You're Under Arrest
Last month two prominent Sun City Anthem homeowners, former board member Robert E. Frank, and Tim Stebbins, were arrested by the Henderson Police Department. Their only real crime was to have reported suspected wrongdoing by two board officers.
The directors had signed a board declaration of intent to remit excess funds accumulated in the prior year to homeowners in the following year. But, the directors should have known at the time that such funds would not be remitted as required by Federal law if adverse tax consequences were to be avoided. In taking this action on their own initiative, what message was the Henderson Police Department attempting to tell our 10,000+ residents, or, for that matter, all HOA members who are living in the City of Henderson?
If this shocking, deplorable and unconscionable event had occurred in a rural Mississippi township in the 1950s, I would not have much difficulty in understanding what had taken place. It would have been a politically-directed payback for stepping on someone's toes and for naively assuming that suspected wrongdoing may be wrong and could be corrected through an unbiased investigation. But, this is not the 1950s, and it's not rural Mississippi, although in looking at the outcome it's hard to tell the difference.
The message being told is a chilling one. The Henderson Police Department will not investigate wrongdoing by a homeowner's association, even if that wrongdoing adversely affects the monetary well being of every homeowner in the community. It does not seem to matter if it was a one-time basis involving hundreds of thousands of dollars or had been on a continuing basis over many years involving millions of dollars.
If a homeowner living in the City of Henderson happens to be keen and alert enough to see what's going on, and decides to report to the only authority having jurisdiction over an HOA board officer's failure to comply with a formal resolution attesting with their signature to do "x" while knowing that they will not do "x," he or she should be forewarn. Such a well-intentioned citizen can be arrested, handcuffed, searched, and locked for hours in the jail along with serious criminal elements. That was the humiliating experience Frank and Stebbins were forced to endure on February 10, 2010.
You may wonder what purpose was served. Apparently the only purpose of the two arrests was to demonstrate to others that challenging the decisions of a HOA board officer and asking the Police for help in investigating suspected financial wrongdoing will not be tolerated in the City of Henderson.
Under these unusual and suspect conditions, how can anyone truly believe that Bob and Tim were actually arrested for the reason given, namely, the alleged and unheard of crime in this type of circumstance of filing a false report? If you have not already done so, you can read my views elsewhere on whether these two individuals really filed a false report.
The arrests of Bob Frank and Tim Stebbins by the Henderson Police Department give new and troubling meaning to the Department's ostensible duty to protect and serve.
Ron Johnson 6 March 2010
