Illegitimate Political Representatives of Homeowners

In further reaction to bona fide criticism, CAI continues its machinations of using front organizations in a futile attempt to legitimize it, those associations of hired hands, like COCA in Florida and CACM in California, and those illegitimate associations of the management-class HOA boards, like ECHO (Exec. council of Homeowners, which, in reality, is a misnomer and should be ECHOA, the Exec. Council of HOAs), as the voice of the homeowner before legislators and government agencies and commissions.

At no time have any of these industry supporters -- the supporters of the fictitious person, the corporate HOA government -- been granted any such authority by the homeowners, the employee-class within the corporate HOA business organization; not in the Declaration, nor by any valid vote or referendum on any particular issue by the homeowners. These groups are illegitimate representatives of the people, the homeowners. They act, however, as if they are the legitimate representatives in all political matters, but they are not the duly elected political representatives.

We see the comments by these groups in the July-August issue of CAI's Common Ground magazine article, "Call & Response." The comments that assert the right of the HOA, as an authoritarian private government operating outside the protections of the US Constitution, to control and regulate the people within the territory defined by the subdivision, the homeowners.

We see CAI's attempt to enlist the support of homeowner associations in order to be the legitimate voice of the HOA, and by some far stretch of the imagination, of the people living in the association. As admitted by the CEO of CAI, Tom Skiba, HOAs are a business and not a government, yet in an outright contradiction to this statement, CAI continues to regard the HOA as the legitimate political government of the homeowners. In a clandestine operation, CAI has setup a website, http://www.responsibleneighbors.com/ as a front to appeal directly to California HOAs to support the CAI platform in the legislature.

Unfortunately, the HOA board speaks for the corporate entity, the HOA, and not the people, and have no legitimate authority to speak for the people. The legislators and government officials must clearly accept this fact. These government officials must look to the true homeowner advocates, and not be confused by the CAI attempt to instill confusion by referring to themselves as HOA advocates, for direction on how to proceed.

For important information on the role and purpose of CAI, see the CAI: The National Lobbyist for HOA Principalities Report.