And THEN It Got Completely Insane

After the vote by the Poudre Overlook HOA Board on 5/12/22 to keep the draft documents from VF-Law secret in a 3-0 vote, I learned that some other homeowners were planning to petition or organize in some way to bring this issue to all homeowners in a vote. Whatever was in that draft must have either been embarrassing or revealing or something.

I had written to the Board several times using an approach of asking whether specific things were included or excluded. In particular, I was concerned with what I had learned through being involved with support of HB22-1137, and in particular the Foreclosure Crisis that was first broken by Fox31 News in Denver over the 50+ Judicial Foreclosures over fines in Green Valley Ranch. Soon after, I researched the court records on those foreclosures and found that the attorney involved in most of them was Lisa Cancanon from VF-Law.

This is relevant because Ms. Cancanon is also the person who signed the Document Review letter from VF-Law for Poudre Overlook HOA in October of 2021.

The decision to hire VF-Law is shrouded in secrecy and mystery. To recap, on 7/13/21, the POHOA Board voted to hire Altitude Law from a panel of 4 candidates, according to the Meeting Minutes. But, then within the next few weeks, something changed and caused them to reconsider the hiring, and instead they met with Mr. Damien Bielli in an Executive Session on 8/11/21, which was preceded by a secret AWAM that same day.

They then decided, again in a vote-by-email (they aren’t following actual Bylaws governing how to do Actions Without A Meeting, or AWAM) on August 24, to hire VF-Law. Purportedly this was to effect the creation of a Document Review of our governing documents, which would then precede a proposal for Document Revision.

But, there was a secondary purpose that wasn’t disclosed in open meetings, or publicly to other POHOA homeowners. VF-Law was hired to send a letter to a “small minority of homeowners” who politically opposed the Board on certain issues, and in some cases, actions by the vendor, Trademark.

In Nevada and Arizona, these rights to publicly express concerns or discontent with vendors is protected by statute. Not in Colorado – which has no protections for any homeowner performing their duty to enforce CCIOA – because there is literally no other mechanism or party assigned to do so. It falls squarely and entirely on the shoulders of homeowners, including the burden of the cost of legal expenses.

Well, we learned at the Annual Meeting on 12/1/21 because Trademark suddenly terminated the agreement, that Trademark had threatened to quit in July of 2021. While the Board had already agreed to hire Altitude Law, this threat appeared to change the course of who we hired. And, we don’t get to know the details why – because they did this secretly by email or some other means avoiding the requirement for homeowner comments prior to the decision.

It appears we may have hired VF-Law and gave Trademark the ability to create legal expenses with that firm at their discretion, without the knowledge or approval of the Board. We have an open admission at a Board meeting that Trademark did exactly that regarding enforcement of parking of Sprinter Vans in September of 2021 when the Association already spent over $800 in January-February to arrive at the polar opposite interpretation of our rules on the same topic. Trademark admitted that Ms. Martinson acted unilaterally without letting the Board know or vote in advance of creating the expenses.

So, with the revelation through release of some documents on May 10, 2022, we’ve learned that VF-Law was hired, and per the emails the Board say are the “totality” of documents that exist on the matter, there is absolutely no deliberation or discussion of the pros and cons of hiring VF-Law before making that decision in an AWAM. They all just made a motion and emailed “yes” down the line. With no record whatsoever created in our association email, and no signed document as required to make the action “effective” in hiring VF-Law.

Two days later, the Board knows it is convening for a Board Meeting, but again, keeps two very important pieces of information from before 5pm secret at the meeting. And, there’s still mysteries and unanswered questions. The Board has responded to emails without even acknowledging the questions, or to even say “no comment”.

What the Board could have found if they did even a cursory google search of the attorney, Lisa Cancanon, is that she worked for a firm between 2004 and 2014 that was known as a “foreclosure mill” by some.

“On March 17, #20111 Lisa Cancanon filed a false Notice of Election and Demand for Sale on Cassino – a possible class 5 felony.”

http://cassinoandcfpbvchase.weebly.com/colorado-foreclosure-mills.html

That firm was subsequently sued by the State of Colorado on behalf of over 32,000 Colorado HOA homeowners who were defrauded of at least $2.5 million dollars. And, the Attorney General demanded a $10 million dollar penalty from this firm for their wrongdoing, and for the firm to be dissolved – which it was just shortly after Ms. Cancanon left the firm in September of 2014.

7/15/15 AG sues Colorado’s largest foreclosure law firms alleging massive fraud

7/17/15 Aronowitz settles class action: Overcharges refunded to 32,000 homeowners

“Tens of thousands of Coloradans whose homes were foreclosed on since 2009 by law firm Aronowitz & Mecklenburg will share in a massive class-action lawsuit settlement over allegations the lawyers regularly inflated fees that homeowners were forced to pay to save their house.

The settlement, on paper since April but only now getting court approval, comes just days after the Denver law firm agreed to a separate $10 million deal with state investigators to settle an investigation into the same alleged misconduct.

The law firm — owned by Robert Aronowitz, his daughter, Stacey Aronowitz, and her husband, Joel Mecklenburg — is to dissolve in the next six months, according to terms of their settlement with the Colorado attorney general’s office.

But not before the firm pays back roughly $2.5 million to more than 32,000 families — money the lawyers allegedly overcharged for the posting of legal notices in the cases.”

Combined with the fact that Ms. Cancanon then worked for a number of firms (none for longer than 1 year and 9 months) over the years between 2014 and present, they could have stumbled upon her LinkedIn page, which reveals that she had only joined VF-Law in April of 2021 – just 3-4 months before we decided to hire them and her. Or that she barely worked a year at her prior job before that.

In hindsight these are definite red flags considering what we know of her involvement in Green Valley Ranch. But, even without that knowledge, there’s enough to give pause on the decision – and perhaps let the homeowners know about it. Particularly since they were last informed that it was a different firm they were choosing. Homeowner comment could have brought out these facts prior to hiring and winding up painting ourselves in a financial corner.

The secrecy and non-transparency was more important to this Board. They literally cannot defend their decisions from scrutiny because they’ve determined unilaterally all opposition is illegitimate and should be suppressed. It’s not surprising to anyone who knows Colorado HOAs, because this fits a pattern that has given this model of housing such a bad reputation in this state.

So, on Friday, May 13th, I decide to call VF-Law and see if they will listen to reason and just give us the draft documents. After all, the Board confirmed the night before that we had, in fact, paid for them. So, why shouldn’t the buyer be allowed to see what they paid for?

To my surprise, Mr. Bielli got on the phone. And, in a surprising turn of events, claimed he had terminated the agreement earlier in the day. This is Friday, the day after the 5/12/22 Board meeting.

Wow, that was unexpected.

The call was amicable, and Mr. Bielli spent most of the time criticizing HB22-1137, and said he had read all I had written on the subject and heard my testimony. He said something about me being “brilliant”, but I wasn’t sure to take it as a compliment, or more as the Ricky Gervais kind of dead-pan insult. Works either way, I guess.

I wondered if the Board just found out the morning after, or whether their decisions at the Board meeting precipitated the termination. Was it because their hiring action was not “effective” because they didn’t sign the AWAM?

By Monday, however, no real answers surfaced. But, a letter from POHOA did. All of a sudden, in a letter dated 5/12/22 and postmarked the same day, they were announcing elections just 13 days later – on Wednesday, May 25th. In the open field in the middle of the HOA. Bring a folding chair. And a pen.

No clues as to who was resigning or how many were resigning. No indication why it was the first in-person meeting (in the middle of a COVID resurgance) since the beginning of the pandemic. No indication if anyone could participate remotely – as this is out of range of most household wifi – as we don’t have any actual shared facilities.

Were they all mass-resigning in reaction to VF-Law quitting. Well, that couldn’t be, because they sent the letter on Thursday, and VF-Law quit on Friday. Out of sequence.

Until, of course, we find out in an email on 5/19/22 that VF-Law actually gave them notice on 5/12/22 – again, before the meeting. So, the Board knew that VF-Law had quit AND that one or more Board Members were resigning before the Board Meeting – AND FAILED TO MAKE ANY MENTION WHATSOEVER OF THESE BOMBSHELL REVELATIONS. I mean, there’s non-transparency, and then there’s this.

Their excuse: They say (but the recording hasn’t yet verified) that they said something about “look for something important in the mail”. I’m not sure where all of you were born, but we’ve got names where I come from for this type of deliberate omission when you have a duty and obligation to disclose. I’ll just say it’s very poor judgement.

You’d think we might get some information at the Document Revision Committee Meeting on Wednesday May 18th – but that was canceled the morning of that meeting. Which may make sense, when you consider the predicament we are now in. We’ve paid in full, up front, for the “first draft” (of three, they tell us) of our revised governing documents which they admit are a boilerplate or template (hardly worth $10k, and we were warned by a homeowner attorney at the annual meeting that this is EXACTLY what would happen), but since VF-Law has quit, they are now completely useless to POHOA. No other firm will use the workproduct of another firm, and if they will, that itself is suspect.

No, we will have to probably pay for yet another document review, and as they told us on 7/13/21, all of the firms quoted the same $10k to do the job. We will likely have to pay that again – after spending over $21k with VF-Law overall. And, after repeated requests for invoices or explanations, they Board simply ignores them. It appears that POHOA will only respond when homeowners use the process that includes the potential for a $500 penalty for non-compliance, and drags out requests for months.

Well, late Friday night (940pm), the POHOA Board finally responded with an answer to one question – which is why they are in a rush to get a new Board member or five on May 25th – they want to rush into yet another hiring of another attorney. They’ve already blown up our budget for two consecutive calendar years, and now want to barrel into even more expenses. It’s gone truly insane.

There’s more detail to all of this, but at this time, it’s important for the community to have as much information as possible heading into an election-in-a-field. It may be necessary to have a meeting of homeowners is not under control of the Board so that we can compare notes and figure out what is really going on. Unless, of course, I’m the last one to find out. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Stay tuned . . .