The following comments were sent in by an attorney living in SCA who prefers that his/her name not be published.
Lets say my neighbor calls me racist names a bunch of times, and I want the HOA to act on it. It makes sense that I would fill out a complaint form and give it to management. Once management gets an Anti-Harassment Complaint, what do they do with it?
Do they give it to the BOD? At one point Adam said that the Anti-Harassment complaints are to be given to the BOD. That wouldn’t make sense, because the BOD is the appeal of last resort and they are too busy to handle these things.
Do they give it to Covenants for action? That also does not make sense, because they are basically the appeals court who decides whether the fine issued by management was proper.
Does management act on it themselves? Adam did not say management issues the fine for Anti-Harassment violations. That does not appear to be an option under this policy.
Once the Anti-Harassment Complaint is directed to someone who could issue a fine (BOD? Covenants? Management?), what if any investigation is to occur? Will they even call the accused to get their side of the story? If so, where does it say that in the policy?
If the neighbor did a bad thing, what is the fine? We have fine schedules for other things, but not for anti-harassment.
If a fine is issued, to whom does the accused appeal? If the fine was issued by the BOD, then it is too late for Covenants to hear the protest/appeal of the fine.
Adam said during the meeting that the enforcement should only be for the really bad things. The Anti-Harassment Policy adopted by the board does not say that. While that should be the goal, I wish there was more guidance to assure that Anti-Harassment Complaints do not become routine for garden variety neighborhood squabbles or for criticisms of management that hurt someone’s feelings.
I didn’t expect to hear Adam mention “Anti-SLAPP” during the BOD meeting. (I told you about Nevada’s Anti-SLAPP statute giving the right to speak about public matters). Will that information be in the guidelines for the entity who enforces the new policy and/or Covenants?
If I had more time, I could find more that is missing.
This policy is half baked.