Illegal or deceitful purpose?
Collusion: According to Merriam - Webster
"Secret agreement or cooperation, especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose.
"If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck" Author unknown.
Fact:
From the November Surfside WARRANT/CHECK REGISTER, on 11/27/2018, trans #2933 from account #100, warrent # 19932, a check in the amount of $27,000.00 was issued to Wa State Dept of Labor and Industries.
The Amouint Memo stated..."WISHA Insp #317949534. Billing North Beach Water for 50% Of Charge.
Discussion:
It appears there is an agreement for North Beach to pay 1/2 the fine. Will this agreement extend to other fines that may come from the EPA. Those will probably be the big numbers. By agreeing to share the costs of fines, is North Beach admitting to their role in this? What about Surfside, are they admitting a share of the responsibility?
The Surfside high priced lawyers should be working for Surfside, not North Beach. In my opinion, North Beach should bear the full costs, not partial. This all happened under the management of North Beach Water.
Was the decision to enter an agreement to share the fine an individual action, an Executive decision or a full Board decision? I saw no motions relating to this action. Perhaps this action was agreed in a "secret meeting".
Collusion as defined above, is a very serious issue and could result in even more fines and/or legal actions. The mess we are in, only seems to get worse every day. The truth does have a way of coming out, and we are seeing that process unfold. It is embarrassing and ugly for both Surfside and North Beach. There seems to be several common denominators for both. I fear the worst is yet to come. Other than the fact above, the rest is just my opinions and no secret information or source I am hiding.
16 comments:
This is a very serious matter that has come of these 2 entity's gambling with Surfside member's funds, by casually ignoring EPA standards. Why did they think they could get away with it, and why did they think the gamble was worth facing the wrath of the EPA ?
I don't agree that Surfside HOA is not equally responsible for this massive management failure. That Surfside would strike a deal with North Beach seems like a reasonable approach to me, but not undercover, without the membership's knowledge. This is what should tell ALL Surfside members that the entire Board cannot be trusted.
Surfside cut a check to the State for half of some disciplinary fines in November and there has not been any such announcement in a public meeting or a published admission of it. The Board has no such authority, to spend an unbudgeted $27,000 without making it known to the members. That is criminal in my opinion. It is not their money to do what they want without publicly acknowledging it, or explaining why.
You're right George, this needs to be looked into further, and the members should demand answers. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Once again, the blog is the only connection to the truth.
I have begun emailing Gary Williams for answers. I will start emailing the entire BOT. Has anybody else lately? Will anyone help me ask questions too?
The board has been advised by their lawyers to not say anything. You will not get an answer.
If they are not going to give answers to our questions then we need a new BOT.
And what ever happened to Mr. James Clancy? He was in that mess up to his neck!
We are the owners. They can't hide from us. We are entitled to answers. Part of legal discovery is the law obtaining email records. This will demonstrate our acting responsibly and their ignoring us.
So, I should just give up. Are you really docile quitters?
The Board is supposed to provide oversight and not micro manage. That's been the cry/lament from most on the blog. Now that things have really gone to hell it's blame the Board and actually call them criminals. We have a bookkeeper who used to run a cafe and a Board member appointed to be our treasurer who does whatever that entails. Until we pony up and hire competent outside management run our hoa we are doomed. And just what did Mr. Clancy's duties have to do with anything?
There's a big difference between honesty and competence, and micro-management - fussing over trees that are too many inches high, and eaves that are too many inches long. Incompetance got the community into this mess, and focusing on minutia and turning it into lawsuits has taken their attention away from things of great significance to the community.
Our major investment in the CTP stands out in the Coastal weather without protection. People warn not to leave your RV out all Winter, that surely holds true for a half million dollar Water Plant. No oversight over a course of years, while broken asbestos pipe was piled high on the backlot of the Waterworks ? Unbelievably irresponsible.
The Board is not forthcoming with admissions and explanations, and why ? To protect their own skins. So that must be their justification for secretly striking a deal with North Beach to use $27,000 in member funds to pay for State fines while keeping the expenditures secret from the members. This is community money they are spending freely.
How can that be other than despicable ? What would then prompt them to come clean and be honest ? What happened to all of that money HOA Board ? "Gosh, we don't know - it WAS there and then we looked and it was gone !"
North Beach ought to be paying for everything! Bill Neal should be considering how he is going to be dressed when he goes to jail
Gil, Williams,Flood and Neal can share a Federal cell together. That might be unusual punishment for even them. Their buddy Kirby might come for visits. They all deserve each other. Maybe their j place friends will form a go me fund for them.
Our Board is 100% responsible for Surfside's management of our resources and holdings, and the regular maintenance required. The agreement that Surfside has with North Beach is that we equally share responsibilities relating to the Waterworks. Smart management would assume that since this is where we live and own property, words on such an agreement do not translate to Surfside being able to assume any of the things in the agreements can be taken for granted.
In order to assure that this large community is provided with safe drinking water, Board oversight of operations at the plant is to be expected and is critical to the health of the community. Periodic review of practices and test results, and inspection of the Waterworks grounds should be routine at set intervals.
It would be convenient to blame Neal and North Beach, but the HOA Board has known about the improper practices, and has chosen to put us all at risk by ignoring the obvious. The Board has talked openly about asbestos laiden pipe in meetings for years, Bill Neal often attending the meetings.
Flood as president has watched the improper practices and no doubt seen the heap of broken pipe on the backlot. He has served on the Water Dept. Committee for years, its' intended function being to monitor practices at the Waterworks. Williams and others have been in the middle of this as well.
Who brings a contractor into their home and ignores their methods, asks no questions, and doesn't review the work done with a critical eye ? No one with any sense. Oversight is a very obvious key to responsibly running the community, and we should never make the kinds of assumptions made here, risking the safety and health of the community.
The contract with North Beach was published on this blog."The agreement that Surfside has with North Beach is that we equally share responsibilities relating to the Waterworks."
There is no such statement. North Beach has the responsibility by contract. Yes, Surfside failed in seeing that they were following the contract. That failure is not a breach of contract, but a failure to monitor the performance. There is a clause that they will not be accountable or liable for a screw up, however, that would never stand up in court, which is where this belongs. It is a fact that Bill Neal wrote the contract.
It is also a fact that the Board does not review the contract each year as they were originally supposed to do, until Neal got approval for the renewal to be automatic each year with a per cent increase. I think that is 2%. It is a sweet heart deal for North Beach and Bill Neal. Bill Neal gets approximately 27,000 dollars a year added to his salary. What is the rest of the money used for? Certainly not for his gas. We pay that on top of the 65,000 a year.
A contract is a contract with no assumptions. The "expert" as stated in the contract is Bill Neal. That appears to be a false statement. No one on the Board is an expert, but most there, put their trust in an "expert". Miss-placed, for sure.
11:41 sez...Yes, this statement is my interpretation, considering that much of this agreement is ridiculous. In fact, the agreement states that Mr. Neal and Surfside are responsible for everything that relates to performance at the Waterworks, and that the two entities will hold one another blameless in case of System failure. That's absurd.
"North Beach Water District has no responsibility in the event that the System's water source is interrupted, volume reduced, or water contaminated. NBWD has no responsibility to construct or install new or replacement facilities, & structures of any kind....all liabilities and obligations of the System will remain with Surfside HOA."
And this strikes me as doubletalk of no substance : "nothing in this agreement will cause them to be viewed as partners....only that one is the agent of the other."
In reading this contract and the one with Bill Neal, Neal is made responsible for everything, while leaving both large entities blameless under any and all circumstances. That is ridiculous.
To consider either of these contracts valid as written is to establish the manager of the Waterworks to be solely responsible for every aspect of this Million dollar operation that serves a community of over 2000 member properties, and at times, thousands of residents. The contracts establish no responsibility for oversight by either large entity - it's all on Bill Neal. Makes no rational sense.
I believe that the original contract was reviewed by legal counsel hired by the board. So much for relying on the Surfside legal counsel.
Deletions on this blog insure that the truth will never be known.
Disagree. Seen plenty of dissenting opinions out here.
Don't disagree with your assessment of the legal counsel. Makes you wonder, considering some of the curious decisions that have been brought down over the last couple of years.
5:20...You've got your wires crossed. The Blog has been the only source of information about this, preceding the Observer by a few weeks. So sometime in November the HOA cut a check to L&I for $27,000, establishing that the regulators began to lower the boom late October, early November. It is now about 3 months later and the HOA has not mentioned anything about this investigation.
Surfside funds are undoubtedly being used to pay attorneys to sort through this morass of management failures and County, State and Federal penalties, but the BOT feels no obligation to acknowledge the truth of the mess we're in. And you want to dis the Blog ? You're blind to what is going on here.
He was there watching them cut and remove the pipes many times when they broke.
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