Cypress Village HOA

[GhostRider]

All I can say is "WOW." I'm glad there are so many people smarter than I am in my neighborhood. And I mean that sincerely. A lot of things were over my head, but I'm glad things got hashed out. I agree that we should put something in the rules that anyone with ties to any board member or management company employee should be barred from getting a contract, no matter the amount. I heard a lot of words thrown out, but I think it's just plain bad to do that. It just doesn't look right. That's just my 2 cents. Thanks neighbors.

[ChadHammons]

Agreed.

[michellelinn]

At the same time, who cares if the companies we hire know someone on the board. If they do a better job and it cost less, why not? Its our money they are spending. Like they said at the meeting. The bids are pretty much public knowledge, so if you want to know them, then just go make an appointment and check them out.

If you want to make it fair, then say with the fence bid, during the voting have it to where Rob does not vote for that topic, that way it remains a even playing field during the voting process. But back to what I said earlier, when it comes down to it, if they are going to do a better job and for less money, then why not.....they won't want to do a bad job because they will HAVE to face the rest of us.
_________________
Michelle Grant

[ChadHammons]

[Robinson]

Actually the rate was raised PRIOR to being awarded the contract. The board was aware of the rate. TPTL had every right to raise the rate as we rejected their original offer. You are correct in that the amount is the SAME as Canyon received. So how are we paying more for better service? TPTL had the right to rebid even higher, but the Canyon amount we were already paying was the agreed upon rate.

That is where your information is misleading and wrong.

5=5. It doesn't matter if someone originally said 3 if we turned them down. He could have said 7. Stop stating that he agreed to the contract at the lower price AND THEN changed his price. THAT IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED. That is probably why he doesn't want to talk to you. He may believe you were being disingenuous the way you stated your facts. That misunderstanding is probably why homeowners believed something was wrong with the process.

And you are ABSOLUTELY WRONG when you state "If it had been any other company, they wouldn't have been able to raise their rates". That is basic Contract law. Once an offer is rejected, you cannot go back and accept it. The other party is allowed to change and re-offer. Maybe if you knew that legal concept this would not have been an issue. For that, I apologize because I am qualified to educate you on that point and didn't.

Every homeowner has access to the financials and can easily pass this information on to someone they know to bid on a project. We would be completely unaware of this unless they disclosed it. Tracey disclosed his ownership holdings at the very beginning with the board.

We have discussed as a board previously that it was okay for homeowners to bid on jobs if they own a company. It doesn't mean they would get it because it is a competitive process. However, there is a belief that people who live in the community and care for the community would want to do a nice job for their community. That goes the same for you and the website. I believe you want to provide something of value that would be a cost benefit. I have to balance that against the fact that you control the site and may have the ability to read everyone's private messages. If individual financial information was kept here, I would not agree with you hosting the site, even if it were free.

For the fencing job, Rob originally would not have had a vote because he would have been off the board. Because he is still on, he will be shielded from voting, as will Heather.

This may be lost on you Chad, but I wanted homeowners to know what really happened.

We all care about protecting our money because we all want to keep our dues from being increased due to frivolous spending or deadbeat homeowners.

I appreciate your willingness to participate but you have to make sure things are presented in the correct light. And the next time we are begging homeowners to run for the board, maybe you will put your hand up.

[GhostRider]

I didn't mean to imply any malice in anything the board did with regard to awarding contracts. My concern with conflict of interest is strictly theoretical at this point. It seems that the board is aware and is making efforts to mitigate potential risks. At times, I tend to see things as "this" or "that" without regard to the middle. For that, I apologize.

As we have an attorney on the board, I am not concerned with conflict of interest in a legal sense, because I know that it would be to his detriment to allow anything even resembling something illegal to take place.

In all honesty, I believe the issue, perhaps, is one of communication. It is akin to blindfolded people each touching a different part of an elephant and each making singular conclusions. Perhaps if more of us were engaged, these communication issues wouldn't be so apparent.

I do hope that any substantive disagreements don't escalate to an all-out verbal brawl within the neighborhood.

I regret that I am unable to serve on the board. I would prefer to put "my money where my mouth is," but for the good of the community, the board, and my neighbors in general, I cannot serve.

Again, I apologize to the board, to Chad, to Tracy, and any others for whom my comments may have seemed untoward or accusatory. It was neither my intent, nor my desire to do so.

The pattern is now full.

GhostRider out

[ChadHammons]

Thanks, Ghostrider. I think your comments were appropriate.

To Anthony and the rest of the board:
First, since you mentioned it in this thread, is it appropriate for our management company to cuss at a homeowner and then refuse to talk to them?

That is by far the biggest issue I see. One that I have emailed the board about, posted here, and have not seen a single response from the board. Are you actually condoning such behavior from the HOA management company?

(You asked why I didn't want to be on the board. Would you want to spend two years having no choice but to interact every week with a man who treated you like that and you having no recourse against it because the rest of the board didn't mind? Or worse, with other people on the board who treated you about the same and belittled you at every opportunity?)

Past that...
I never said that the rate was raised after the contract was awarded. Rather, that it was raised after the board voted to fire canyon and give TPTL the business. That is true, because I was on the board at the time. We voted to give TPTL the contract, and in part because it would save money. What happened after that, I don't know, because we had the annual meeting, and I stepped down off the board.

What is factual is that at some point TPTL refused their prior bid, and settled on a number that exactly matched what we were paying our previous landscaper.

What I have no insight on is what the board did then. I have one board member saying that you talked and agreed and decided to pay the increased rate. I have another board member saying that LPI raised the rate on their own, and the board found out about it later. Who am I to believe? No proof has been offered either way, so I can't say. As such, I have never said anything about the board's conduct.

The point here that seems to be missed is when a potential conflict of interest becomes a real conflict of interest.

Had TPTL not been owned by LPI, they wouldn't have known to raise their rates to match Canyon's. They would have known an HOA was coming back to them 2-3 months after they submitted a bit for service. They had every right to refuse that bid at that point, sure. They would not have had the insight to counter with a number that matched our previous bid. The bid information would have only be available to homeowners through LPI's office. Canyon, for example, would have not had access to TPTL's bid. There might be a risk that some homeowner might pass information along, but with TPTL, it was guarenteed.

My comment about not being able to raise rates was poorly worded. Thanks for pointing that out. Hopefully my words here better explain what my concern is. More that they wouldn't have known that they should have raised their rates because we had previously accepted a bid that was higher. To an outside contractor, it would have been just as likely that we accepted a lower bid, and now were moving to our next lower bid, which would have given them little incentive to increase their rates by ~25%.

Rob said at the meeting that the third bid was way above Canyon's. Factually, it was actually between TPTL's bid and Canyon's bid. Did the board consider giving the business to them after TPTL countered with a number that was much higher than their original offer and the third offer?

Perhaps more importantly is where we go from here. Homeowners were not happy, and John said he would rebid the landscaping. Is that going to happen?

[Rob]

The fact of the matter is that TPTL took over Canyon's contract. TPTL has never had a contract with our HOA. I think this closes the matter.
_________________
Rob Nunez

[ChadHammons]

[latishaodell]

Chad,

I am new to the BOD and this whole process so please bear with me as I begin this journey.

I understand your concerns and frustrations. The board is working on the issue with regards to how you say you were spoken to and treated; so I am asking you to allow this to happen. I'm not saying it didn't happen or that it did as I was not privy to the actual conversation. At this point it is one vs. the other and I am not getting into that battle.

I want what is best for our community which is why I ran to be on the Board of Directors. My hope is that we can move forward. We all know that it is impossible to please everyone all the time; so yes, we will have disgruntled homeowners, board members, and even management individuals who will be unhappy throughout these processes but I do believe we don't need to let it define who we are or who it causes us to become.

[ChadHammons]

Latisha,

Thank you for acknowledging the issue. Just so you know, Jordan Cook was also there, but he is an employee of Mr. Goza. Unfortunately, no other homeowners were there, so it really is a "he said, LPI said" issue. However, from the other posts from another homeowner (under the complaints section), this behavior may not be an isolated event.

You're right that there will always be disgruntled homeowners. It's the job of the management company to interface with these homeowners in a professional manner. Especially because this isn't a relationship that homeowners can walk away from. If I had been treated like that in any other professional setting (which I can't recall ever having been treated like that professionally), I would simply not do business with that company any more. However, as LPI is the one company we have to interface with for the HOA, and not dealing with them could result in something as crazy as foreclosure on our house, it is a bit of a hostage situation for us.

I understand emotions may be high after the annual meeting, but hopefully objectivity can prevail on this one.

thanks again.

[ChadHammons]

Oh, and I didn't mean to completely hijack the thread, either.

On the original topic, and in the effort of transparency, I am a little curious if the board will be changing the way they accept bids and from whom. Can the board comment on that?

Just so we know (and don't bug the board more than we should), will John be posting information about new bids here, or will we need to wait until the meeting minutes to come out in July (June's official minutes) to see what action the board will be taking on the landscaping bid?

thanks.

[latishaodell]

Chad,
I have read through many of the posts in the complaint section and do not recall seeing/reading anything like that; however, it doesn't mean that I didn't miss something. I'm just not seeing it. If you would be kind enough to provide me the direct link to the post(s) you are speaking of, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[ChadHammons]

The post "Complaint against LPI" with my original complaint has a post by a homeowner referring to an additional incident. I have heard some details of that, but I would defer to that homeowner so that I do not post any misinformation.

[steve]

I've posted several time about my run in with Tracy. I've discussed it with Rob several time. I had Tracy on speaker and another board member heard the entire conversation. Even with that Rob told me that the board felt I was at fault and would not be addressing this in anyway with LPI or Tracy. Even if I was partly at fault ir should never be ok for LPI to address any homeowner anyway except with the most respect. We are their employer. They need to remember that. I'm still waiting on this issue to be address.