charge for driveway damage.. Upon checking with the police, I discovered that there were no police calls for July. I then sent the association a letter stating that based upon a lack of evidence for the police calls, no repair on the driveway, and no evidence that my tenants had damaged the siding or littered I would not be paying the money. The letter I got back stated that the charges stood and that the board would file a lien against the property if I refused to pay. Several letters were exchanged over the next few months and the late fees piled up. In January, the rental charge hit and I refused to pay that. In April, the board sold my debt to a lien company. Besides paying the $600+ that the board alleged I owed, the lien company also prepaid my monthly assessments through the year and tacked these onto the amount I was said to have owed. I received a letter from the lien company demanding payment of approximately$2200. I ignored the letter, waiting for them to take me to court. Early this month I received a letter from Helmuth and Johnson (attorneys for the lien company) informing me that I now owed around $3500 and that my property would be sold at a sheriff's sale on September 6th. That's what I was waiting for. I contacted my attorney, gave him my documentation, and let him go to work. The result is that all action has been dropped against me. Helmuth and Johnson has decided that there was no basis for any of the charges and has recommended that the lien company go back to the board and attempt to collect from the association. This decision is important because besides representing the lien company, Helmuth and Johnson has also represented the association in the past.

The upshot of this is that two law firms on opposite sides of the fence have now reviewed the declaration, bylaws, rules, and the small claims court verdict and agreed that the board's use of fines is not acceptable. We should be confident that any action any of us take in court against the board will be upheld.

My next step is to request that the board reimburse me for my attorney's fees. Since the board's fraudulent actions (the attorney's language) caused me to hire an attorney to defend myself, they are at fault for the damages. If the board refuses to pay, I'll be glad to see them in court.

Len Lorence

August 28th 2006 Muting

Where to start:

One of the board members wanted stairs on the deck. That flew through just fine.
Board members want to get house numbers installed on the rear of the homes. The only reason for this is so they don’t have to run around the front of the home to get the house number when they find weeds or dog poop.

Board decided to halt late fees for one particular homeowner who owes lots of money. The premise here is that if he keeps up with an extra $100 per month to get caught up, they will waive the late fees. George opposed this.

The city of Coon Rapids sent a letter to the board condemning one of the decks. Decisions were made by individual board members to go ahead and replace the deck. The discussion was that the City only gave them 20 days so they had to react before the meeting. They need educating or they need to be honest. The city hands out violations and explains that it is possible to appeal. Even besides this, the housing inspector (Michelle Posch) will allow the association meeting to take place and waive the 20 days. This of course is a classic case of not knowing how to communicate.

One member (Gloria) has internal damage (due to water penetration via the roof and siding) and the association told her that even though the damage may have been caused by bad workmanship on roofing or siding, she is responsible for getting insurance to cover the inside of the home. What they fail to realize is that poor workmanship can be litigated and if the cause of the internal damage is due to outside work, the court will find in favor of the plaintiff.

Riverview 4^th wants to meet with Carol. Carol said that she had some email communications regarding this. She has had other email communications regarding RV3 issues. This is the same person that told me (yes I have it in writing) that her email was for her work and she did not use email for RV3. Do we have a liar on the board or am I missing something?

Lots of discussions regarding using homeowners for deputy style reporters. Yes folks, they want to use neighbors for the dirty work. Imagine the fun that’s going to be. John Rettger was obviously against this. He explained that having neighbors report on neighbors was not right.. Al Dittbrenner also agreed that this would not be a good idea.

Anyway, besides this they already have whining neighbors at the meetings complaining about dog poop. Get real people, dog poop on your neigbors ground doesn’t prove your neighbors dog actually had a bowel movement there. I can’t wait for that argument.

I spoke at the meeting regarding a $25 fine I had received last year for weeds. I had to remove the weeds AND pay the fine. Here is the argument: John Rettger was fined for a driveway issue. 2 months ago, the board members voted to return the money because no service was provided. I think that was a good decision. However, I see no difference between a fine for driveways and a fine for weeds. In both cases, no service is performed. According to the last RV3 litigation conclusion,

CHIN v. Coventry Square holds that extra fees are invalid where there is no relation to actual expenses incurred by the association.

Carol said that they would discuss this at the end of the meeting. Of course the meeting almost adjourned when George said that they owe a discussion on my question. Al Dittbrenner simply overpowered and said “we already discussed this. Nothing more to talk about. These fines have been ok for the last 30 years”

OK like that constitutes correctness. Due to the lack of capacity to communicate or listen to RV3 members such as me, I have decided to file at Anoka County Court House. I will be inviting Al and Carol to the court discussion. Filing fees plus Weed fees will cost the association $85 and Carols time, and Al’s time will cost $500 (we already set precedence on that) and this time, since people get paid for court, I will be asking for $250 also.

Total association cost for lack of empathetic listening skills = $835.00 if I win and $500 if I lose.

I guess the weeds fine will cost the association a lot of money either way.

The Process Is Complete

Checks were sent out and to recap here is how the process progressed:

Management company pushes board towards control of rental property
Board decides on illegal extra charges for landlords
Landlords group points out the inconsistency with the covenants
Board members and group argue for 10 months due to disagreement
Landlords warn of pending law suit
Management company realizes they bit off to much to chew.
Management company account manager gets fired due to lack of ability
Landlords takes Riverview to court and wins law suit.
Board pays non-compensated board member using association funds
Law suit indicates other possible illegal activities.
Board members return funds to landlords equating to illegal charges.
Board members learn a lesson? Maybe.
Board members realize they have zero power over the covenants and must abide by the covenants
Some board members retire based on too much stress
Board starts slow process of learning to communicate and extinguishing the power trip
Management company showing signs of weakness
Management company gets a little more aggressive towards board and starts directing them

See everyone at the next meeting.

Lack of Urgency

I'm hoping that the management company cuts checks soon. They are overdue returning illegal funds by 6 weeks. When they get non-payment by a Riverview Third member, they charge an APR rate of around 154 percent.

We will soon get into an interest charge argument (discussions are not possible with these people) led by me. The board will argue "we only voted to give the money back at the last meeting". Guess what, your vote does not count. The law instructed you to return illegal funds and gave you a date of July 5th to appeal. It is now August 6th with no action.

This is what I call lack of focus, lack of urgency, poorly run management company, and certainly poorly run board system. I have noticed however that the urgency of the board changes when payment to board members is involved. This association HAS to be the most difficult account f0r New Concepts Management Company. They should raise their rates and change the name to "Old Concepts Management Company" I don't experience ANYTHING that this management company does that is "NEW".
The only thing they seem to use the computers for is billing, accounting and email. God forbid they should contemplate a "new concept" like internet hosting so members can opt out of the US mail system.

Of course, the internet solution allows an association to run their own business without a management company so thats kind of scary. Someone should really check out various options such as:
www.internet4associations.com

Look Ma! No Hands!

Sorry I didn't make it to the meeting. I decided to watch my son pitch strikes to everyone in the game tonight. Not many human beings take time out to better themselves or try to figure out how to make things better. My boy has a passion for his sport and excels at it. I think we may have a few board members pondering the idea that things could be better.

The reason that this is entitled "Look Ma! No Hands" is because of the notion that there may be a better way to ride a bike or run an association. I have posted the July newsletter for download from this website. Click here >>> July newsletter

About one trillion people can access this for free. We decide however to print it and mail it.
Just think, for a small investment, Riverview third could install both cable and internet with a deal from Comcast which would create a very positive thumbs up from the worn out residents. The internet can be used for everything that the management is currently doing. Mind you, only forward looking people with insight could agree. Instead, the nay sayers will talk about people who don't have internet. The same nay sayers that decided that more police calls were to rentals. I wonder how many people at Riverview really have internet? Certainly the complaints regarding this blog came from internet users.

I'm convinced that the reason we die is to prevent the old habits lingering on. We need to get the old habits on the board to move aside and let the fresh new thinkers move the association ahead. The old habits are costing us money. It's also about time that management companies looked outside the box and started to think internet. If Wells Fargo can do it, so can we. If your mortgage company can do it, so can we. When newer management companies come knocking with new technology, the lower level management companies will be forced to move aside. Not to worry though old habits die hard and before we know it, we will have 2 board members who have served for over 15 years. They should keep the lower quality management companies thriving.

Happy Global Warming

What a breath of fresh air!

I've never really wanted to look at the newsletter in the past. Really, it just depressed me because of the consequential fines information and general oppressive print.
I just read the News letter dated July2006. Nice job, well written and quite frankly, a document that will allow people to sleep with a smile on their face. This is perfect. Allowing people to plant flower beds and take care of a trophy asset gives way to pride and ownership.

We can all learn lessons from this class communications vehicle......

It's about 4:30 p.m. right now and I will pinch myself around 6:00 p.m. just in case I'm dreaming. I might even frame the newsletter.

Being a board member pays big dividends

Per communications with Mnagement:

Regarding Carol's $250 for court. This is what Carol felt her time in court was worth and the Board agreed. As the management company we could have charged $120 an hour for my presence as it is outside the management contract. I however did not charge the association for this one court appearance.

So it would seem that the figure of $250 was what Carol "felt" her time was worth. This still rubs against the grain since according to the rules, members are not compensated. At least they quit arguing, they finally answered the question. I wonder how much money was given to Carol in 2005 for her time spent on Riverview Third? We will have to find out if there were any other payments made to Carol for her time.

I hope you all feel good that money you pay for association fees are used for what someone thinks they are worth. This is terrible.

So they charge unreasonable fees outside of covenant rule, they make up their own rules regarding charges for specific groups and finally, they have nothing to worry about since any court action will give them a bonus of whatever they feel like.

Something stinks and I'm going to sniff it out.

AS far as the management charging $120 per hour. I understand the rate, but why would they volunteer to appear at court since they are not lawyers and according to the last court visit, they knew not how to handle rental policies nor did they know how to pick lawyers who could write legal documentation that can hold up in court.

I also understand according to St. Paul Pioneer Express, that New Concepts Management have written some articles for magazines, and I have studied the New Concepts Web Site. Apparently, rental management is a core competance. Oops!

The busy world of management

Here we are into week three after asking the question "please provide me with justification for paying $250 for Carol's time. The management company has explained to me that they are too busy to deal with this and have other important issues to deal with. I kinda wonder about that when I find out that the management company are spending time sending emails to other members and asking them to contact me because I'm getting out of line. The suggestion was that this blog has half truthes. Interesting that they send emails behind my back but don't bother to point out any half truthes to me so they can be fixed. The fact is. All items on this blog are the truth. Any opinions are mine built with input from Meetings with the board, neighbor discussions and experiences.

I have a great idea: Why not simply answer the question and then you won't have to spend any more time on this.

I can help. There are only 3 answers to the question. Any one will work for me. Here they are:

1. We don't have an answer really. The board just picked a number out of the air and there it was.
2. We do have an answer. Carols time off work cost her about $230.00 for the day and the rest is for expenses such as mileage etc.
3. We are not going to answer the question.

Above all, the management company needs to understand that a members questions are supposed to be answered. That happens to be state law. These questions are taking the same path as last time. In that case, it took about 4 months to get answers. The answers were really not satisfactory. Of course when one is trying to dodge an issue, one tends to dodge the questions. I understand that.

Regarding time spend on associations, maybe our management company has too many accounts. I wonder if anyone on the board ever asked the question: "how many accounts do you take care of?", or "how many hours do you spend on our account?".

The management suggests that in order to make change, one should run for a position on the board. Oh really, That seems to suggest that while the current members are on the board, there will be no change. I do tend to agree with that but the problem with working for the "board" is that one puts oneself in a poison pot. Who would want to do that. I would suggest that the board members who have served too long remove themselves from the positions and open up the seats. People will be more inclined to volunteer when that happens. These particular incumbent board members are the cause of lost law suits, arguments, yelling matches and general unrest in the community.
A quick chat with a previous board member said it all "I had to get out. It was driving me nuts"

Fix the half truthes in this blog.

It has been pointed out to me that the monthly fee of $149 I site is a half truth. The real number should be $159.54 to be precise. This also affects the rate at which River view charges. Since the $20 fee's are charged ($240/year), that does not equate to 165 percent as I have half truthed. It turns out that the rate is 150.43 percent. I was apparently off by 14 percent and some change. I would hope that the focus should be on the huge rate that is charged by RV3.

In terms of half truth, really it was 85 percent truth since I was off by about 15 percent. The numbers were approximate and served to highlight extortion. I have now clarified that the extortion remains and the numbers are correct to within 2 decimal places.

Another half truth to clear up. The next meeting is on the 24th of this month. NOT the last Monday of the month.

Keep me posted with incorrect items on the blog. In want to make sure that everything is correct.

St Paul Pioneer Express reports "Battle Lines Drawn

http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/business/14990811.htm

They don't know what we know. Soon They will be aware of the law.

The Abusive Power Continues

When you don't pay your association fees, there needs to be a consequence. If you read the covenants,

Declaration of Covenants.pdf (CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD)

the consequence is that you are charged 6 percent per year. That turns out to be 1/2 of a percent per month. In our case, since we pay $149, you should be charged about 74 cents per month. Our association charges you $20 per month. This is 165 percent per year. People have gone to jail for less extortion than that. In fact, I think Wells Fargo would be shut down for those rates. The reason they [Banks] don't charge those rates is because of the law.
Why would Wells charge you 6% for $150,000 loan and Riverview charge 165% for 150 bucks? No one has ever explained to the board that this is wrong. Excuse me, if they did, the board took no notice.

The practice of charging you a fee for [say driveway] problems, and not performing the repairs is illegal and against the covenants. Don't pay them. The worst that can happen is that you have to spend $60 to file suit in Anoka. You will get your money back and then some.

It's time for some board members to take a rest from their duties and let some fresh open minded people take over the privileged duties of serving. We have people on the board that have served through almost 12 years. One in particular has been there since Moby Dick was a minnow.

I know how I'm viewed. I'm "lawsuit" guy but I was correct and the abuse has to stop. In fact you would all be well served if I was on the board. Honesty, Integrity and concern for the rules would be the focal points. I don't like to see people abused. I spent my time and effort for a $210 court case. I don't need the money. I wanted the abuse to stop. This has been instrumental in making the board sit up and think. They still don't know what to do and they simply wish I would go away so they could be comfortable again.
I'm not going away and while I have 2 eyes, at least one of them will be focused on Riverview.

I will report on the next meeting which will be held on Monday July 31st. At least the knowledge of my reporting will enable the members to think before getting into a whip cracking session.