harassment by HOA members

Have board members ever been harassed, stalked or threatened by members of the association? What course of action did you take, especially if you feared for your safety?

I have been.

I have had my pets threatened and shot at with pellet guns.
(A resident who owned 3 large, noisy and aggressive dogs was trying to intimate me into halting enforcement of our deed restrictions regarding the dogs, which we ended up having to go to court to enforce. It was the nuisance section and the section on not allowing breeding operations that were upheld. I was president at the time of this one.)

I have been cyber-stalked by an irate resident.
(On our website discussion board, and he followed me to other personal boards to do the same thing. The resident was trying to build a roof on his deck to attach to his porch without obtaining the proper local government permits - we had already allowed his project per the ARC, but his approval contained a stipulation that he must obtain the appropriate local permits. When he didn't, our ARC chairman reported him to our board of Inspections, Permits, and Licenses, which made him stop work and purchase the appropriate permit. Since I was the only board member he knew personally, I am the one he stalked around the web.)

I have had an irate resident stalk me through Walgreens and rant at the top of her lungs that I am a mean, crazy horrible person trying to force her husband out of work and starve her kids.
(Her husband was parking his plumbing van in their driveway and on their front lawn and I was the secretary of the board during that time that the board had to pursue enforcement. She also had her kids come down our street to try to harass my grandkids - throwing stones at them, calling them names, etc. The husband had no idea she was doing that and when our then-president went to talk to him about it, he was embarrassed and made her stop.)

Anyway, yeah, it can get ugly sometimes.

Oh yea, I had a guy throw a rake at me once. He was in the process of building his own fence when I stopped by to give him the Architectural Approval Request forms. He told me he didn't need no "stinking" approval. It was HIS yard, he could build whatever F-ing fence he wanted. He did not like that he had to have the finished side facing out. I informed him that unless he received the appropriate approvals and followed the CC&R requirements that the fence would have to be removed, at his expense, along with any legal fees we would incur in having to enforce. Since this is a "deed restricted" community, his options were limited.

He got ticked and chucked his rake at me like a javelin and ordered me off his property. I left the forms on his picnic table.

Three days later we received the completed forms; he had revised the fence to conform to the CC&Rs, and his wife apologized to me.

Our current board president had someone spray Round up on his yard in the shape of F*CK U.

So, like 5 extreme incidents in over 10 years of deed enforcement out of 275 residents, I guess that is not too bad. People get very emotional about their "rights" and it's a shame they end up in deed restricted communities if that's how they feel.

Yep...contacted the police, I don't mess around with matters like that and wanted that person to know that. No trouble since.

Here's a lawyer's take on it:

http://www.meeb.com/legal_alert/legal_alert_07_06.htm

Joe