On April 18, 2009 Bill Gunter delivered to Clay Archer an Invoice #101 for expenses incurred by the board for a SSSFHOA website beginning on April 4, 2006 for the amount of $4,228.90.  All the listed expenses were board decisions approved and commenced during the only period of time since 2000 that the Archers had not been involved with the website and had not been personally paying for all its costs. 

Anyone who knows anything about the Internet and web site development can tell you that domain and hosting expenditures are akin to leasing a car.  Once your term of use expires you have no further right of ownership and the payments are not refundable.  The Association Members and board had full use and access for the three years provided by these expenditures.  On November 6, 2008 Gunter made a motion to shut down the HOA website.  A few weeks later Gunter demanded that a disclaimer be published on the site the Lucy Archer was continuing to build and maintain and pay for, the disclaimer was to state that the board was not funding the website nor did they have any association with it.

The disclaimer was added.  The website continues to exist as an independent resource for the benefit of the Association. The list of website expenses on Gunter’s invoice includes items the board has retained and has full ownership and control of, such as the capabilities provided by WordPress, the development of graphics and design work, and the cost for a fourth website launched by the board in 2009. Gunter decided to forego these investments, to shut down the website, to attempt to make the Archers pay for his mistakes, and to commence with his new expenditures with a fourth domain. If the investment in the website is so important that he wants the Archers to reimburse them for it, then why did they abandon that investment and on March 16, 2009 purchase another domain to launch a more costly generic website through hoa-sites.com?

Albert Einstein said, “Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.”   That is our aim.  We want to build and contribute to our neighborhood and to our community.  Since 2000 we have tried to do this with information on a website and through newsletters and activities.  We have put literally thousands of hours into developing, researching, reporting, and building.  During this work we have become embarrassed by the litigious record of several past and current SSSFHOA boards.  The 2008 board racked up $11,329.66 just on Legal Fees mostly in the last month or two of 2008, for matters that could have been resolved simply by adhering to our Bylaws.  Association members of the SSSFHOA have requested copies of the statements for legal services but have received no disclosure from the board rogues.  In their 2009 Proposed Budget the rogues have projected to spend another $11,000 on Legal Fees this year.  This is in contrast to neighboring subdivisions who have not spent a single dollar of HOA money on legal fees for over a decade.  So what makes our SSSFHOA so querulous?  Is this how we want to continue to operate our homeowner’s association?  Can we afford to continue to not be involved in what goes on in our neighborhood, allowing a few rogues to tarnish our neighborhood, subvert camaraderie, and harass our Association Members?

Lucy Archer has contributed thousands of hours of work to build our neighborhood, to share information, and to urge our trustees to uphold our Bylaws.  After receiving the April 2009 invoice from Gunter, Archer made a preliminary list of website expenses undertaken and paid on behalf of the Association Members.  Archer’s  “Invoice” when compared to the one Gunter issued shows without any doubt who are the parties most invested in this community and website.  While we continue to build, the rogues continue to tear down.

We are tired of the aspersions on our character, we are heartsick at the way the rogues have compromised the SSFHOA election process and impugned our Bylaws, ‘the board’ has taken measures to ostracize us from HOA activities and meetings, Association Members want their harassment to stop.  On April 18th the Archer took the first steps to have a restraining order placed on Gunter, we want him to stay as far away from us as possible.  If you have been reading the minutes of meetings beginning in October 2008, you will have a good idea why he is thorn in our daily lives and a detriment to peace in our neighborhood.