election candidate....Current president refusing to 'publish' my bio/blurb

Well did you write your blurb about other people? It is about you and not what others do. Your running your own race not by bad mouthing others.

So long as your information conforms to the written requirements, you should shout from the rooftops about what's happening. Going politely from door to door with a one-pager works well.
BTW, this situation occurred in our community a little over 3 years ago. The management company was complicit in refusing to publish a candidate's information. The situation was eventually resolved in favor of publishing everything that matched the written guidelines, but it was only resolved by persistence.

Regards,
Steve

FYI, here's what I wrote:

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I am interested in driving back towards a clearer and uncomplicated vision of how our HOA should be run: fair and balanced application of our CCR's, fiscal responsibility, clear and simple communication, level-headed leadership, peaceful, drama-free, and a general tone and culture of building a mutually supportive and vibrant neighborly community. HOA management should be boring and uneventful, not contentious.

These are several priority topics that our HOA should focus on, I hope you agree as well:
- Reverse the current policy of removing duck nesting boxes
- Re-establish prudent leadership and fiscal responsibility to reduce legal expenditures, reduce annual dues (to what is appropriate).
- Provide the Membership with full and ongoing disclosures of records, financials, fiscal decisions, minutes and HOA expenditures, preferably through a website portal.
- All actions taken to be within the scope of and cited in our Governing Documents and State Law.
- Use our Management Company for management, not enforcement or member discipline.
- Re-establish a proper relationship with the Management Company that serves the members and HOA properly without conflict.
- Create neighborly conflict resolution with conversations and openness without requiring threats of litigation.
- Require Committees to use proper interpretation of CCRs and state law, applied uniformly rather than selectively, and without confrontational enforcement efforts.
- Comply with prior agreements between our HOA and agencies serving the Conservation area, the Greenbelt, the various creeks and other agreements that serve our community, which have been neglected over the years.
- Improve community social activities for adults and children through encouraging more vibrant Social Committee planning autonomy.
- Implement Conflict of Interest disclosure requirements for Board and Committee members.
- Promote an inclusive community ethos while encouraging young and newer Member families to flourish and their children to prosper alongside established Member families.
===========================================================

I think you did a great job. Now get out there and stuff this message in every door so people will see it!

It's a pretty aggressive statement. I had an election once where one of the candidates turned in a 17 point manifesto with all kind of promises, including dissolving the association entirely. It was included in the election packet and he won a seat.... then resigned less than a month later when he realized he couldn't fulfill any of his promises without votes from the other board members or the membership.

The last election I conducted had three candidates who openly campaigned on firing me (nothing personal, just to save money) and I had to stand there and smile while they explained how useless I am. None of them won, but two of them apologized to me afterward, citing heat of the campaign. One of them even acknowledged that once they had a thorough understanding of what I do, they realized I was not a waste of money at all. Which was nice but damage was done that cannot be undone.

I caution board candidates not to set up the board as the enemy, because that sentiment won't go away when individual board members do.

Barbara,

While I empathize with your account of people campaigning without knowing what they didn't know, there's also a pattern of marginalization of homeowners who know *EXACTLY* what's going on. These homeowners are not the enemy. They're not meddling. They're keenly interested in governance that's transparent and honest.

Many elected volunteers would rather just keep doing things *their way* regardless of whether what they're doing is in the best interest of the CIC (or even legal). There are undoubtedly some great CAMs out there, but I've never experienced one who will step up and step in to *TELL* a board when they're off-track and strictly abide by the CAMICB CMCA Standards of Conduct:

Be knowledgeable, act, and encourage clients to act in accordance with any and all federal, state, and local laws applicable to community association management and operations.
Be knowledgeable, comply and encourage clients to comply with the applicable governing documents, policies and procedures of the Client Association(s) to the extent permitted by that Client.

Regards,
Steve

Well now you have!

My unwillingness to participate in election fraud, insurance fraud and assorted other wrongdoing is why my once-rising star fizzled out at a large, national management company. Can't have someone like that as a director, what if she encouraged other managers to do the same!

You're absolutely right that there are incompetent boards, corrupt boards, lazy boards, and everything in between. But I am a pragmatic person. A board can't change direction if only one person wants to row that way. Candidates need to figure out how to work with others to accomplish their goals and shots fired isn't a great start.

First, Adam do your Bylaws or state states require that the HOA distribute your flyer? In CA if the HOA distributes bios about one candidate, it must about all. If your HOA isn't required, that just isn't an issue.

As others suggest, door-to-door is your VERY best approach. IMO, however, your flyer is way too long. Many owners will NOT read it. You must pare it down and then use different fonts & colors to capture attention. However much duck nesting boxes interest you, I do NOT think it should be near the top of your flyer.

I am interested in driving Towards a clear and uncomplicated vision of how our COMMUNITY should be run: fair and balanced application of our CCR's, fiscal responsibility, clear and simple communication, level-headed leadership, and a general tone and culture of building a mutually supportive and vibrant neighborly community. HOA GOVERNANCE? should be boring and uneventful, not contentious.

These are several priority topics that our COMMUNITY NEEDS to focus on, I hope you agree as well:

- Re-establish prudent leadership and fiscal responsibility to reduce legal expenditures AND to? reduce annual dues (to what is appropriate).
- Provide the Membership with full and ongoing disclosures of records, financials, fiscal decisions, minutes and HOA expenditures, ON a website portal.
- All actions will be within the scope of and cited in our Governing Documents and State Law INCLUDING COMMITTEE ACTIVITIES
- LET OUR MANAGEment company manage.
- Re-establish a proper relationship with the Management Company that serves the members and HOA properly without conflict. [Too vague]
- Comply with prior agreements between our HOA and agencies serving the Conservation Area, the Greenbelt, the various creeks and other agreements that serve our community, which have been neglected over the years.
- Reverse the current policy of removing duck nesting boxes
- Improve community social activities for adults and children through encouraging vibrant Social Committee planning autonomy.
- Implement Conflict of Interest disclosure requirements for Board and Committee members. [I don't think this helps you, Adam]
- Promote an inclusive community ethos while encouraging young and newer Member families and their children to flourish alongside established Members' families.

So just some quick suggestions. Close by asking owners for their votes.

You must take Max's words to heart: "What Adam should have learned from this site is that if you intend to go it alone, be the Lone Ranger, you will fail, every day of the week..." Tell us, Adam: do you have any supporters??

Just curious: were you able to implement changes with the rest of the board actively fighting you, or was there some nuance here?

I think a very common mistake is that people who want to change things spend at least some time fighting openly with the board, so by the time they're ready to organize their candidacy, they've made themselves into "the enemy" or "the crackpot". It's hard for new ideas to get a fair hearing when they have this baggage.

I’ll dare to restate this as an example of the Dunning-Kruger effect: people who are overly confident that they’re doing everything right won’t see the need to participate here.

BillD

Yes, we have maybe three posters that are managers and/or owe management companies. Not a real good cross section of "industry experts". HOATalk.com boosts of 45,000 community leaders "learning and sharing ideas", yet there are only maybe 10 posters here. Not a real good cross section of "community leaders"

I am afraid that the biggest culprits in this business is the people who put documents in place to from HOA's, lawyers, and then, right after them, wanna be lawyers who think everything is resolved by ligation. Been doing this for over13 years and outside of small claims to collect a debt, have never been involved in a HOA lawsuit, one way of the other. That takes experience. I got into this business because I witnessed first hand how corrupt management companies and law firms are, and put the two together is setting off a bad chain reaction.

I own two management companies, one for full service and the other for self managed HOA's providing only financial only. Our primary now is self managed only. Statistically, there are 60,000 HOA's in California and its a good bet that 50% are self managed because of their size. We will handle both receivables and payables, make sure taxes and reviews are done on a timely basis, Annual Budget Packages and Disclosures done when required, update the SOS site and handle escrows on their behalf. There is a legal update newsletter sent out by one of the law firm and this is always sent to the board when available.

I am not in this for the money...not exactly.. and I will drop a HOA if they insist on doing things either unethical or illegal or worse, both. I dropped one this month because one board member felt it was none of my business to know what was in the reserve account and they controlled the account and there was money missing. The rest were afraid of her and it was sayonara.

This site has its moments but for the most part, especially the last couple of years, the solutions offered seems to be litigate, litigate, litigate.

I think we provided a solution, don't go it alone. I was just passing time.

> I was just passing time.

Same.

Adam! Batter up!

BillD

Adam

It is not uncommon for candidates not to be given time to speak. Not that I like it, but it is not uncommon.

the latter. yes, unusual all around every aspect of the meeting....but the President did a great job of fomenting the mob and telling them the lies they wanted to hear.