January 29, 2012 by admin.

Most members on the community email list have received Board President James Long’s notification last week that the Board’s appeal to the IRS had failed.  This means the community association must pay the full $1.3 Million for year 2007 as determined by the IRS Auditor. 

It also means that tens of thousands of dollars for interest and penalties accumulating since the audit as well as the estimated $100,000+ paid to the “expert legal team” to process the appeal have all been wasted.

Here are the words from SCA Board President/Attorney Long’s announcement:

“IRS appeal denied. We received notice late last week that the IRS Appeals Officer assigned to our Association’s administrative appeal of the 2007 tax audit has denied our appeal and upheld the findings of the IRS examiner. We expect the IRS to issue a statutory notice of deficiency within the next several weeks. After this occurs, we will have 90 days to file a petition for judicial review of the IRS decision. We have asked the Ad Hoc IRS Audit Task Force appointed at the May board meeting to recommend a course of action for consideration at the February board meeting.“

For our reader’s convenience, we would like to recommend for review a series of comments on that matter posted recently on Rana Goodman’s forum at this link:

http://www.anthemtoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=3552

An Anthem VOICE founder, Kay Frank (and former IRS Auditor) added the following comments to the above link:

“I can find no evidence that the IRS has ever been reversed on this statute after forty years.  Jack Troia called that “old” law, but competent attorneys call it “settled law”.

The IRS has pulled the records for the ensuing years.  Although they have not addressed them yet, they will–especially since we lost the appeal.  The best chance is to pay up and try to cut a deal on the ensuing years.

An expression of good faith is to show a reduction in 2012 dues by immediately crediting accumulated surpluses instead of forcing a net increase in assessments for 2012.   The boards have never accounted for the millions of unreturned surpluses and we must demand a clear accounting for the whole amount by the new auditor.

Homeowners are not forced to make up for the financial failures of the boards.  The board and/or a SCA homeowner coalition should seek recovery of all reported to the IRS accumulated surpluses from the insurance of our accounting firm, law firm, RMI and SCA liability insurance.   We do not have to accept punishments for the board’s willful failures.

Norm (McCullough) quoted Carl (Weinstein) as citing (Auditor/Tax Preparer) Gary Lein’s reservations about the return–however, they both are individuals who signed  and/ voted approval of the return.  In my opinion they have even more responsibility since they have self-admitted their lack of assurance that they were correct, but signed anyway.

When the current president of the association made a nasty personal remark about the IRS auditor at a board meeting, he was just asking for the IRS to show no leniency.  The least a SMART lawyer could do is keep nasty opinions private.

…just a few of my thoughts.

Kay ”

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January 24, 2012 by THE VOICE.

SCA Directors have been told they are solely responsible and individually accountable for the corporate decisions and errors concerning the funds collected from and managed on behalf of SCA members since the 2005 transition from developer control. 

But, by hiding behind the “so-called” Business Judgement Rule (BJR), HOA directors are told they can get away with almost anything (short of flagrant embezzlement) and not be held personally accountable.

So say association attorneys John Leach & Ed Song, auditor/tax preparer Gary Lein, community management company contractor RMI (headed by CEO Kevin Wallace), Nevada Real Estate Division Administrator Gail Anderson, and the NV Commission for Common Interest Communities and Condominiums (7 members appointed by the Governor from the HOA trade association (CAI) including 3 with obvious Sun City Anthem board conflicts of interest–auditor Gary Lein, Del Webb/Pulte executive Randolph Watkins and 6-year SCA Board Treasurer/President Favil West).

However, while directors are expected to consult “professionals” when making their board decisions,
the NV Attorney General has notified directors that corporate laws prohibit them from blaming the professionals for providing poor and/or illegal advice.

The obvious conclusion is that individual Sun City Anthem Directors are personally responsible for their past mistakes and toleration of financial misconduct, law violations, income tax fraud, community property losses, contractor failures and over-charges, and cruel abuses of community members without justification and without following due process rules. 

It is truly illegal and immoral for current directors to refuse to deal with past gross financial errors which can be corrected  on behalf of our members.

Special accountability for fraud and abuse rests on the backs of SCA Presidents since 2005.   The SCA contract with RMI grants exclusive/sole authority to the SCA board president to direct all RMI employee and related contractor actions. 

In other words, board presidents are the first persons to be held personally accountable for board wrong-doing and gross negligence.  Second in the accountability chain under corporate law would be the Board Treasurers and Secretaries   Actions to enforce accountability should start with those officers.

But, what can be done?  Have any of them committed real crimes as described in Nevada Revised Statute (NRS) 205?   Read the laws for yourself from this online record and see what you think.
http://www.leg.state.nv.us/nrs/nrs-205.html

It is clear that if the evidence showed a director used a lethal weapon (such as a gun or knife) to threaten one or more SCA members to give up hundreds of their dollars, such a director could be charged and convicted under felony crimes for armed robbery and theft.

But, if the same director exploited HOA rules and hid behind the BJR to force members to pay exorbitant annual dues so the money could be wasted on untrustworthy sub-contractors where board members might receive hidden benefits or kickbacks for themselves, could they not also be held accountable by law enforcement agencies for what seems to be similar felony crimes?

We have hundreds of highly experienced members of this SCA community including some currently elected to positions as Clark County and Henderson Judges. 

No doubt such expertise could be used to find ways to enforce accountability–if such professionals would do their duty and stop looking the other way while crime flourishes all around us.  

If you know of such professionals in the financial, legal, and law enforcement businesess, please approach them and ask them to get involved–for their own sake as well as the whole community’s lifestyle and financial future. 

And, in the process, remind them that ignoring such crimes only encourages more of the same….

Posted in SCA Board, Truth Squad, Community Affairs, Laws & Rules, Operations, News! | Print | No Comments »

January 11, 2012 by bobfrank.

On April 26, 2010 the Nevada Attorney General Bureau of Consumer Protection (BCP) filed the attached review and report of the Nevada Public Utility Commission’s plans to grant Nevada energy companies to implement the “Smart Meter” Program.  
NV Attorney General Bureau of Consumer Protection Report in 2010 Opposing Smart Meter Program

Look at the following chart for some basic evidence (extracted from page 53 in the report) of the serious privacy violations possible with such devices.   

Imagine if a smart meter was reporting to Nevada Energy every few minutes or less on what power you are consuming.  Imagine if it was easy to detect what spikes are generated by what kinds of appliances.  Would it not be easy for criminals to discover when a person normally takes a bath or showers or sleeps or works or is away for hours, days or weeks at a time?  

And, why would you want to allow the power company to detect, collect, report, store and analyze such personal and private information about you, your family and visitors?  Is there anyone who could truly believe the power company could be trusted to have and keep such private information collected every few minutes of your future life?  It seems crazy to me for them to even try to bully us into accepting such an outrageous concept!

The report is two years old, exceptionally detailed, and appears to provide devastating evidence in sworn testimony by national experts against the safety, security, health and privacy claims by Nevada Energy for its Smart Meter Program.

Unless the owner, resident or visitor grants specific authority for such wire-tapping/unauthorized surveillance actions by the power company, there are major law violations being planned by the smart meter program.  Is this not conclusive evidence of fraud and other crimes by the PUCN and NV Energy?

Clearly, this Attorney General/BCP report proves that customers must be allowed the right to Opt-In.  And, if choosing to refuse the smart meters, they must not be required to pay a penny (directly or indirectly) for anyone else’s decision to use the smart meter programs.

This is not the only damning report against the smart meter program by the Bureau of Consumer Protection.  After you have read this and the other reports, you may want to participate in the efforts to demand that the Attorney General and the Governor direct the District Attorney to investigate why the PUCN’s smart meter program is being allowed to be implemented.  It is outrageous.

Meanwhile, we all need to be meeting with the BCP and getting more facts before the PUCN January 18th hearing about the apparently bogus/illegal “opt-out” proposal by Nevada Energy.

In conclusion, the enclosed BCP report and related evidence is clear.  There are no legal or economic justifications for implementing a smart meter program in Nevada.   No matter how much money has been wasted to date, we simply can not allow hundreds of millions more being wasted while our privacy and constitutional rights against unreasonable surveillance are willfully violated by the State. 

This smart meter program must stop.  All citizens have obligations to themselves and their families to tell the Govenor to terminate it immediately.

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