Bernie,
I understand your point, but I do not have a copy of your CC&Rs that covers your almost 7,800 units. Could you send them to me in PDF?
What is not clear is whether your CC&Rs allow the board to budget as they do that includes the outside expenses for non-HOA operating costs? If so, I would expect them to release the budget in a somewhat different format to reflect the restaurant and golf course expenses as simply "normal expense" that must be covered by the annual operating budget and assessment process. Keeping the items separate suggests the board is knowingly and willingly violating various statutes.
If CC&Rs do not authorize the arbitrary including of external costs including service to civilian golfers and restaurant patrons along with normal operating expenses for the association, the "illegal" bundling of such improper costs along with statute-approved operating costs should be considered felony criminal violations--as described by NRS 205. But, as long as a number of the harmed SCS members fail to demand a criminal investigation and prosecution by the District Attorney, nothing will ever correct the situation, nor stop the crimes.
You and other large HOAs (over 500 units) are totally vulnerable to election fraud if you are not provided a system by your board and managers that can be audited by a independent 3rd party professional. It is just a matter of business 101. Without mandating from member petitions or from suing the board to have such standard business practices implemented, your members are simply showing they are "willing" to be duped and to lose millions more in the future. Expecting or hoping for honest results from an untrustworthy system is not reasonable.
HOA boards cannot be "shamed" into behaving ethically. The majority either behaves ethically due to their characters, or they do not. Some directors go along with covering up unethical actions out of fear for being prosecuted along with the criminals. Of course, that is true in most cases.
Wishing for changes in board policies from honest elections is unrealistic. Your hidden board election system run entirely by your managers demonstrates huge conflicts of interest for the employee and contracted individuals involved. I have heard that your election system has no credible
audit trail or
chain of custody records of the ballot handling prior to counting date.
See attached file for some chain of custody considerations. While such is normal for law enforcement agencies when preparing criminal trials, I am sure you will see the value to your members to demand similar kinds of rigor by your "volunteer directors" when protecting the integrity of your board elections and helping them to defend their personal liabilities. Since the only control HOA/Condo members have is to annually elect the board directors who set all policies and rules, trustworthy elections are exceptionally vital to selecting the required ethical leadership each year.
Why would any HOA community blindly trust any managers, inept directors or unlicensed HOA management company? Every step in a board election should be capable of being independently audited by an external CPA or Certified Fraud Examiner at association expense. Otherwise, the election results cannot be accepted as "trustworthy".
Your current and past directors should be able to understand their personal legal risks if they do nothing about credible audit trails and chain of custody records, and if they have to go to trial over a suit about alleged election fraud. Ask any district judge and they will confirm that if the board and managers are unable to demonstrate a commitment and capability for establishing and maintaining election system audit trails and chain of custody records, the board is like to lose a criminal or civil suit. The directors are likely to be held personally liable for their willful and knowing gross negligence and apparent fraud. The "
Business Judgement Rule" cannot protect directors against gross negligence or apparent knowing fraudulent behavior if the transactions are not made in good faith and with reasonable skill and prudence.
So, it needs to be clearly understood that board failures to implement professionally auditable audit trails and chain of custody records could make it easy/invisible for whomever handles your ballots prior to counting date to control the outcomes with little fear of discovery. Ballots can be invisibly opened, inspected, ballots replaced and resealed, or envelopes replaced or entire ballot packages destroyed without leaving a trace. Without preventive/tamper-detectable procedures such as serialized ballots and tamper-evident, water-marked special paper, counterfeit ballots cannot be detected by the counting team.
Ballots from remote owners and properties for sale can be intersected or duped and voted undetected by your volunteer election team. Ballot box containers not having tamper-evident seals, seams, voting slots, high security locks and secure after-hours storage rooms are vulnerable to undetected tampering. And, without audit trail components, ballots cannot be authenticated by independent professionals.
Most people are not aware that scanner machines can be easily rigged so that certain columns or lines on ballots can be ignored and/or not reported and to secretly corrupt the results. Scanner software (all types) can even be hacked with remote/wireless controls so the vote can be invisibly changed from one or more candidates and reported for preferred candidates while keeping the margin of victory close enough to avoid suspicion at the end.
If anyone doubts these election vulnerabilities, our "Citizen Task Force for Voter Rights" can help document how scanner-related counting and process-related systems can be easily corrupted. See
CitizenTaskForce.Org. You appear to have a board election system where no external/independent auditable capabilities. And, you appear not have "chain of custody" records recorded so members can trust the election system results. See the attached document for possible considerations.
If someone thinks your millions of dollars of annual corruption are not likely the worth of real criminal prosecutions, I suggest re-thinking how little it might take to bribe just one member of your election processing team to follow a specific process that they might not even understand what they are doing?
While our
CitizenTaskForce.Org site is focused on exposing the serious vulnerabilities in our NV election system, many of the HOA election system vulnerabilities to corruption are the same. And, the money available from controlling the voting is in the millions. It is a serious mistake in judgement to believe that since you believe many or even most of the involved elections people might be honest, that you can rest easy and believe that everything is ok. It only takes one corrupt person with hidden access to destroy the ethical results of such an election. And the money and hidden perks or comps available to a corrupt person is
There are ways I and others could help if a SCS group would take the leadership. And, there are those in the new Assembly and in the public who could help if the members of SCS have had enough of such thefts. But, it is up to you who are being harmed by the corruption to take a stand.
There is no hope for the SCS member's future as long as everyone is content to just bitch about the crimes but take no conclusive and compelling action to demand law enforcement prosecution. It is not easy to force law enforcement to act, but talk to Robert Stern, CPA for specific instructions on how to defeat the forces lined up behind the board, managers, your attorney and auditor.
Check out Robert Stern's web site announcing his new book: "
HOA WARS: What Happens In Vegas Can Happen Anywhere". Robert can be considered a "proven expert" in detecting and stopping HOA corruption in recent years in Nevada. Since it could help sell his book, he might be willing to make a book-signing, community presentation on his lessons learned in the near future. He also might be willing to help consult with your SCS group on how to beat the forces that continue to enable your board to get away with committing crimes that are costing you millions every year. He was highly successful in Anthem Highlands in recent years, and his advise should be taken very seriously.
Happy New Year to all you HOA Warriors!
Bob
