DOG INCIDENT UPDATE: POHOA Board Reports Dog Removal Is Final

In the first public report in over 1 year, the POHOA Board slipped a tiny note at the bottom of a Special Meeting Notice. What is most interesting about this note is that the “incident” is now an “attack”, which is perhaps only relevant to the parties who may have an interest in assigning motive or blame.

At the 3/11/24 Special Board Meeting, which was held in Executive Session at Me Oh My, a coffee shop open to the public, Debbie Mowery asked for additional details about this resolution, and was referred back to this statement which was at the bottom of the Meeting Notice. There do not appear to be any further documents on the Frontsteps website regarding whether there was any court action, settlement agreement, or how the dog was “removed” (by force, etc). We are left to our imaginations.

Reasonable questions remain:

• How much was spent in Legal Expenses for this “removal”?
• Will the homeowner be assigned the costs, expenditures, or charges related to this “removal” action?
• Was there a written Settlement Agreement?

In the past, when there has been a conclusion to something “legal” within POHOA, all of the documents including any settlement agreement, has been posted for all other homeowners to see.

We can see that in 2023, per the December YTD Report, that $5,871 was spent on legal fees. This was $871 over the $5000 budget for the 2023 fiscal year. The report does not distinguish between costs for this incident and any other legal expenses. I have previously estimated that policy changes in March of 2023 were probably $1000 or less, and we know that policies changed in November of 2023 did not receive a legal review prior to being presented and passed.

There may be significant legal expenses that are not yet appearing on our books, as our Treasurer and Consultant have previously delayed posting them by delaying payment on invoices. We saw this in 2021, when over $9000 in legal expenses were hidden by such techniques to avoid them being raised or quesitoned at that year’s Annual Homeowners Meeting.

While the attempt to include “Individual Assessments” as a new clause failed in the 2022 Document Revision debacle, most homeowners are unaware that exploitation of CCIOA Section 123 allows some attorneys to attempt to add legal expenses to an individual homeowner’s ledger, and in some cases, even after the passage of HB22-1137, attorneys have attempted to use foreclosure (with even more legal fees added) to collect such amounts.

If, however, the removal was part of a court action, then reimbursement for legal fees may be at the discretion of a judge. Thus far, we have had no detailed updates to give us any clues as to how these expenses may be handled. To put this into perspective and context, the legal expenses could be as high as 25-30% of our Operating Income for the 2023 fiscal year, therefore, reimbursement may be warranted by circumstances.

The POHOA Board has been sent a request for information and comment. Updates will be posted if they respond.