REVEALED: Who Signed the Petition To Remove A Director?

At the October 20, 2022 Special “Homeowners” Meeting, several homeowners asked to know who signed the petition. Director Ballweber deflected the question to Director Jones, and never really answered the question about whether the document was an open record. Director Ballweber has not responded to written requests, or given any indication publication of the document would be problematic for compliance with Colorado Statutes or the POHOA Governing Documents.

Even the presentation to me was weird. On October 6th, Director Ballweber combined this agenda item (the fact that this group sent a Petition) with the “dog incident”. It was a convenient way to push both issues into Executive Session, which then becomes completely opaque to homeowners until meeting minutes are produced.

We now know that Directors Ballweber and Jones breached the private information that was supposedly the underlying reason for Executive Session, by naming the parties involved – without a vote by the Board to do so. They acted without process or authority, and in doing so, demonstrate that the reason for Executive Session on October 6th wasn’t really to protect the dog-owner’s privacy. It was to hide the names of the Petitioners.

The agenda only mentioned “petition”, which is the umpteenth example of intentionally vague agenda items that are designed to hide what it really is so that homeowners do not participate, and those who may oppose actions that are forthcoming can’t prepare facts in advance. Not that printing things on paper, or needing the need for a digital display or projector have been facilitated in the 6 meetings Director Ballweber has intentionally scheduled OUTDOORS – including one meeting IN THE RAIN.

So, having deep knowledge of both Colorado HOA Statutes and our Governing Documents, I knew that the word “petition” was really only used for one purpose – to remove a Director. It was pretty obvious, but when I asked her by email to clarify, she ignored the question.

That said, if the issue was privacy, I was MORE THAN WILLING to waive my privacy and have her present this petition IN THE OPEN while other homeowners were present. But, she deliberately coupled this with the “dog incident”, and then used the dog-owners privacy as a tool and them as pawns in her game to keep this petition and the names of the petitioners from being known.

But, then the even weirder thing happened. When it came time to discuss this agenda item, she pulls out the piece of paper, and instead of handing me (and Director Jones) a copy, she holds it and tells me I am allowed to TAKE A PHOTO with my phone. That’s why it looks amateurish as a PDF. As far as I know, Director Ballweber, who is also Secretary, has not scanned this document into the records of the HOA. It certainly isn’t posted on the Frontsteps website, and she abandoned our Gmail/Google Drive Account – and according to Director Jones, no Google Drive replacement account has ever been set up.

It is likely that this handwritten copy is simply sitting in Director Ballweber’s house, and if anyone tries to get a copy through document requests, they will be told that they’ll have to pay some exhorbant fee, or it will simply disappear – because deliberate destruction of documents is the POLICY of POHOA. Once an issue is “decided”, documents leading to an action are . . . destroyed. That’s been our policy since January of 2020, but you won’t see a word about it in the public-facing documents on Frontsteps, or anywhere.

Some Board Members refer to such hidden or unwritten policies as “Board Policies”. According to Colorado HOA Attorneys who participated in the Town Hall in August of 2022, there’s NO SUCH THING, although you’ll hear HOA Directors all over the State of Colorado refer to such things regularly. “Oh, it’s a Board Policy” is literally a common phrase. Yet, it’s a fantasy. You don’t get to do that – ever.

And, if you want to change policy at POHOA, you have to send out a notice by USPS Mail 10 days in advance. So, while the Board DOES have the right to change policies, it’s got to be above board. And, homeowners have a right to be there, participate, and even protest or use countermeasures (including litigation) to prevent such policies from being enacted. Because it is the responsibility of homeowners to pay attention to what their Boards do – and when they stray over boundaries, they have a duty to give notice and take action up to and including litigation.

Oh, I agree, it’s a STUPID system to have ALL disputes result in legal fees and litigation. But, this is the design by the Colorado Legislative Action Committee (CLAC, a 501c4 acting politically on HOA legislation in Colorado), which is the sister organization to Community Associations Institute (a 501c3, that is NOT supposed to have any political activity) that has controlled the laws for Colorado HOAs since at least 1992, when CCIOA was enacted. But, while pretending to represent homeowners, these organizations actually protect the business interests . . . of ATTORNEYS.

So, the entire HOA system in Colorado is, by design, created with such vague, complicated, and conflicting laws and governing documents, that disputes aren’t a defect, they are a design. Conflict creates profits, legal profits. It’s the point, not the fault of “troublemakers” or “rabble-rousers”. Those that are doing their JOB (being a check and balance on HOA Director, Manager, or Attorney malfeasance or abuse), are then targeted with retaliation. Retaliation that is outlawed in states like Nevada, but in Colorado, these attorneys want them exposed – so they can send them the legal fees bills as punishment when they try to actually enforce compliance on a Board or CAM.

Is that a conspiracy theory?

Well, the conspiracy between CAI, CLAC, and Legislators is out in the open, on the record. Participate in a few legislative sessions, and it comes out not just in public testimony, but in many of the public stakeholder meetings. And, if you get involved enough, you get to meet these folks and ask them questions directly. Including at open meetings THEY host. The documentation demonstrating that it is not a theory, but a fact, is available for anyone who wishes to look. Those to don’t label it as a “conspiracy theory” without presenting their own facts – and that is at the heart of the matter with what is wrong with this Petition to Remove Director Mowery (me).

If you will notice, there are 13 signatures. The first job for Director Ballweber who signs a receipt for the document on October 3 is to verify that all signatures are from property owners. (see upper left corner).

It’s super easy to check who is on the title of a property in Larimer County. In fact, you can do this by map here: https://maps1.larimer.org/gvh/?Viewer=LIL&run=Theme&theme=Land%20Information

It’s like Zillow, but when you click on the property, you can see who owns it. Yeah, that’s public records (not an invasion of privacy), and the Officers for the HOA are supposed to use this tool to verify everyone who signed it had a right to sign it. Well, Director Ballweber skipped that step, and at the 10/20 meeting said she “knew” all the people involved, so that was her verification. Here’s what she missed:

Mr. Flanary responded to this at the 10/20 meeting by saying that because Mr. Irving is the valid owner, the point is moot, and for the purpose of counting households, the point is conceded. The owners at 1420 Bubbling Brook Ct. are one of the 9 households who signed the document, and they needed a minimum of 9.

In advance of the meeting, I attempted to engage the petition holders. I walked across the street to talk to Janette Jones. We don’t talk frequently, but we had a nice chat a few times this summer out in the street, once while we were both at Walgreens, and she showed gratitude when I used our snow blower to assist with some heavy snows earlier this Spring.

But, when I came to the door to ask why she signed the petition, I got a cold response and a refusal to give even a single reason.

I saw my friend Paul Janov, who often walks his dogs behind our house, on the day after the Removal Special Meeting. I asked him why he signed the petition to remove me. He said “What petition?”

He wasn’t even aware of the meeting. And, he told me that he was approached by Mr. Flanary to sign the petition, but didn’t know what he was signing. He thought it was about the “dog incident” or maybe landscaping – something for the good of the “development”, in his words.

I had seen Paul on October 5th, again behind our house walking his dogs, just 3 days after he had signed on October 2nd, and we talked for 45 minutes – including about the upcoming meeting on the 6th. I told him AT THAT TIME I suspected the “petition” item on the agenda (which had only been issued the day before) was likely a petition to remove me. Paul seemed surprised that I would think that, and said the meeting was maybe about a petition to remove the dog.

In fact, the ONLY Petition Signers who actually came to the October 20th Meeting to support the petition that they signed were THREE of the households – Mr. and Mrs. Flanary, Mr. Denenberg, and Mr. Irving. The other SIX didn’t think it was important enough to show up – why is that?

This has the appearance of Mr. Flanary inducing signatures under false pretense, including, as Mr. Janov reports, telling him that the thing he was signing was about a completely different issue!

Is this why Ms. Jannette Jones didn’t want to talk about it? Was she given the impression that the Petition would be kept secret, and that her participation in the removal action wouldn’t be something she’d have to support or be known to support?

As Ms. Linda Brucker brought up at the October 20th Meeting, that Petition Removal Committee had a public face, held meetings, and produced a written list of grievances which were given to Directors facing removal in advance. And, all of those signers showed up at the meeting, and had both group and individual statements put into the record.

I was not a signer to that Petition, but was rather the Board Member/Director who supplied the facts that supported their list of grievances. I remained on the Board and did not resign to prevent noneother than President Flanary (at the time) from taking non-transparent actions over the 75 days between delivery of the petition and the meeting he scheduled to be convenient for his friend, Mr. Buck Hammond.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory – all of these statements are backed by facts that, upon request, I’ll post here if anyone wishes to try to brush this off as such. It just makes the posts long . . . and boring for regular people who just want the point.

The bottom line here is that this petition of 13 signatures had 1 invalid signature, and we have evidence of one household who was misled into signing it. Combined with the botched notice (the USPS Notice originally scheduled the meeting for October 19th on the other side of town at the Senior Center), and then the next botched email notice (revealing everyone’s email address), combined with Mr. Flanary going door to door to solicit proxies that . . . eventually won the day on this ill-planned removal meeting.

Mr. Flanary, who says he has a low tolerance for hypocrisy, refused to schedule the 2019 meeting after petitioners delivered their petition on June 17, 2019. He had until July 16 to schedule the meeting (30 days), and literally waited until the last day until Former Director Hammond informed President Flanary that if he DID NOT schedule the meeting, then the Petitioners could schedule it themselves.

Well, Director and President Ballweber, once again, displaying ignorance of the law and governing documents, got hoodwinked by Mr. Flanary, who reversed himself from 2019 and told her that he had the right to demand that the meeting be held on October 19th.

When we met in unnecessary Executive Session on October 6th, Director Ballweber was informed (by me) that she actually had 80 days to schedule the meeting – and that she should schedule the Annual Homeowners Meeting in November, and perhaps I’d be voted out to avoid the controversy. She got angry, and said I should resign!!!

She then stormed out of the meeting (again, held behind bushes on a front porch, cause that’s how POHOA has professional business meetings) saying she was going to schedule on October 19th. And, the very next day she drafted her letter, and then on Saturday the 8th, got it to the post office for post-marking. The problem is, she didn’t actually reserve the space, and in the rush to meet Mr. Flanary’s arbitrary timeline, had now given notice for a meeting that couldn’t be held when or where the meeting was on the notice.

Instead of starting over, it was SO important, that, again in rush, she sent out an email using the new ill-formed HOA email address atftcpoudreoverlook@gmail.com, and forgot to put everyone’s email address in the BCC field – and exposed them. Again, demonstrating she hasn’t a clue about actual privacy matters. This was the SECOND BCC error by POHOA in 2022, and why these technophobes refuse to use the Bulletin feature on Frontsteps is mind-boggling.

So, the sum of all of these facts, which are not theories, but verified by documents and recordings, leads us to the inspection of why Mr. Flanary and Director Ballweber, who were exposed to be essentially working as partners (Mr. Flanary directing Director Ballweber, which essentially makes Mr. Flanary an unaccountable dictator of Association actions), were in such a rush to remove me as Director. I lost every single vote in the prior 6 meetings for which issues were contested. I held no Officer positions, and was locked out of email, Quickbooks, and all vendor accounts and relationships. Why was it SO important?

Well, that’s a question for the Petitioners. At the Removal Meeting, Mr. Flanary demonstrated the old adage from Roman Senator Cicero – “When you don’t have the facts, abuse the Plaintiff.” Mr. Flanary didn’t come to the meeting with ANY facts. He only raised 4 issues, two of which were in spite of the “ground rules” forbidding topics before 5/25/22.

1. I filed a lawsuit against POHOA on June 1, 2020 that was settled on June 17, 2021
2. I filed a CCRD complaint over the same timeframe, also settled on the same date.
3. I had a “demeanor” at meetings
4. I had filed an insurance claim with American Family Insurance

He didn’t come with any paper documents, or photos, or video/audio evidence. Mr. Flanary simply besmirched my character, including misrepresenting the facts regarding the AFI claim. I asked AFI to provide a legal defense against Director Ballweber’s FBI claim that I had set up her gmail account as some form of “impersonation”. Since it was false, I expected that I should not have to pay for an attorney as I was setting up her gmail as part of a legitimate action on behalf of the association, and she had an email (as well as the password) explicitly telling her the reason the email account was set up.

No, the rush to get Petition signatures and a meeting was to HIDE any of this from inspection prior to the meeting. No one outside of the Board had any information about the claim, and again, Mr. Flanary, who should NOT have been given that info (privacy, Duty of Confidentiality), then mischaracterized it as a claim of “defamation”. In fact, if the claim of a crime by Director Ballweber against me was false, then the COUNTER-CLAIM by AFI would be per se defamation, because you can’t go around falsely accusing people of a crime.

Had the Petitioners or Director Ballweber said that the meeting would be about the insurance claim, then I could have prepared the documents that refute these claims to present as evidence against Mr. Flanary’s . . . conspiracy theory. His “intolerance” for hypocrisy actually appears to be Psychological Projection.

But, the coordination and collusion between Mr. Flanary and Director Ballweber has the appearance of Puppet and Puppetmaster – a metaphor Mr. Flanary is often bringing up about others at POHOA. Again, psychological projection.

Does it make sense to challenge the action? Yes.

The options to challenge this, however, are limited because in Colorado, the ONLY means of dispute resolution if parties cannot agree or mediate is to engage in private litigation. And, Mr. Flanary made clear that ALL litigation against he HOA (which he describes as “suing your neighbors”) is an automatic character and personality flaw. THE GALL. Meanwhile, he and this group of Petitioners appear to be doing the same door-to-door rumor campaign to try to force the HOA to remove all Pit Bulls – while two of the other signers “kept” two Pit Bulls in their home for considerable time without these same folks demanding that THEY remove the dog.

So, I’ve written to Director Ballweber to ask that she investigate the matter of Mr. Flanary duping Mr. Janov into signing the petition. I have yet to receive a response.

I’ve brought up the deficiency in notice prior to and since the meeting. No response.

They know they mucked it up. And, if I were to use the only available option, litigation, of course, that would automatically put me in a bad light in this HOA – because Mr. Flanary has everyone convinced that anyone who has the gall to file litigation against a non-profit corporation, which is mutually exclusive of the owners, is in the wrong.

In this proposed dog-removal situation, these same folks are going to suddenly have to explain why they either want the HOA to file litigation against the dog-owners, OR SUE THE ASSOCIATION THEMSELVES FOR FAILING TO “ENFORCE THE RULES”. Hypocrisy of the highest order.

The question is whether Mr. Flanary really has the support of these folks when the wool isn’t being pulled over their eyes with misinformation or flat out falsehoods. When I asked Mr. Janov if he supported what Mr. Flanary said at the meeting, he said he’d go talk to him. I’ve not hear back since.

This isn’t what honest people do when they are acting in good faith.