by Karen Daigle Lundberg, July 1, 2019
Who rules in an authoritarian government?
“In government, authoritarianism denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or a small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the body of the people.”
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Here in Hot Springs Village, the year is 2019. However, if you look closely and study the politics going on in Hot Springs Village today, you might think that you have time traveled back to 100 years or so ago. The years I am referring to are the years where dictatorial regimes were formed in Europe and the Far East, these regimes were referred to as authoritarianism and even worse. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, that is where we are sitting today. Our authoritarian calls herself our CEO, and four “old guard” Board members are assisting her, most especially our Chairperson. While the facts are not quite equal in comparison, the concept of authoritarianism is alive and well in Hot Springs Village.
HSV, are we awake?
Are we awake now? Yes, comparing Hot Springs Village to hard core Authoritarian governments or even worse may be going a little overboard, but the concept is exactly the same thing. We all know that our Board of Directors are supposed to be guiding and overseeing our CEO, but we also know that that is not what is happening in Hot Springs Village. Our CEO has become her own form of authoritarian, and our Chairperson is giving her free reign in all of her actions, thereby making herself a willing conspirator in this regime.
This is happening
I understand that many of you may be thinking that these are very harsh descriptions of what is taking place in Hot Springs Village, but if you stop and think about it, I think you will see that this is exactly what is happening. I promise you that no one more than I looked forward to enjoying my days of retirement, not having the worries we have struggled throughout our entire lives through, and these are the days we were supposed to kick back and enjoy life. Many of us found Hot Springs Village and thought we had found our own personal Heaven, and this is where we could enjoy our retirement years. Little did we know! I also know that none of us want to have to fight. Our Village consists of the loveliest people I have ever met in my life, and we do not want to fight anyone or anything. Unfortunately, our CEO has made that impossible for us.
Citizens have no voice
“Authoritarian governments may hold elections and they may have contact with their citizens, but citizens do not have any voice in how they are ruled. Their leaders do not give their subjects free choice. Instead, they decide what the people can or cannot have.”
Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia
Think about this: Did any of you ever think that you would buy a house, own the property the house sits on, pay your taxes, pay your membership fees, and have to go in front of a committee to plant a tree in your yard, or better yet, need to cut down a tree, and have to go and get approval, pay a fee (if approved), and then have to go and pay to have the tree cut down? Did you ever dream that you would have to get permission on landscaping your own property? Even more importantly, did you ever dream that you would live in a Village, where you pay assessment fees, and that you have no say-so whatsoever in how that money is spent?
Should I send a fruitcake to the CEO?
Did you ever dream that while, so far, we are allowed to attend Board meetings, and they have now graciously given us three minutes instead of two to speak at the podium, but nothing we say is going to make any difference in their decisions? Oh, I must remember to send our CEO a fruitcake in thanks for that extra minute we have been given.
Maybe she will send me a fruitcake?
Wait, is that the entirety of what happened? No, it is not. Even though our two-minute time was extended to three minutes, the Board Chair acting in an arbitrary and capricious manner, partially silenced the voice of property owners by eliminating the first comment session of board meetings. We went from an original four minutes (two sessions, two minutes each) to one three-minute session for comments. The comment session that was eliminated is critical because it precedes the board vote on pending agenda items. We actually lost a minute of critical time. Maybe she will send me a fruitcake instead.
We are being bulldozed over
MOST importantly, did you ever dream that you would be living in a community where you were given ONLY two votes on anything and everything that takes place in this Village? Did you ever dream that the Comprehensive Master Plan would be a Governing Document controlling Hot Springs Village? Did you ever dream that thousands of people would use a vote as their voice to tell the CEO that we have no confidence in her and that we don’t trust her, but she just continues getting on her bulldozer every day and just bulldozes her wishes and desires right over us?
This is serious
Fellow Villagers, this is serious! The last movement, which I am sure many more are coming, is they illegally suspended our Bylaws. Taking from the movie, Network, Peter Finch rants, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore,” and he urges everyone to open their windows and yell it out with him. I can’t tell you how many times I have wanted to do that. Haven’t you?
Click link here to view video
Stop them now
I read many comments and replies that people state that we can fix this when we have our next Board election. That is NOT the answer! I ask you all to look at the damage that has been done since we placed three good Board members on the Board. They are the minority. I applaud them for what they are trying to do, but they cannot be effective while they are the minority. We just had to watch the Board and CEO suspend our Bylaws, which was illegal, and our three new Board members, nor could any of the Villagers, do a thing about it. How much worse are they going to do? Frankly, I think a lot of damage is yet to come before the new election is even close. We must stop them!
I am not alone
Am I the only one that feels like my mouth has been duct taped and hands tied behind my back? Our out-of-control CEO and her co-conspirator, our Board Chairperson, have stripped us of all of our rights, and if we find a loophole, they quickly go into a secret meeting and change whatever governing document they need to in order to close the loophole. I’m tired of it, and I know that I am not alone.
We need to stand in unity
I have some ideas about how we might stop this, but we are going to have to do it together, and we are going to need a large force of people. I would like to ask everyone that if you have not already if you would like to be a part of this force to attempt to stop our CEO, please join the Hot Springs People Facebook Group that Joe and Cheryl Dowden run. I know it is a large group already, but we need as many as we can possibly get. My ideas need more investigation, but when it is time, I will be asking Joe and Cheryl to address them on their Facebook Group.
I am not willing to stand back – are you?
I truly understand that we don’t want to fight. I don’t want to fight. However, I am not willing to stand back and let someone stomp all over my rights. Are you?
by Karen Daigle Lundberg, July 1, 2019
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed in this article are solely my own opinions. I, alone, take full and complete responsibility for every word written in this article.
Edited and formatted by Cheryl Dowden
Adonna Anderson
07/01/2019 — 7:15 pm
Wow. This is excellent thank you!! I will pay to put in the villsge voice. Serious times call for serious measures.
Karen D Lundberg
07/01/2019 — 8:17 pm
Thank you, Adonna. I have sent it to Jeff Meeks at the Voice. Hopefully, he will see it fit to publish. Thank you for the offer to pay, but I will take care of it if there is a charge. It will be worth it if we can get the word spread further. Please just share this with everyone you can.
Peggy
07/01/2019 — 7:23 pm
Great letter
Anonymous
07/01/2019 — 7:58 pm
send this to the Village Voice Great essay
Karen D Lundberg
07/01/2019 — 8:28 pm
I received an immediate response from the Voice. They do not accept articles from the public. I can shorten it and use it as a Letter to the Editor, but I believe the emphasis of this article would be lost in a Letter to the Editor. So I would just ask people to share this with everyone you know. Thank you.
Ksthy Henderson
07/01/2019 — 9:18 pm
Great job, Karen! We do NEED to get it in the Voice and on the radio! There are so many Villagers out there who have NO IDEA of what is going on! Just talking to people we know won’t get the greater majority of the Village involved!
Karen D Lundberg
07/01/2019 — 9:43 pm
Thank you, Kathy, but the Voice has said no. I do have other ideas up my sleeve that I will share when they are final.
I will send it to the CEO and Board, though.
Thank you everyone for the compliments, and thank you to Cheryl for being my editor. She “tones me down,” which I need when left unsupervised. LOL
As far as it being read at the Board meeting, I give my permission to anyone who would like to read it to the Board. I do not attend any Board meetings after my event with Mike Medica. I encourage everyone to attend the Board meetings, but I, myself, do not attend them due to the anger those meetings causes me, which is not good for my health. I do, however, watch them on video.
Vicky
07/01/2019 — 9:25 pm
Excellent! What do you think about reading this at the next board meeting and also sending it to CEO and bod members?
Kirk Denger
07/01/2019 — 11:44 pm
We need a lawsuit that will lock them up!
Karen D Lundberg
07/02/2019 — 7:13 am
Kirk, I am addressing this to you because it is your comment, but I am really addressing everyone with this comment. I have read time after time on so many of the social media websites that we need to file a lawsuit. I agree with the concept 100%. However, I would like to explain why I negate this action, and you have never seen me stating that we need to file a lawsuit. There are many good reasons for that. A lot of people don’t understand what filing a lawsuit entails. The first and foremost thing you have to have to file a lawsuit is an attorney, and with that attorney comes a very expensive retainer. You are looking at a retainer of at least $5,000, to start. Is there anyone out there that can state unequivocally that they can collect $5,000 from the Villagers to hire an attorney? I don’t think so. Second, is there anyone that can state that they can keep the money rolling in when we have exceeded our $5,000, which will go very quickly. I have recently found out the “going rate” for attorneys in Arkansas, and it is approximately $350.00 per hour. With just the work to get the lawsuit started, doing the research, preparing the Complaint, and filing it with the Court eats up a large portion of that $5,000. When you pick up your phone and call that attorney for anything at all, and you speak to him on the phone, you can hear the ching, ching in the background. That ching, ching is your $5,000 being spent. Pleadings will be filed (documents necessary in a lawsuit), and they will go back and forth between our attorney and HSVPOA’s attorney, and with every pleading or letter written, there goes the ching, ching. While Lesley Nalley, herself, knows extremely little about lawsuits (and I have proof of that), HSVPOA is very well versed in how to stall lawsuits, and that is what they will do. You can keep a lawsuit going for over a year, if you so choose. When you finally get prepared to go to trial, the ching, ching turns into CLANG, CLANG, and those are your attorneys’ fees being spent quite rapidly. The amount of work that goes into preparing for a trial is incredible. During my tenure as a paralegal, I cannot tell you how many nights I spent in my office, all night long, assisting the attorney while preparing for trial. Every minute of both his and the paralegal’s time you are being charged for. Depending on the amount of time the lawsuit takes, this could run well over $100,000, easily. That is not even discussing the amount of time a lawsuit would take. This is not like on TV, where the trial happens in a few days or weeks. We are talking months and years before it ever goes to trial, and then the appeal process starts, and there go another few years. We will have had two or three Board elections before this suit would ever go to trial.
On top of all of that, the HSVPOA attorney has been heard by myself stating that in lawsuits filed in Saline County, HSVPOA has the advantage because the Judges are elected officials, and we could have favoritism on our side. So we have that to battle also if he is correct in stating that. (No need to cut back flips on that one, Lesley. You, of all people, know that I state or write nothing that is not true.)
I see people saying that surely we have an attorney in the Village that would take this suit on voluntarily. Uhhh, no, they won’t!! And I do not say that because they are bad people. These are highly qualified individuals that know how much time they will have to invest in this. It is extremely stressful, takes a huge toll on them, and to do it for nothing is asking any attorney way too much. There are a few things paralegals are allowed to do without an attorney, and I have made the mistake twice (it always takes me twice to learn my lesson), of volunteering to take a project on. What started out as a very small project grew into months of non-stop work and extreme stress, and I was exhausted at the end of it, and these were just meant to be small projects. Attorneys know what they will be in for, and I highly doubt you will find one that will do it pro bono.
One more thing that I don’t think many people know. You are not required to have an attorney to file a lawsuit. It is called filing a lawsuit pro se, and there are many lawsuits done this way. The pro se means that you are filing the lawsuit on your own behalf, without an attorney. I am only informing everyone that this is something that can be done. If anyone decides to do that, I wish you well. You have no idea what you are stepping in to, but, legally, you are allowed to do it.
My purpose in this very long explanation is to finally clear up to everyone just what they are saying when they say we need to file a lawsuit, get an attorney, file a class action suit, etc. Everything I have written is what you are looking at in filing a lawsuit. So, please, unless this is something YOU feel you can take on, please use your time and energy on possibilities that may work for us. There are other options, and people are working on those, including myself. What we need right now is brain power, and people doing research on how you stop a runaway Board. It is not information that is easy to find, but if we concentrate our efforts on other methods to use rather than a lawsuit, one or more of us are bound to come up with ideas.
I truly do not write this to disappoint anyone or chastise anyone. I have just read it so many times, I thought it was time to explain what anyone wanting to file a lawsuit is looking at. It is money and time, and a lot of it.
Thank you.
Kirk Denger
07/02/2019 — 11:46 am
Remove Chair Erickson for violations of Bylaws: Art. VII, Sec. 6 (c): Violation of any Association governing documents, including the Declaration, Articles of Incorporation, Bylaws, policies, rules, or resolutions, as the same may be in effect from time to time, including not reporting a conflict of interest.
Violations of Art. XII, Sec. 4, C & H.
Failure to recuse from voting despite a reported conflict of interest.
Kirk Denger
07/02/2019 — 11:52 am
Replace with Lorri Street, the next most popular voted candidate of the membership.
Kirk Denger
07/02/2019 — 11:55 am
Failure to recuse from voting in the previous year despite not disclosing a conflict of interest.
Andrew Kramek
07/02/2019 — 8:01 am
I will state here, publicly what I have been saying for some time privately. I am pretty sure that the powers that be are consciously doing everything in their power to accelerate things to the point of no return before the next elections. Primarily because they know they will probably lose their controlling majority on the Board at that point. So we should fully expect to see even more changes that move power into the hands of the CEO and her pet Committees; also expect the resolution of lawsuits to be delayed even more and maybe even the gates to be gone, all before we even get to the next election!
I really do wish everyone here well and hope that you can succeed in stopping this runaway train but I am afraid that I will not be here to help. We are moving out in a couple of weeks time and will not be back. Fare you well.
Karen D Lundberg
07/02/2019 — 9:33 am
Andrew, this makes me very sad to read. You and I have exchanged comments before, and we completely agree with each other. Thank you for verifying exactly what I am trying to make people understand. We do NOT have the time to wait for the next election. At the rate they are moving right now, it will all be done by the next election, and we will be headed straight for the bankruptcy court. It is trying to make everyone understand this that is the biggest problem. I know they think that is the answer, but it is definitely not the answer. We have to move hard and fast right now. I am so sorry that you are leaving the Village because of this. You and your voice of reason will be missed. Best wishes for your next home. Let us know how the neighborhood is. You may have some familiar neighbors if there are houses for sale.
Karen D Lundberg
07/04/2019 — 1:18 am
Steve, we are given the right to vote on Board elections, and we are given the right to vote on changing our Declaration. Are you aware of any other votes we are entitled to?