MEADOWCREST LAWSUIT INFORMATION

The lawsuit is a result of genuine concerns we have with the financial plans/reporting of the HOA as well as potential misconduct of some Directors.  We requested access to records of the HOA so we could determine if our concerns were valid or not.  The Board, however, has refused us access to the records.  We have expressed our desire, numerous times, to resolve the issues without involving the court, however the Board has ignored us.  This lawsuit would not be taking place if the Board complied with the HOA's own Bylaws regarding access to records as well as demonstrated a willingness to talk to us to resolve the issues.  


The board, at the October 15, 2024, member's meeting made the choice to invoke our name and talk about how much it is costing the members, attempting to place the blame of the cost of the lawsuit on our shoulders; however, they refused to provide details when members asked.  When I offered to talk to the members during the meeting about why we brought the lawsuit they would not allow it.  Keep in mind this was a member's meeting, not a board meeting.  While the board was responsible for organizing the meeting, the meeting was for the benefit of the members to elect their new directors and discuss the business of the HOA.  It became very clear the meeting was not conducive to allowing the members to hold discussions they wanted.   As the people who attended the meeting are aware, the board, after Mike said he would like to be considered for the new term on the board, the current board chose to cancel the election that night so they could consult with the HOA's attorney to see if Mike should be allowed to run for a vacant Director position.  


We are willing to be fully transparent with our concerns, our efforts to obtain the records, our efforts to not involve the court and to provide proof by making copies of court and supporting documents available to the members of the HOA. 


The categories listed to the left will give an overview of some, but not all of our concerns and will provide links to view and/or download court and supporting documents.  To open the category, click on it.   This will give you the opportunity to read the information and documents for yourself to form your own opinions.  We support everyone's right to form their own opinion's and will respect those opinions, even if they may be different than our own. 

Idaho law as well as the HOA's governing documents specifies the rules and regulations that the HOA, Board of Directors and Members must follow.  


The Board is quick to use the laws and governing documents to empower themselves to inspect members lots to ensure they comply with the CC&R's, send violation notices, charge assessments, impose fines and place liens on people's property.  


The laws and governing documents are a two-way street.  They also grant members specific rights that the board is supposed to follow.  Our concern is the Board has violated several of their obligations to us.  Some examples are:


NOTE:  Clicking a link will open a document in a separate browser tab/window.


  • Right to inspect records:  Idaho law and the HOA's Bylaws give members the right to inspect the HOA's records.  Specifically, Section 10.3 of the Bylaws states, in part: "The books, records and papers of the Association shall at all times, during reasonable business hours, be subject to inspection by any Member."  The board has refused to grant us access to most of the records we requested (they did give us access to a limited amount of records).  
     


  • Member's right to elect Directors:  The HOA's Bylaws, in Section 3.1 explicitly states Member's have the sole power to elect the directors each year. The board attempted to appoint new directors for the 2023 term, to include offering to appoint Mike to the board.  Mike declined the offer because he felt it would be unethical to do so since appointments of directors violated the Bylaws.  Mike voiced his opposition to the appointment of the other directors for the same reason.  



  • Member's right to attend meetings:  The Idaho Homeowners Association Act explicitly states that all board meetings must be open to the members.  The only exception is for portions of the meeting which address specific topics, outlined in the law, which may be discussed outside the presence of the members during executive sessions.  We believe there have been instances in which the board held meetings where the members were not given the opportunity to attend.  Some of the meetings had minutes taken and we believe others did not.  


We have provided links to view/download three court documents associated with this case. Members of the board have stated several times; to include providing links to the Idaho Online Court website, the case information is available to the public.  However, the board has repeatedly declined to answer member questions about the case.  


In order to be transparent to the members of the HOA, we, as parties of the lawsuit are authorizing the release of some of our court records and supporting documents to the members so you can be informed about the lawsuit.  We have redacted personal information (email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, etc.) from the files.  


NOTE:  Clicking a link will open a document in a separate browser tab/window.


  • ORDER ON DEFENDANT'S MOTION TO DISMISS - The HOA, after we filed our complaint made a motion to dismiss the case, claiming our complaint failed to state a claim in which relief could be granted.  A hearing was held on July 25, 2024.  The motion to dismiss was denied.  


  • AMENDED COMPLAINT - At the July 25, 2024, hearing the court granted us the ability to file an amended complaint, which we did.  The document is fairly large however the majority of the document consists of exhibits.  The actual complaint, which outlines our concerns is 16 pages in length.  





The board, at the October 15, 2024, member's meeting stated several times how much the "Williams lawsuit" was costing.  At one point, a member of the board talked about how lawsuits should be avoided.  The topic of the AMI and Williams lawsuits was brought up frequently during the meeting.    


The board members failed to state that we have on numerous occasions stated our desire to avoid going to court and have reiterated our desire to resolve the issue outside of court.  


The documents below are communications we had with the board where we clearly stated we did not want to involve the court.  Unfortunately, the board has ignored our efforts and instead has made the choice to force us to initiate the lawsuit to compel them to release the records.  The board subsequently made the choice to ignore our offers to attempt to resolve the issues out of court, causing the lawsuit to move forward.  


Despite the attempts by the board to shift blame, the reality is the choices made by the board was the catalyst for the lawsuit and is the reason why the lawsuit has continued.  


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  • June 21, 2024 email - An email to the HOA's attorney asking if the board will reconsider their position.  



Comingling of reserve and operating funds - The HOA maintains three bank accounts.  The accounts are for: 

1.  Operating expenses 

2.  Reserve funds 

3.  Imprest (petty cash) account 


Sometime after June 2022, the funds from the reserve account were removed and transferred into the operating account.  This action was taken without a vote of the board, which at the time Mike was a member of.  Admittedly, Mike did not catch this activity at the time.  


We are concerned that this took place and wonder if the Treasurer directed the change.  If so, why was this done without approval of the board.   If not, why did the Treasurer, whose primary responsibility is to oversee the finances of the HOA, not identify and report the change to the board.  



The reserve funds remained commingled with the operating funds until sometime in the 2nd quarter of fiscal year 2023, after Mike identified and raised concerns.  Reserve funds are allocated for future expenses and are not supposed to be used for day-to-day operating expenses.  Commingling operating and reserve funds are not supposed to be done.  Combining the two inflates the amount of operating funds actually available for day-to-day operations and can be misleading to directors and members.  

 

Unrealistic budgets and revised reports - We have concerns relating to the budgets for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.  The concerns include important business needs not being funded, failure to publish the 2023 budget until 2024, and intentionally publishing the initial 2024 budget to the member portal knowing the budget was not accurate.  We have seen that quarterly and end of year financial reports appear to be revised often.  In fact the board just revised the 2023 end of year report, ten (10) months after the original report was published.  


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Fiscal Year 2023 Budget:  The board approved a fiscal year 2023 budget which was unrealistic and failed to fund the needs of the association. The board, when it approved the budget was aware the HOA was currently involved in a lawsuit with AMI and was also aware of the obligation to resolve the tree issues within the common areas.  Despite that, the 2023 budget contained no funding for legal expenses, reserve contributions, mailing expenses, shrub/tree removal, shrub/tree installation, tree pruning and general maintenance repairs.  The HOA, in January 2024 posted the fiscal year 2023 financial report.  That report revealed the HOA had exceeded the approved budget by 76%. 


The fiscal year 2023 budget was never posted to the HOA portal for the members to review while fiscal year 2023 was in effect.  It was only posted as a part of the revised 2024 budget because the spreadsheet that was posted included a tab for the 2023 budget.  


Fiscal Year 2023 Reports:  As previously stated, the "final" year-end report was posted to the member portal in January 2024.  That report sat unchanged until October 15, 2024, the same day as the annual members meeting, 10 months after the end of fiscal year 2023. On that day the board posted a revised fiscal year 2023 financial report.  When making his financial presentation at the annual member meeting, the treasurer used the revised report, not the original report that had been published to the portal ten months prior.  When comparing the two reports it shows that the HOA shifted over $17,000 related to the AMI lawsuit from 2023 into 2024.  We believe AMI took possession of the money in fiscal year 2023 and therefore the charge should be reflected in 2023.  The original 2023 report reflected that charge.  As a result of the modifications to the report, shifting money into 2024, the treasurer was able to minimize the amount of money that was spent, at least on paper, reducing the amount the HOA went over budget.  


Furthermore, the HOA posted a credit in the "91002 - Reserve Transfer" class on the report.  The HOA had been in possession of those funds since 2022 and as explained previously, someone commingled the funds with the operating funds.  The HOA appears to be attempting to further reduce the actual amount spent in 2023 by claiming a credit for funds that were improperly moved that had been in the HOA's possession since 2022.  


We believe, as a result of the various paper-based credits, if we were to look at the actual bank account records to determine the actual amount of money spent in 2023, knowing the $17,000 for AMI was being held in a separate trust account, the amount of money actually spent in 2023, would be more than what is being reported on paper and to the members.  


Fiscal Year 2024:  On January 15, 2024, the board had a fiscal year 2024 budget posted to the HOA portal.  Like the 2023 budget, the posted 2024 budget did not appear to be realistic.  For example, it included only $1000 for legal expenses, no budget for shrub/tree removal or installs, no budget for tree pruning, no budget for common area snow removal etc.  This budget was used for reporting purposes for the first and second quarter financial reports.  


During the Q2 board meeting on March 12, 2024, Mike voiced concerns about the published 2024 budget.  It was at that time the board revealed the budget published on the portal for the members was not the actual budget.  They stated the budget was posted to ensure the HOA complied with legal requirements regarding the timing of when budgets were supposed to be posted for the members.  The board explained there was in fact a revised budget that they approved and was actually using.  That budget was not posted to the portal.  Mike asked the board to post the revised budget to the portal for the members to review.  


Mike asked if the revised budget included funding for reserve contributions, a reserve study as well as the needed repairs and maintenance for the common areas.  The board stated there was. On March 18, 2024, the revised budget was posted to the portal.  The budget only contained $3000 for the common area tree issues and did not contain funding for the other items Mike had asked about. 


Fiscal year 2024 reports - Like the 2023 reports, it appears revisions have been made to 2024 reports.  For example, the Q3 2024 financial report was posted to the portal on October 10, 2024.  Like the year-end 2023 report, the board, on the same day as the October 15, 2024, annual meeting, revised the Q3 2024 report.  The revision reflected the on paper shifting of the $17,000 for the AMI lawsuit into 2024.  However, amazingly on October 17, 2024, the board posted a third revision which removed the $17,000 from the report, basically restoring the report to the way it was when it was originally published on October 10, 2024. We have to ask ourselves why this is occurring, was the report changed the day of the member meeting solely for the benefit of the meeting? 

Failure to establish a reliable reserve plan - One of the primary duties of the board is to manage the finances of the association.  A critical part of that is to establish a reserve plan to ensure long term, large ticket items are funded through a reserve account.  A reserve study is a critical part of that process. 


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At the October 15, 2024 member meeting Mike did a brief presentation that talked about the importance of establishing a reserve plan and having a reserve study conducted.  We are providing a link to a pdf version of the power point presentation Mike made.


As stated previously, someone in 2022 had transferred the reserve funds from the reserve account into the operating expenses account.  In 2023, after Mike voiced concerns, those funds were returned to the reserve account.  


The balance of the reserve account at the end of October 2022 was $6160.00.  The balance of the reserve account as of the most recent version of the 2024 Q3 financial report was $6,183.44.  With the exception of interest income, there has been no allocation of funds for the reserve account for two (2) years.  


Accounting of contest gift cards - In 2022, the HOA sponsored a Christmas light decoration contest for the association.  Gift cards were to have been purchased for the winners of the contest. 


We won first place, another member won second place and there was a tie for numerous members for third place. The winners were announced, and the winners were supposed to be contacted by the leader of the contest so they could collect the prizes.  


The winners were never contacted and attempts to follow up with the leader of the contest were essentially ignored.  


The gift cards were not large values; however we have to wonder what happened to the gift cards and why did the winners not get the gift cards they were supposed to get?  If the HOA failed to follow through with their obligations to get the gift cards and award them to the winners, that causes credibility issues with the HOA.  If the HOA did buy the gift cards and the leader of the contest just failed to deliver them, then we have to ask, where are the gift cards?

10/24/2024 Facebook Post - On 10/24/2024, the current Board President made a post in the Meadowcrest (Hayden) Neighborhood Facebook group.  The stated purpose of the post was for the board to be "as honest and transparent as [they] can".  Unfortunately, statements made in the post were not accurate.  We will address the statements below and include supporting information as evidence.  We are providing you this information so you can form you own opinions regarding the accuracy of what was said in the post and whether or not the information in the post was indeed "honest and transparent".


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1.  Claim - We requested personal information of members to include member email addresses:


Fact:  We NEVER requested the email addresses of members.  We only requested the member list to include the members mailing address to enable us to send members communication about our concerns if needed.  You can download and read for yourself our records request by clicking this link.  We have copied below an excerpt from the letter that shows specifically what we requested regarding the members list.  



In our communications with the board, we emphasized that we had no desire to obtain private information of any members.  Excerpts and links to the various communications to support this are listed below:


May 10, 2024 Letter

June 21, 2024 Email


2. Claim - We were requesting communications between all board members.



Fact - The communications were requested between the board members were limited to communications that specifically involved us.  We requested this information because we believe if a board member did act inappropriately, evidence of it could be contained in their communications.  An excerpt from the records request letter regarding this is listed below.  You can download and read the full records request letter using the link above in item #1.  



3.  Claim - The Association filed a motion to dismiss and we were given the opportunity to file an amended complaint and the complaint has "evolved".  



Facts - The HOA did indeed file a motion to dismiss.  A hearing was held on July 25, 2024 so the Court could hear the motion.  After oral arguments were made, the court DENIED the HOA's motion.  



It is true the Court gave us leave to file an amended complaint, in part to correct a scriveners error in the original complaint.  At the hearing, oral arguments were made regarding our concerns.  We explained we requested the records as a means to investigate our concerns to determine if our concerns were valid or not.  The HOA's attorney commented that our original complaint did not contain specific information which were mentioned during the oral arguments.  Therefore, when we amended the complaint, we added more specificity into the complaint.  With all of that said, we notified the board when we made our request for records why we were requesting the records.  In a subsequent communication, we elaborated on our concerns.  These communications were all made before the lawsuit was initiated and the filing of the amended complaint.  Our concerns have remained consistent and have not "evolved".  Excerpts from the various communications in which we cited our concerns are listed below.  


January 21, 2024 records request:



May 10, 2024 letter:

 


4.  Claim - The board attempted to deliver the Christmas light contest prize to us to the best of their ability.  



Facts - The statement by the board president is actually the very first response we have received from the board regarding the missing prize.  We inquired directly to the board president via Facebook messenger regarding why we did not get the prize, and she responded that she would look into it and follow up.  Keep in mind, the current board president was the person in charge of the contest (she was a member of the events committee at the time).  That was the last communication we had from any member of the board regarding the prize.  We are also now under the belief that it is possible another winner did not get their prize either.  We are grateful the board president did confirm the gift card was indeed purchased by the HOA.  We would like to know, where the gift card(s) have been since the end of the contest.  As far as the attempts to deliver go, we are unaware of any attempts to deliver or even contact us about the prize.  The board was in possession of our home/mailing address, our phone numbers, email addresses and we are both members of the Facebook group and are accessible via Messenger.  Frankly, we question the veracity of the claims made by the board president.  While it is not possible to prove a negative, we are able to provide proof of the very limited communications we have had via Messenger.  We have copied below the Facebook post in which the board president states she is in charge of the contest as well as screen shots of Messenger communications with her to show the entirety of our Messenger communications with her.  By the way, we still have not received the prize.  



5.  Claim - The board does not want to be involved in litigation and hope to have the lawsuit resolved soon.  



Fact - The lawsuit was initiated only because of the decisions of certain directors and/or the board as a whole.  The board president, in her post spoke in generalities and apparently is unwilling to provide specific details in response to our concerns.  We on the other hand have been transparent and have been willing to provide specifics and back up what we say with proof through documents.  


As demonstrated in the "MEMBERS RIGHTS" section above, the rights of the members is clearly enumerated in our CC&R's and Bylaws (as well as Idaho Code).  We encourage you to read the plain language of the governing documents.  It spells out the members rights to the HOA's records, member's rights to elect their directors, etc.  


As is outlined in the "DESIRE TO RESOLVE OUT OF COURT" section above, we have, on numerous occasions expressed our desires to not have the lawsuit take place and have offered to meet to resolve the issues.  The board has literally ignored these requests.  


We encourage everyone to read the documents for themselves and not to rely solely on what we say nor what the board says.  Do your own research and form your own opinions.  If you have any questions or would like more information, feel free to contact us.  We will continue to be transparent in this issue.  


Contact Us - If you, as a member, find our concerns equally troubling, or if you have any concerns of you own, we would like to hear from you.  


This website does not list all of our concerns, however the complaint does.  You can view and/or download the complaint in the court documents section to the left.  If after reading the complaint, you have questions or information regarding our concerns, we would like to hear from you.  


If you received one of the flyers in 2023 that discussed why couples should not be allowed serve on the board at the same time, we would like to hear from you.  


If you were contacted by a member of the board of directors in 2023 and they encouraged you to run for one of the vacant director slots with a motivation to prevent one or both of us from being elected to the board, we would like to hear from you.   


If you have questions or want to contact us for another reason, please feel free to message us via Facebook Messenger.