Threats of Police being called for HOA Parking Enforcement

Howdy howdy. I've been an elected board member for over a year now. HOA is pretty chill, mainly dealing with what seems to be common issues - trash cans and parking.

Here is the quick and dirty on the ongoing parking issues.

The community is dense and comprised of two-level townhomes, each with a one-car garage that opens onto a motor court. The motorcourts lead to private streets with street parking that then connects with city streets. We're surrounded by about 400 equally dense rental units that have numbered and assigned parking spots on their property. Parking has gotten very challenging mostly because 1) residents of the HOA are not using their garages for parking and instead putting all their cars on the street, 2) the rental residents using our street parking. Residents are understandably frustrated but are largely scapegoating the apartment homes. We have a parking committee working on it with assorted proposals.

Here is the meat of the recent issue I am having as a board member.

Residents have taken to parking in front of their garages in their motor courts which is 1) not allowed in the CC&Rs and 2) illegal under fire code regulation. It creates safety, health, and access issues. This has been an issue for literally years, and predates the 400 apartments being built. It even predates me being a board member. Hell, it predates our current management company! The parking committee has done zero enforcement around this specific issue, and as a board member, I've stuck to reporting and official letters and then fines.

For what it is worth, the CC&Rs say nothing about a warning and allow for immediate remediation using towing.

This issue has gotten totally out of hand in the last three months, with every other garage having a car in front of it.

So, I purchased pre-made tow warning stickers and over two evenings warned folks that it was not allowed and that the next violation would result in a tow. The stickers were affixed to driver-side windows. While some folks listened, a few have gotten out the pitchforks. One confronted me in the street and tried to follow me home, making a scene and reading me the riot act. A few took to Facebook which I do not have but apparently, they crowd-sourced their frustration. Two contacted me on other social media to threaten to call the police for vandalism. Most recently, a parking committee member asked the HOA management company for my contact info so he can call the police for vandalism and another emailed a detailing bill to the HOA management company.

My sense is that this is bluster - they were parked illegally, on community property in violation of CC&Rs, and got an inconvenient warning instead of a tow. I realize that the stickers were maybe heavy-handed, and I stopped using them and will opt for a softer warning. The other board members as far as I can tell were indifferent, and the HOA management company advised that it would not be their first choice and regretted my bad treatment but also didn't seem phased.

What are your thoughts on this? Am I a vicious vandal who should be worried about the cops showing up or doing what a board member should do?

Hmmm ...

I had to re-read this letter a couple of times to completely understand it. Two things:

1. To sorta re-phrase Max's point: how does the rest of the Board feel about this initiative?

2. Is it the case that no cars have been towed up until now? Ie, is this get tough with "immediate tow with no warning" policy a NEW thing that you are apparently spearheading? Or are were you attempting something like a cease-fire?

I'm suspicious that maybe the rest of the Board is using you like an IMF team in Mission: Impossible. Have they been communicating with you via self-destructing cassette tapes, by any chance?

All joking aside: dude, I would not want to be you if this towing thing is a New Thing that you're implementing and taking responsibility for. If you think you caught some abuse for those bumper stickers, just wait until people's *cars* begin to disappear.

I am not even commenting on whether or not this is a just and worthy cause. It might be, it might not be. But I'm left pondering the lukewarm reception you got from the rest of the Board. Are they all bastards? Are they above using you like a disposable henchman? I'm trying to imagine a situation where I personally would charge into this scheme, where that situation doesn't involve time travel and killing Hitler as a child.

Bill

What everyone else said. Youvare ONE board member, with one botr, not God. 6ou do not take it upon yourself to do anything without proper authorization. If everyone's parking illegally, the board should decide the best way to address it.

If I were on this board, I would push for an immediate censure and ask you to resign immediately. I'd also compel you to pay for all those stickers to be removed - if necessary, the association attorneymay need to take legal action against you, and then you'd be paying the association'slegal costs for that.

What you should do now is send a letter to the community apologizing for this nonsense. To make things right,, the property manager could coordinate efforts to have affected homeowners contact him or her and get instructions on where to go to get the stickers removed properly and then provide proof tge work was done for reimbursement. You could also have homeowners go to a specific body shop or whatever to have the work done (you would pay for X number of cars and tge killers can have tge repairs done by a certain date.)

With you gone, the board can focus on addressing the problem correctly- tell everyone the problem is getting out of hand, remind them of the rules and effective X date, enforcement will begin in earnest. In my community, we've adopted the city's parking rules as our own and hire off duty police officers yo do periodic drive-throughs to issue warnings and have the cars towed as necessary.

Depending on who owns the streets in your community, that may or may not be an option. Having cars towed may not be as simple as you think, so talk to a few companies who do this for private businesses and see what you can and can't do legally. You need to know that before you proceed and have appeals processes established before enforcement begins because there will be pushback and ultimately you want your efforts to stand up in court.

If you manage to stay on the board after all this, I hope you learn your lesson. These days with people shooting people for things like ringing doorbells to pick up younger brothers or accidentally pulling into the wrong driveway, this could have gotten very ugly for you.

N’thing Sheila and Cathy about signs, warnings, and the law.

Also, the one line you wrote about “the CC&Rs say nothing about a warning and allow for immediate remediation using towing”: is this your opinion, or has a lawyer that you paid money to given you a written opinion on this matter?

I’ll say it again: you could be putting yourself into danger with this. And I think that I wouldn’t touch this job unless it was a full and enthusiastic effort on the part of the entire Board.

Last thing: you mention it violates fire code? Have you investigated whether or not your city or county might be the ones to enforce this?

Bill

Your accusations are based on what evidence?

I have zero knowledge of what type of sticker is being used.

I did find a story talking about how hard some stickers are to remove and the anger it generates:

Company putting stickers on cars without parking passes from ABC news in Phoenix.

Note: the story said it can take 30 min to remove the sticker and that it might not remove cleanly.