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13-3441 Moku Street, Pahoa, Hawaii 96778, United States
NEXT REGULAR Meeting of the Board of Directors
NEXT REGULAR Meeting of the Board of Directors
NEXT REGULAR Meeting of the Board of Directors
Next Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors
Thursday September 9, 2021 - 6:30 PM
The tentative agenda for this meeting will be posted by 7:00 P.M. September 8, 2021.
Due to Emergency COVID mandates this will be a Zoom Meeting
Topic: September LCA BoD Meeting
Time: Sep 9, 2021 06:30 PM Hawaii
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NEW WEBPAGE INFORMATION
NEXT REGULAR Meeting of the Board of Directors
NEXT REGULAR Meeting of the Board of Directors
- Special Meeting of the Board of Directors. Video now available--Directors Jim Penney and Marianne Farrell called for a special meeting on August 22. There were only two days notice given. I had hoped and expected to see members from the community on the Zoom and was disappointed when that was not the case. I made sure to get the Zoom information on the website so members could attend. Some may wonder about the validity of having a meeting on such short notice since the Bylaws require at least seven (7) days. This is reconciled with state law HRS 414D-146(b) that basically states that if directors attend the called meeting and a quorum is present, its valid. Within a day or so the video of this meeting will be published. -President Bandmann
- August 12, 2021 LCA BoD Meeting video
- July 8, 2021 LCA BoD Meeting video: Sorry this took so long to post. I was working on putting it together when I was hit with a severe case of COVID and was then unable to do anything with it for over a month. The audio isn't so good. -President Bandmann
- Road Recovery Project update: The NPDES permit has been approved. The Grading permit was approved last week, after having been through SHPD and two departments in the county. Once the permit is stamped, copied, and filed, the county inspector and Glover Construction can pick up the permits and work can begin. Okahara & Associates has informed Glover that they should expect to pick up the permit soon. We hope to start seeing work being done this month on the roads. The SBA loan has been reinstated. (updated 9/6)
- LCA Road Recovery Project Documents
- Hawaii County buy-out of lava-affected properties. INFO HERE
- 2021-2022 Operating Budget
- 2020 Reserve Study for LCA Planning
Special meeting president's report
Special meeting president's report
Special meeting president's report
When I ran for the board of directors, I think it was very clear to everyone as to where I stood in relation to the lawsuit against former board members. I am an original plaintiff and publicly touted my support for Phil Denney when it was deemed that he had standing and would take over the plaintiff role in the lawsuit. This lawsuit was about standing up for the LCA and acting on behalf of the LCA since the board members at that time were not.
In the June Board of Director meeting, I informed the community that the lawsuit was ongoing and continuing to be pursued. We’ve also had other discussions through member comments and questions pertaining to this matter during previous board meetings.
Here is where the lawsuit stands today. On June 25, there was a settlement hearing for which the defendants, the previous board members, called for. In preparing for the settlement hearing the plaintiff came prepared with terms for negotiation for which he was willing to settle. The defendants came with nothing to the settlement. They had no terms and nothing for which to negotiate. And they were the party that called for the settlement hearing in the first place.
On August 11, there was a hearing concerning communications between former LCA attorney, Lincoln Ashida, and former board members because Mr. Ashida refused to hand over any of these communications. Mr. Ashida is trying to say that the LCA should not be allowed the privilege of retaining these communications, when in fact they are the property of the LCA. The Judge at this time, in his order, allowed only third-party communications to be turned over.
On August 18, there was a hearing to re-align the parties. Essentially, we as board, asked the judge to remove Phil Denney from the lawsuit and allow the LCA to become the plaintiff. This motion was granted. Please understand and realize that this case has always been that the LCA is plaintiff, it’s just that we took the laboring oar because of the conflicts and corruption of the last board.
It’s no longer on the LCA website, but in a piece Former President, Jay Turkovsky wrote about the history of Leilani Estates, “Understanding the Two Sections” he wrote, “The Board of Directors of LCA make no decisions that are outside the bounds of the Charter, Bylaws, and CC&Rs, and are sometimes mandated to make decisions that do seem harsh or offensive. Board members could face personal liabilities if found to be not making decisions in accordance with LCA regulations.”
For those of you who don’t know the contents of the claim against them, I will summarize. In general, we believe the previous board violated our Bylaws, the Charter of Incorporation, the CC&R’s, and state laws.
Mr. Andrews violated our Bylaws when he signed a check with only his name on it. He also violated the Bylaws by being the only signee on contracts totaling almost $50,000.
The previous board also violated the Bylaws when they amended the Bylaws improperly. The former board, at that time, was aware that they needed the members to vote. The minutes of the November 14, 2019, meeting verify this as it states, “Amending the By-Laws to create staggered terms cannot be done at this meeting. It requires a meeting in the future where all members are notified of the potential change so that they may hear the arguments and may be given the opportunity to arrange a vote among themselves to alter, amend, or repeal the decision of the Board of Directors on this matter.”
It’s obvious the board understood this and chose to ignore it. There never was a meeting of the members for the members to vote on amending the Bylaws.
The former board also violated the Bylaws when they increased our dues to $200. This will be discussed later.
They violated the Charter of Incorporation when they failed to have a member vote to change the Bylaws. They also violated the Charter when they failed to enforce CC&R’s as it is one of the duties enumerated in the Charter.
They violated the CC&R’s when they failed to enforce the CC&R’s as part of their fiduciary duty.
They violated state laws when they failed to provide documents that members have a legal right to. They violated state law when they failed to follow the Charter to change the Bylaws. They failed to follow state law when they conducted Executive Sessions without having a regular meeting or special meeting beforehand to inform members that they were going into Executive Session. They violated state law when they failed to announce that Patti Hatzistavrakis and Darryl Singleton resigned.
State law is clear under HRS 414D that resignations are effective immediately upon submittal unless a future date is given. All these violations are well documented.
The sad thing about this is that members, including myself, apprised them that they were doing things incorrectly. Yet, they swept us aside and left us no voice.
Now, to the members: If you have firsthand knowledge of wrongdoing or if you have been a victim of harassment, intimidation, or threats from the previous board and/or their attorney or from individual members of the previous board, I invite you to share these experiences with us. If you have any documentation, please share this with us. If you were a victim of harassment, threats, or intimidation I ask that you consider writing an email concerning that experience and share that with us.
You can bring these documents and statements to the Leilani Community Association office where you can turn them in to Kim Falseta. We will store these and add them to the pile of documents that we have already collected for this suit.
In November of 2019, the board, misrepresented its vote as there was one dissenting member, and sent out a letter to all members concerning the dues increase that they were going to levy. This increase was going to increase our dues from $110 to $200 in one fell swoop. What we didn’t know at that time is that the board felt that an increase from $110 to $165 would have been sufficient. How, do we know this? This information came from Executive Meeting minutes that they published to the website for a short time. And I quote from these minutes, “We will need to raise the dues to $165.00 per lot, $185 per lot would put us in a more comfortable position.”
-Continued-
Special meeting president's report
Special meeting president's report
So, somewhere along the way they increased it from $165 as sufficient, to $185 as putting us in a more comfortable position, and $200 as . . . ?
In that same letter it states that one of the reasons for the dues increase was to offset legal costs. And I quote, “Legal fees and accounting costs fall in this category. Together they accounted for a combined expense of approximately $37,000. The legal fees were mostly caused by a lawsuit brought against the LCA by an LCA member.”
This portion of the annual fee increase was obviously designed to cause a negative feeling of all members towards Mr. Denney. An intraboard communication, of which my wife was privy, and which has been turned over to our attorneys, states, “For members who think that a $10 increase is unreasonable, that would be an eye opener and hold accountable the nasty behavior of Mr. Denney for increased cost to every member of his community.”
These board members clearly wanted the community to have ill will towards Mr. Denney.
The Bylaws state that any dues increase that includes any expenses other than road and facility maintenance and repair must be approved by a vote of the members if that increase is greater that 10%. Yes, there were many upset members, but there was never any vote.
It is my understanding that when the Go Fund Me or whatever account was created to help people in need to pay the drastically increased annual dues, that various members throughout the community received harassing emails by another member of the community because of their receiving monies to help pay for their dues. It was stated that the names of those who would receive these funds would remain confidential. Obviously it was not left confidential if someone else from the community was harassing these members.
If you were one of these people who was harassed, will you please come forward and share that information with us as well if you still have those emails. Please print those off and turn them in to the office or forward them.
And still, these previous board members/defendants continue to hinder the work of the current board by not providing all the things that belong to the LCA. I have emailed the previous board or members of the previous board no less than six times requesting that various things and information be returned to the LCA. Only one person has ever responded or helped in any manner, Robert Golden. But even his cooperation has been underwhelming.
We had to replace the locks in the office because they were unwilling to give us the keys and access codes to recode them. The cameras that were donated to the LCA are somehow nowhere to be found. Grant money for security cameras was given to the LCA in the amount of about $13,500. Reports were supposed to be given to the County every so often as well. To the best of my knowledge, no reports were ever submitted. This grant money was never used for what it was intended and we had to send it back to the County because the time allotted to use it expired.
Documents are missing. We also have files missing. Some of these files are financial files. In working with our accountant, we cannot perform any type of audit without these files.
Previous to the current board coming on we knew of at least five building plans that were submitted. Ms. Lindahl, who appointed herself, alone, to the Architectural Committee, has handed none of these over to the current board. Any CC&R violations they may have been considering are nowhere to be found. They did however make sure to leave a document that stated that anyone who harassed the former President Andrews by complaining about his CC&R violations, which were deemed appropriate by his fellow board members, would be sought after by the board and the former LCA attorney, Lincoln Ashida, to the fullest extent.
Then there’s the matter of speed humps. Rod Kindel was a board member when the majority of the board decided they would exempt Ms. Lindahl from the Speed Humps policy and allow her to get rubber speed humps to put in front of her house on Maile Street. According to Rod, this was done in exchange for board members declaring that Mr. Andrews had no CC&R violations for his tiny home.
As of the last time Ms. Lindahl said anything about the speed humps, which the LCA reimbursed her for, they still sit in her yard. They cost about $2,500 and can’t be returned.
Remember all those surveys that were sent out. The LCA spent about $1,800 to send these out. The County told us they needed to go out certified mail. This was not done.
Have any of you seen any of the results of this survey? Of course, you haven’t. These surveys were put into the possession of Ms. Lindahl to tally and haven’t been seen since, even though we’ve requested them.
As a board, we see it as our fiduciary duty to hold these previous board members accountable for their actions. We don’t think a bad precedent should be set by allowing this abuse and just shrugging and walking away. And thus, we will continue to pursue the lawsuit to hold them accountable.
Keola Bandmann
LCA President