The Silent People and POA (Poudre Overlook Advocates)

After being threatened and intimidated at the Planting Day on June 1, 2019, I walked over to Buck’s house to recount the experience, less than 30 minutes after it happened. Buck had previously given me the impression of someone reasonable who would listen, and in some cases, would even vote with me if my argument was good. I felt I could trust him.

Planting Day was basically about 15-20 people coming out to the front of the subdivision to help pull weeds and plant some flowers and shrubs. Many brought their hand tools, and it was a beautiful day. About two hours into the morning, someone came up to me and introduced himself. He outstretched his hand and said “I don’t think I’ve met you before”.

He proceeded to give me a man-shake where it felt like he was trying to break my hand, and was a bit longer than a normal introductory shake. It wasn’t. He told me his name, and I then realized it was our HOA President’s husband. He launched into a profanity-laced tirade about how he had been watching me “for years” (creepy), and knew what I was really up to.

What I’m really up to?

I tried telling him that if he wanted to go through all the details with all persons involved present, as well as access to the documents about the issues, I’d be happy to meet with him. But, not with a guy yelling at me with a digging tool that could be a weapon in the hand that nearly crushed mine.

But, that didn’t stop the tirade. He then raised an issue that I didn’t understand at the time. “Who are you working for?”

I thought, really, he thinks I’m working for someone? Why? That makes no sense. But, in hindsight, I now see this as projection – because his wife, and our three POA characters (Irve, Walker, and Buck) were united in covering up their actions from 2018, and they, in turn, serve The Silent People. Pure projection.

When I recounted the experience with the current HOA President’s husband, and the accusations leveled at me in his tirade, Buck said something that I believe made it watershed moment in hindsight. He said that I needed to be aware of The Silent People and the fact that they were powerful in our neighborhood. He said it with a straight face – as though some have an entitlement to anonymity.

I had heard this reference from two other people at Board Meetings repeatedly. Again, in hindsight, it’s pretty obvious, but Walker and Irve constantly talked about how they represented some Silent People who gave them a mandate. And, with that mandate, they acted upon their opinions, which began our 2-year cycle of controversy in Poudre Overlook HOA.

The Silent People are homeowners who don’t speak up at meetings (and generally don’t attend, giving their representation via written proxies), send in emails, or express their opinions with their names on them. Buck said that these folks are afraid of retaliation if they express themselves directly, so they use live-person proxies like Irve, Walker, and Buck to represent them secretly. The unstated implication is that they are people who have much more at stake financially than the rest of us, so they can’t afford to stick their necks out.

At the December 11, 2019 Board meeting that went nuclear, the recording captured another aspect of this – when these same individuals create a group, give it a name, and then broadcast their views via a USPS letter without a return address and not signed by even a leader of the group.

Irve Denenberg was the author of the now infamous POA (Poudre Overlook Advocates) letter which was riddled with falsehoods, including accusations of illegality and impropriety by the “new board”. It literally took me less than 5 minutes to google his quoted paragraph to find the message board where he lifted a cherry-picked segment from “some guy on the internet”. And, he used his full name on the message board, which eliminated all doubt that it was him.

So, after avoiding the Annual Meeting, where this would have been exposed in front of everyone in the neighborhood, he decided to bring it up again at the Board Meeting. When some persons there presented the proof that it was him, he finally admitted it. But, then he said he wasn’t the only author – it was a GROUP. He is never at fault – it’s always someone else.

And, the reason for sending the anonymous letter: Fear of retaliation. Listen to the recording of the meeting – they say it out loud. Walker states that Irve has been unfairly criticized, and therefore, his use of an anonymous letter is therefore justified because . . . look at how everyone is angry with him!

Pure projection. Literally, the repeating pattern is quite simple. When Irve or Walker talk about the rationale for their decisions, it always reveals their actual thinking, planning, or past actions. The retaliation they are worried about is the actions that they are engaged in. Accuse others of what you, yourself, are doing. Straight up.

But, who else is in POA? We don’t get to know. The Silent People and their proxy, Irve. Probably Walker, who speaks in lockstep.

But, Buck Hammond, when I confronted him directly about his association with Irve & Walker’s political group. Buck stated that he is his own “island”. Yet, his storming out of the Annual Meeting with Walker, holding more than 1/3 of the votes of this group in proxies, makes it abundantly clear, he sides with, enables, and generally advances the secret agenda of this group.

What does POA want? What is their agenda?

We don’t get to know in advance. They won’t tell you. They won’t answer any questions. Step one, in their opinion, is to add them to the Board, and THEN you’ll find out what they want or will do. But, we don’t need to play this game – we know what they did in 2018, and it bulldozed, railroaded, and kangaroo courted 10% of the neighborhood igniting a political war in our tiny little subdivision. Never forget who fired the first shots.

Ask the people who were told their previously approved fence (prior to buying their house) was now illegal. Ask the people who wanted to have a 6-foot fence to keep a dog in. Ask the people who were told their friendly multi-language signs were illegal. Ask the people who had a temporary fence set up to keep their daughter’s dog in the backyard while she sought serious medical treatment. Ask the people whose pet ducks were declared illegal. And, ask the people who were terrorized over a shade of gray in their roof shingles.

POA is a negative and toxic political party that seeks to advance it’s secret agenda by gaining control of our Board of Directors by using threats and intimidation, and now, even violence. All while the membership is opaque, so that when they create litigation, they can disappear and avoid accountability and responsibility for what their proxies did on their behalf.

Rather than looking at this as an isolated incident, we should look for the patterns elsewhere in other HOAs. And, as I have researched this by networking with people via the legislative process at the state capitol, I am finding that this is a common issue – anonymity.

The use of proxies to vote at annual meetings can be extrapolated by some as a means to create political parties and block/caste voting, which appears to be our case. During my own experience on the Board, I realized at the March 2019 Board meeting that there was an issue regarding the ACC being reformed that was discretionary – neither statute or governing documents gave us a clear answer on what to do.

As we oscillated via email discussions between the options, I decided to take a firm position. Not because I felt the other option was inherently wrong, but because I was testing the theory that anything I chose would be opposed by a bloc of board members. Instead of reasoning or recognizing that it was simply a choice, they took the position that “my” position was “wrong” and theirs was “right”. From that point forward, I recognized that all I had to do was use reverse psychology to see if they’d box themselves in, and, in fact, they did.

I realized that, going forward, we were going to have problems with persons who simply presumed that those that opposed them on ALL issues, and that consensus wasn’t an objective.

More recently, after the re-vote for 5 board members, you could hear Clay Jones say “fucking democrats” just after the vote tally was announced. Again, a sign that we have used bloc voting to simply assert something based upon things other than the merits. This doesn’t serve our community well.

What’s the solution?

Well, in Ken-Caryll, an HOA south of Denver, the solution that they arrived at was to simply not allow anonymity. If you want to communicate with the Board, you do so with your name at the end of the letter or email. If you want something done at a meeting, you do so yourself, not by having someone else stand up and say it for you. I think we need to have a similar policy to stop this practice before it leads to more bad outcomes.

In addition, if there is retaliation, there should be consequences that include the options of expulsion noted in Robert’s Rules of Order. At the moment, I’ve filed a formal complaint with the board which is being considered regarding some of the actions we’ve seen that have crossed the line, but until there are actual consequences for those that engage in these practices, the pendulum will swing back and forth, and the number of victims will increase.

Each board that has had an opportunity to put an end to this behavior has punted. And, with Matt’s resignation after threat of assault, it’s clear that the bullies have the upper hand and are enabled without a clear policy and will to enforce it. I hope the new board will do the right thing.