(Please print this out and give a copy to your neighbors who may not be online)
HEADLINE - The Board ADMITS they have acting unlawfully and illegally!
In preparing our legal defense against the FCCA Board and Alcor's frivolous lawsuit against me, the editor of "The Fountain Of Information" and the unit owner where I live, I was re-reading the by-laws a couple of months ago and found a section dealing with "Rules & Regulations" and that section clearly stated that any rules and regulations dreamed up (ooops.. promulgated) by
the Board du jour had to be filed with the Jefferson Parish Clerk Of Court - Conveyance Office... but guess who did not follow the by-laws once again... that's right, YOUR Board and their choice of an overpaid manager/lawyer. Neither the Board, manager nor the attorney for FCCA bothered to follow the by-laws when amending the rules in 2006 or 2008 and have admitted to this by their actions taken in the past couple of weeks.
If you go to the "official" FCCA website, http://www.fountaincourtcondos.com/ and then click on the "General Rules And Regulations" link, you'll see four links on that page. They still have the 2005 Rules which were the last legally recorded rules, although even those rules have some serious deficiencies in them. They also have a link to the 2008 Rules "as corrected". If you click on that link, it will open a PDF file with the "as corrected" rules and you'll see that they corrected them on March 31, 2009 according to the title section but if you go to page 7 of the rules, you'll see that the illegally elected officers did not sign this "as corrected" document until April 8, 2009. I'm presuming that they have now recorded these "as corrected" rules, now that they've been shown how they have been acting unlawfully and illegally for the past couple of years.
If you've been the victim of one of their overzealous rules and/or fines in the past two years... or if you've just been unhappy or dissatisfied with how the Board does things around here, please come join us as co-plaintiff's (in reconvention) and you should win your money back for their illegal fines and rules. You will also be taking a stand to show this Board and any future Boards that they are elected by and should be representing the owners, not acting like a bunch of typical politicians who get into office and start trying to screw their electorate. If you have any other complaints against this current Board/Manager or past Boards/Managers, come and join us as co-plaintiffs so you can let them know that you will not take their mis-management, mid-deeds, illegal and unlawful activities any longer. Now is the time for you to be able to join in this lawsuit against the Board and the choices they make and it will cost you only a fraction of what it would cost you to pursue a lawsuit on your own.
Some of our long term goals with this lawsuit:
To have open monthly Board meetings where ALL owners will be notified of meetings so they can choose to attend and have the right to speak up at the meetings. Right now, only a select few owners are invited to the monthly/quarterly Board meetings, which the current Board calls "At-large Board Members", which is NOT even a legal designation according to the by-laws. This will ensure that any new rules that this Board or a future Board attempts to pass will have proper discussion and debate and will also make the rule more "legal" since past Boards have simply made up rules that are outright illegal.
To have monthly financial reports sent/emailed to ALL owners so they can see, at a glance, what is happening to the money in the company (FCCA) that they own.
To have the Board adopt a Homeowner's Bill Of Rights, so that each owner is equally and fairly protected from future Boards that might try and become overzealous or attempt to selectively enforce rules and/or harass owners/residents.
To notify owners of any plans for spending THEIR money ahead of time... instead of spending it without the owners even knowing anything about it... like in the case of the $10,000 to $15,000 security cameras that were installed and the overwhelming majority of owners did not even know this would be done until after it was already being installed. There was no major crime issues at Fountain Court, other than the occasional attempt to steal some quarters out of a washing machine or dryer. The only reported incident where the cameras came into play was when a vehicle in the rear parking lot was damaged by someone during a bad parking incident and the JPSO were called in. Unfortunately, due to the fact that one of the cameras mostly looks down on the current President's car, the images from the camera actually resulted in wrongfully accusing another resident of causing this damage but it was proven that this resident did not cause the damage and the owner/victim had to apologize to the person who was wrongfully accused. Of course, Alcor reported how GREAT the cameras were in identifying the hit-and-run vehicle (in their last Quarterly Newsletter from the Summer of 2008... maybe they should call it an Annual Newsletter???) BUT Alcor failed to report the FACT that they wrongfully accused someone of hit-and-run which could have resulted in a lawsuit against FCCA and the owner/victim who wrongfully accused this other resident of hit-and-run. Did any of the owners hear exactly how much was spent on the broken pumps, water lines, etc., that recently cost thousands... or possibly tens of thousands of dollars in total cost to FCCA? What about the details of the insurance monies and/or settlements from the Hurricane Gustav claim? What about when the Board changed the rules about how many rental units are allowed at FCCA? Many folks never returned after Katrina and are renting out their units. With a limit of only 12 Rental Units, this means that if there are 20 people wanting to rent out their units, 8 of them will have to stay empty. What's better for a neighborhood.... folks renting and living in a home or a bunch of vacant homes? Ask any realtor what happens to a neighborhood when there are a bunch of vacant homes in the neighborhood... vandalism, crime, decreasing property values, etc. While this limit on rental units might sound like a good idea, it could also mean that many more folks will put their units up for sale... and that means that property values will also come down because of basic supply-and-demand economics. The more units listed for sale, the lower the prices. If a couple of units sell for a lot less than what might be thought to be their market value, then those sales will be used by future appraisers to determine the property values for ALL other units... meaning these low-priced sales will cause ALL property values to come down... just the opposite effect of what the Board thought they were going to do by limiting rental units. This is what happens when there are a bunch of "Yes" people on the Board and when the owners are not allowed to question or debate any proposed changes in the rules before they are made up.
Frankly, in the six years that I've lived here, I've found that the overwhelming majority of the owners (unless you are in the "At-large" clique or have multiple sources like I do) never know what is going on around FCCA until after the fact, when it's too late for you to voice your concerns! This is another thing that we would like to see changed at Fountain Court!
Let us know any other concerns you have that you would like to see addressed IN OPEN by future Boards or discussed in "The Fountain Of Information" or on the NEW Fountain Court Bulletin Board (Yahoo Group).
Don't forget to sign up at the NEW Fountain Court online and interactive "Bulletin Board" at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Fountain_Court_Condos_Metairie_LA. This was started up by Suzie Halprin, owner of Unit 65. It's FREE and a simple way for owners/residents to learn what is going on and to communicate with other owners/residents. You can even choose to get emails of any posts made to the "Bulletin Board" so you can immediately know what is going on without
having to go to the website to see if anything new has been posted.
Until next time, let "The Fountain Of Information" flow!
Lenny Vasbinder, Editor
TheFountainOfInformation@gmail.com
http://www.thefountainofinformation.blogspot.com/
Cell-504-621-1870 eFax-413-318-0742
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Lenny Vasbinder NHSNOLA@gmail.com
Cell-504-621-1870 Fax-413-318-0742
http://www.neighborhoodhomeservices.com/
P.O.Box 74031, Metairie, LA 70033-4031
Handyman Services, Lawn & Garden Care, Residential Contractor, General Cleaning & Trash Hauling, Etc.
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