TRUTH TO POWER: The Right To Complain Without Retaliation

In President Ballweber’s 1/2/23 Testimony to the HOA Homeowners Rights Task Force, she took considerable time to provide very specific detailed statistics about how often I have emailed the Poudre Overlook HOA Gmail Inbox (atftcpoudreoverlook@gmail.com).

LORA: We have an email account whose address is provided to all owners. In 2023, the board had 425 emails of 667 printed pages. Of these 425, the single homeowner was responsible for 39% 39% accounted for 478 pages of mostly negative commentary, or 72% of all pages generated.

So, I took the time to go back to my email account to see if I could find all these emails. What I discovered was that President Ballweber is engaged in deliberate Measurement Bias.

“Measurement bias or information bias refers to the distorted measurement of key study variables. Because there is a systematic (i.e., nonrandom) difference from the truth, measurement bias leads to erroneous results.”

Source: Scribbr

By choosing the odd metric of PRINTED PAGES, she is attempting to discredit my efforts to hold an HOA Board that is being willfully ignorant of compliance with CCIOA and the Governing Documents, which is a form of statutorily defined retaliation in several states with better HOA laws.

What I found was that a different type of measurement communicates a different picture: How many EMAIL THREADS had I sent to the Poudre Overlook Board in 2023?

Answer: 43. Here’s the subject lines because Gmail makes it easy to literally forward all them at once. In a single email. Because they content is actually so SMALL, it can literally be forwarded in one single email – well, except for 2 threads that had a bunch of large images. But, more on how that affects page counts in a bit.

Now, a quick visual reference gives you two immediately obvious conclusions. First, quite a few of the topics are mundane and demonstrably short. Second, that by looking at the size of the threads, they range from 3k to 3,835k. You can see which ones have significantly more words or pictures in them. There’s 9 that are over 1000k, which I would agree have enough reading material to be measured in minutes.

But, I would argue that the reason for those lengthy threads is mostly because President Ballweber simply refuses to respond. So, there’s a follow-up, asking for a response, perhaps once every week or four. And, when she finally does respond, if she does at all, any rebuttals then include the previous emails in the thread. If you count all of them up in SUM, you get to a high number of “printed pages”.

Which is a good time for the aside: Who is actually printing emails in 2024? Why is this the measurement?

The answer is because the choice of that measurement method creates a bias . . . against me. Regardless fo the content, it’s truthfulness, validity, and in particularly good faith intentions in sending, the sheer volume is intended to be shocking. Again, another HOA Industry trope. Because people who send such LONG EMAILS are just simply always wrong because . . . they aren’t concise?

Well, this trope doesn’t fly in 2024 because we have the magic of ChatGPT, which even the most technophobic person can use. You can copy/paste these long emails into a chat line, or use an add-on like AskYourPDF by converting any of these emails to PDF and uploading it to the site.

Then, all you have to do is tell ChatGPT to SUMMARIZE the “long email”. You can have it create the most important 3 bullet points, or write prose limited to two paragraphs. Whatever fits your schedule.

Now, you, as a Board Member, are no longer oppressed. You can both be informed AND have your time as a volunteer minimized.

But, that’s the other thing, you can also choose to simply ignore the email. And, according to John Tunna’s account, that is what President Ballweber made the “board policy” (which isn’t a real thing) back in May of 2023. They think they are teaching me a lesson by ignoring my emails wholesale – and not responding at all. Like ANY of them.

Director Flanary confirmed this to be the case at the Annual Homeowner’s Meeting when he dared to say out loud that it was the “policy” of the POHOA Board to “not be pushed around by Mr. Mowery”. We can safely infer to that the quantification of emails by President Ballweber with her measurement bias is related to Director Flanary’s comments about being pushed around. It’s a tell.

The problem for this uneducated Board is that documenting complaints to an HOA Board is actually a right – with no threshold for which a homeowner is legally bound. None. There isn’t sainthood for sending no emails, or a Goldilocks amount of emails. Simply put, if a homeowner has a complaint that in their own judgement is being sent in good faith about non-compliance, their correspondence is PROTECTED COMMUNICATION.

The Nevada Ombudsman’s Office has issued an Administrative Opinion defining what such retaliation looks like:

By this definition, what President Ballweber engaged in with her Testimony was literally retaliation for having sent in good faith complaints about the POHOA Board’s performance. In Nevada, her and the Board’s actions could be subjected to penalties, and as I mentioned, is a potential misdemeanor. In Colorado, we do not benefit from a state statute to make it clear. So, our Board falsely believes that makes it either legally or ethically justified. It’s not.

Hawaii has even stronger anti-retaliation statutes. In their version, the protection of homeowners to complain, and even make document requests, is protected and the retaliation is perhaps better defined.

So, why would President Ballweber and the POHOA Board think it is a good idea to portray my emails as some form of harassment warranting a change to CCIOA that could result in having new or increased powers to retaliate against me? And, to put this on the public record?

Yes, once again, this is a reason to advocate for statutory requirements for Board Education. And, why our Board continues to make willfully ignorant decisions.

So, I took the time to look at one of the longer email threads, to see if there was any validity to President Ballweber’s citation of “printed pages”. I chose to copy paste the text from one thread into Word to get a word and page count. It was 827 words that would take 2 pages to print.

The topic, however, was our ongoing issues with the Stormwater Drainage Facilities for which we have no Budget or Reserves. It required several pictures to demonstrate where the lack of maintenance was leading to ponding of water, accumulation of debris, and degradation of the concrete. If you tried to print the thread directly from Gmail, the page-count jumps from 2 pages to 22 pages! A ten-fold increase.

President Ballweber’s deliberate Measurement Bias leads to an inflated estimate of pages, which isn’t the right measurement to begin with. In the subject email, those 827 words are read in 3-4 minutes, and if she doesn’t have that long, it takes seconds to copy paste the email text to ChatGPT and get a summary. I’ve tested both. It’s RIDICULOUS to claim this is a form of oppression that requires a law against me, and even more ridiculous that they can’t overcome their desire to not read (volunteering for an HOA Board really shouldn’t be contemplated by those who don’t want to read, in all seriousness – it’s like the majority of the job!) by using easy and free technology.

This analysis then undermines the entire premise, which was egged on by Task Force Member, Lee Freedman has he cross-examined President Ballweber. He asked her leading questions that used the trope of email-senders being always harassers, without ever bothering to ask why she printed all these emails to get this count! Or whether or not the emails were about legitimate or good faith topics!

Until we have in place statutes like Nevada or Hawaii, it is therefore IMPOSSIBLE for homeowners to be the SOLE COMPLIANCE OFFICERS when, in order to do the job or duty, they must necessarily DOCUMENT the violation (same as an HOA Board is required to document homeowner violations). Something has to be put in writing and sent to someone. And, since there is NO BODY in Colorado who will take action on a Complaint (not DORA, not law enforcement, and rarely the AG), the ONLY party a homeowner can send this to is either the HOA Board, the Manager, or the HOA Attorney. And, if the homeowner chooses either of the latter two, they are likely in many HOAs to be sent an invoice for either of them READING the email or letter!

The entire system is designed by Industry Attorneys and Managers to make enforcement and accountability impossible, and for any who try, to be legally retaliated against with actions like we are seeing from President Ballweber, to Individual Assessments for these invoices, to fines, or even NDAs or other attempts to silence such homeowners.

If we cannot have an Ombudsman’s Office in Colorado, then the burden of enforcement and accountability falls squarely on homeowners. And, if there’s no protection from retaliation, those that attempt enforcement on Boards are either brave, foolhardy, or perhaps a bit of both. This is nuts.

Meanwhile, I am not apologetic about my YEARS of documentation of non-compliance at POHOA. If the Directors cannot operate within the boundaries, they are not entitled to enjoy continuing to do so, ignorantly or willfully, without being called out. They should say “point well taken” and correct course and move on. Instead, because of personalities who cannot ever admit an error, or sociopathy (they literally do not care if they are or are not following the rules strictly), we have multitudes of disputes, which the recent DORA survey shows is prevalent and widespread.

What DORA needs to do is post a video about the right to complain, and how to do so safely and appropriately. Homeowners need education too on this matter, and this isn’t DORA giving legal advice. It’s absurd that homeowners have to seek out other experienced HOA Homeowner Advocates to learn such things in 2024.