HinesSight

Wildfire good deeds need to become Covid good deeds

People here in Oregon, as elsewhere on the West Coast, have been wonderfully generous with their time, money, and effort in helping others affected by the massive wildfires burning in our forests.

The nightly local news is filled with stories about meals being prepared for firefighters, livestock being cared for after homes were destroyed, donations of clothes and other household goods being used to aid the newly homeless, and other acts of kindness. 

Such isn't surprising. Most people are generous. They feel empathy and concern for those in need. They want to make things better when suffering is rampant. 

I've been wondering, though, how it is that our nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has been so splintered and controversial when the response to West Coast wildfires has been so cohesive and praiseworthy.

How is it that Americans are so willing to risk their lives to save homes threatened by wildfire, yet often so reluctant to wear a mask in indoor public spaces or outside when six feet of physical distancing can't be maintained?

Covid has killed hugely more people than the wildfires have. The cover of the current issue of TIME magazine contains a large 200,000, the number of those killed by COVID-19 since the virus started to ravage the United States. 

The cover story is called An American Failure. There are many reasons for the failure to contain the virus, including the willful incompetence of Donald Trump. But other factors are at play, according to the story.  Such as:

Americans today tend to value the individual over the collective. A 2011 Pew survey found that 58% of Americans said "freedom to pursue life's goals without interference from the state" is more important than the state guaranteeing "nobody is in need." 

It's easy to view that trait as a root cause of the country's struggles with COVID-19; a pandemic requires people to make temporary sacrifices for the benefit of the group, whether it's wearing a mask or skipping a visit to their local bar.

...Absent adequate leadership, it's been up to everyday Americans to band together in the fight against COVID-19.

To some extent that's been happening -- doctors, nurses, bus drivers and other essential workers have been rightfully celebrated as heroes, and many have paid a price for their bravery. But at least some Americans still refuse to take such a simple step as wearing a mask.

Why? Because we're also in the midst of a epistemic crisis. Republicans and Democrats today don't just disagree on issues; they disagree on the basic truths that structure their respective realities.

Half the country gets its news from places that parrot whatever the Administration says, true or not; half does not. This politicization manifests in myriad ways, but the most vital is this: in early June (at which point more than 100,000 Americans had already died of COVID-19), fewer than half of Republican voters polled said the outbreak was a major threat to the health of the U.S. population as a whole.

So how is it that Republicans, along with Democrats and independents, are so willing to work hard to help evacuees threatened by wildfires, yet so many aren't willing to wear a mask or do other things to prevent people from suffering the nasty effects of COVID-19?

One reason is that it isn't possible to deny the reality of the wildfires, while there is plenty of misinformation circulating about COVID-19. If it were possible for Trump to spew falsehoods about wildfire damage being "fake news," likely a quarter or more of the population would agree with the Liar in Chief. 

Instead, reporters here in Oregon have been doing a great job communicating wildfire news via newspapers, television, social media, and other ways. This shows the importance of local journalism, which is more trusted than national news outlets. (I trust both, but I'm a news junkie.)

Another factor relates to the American individualism cited in the TIME cover story.

Volunteering to help those displaced by the wildfires is up to each person. Nobody is forcing them to do this. But orders to wear masks in public places come from elected officials. So there seems to be a reluctance by many to do what should be done to save lives just because someone else is telling them to do this.

That reminds me of a childhood retort. "I'm doing it not because you told me to, but because I want to." It's disturbing that adults would extend that to "I'm not doing it because you told me to, even though it is the right thing to do."

At any rate, I'm hoping that the compassion evident in the response of people to wildfire victims -- both those who lost their homes and those who had to evacuate -- will carry over to an increased willingness to wear a mask, physically distance, avoid crowded indoor places like bars, and do other things necessary to prevent death and disease from COVID-19.

With life, it's a truism that we're all in this together. And while no one gets out of life alive, death coming to everyone, we should do our best to help others get through difficult times in their life, whether this be dealing with a wildfire or avoiding infection with the coronavirus.

Ricky Gervais' Humanity show is wonderful dark humor

If you're looking for something to take your mind off of the West Coast wildfires, COVID-19 crisis, systemic racism, global warming, Trump vs. Biden, and other serious things that leave you less than smiley-faced, my wife and I have a suggestion.

Fire up Netflix and watch Ricky Gervais' Humanity show, a 78-minute stand-up routine that dates from 2017.

Now, if you watch it and blame us for recommending this piece of tasteless trash, keep in mind that Laurel and I enjoy dark humor. And Gervais is so dark in Humanity he easily beats out a black cat in a completely lightless room.

He starts off by spending considerable time telling transgender jokes at the expense of Caitlyn Jenner, daring to speak the name that mustn't be spoken, according to transgender purists -- Jenner's original name, Bruce.

After that the show descends (or ascends, in my opinion) into taking jabs at other sensitive topics, like children with cancer. Moments of more traditional levity are interspersed here and there, such as how dogs got their special gifts.

The breed that hunts lions wasn't wild about their gift. 

We watched Humanity a few days ago. Rather bizarrely, now and then I've found myself thinking, What would Ricky Gervais do in this situation?

That's the power of comedy, and of dark comedy in particular. Gervais finds humor in subjects that are thoroughly unfunny to most people. Yet from a certain perspective, such as the twisted mind of Gervais, they are funny. 

And Gervais makes fun of himself also. Just not as often as he takes digs at others.

He demonstrates the virtue of not caring overly much about what other people think, so long as what you think rings true to you. At one point he recites the cardinal rule followed by his family, or maybe just his brother and him, I can't remember exactly.

"If you think of something funny, you must say it." Maybe somebody will laugh. Maybe they won't. No matter. What matters if that you expressed your creativity. There's a lot of power in that comedic philosophy.

Here's some You Tube videos of clips from Humanity, including the dog bit. It's the first one. Also, the least offensive one.

Troy and Lori Anderson land use applications to Marion County

Because neighbors here in rural south Salem, Oregon are interested in the plans by Troy and Lori Anderson to build a farm dwelling on 80 acres of their 217 acre property just north of our Spring Lake Estates neighborhood, here are the documents related to their land use application to Marion County.

(1) Below is a PDF file of the application submitted to Marion County by Lori Anderson in March 2020 for a primary farm dwelling on 80 acres north of Spring Lake Estates.

Download Application

(2) Below is a PDF file of the April 2020 Marion County decision on the application. It was denied because the applicant didn't prove that the required farm income came from the 80 acre property.

Download AR20-009 Decision

(3) Below is a PDF file of the March 2020 Marion County request for comments on the application.

Download RFC-1

(4) Below is a a PDF file of the second application to Marion County by Lori Anderson in July 2020 for a primary farm dwelling on 80 acres north of Spring Lake Estates. My understanding is that this application has been withdrawn.

Download Second application

Wild is what we're wishing will end

For most of us, wild has generally positive connotations.

We like to be out of civilization and trekking into a wilderness. Being called a "wild thing" made for a popular song. We're more excited to see an animal in the wild than in captivity. 

But while a bit of wild is a good thing, too much leaves us exhausted, scared, anxious, uncertain.

That's where the West Coast of the United States is at the moment. Sure, other parts of the country also are suffering from an excess of wild. Oregon (where I live), Washington, and California just have wild to an astonishing degree.

Currently we're suffering through the worst wildfires in memory -- and likely in the entire history of our states. About 40,000 Oregonians have had to leave their homes under a Level 3 "GO NOW" evacuation order. The air quality in Salem, a few miles from my house, is off the chart.

Believe me, it doesn't take long after having a bunch of very large wildfires in your part of the world to make you think, "That's enough wild for a while. Like, forever."

After a week of heavy smoke, I went looking for HVAC filters today. In Salem they've become the new toilet paper, unavailable at the two stores I checked.

Global warming is largely to blame.

Forests are exceptionally dry after an extended drought. Political gridlock, caused in part by repeated walkouts of Republican legislators in Oregon who objected to a climate change bill, preventing a quorum, have stifled attempts to thin trees and create defensible spaces around forest communities.

Our power went out last Monday night.

High winds caused a utility pole to catch fire, leaving electrical wires in the middle of a nearby road. In the Santiam Canyon to the east of Salem, downed power lines caused fires that decimated entire towns. Underground utilities would eliminate that risk. 

But our country isn't investing in infrastructure. We've been lavishing money on the military and giving trillions of dollars in tax cuts to giant corporations instead. Of course, by "we" I mean Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. 

It feels like nobody sensible is in charge of the United States because that's the truth.

So wild proliferates unchecked far beyond the bounds of what citizens are comfortable with. The COVID crisis is another obvious example. There has been no effective national leadership, just posturing, lies, and false reassurances from the Commander in Chief of Wildness.

Trump adores chaos. He revels in conflict.

This makes him utterly incapable of being the cool, calm, collected leader who could guide us through a pandemic that has caused almost 200,000 deaths in the United States, many or most of them preventable given how much better other comparable countries have dealt with the novel coronavirus. 

Then there's the Black Lives Matter movement.

A week doesn't go by, it seems, without another disturbing example of how a person of color has been wrongly killed by police. Here too, national leadership is lacking. Some good things are happening at the state and local level, while Trump focuses on a few protesters who cause trouble rather than the systemic racism that's being protested.

"I can't breathe" is a common denominator that links all three manifestations of excessive wild.

That's what George Floyd said as a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck. Millions of people are enduring wildfire smoke that is unhealthy for everybody, and especially hazardous for those with asthma and other breathing problems. A prime COVID-19 symptom is pneumonia and damaged lungs.

However, there's also a psychological breathlessness afflicting our nation -- the exhausting feeling of climbing a Mount Wild where one steep challenge follows another with little opportunity to rest. Worse, the person who is supposed to be guiding us is clueless about what needs to be done to reach a place of ease.

This is why it is so important that Joe Biden be elected this November. He's the calming anti-wild president that we so sorely need and long for.

Evacuation checklist a good way to relieve wildfire anxiety

Right now Oregon is suffering though a wildfire perfect storm of longstanding drought, high winds, and many fires burning across our state. 

My wife and I lost electricity in the early evening yesterday, along with about thirty of our neighbors. Apparently the windy conditions caused a utility pole to catch fire, with electrical lines lying in the road. 

I fired up our generator, so we had a fairly normal night -- aside from the fact that because of the smoke from wildfires in the area we didn't want to open any windows, and our air conditioning wasn't working because of the electrical outage.

Thankfully, the power came on when we were waking up.

But as shown in the photo above, at nine a.m. it was still very dark outside our house. The gusty winds had spread the Beachie Creek fire rapidly in the Santiam Canyon to the east of Salem. With the winds coming out of the east, our area was hit with dense unhealthy smoke that obscured the rising sun.

Since we've lived on ten mostly natural acres in rural south Salem for the past thirty years, wildfire is on our minds every summer. We have cleared vegetation for quite a ways around our house, but there still are plenty of trees surrounding our home. 

So even though it is quite unlikely that the Beachie Creek fire could reach our neighborhood, the high winds yesterday and today were a reminder that a wildfire could be sparked locally at any moment and spread like, well, wildfire. My anxiety was pretty high up until noon, when I decided to do something that had been on my mind for a long time.

Prepare an evacuation checklist. And even better, to actually do some of the things on the list.

We have emergency bags in our cars filled with things we'd need if stranded somewhere. However, that wasn't my concern as I envisaged how I'd feel if we got a notification that a fast-moving wildfire was close by and we only had a short time to evacuate our home.

I like to think that I'd be calm, cool, and collected. But almost certainly I'd be frantic, heated, and scattered. What do we take in our cars?! What do we leave behind?! 

I had imagined the answers to these questions. Yet I also had imagined how easy it would be to forget something important in the course of running around, getting ready to evacuate, knowing that our house might be a smoldering ash heap the next time we saw it.

So I Googled "evacuation checklist."

Just doing that made me feel better. Preparing for something that hopefully wouldn't ever happen provided an outlet for the nervous anxious energy that came with the electricity outage, red sky, smoky air, and high wind. I started by printing out this Fire Evacuation Check List.

It was a way to get me going. Later today I found a couple of other checklists that I like, here and here. 

I've got more to do, as does my wife. But it didn't take me long to mostly fill up a couple of suitcases with clothes, treasured personal/family items, health needs, and such. I also jotted down reminders about what else I need to put into a ready-to-go backpack that is sitting in my office -- my laptop, charging cables, iPhone charger, other things.

Naturally we'd never forget our dog or dog food. But we might forget essentials like the chew sticks that she enjoys for a doggie dessert after she has her dinner. So those now are part of a dog go-bag.

It pains me to see images of the homes and businesses that have been destroyed in the Santiam Canyon. When it is safe for people to return there, I'm sure the devastation will be even more horrific. But as people often say when they learn their house has been lost, "We can rebuild. And we're thankful we're safe."

Exactly. If Laurel and I ever have to flee our home in the face of a wildfire, that will be hugely stressful. After preparing some for that eventuality today, I'm feeling a bit more confident that we could do this without losing our minds -- too much. 

Current photos of my childhood home in Three Rivers stir memories

Aside from college and my baby years, I've lived in six houses during my lifetime. They all have meaning for me, but the house in Three Rivers, California that was my home from about age eight to eighteen holds the most intense memories.

I think it's because those ten years marked my transition from a child to an adult. Everything was fresh and new. Changes -- physical, mental, social -- were happening rapidly.

So it was a delight to get an email from the couple who had recently purchased the Three Rivers, California house where I grew up. Finding me via Google, they had questions about who had designed the house. I responded with some recollections.

I knew that my mother had the house built a few years after she moved to Three Rivers in 1955, I think it was, which is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains at the gateway to Sequoia National Park. My grandmother helped pay for it, since my mother had gotten divorced and didn't have much money.

A few days ago I heard from the new owners again. They had closed escrow and shared some photos of the house. I was surprised at how emotional I got upon seeing the photos. There's no way I can explain those feelings, but I'll make a very partial attempt.

This shows the previous owners standing next to the one-car carport. It was all a divorcee needed. My mother's 1957 VW Bug fit in the space nicely. I spent many hours hitting tennis balls against the far wall, when the VW wasn't in the space, naturally. I also spent a lot of time chasing tennis balls down the hill when I mishit them.

Above the heads of the couple was where our television antenna was attached to the roof. Our TV was in the room with shades drawn behind the previous owners. No cable television in those days. Hardly any television at all. 

On a good day, or night, we could get a fuzzy picture from stations in Fresno. The signal would bounce off rocks near the top of hills in the Kaweah River valley where Three Rivers is located (the Kaweah has three forks, hence the town's name). To change a channel, I'd climb a ladder, get on top of the roof, and rotate the antenna while my mother yelled through an open window. 

"Getting better. Keep going. No, now picture is getting worse. Go back a bit. There, stop!" We also had a black dial telephone that was on a party line. Meaning, you'd have to pick up the phone to tell if a neighbor was talking on it. If the day was boring, maybe because no decent television signal was available, you could listen for a while, stealthily, and learn some gossip.

Ah, the living room. It seems to have shrunk. Or, more likely, my memories have. Regardless, my mother was wise to have the large picture windows, as you'll understand when you see a following photo.

The bookcases on the far wall have been altered over the years, unsurprisingly. My mother had one shelf made to order to perfectly fit the full width of the Great Books of the Western World. I still have that set, as shown below.

The used brick fireplace got a lot of use during cold weather. I spent many hours as a child starting a fire, then making up stories as the flames consumed twigs and branches that my mother and I collected from the rural countryside for kindling. "Watch out, jump, the fire is about to get you! Oh, sorry, too late, you just got burnt to a crisp." Fun stuff like that.

This is the view of the High Sierras (in the distance) with foothills in the foreground that the living room picture windows looked out on. Alta Peak is in the left center. Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park also is visible, barely. It's a large granite dome that, as a kid, I worried would be jarred loose and come rolling down the canyon to squish me in my sleep.

Never happened, thankfully.

I'm also thankful that I was able to grow up in such a beautiful place. My friends and I loved to play around in the (cold) snow-fed central fork of the Kaweah River, which ran by near our house. We'd grab inner tubes and have a great time, once I got over the initial freezing feeling.

I quickly became a strong swimmer, once I learned to swim, because that's the only way you survive in a fast-flowing mountain river.  After graduating from college I've lived in city houses in Portland and Salem, Oregon. For the past 30 years my wife and I have lived in rural south Salem on ten natural acres. 

It feels more like home, probably because the first home that I can distinctly remember, in Three Rivers, was so rural. Can't remember the exact population of Three Rivers at the time. I believe the full-time residents numbered about 400, scattered over a large area.

This is the backyard of the house. One of the new owners is on the right, with the previous owners on the left. The rock on top of a rock is a nice touch. My mother just had some minimal landscaping, since water is precious in dry Three Rivers. She'd try to grow strawberries, watering them judiciously. But deer would eat most of them, I recall.

The hill behind the couple on the left was one of the places my friends and I played. We'd use cattle trails to avoid the worst of the stickers, poison oak, and brush. It took some hot hiking (in the summer) to reach the top of the hill, which featured some large granite rocks. 

Not like Moro Rock, but big enough to climb up and sit atop with great views. One memory I'll never forget is crawling through a rocky passageway that led to the top of the rocks and hearing a rattle. That sound spurred a rapid backwards retreat, since running into a rattlesnake was drummed into us kids as not a wise move.

Gopher snakes were good, though they look a lot like rattlesnakes. Minus the rattlers. And the venom.

This photo elicited some especially strong feelings, because it is so reminiscent of what I and my friends did -- ride our bikes all over, including on the gravel driveway that led to our house and passed by two other houses on our shared road. 

Of course, we didn't have ten-speeds, just one-speeds and then three-speeds. Our big thrill was to attach playing cards to the spokes with clothespins (outdoor drying on a line was how it was done back then). Then we could sound like motorcycles, to our child ears, at least. 

It's wonderful to see that while much has changed in the world over the past sixty years, or so, the Three Rivers house I grew up in is much the same. And that children are still enjoying the countryside, just as I did way back when.

If you're a glutton for old man memories, here's links to some blog posts I've written about my days in Three Rivers.

My memories of growing up with books in the 1950's and 60's
How I was blown away by a nuclear bomb
Boxing up books reminds me of a beautiful book, freely given
A Christmas memory of my mother
My grandmother taught me the power of "I like it"

Our caring about societal issues has a disturbing trajectory

It's a familiar happening. Some event stimulates an outpouring of concern about a societal issue. Like mass shootings, global warming, police killings of Blacks, Postal Service slowdowns, Trump's outrageous actions.

Protesters march in the streets. Facebook and Twitter erupt. Legislators are contacted. Passionate views are expressed. Vows of "we've got to do something about this" are plentiful.

And then... the familiar trajectory of the bell-shaped curve is evident. What goes up, comes down. A peak level of societal concern is reached, then declines to about the same level it was at before.

Maybe a bit higher, but nowhere near as large as when it seemed that lasting change finally was going to happen.

Then a new issue takes hold in the national consciousness and the same dynamic plays out. This is natural. Nothing last forever. Change happens. It isn't possible for people to stay focused on a single issue forever, or even for very long.

We need to be realistic about what can be achieved by these periodic displays of concern.

Yes, they're exceedingly valuable. They draw attention to a pressing problem, as has been evident with the Black Lives Matter movement. The spark of George Floyd's murder set off a firestorm of justified outrage that brought many more people on board with the Black Lives Matter cause.

So how can this social energy be harnessed for lasting good? As with other causes, somehow a commitment to lasting change has to be institutionalized. 

Yeah, I know. That's a dreadful term for many, institutionalized. It conjures up an image of a patient in a mental hospital, or a prisoner in a penitentiary. Rigid procedures, a lack of freedom, stultifying routine. 

Well, routine is what we're looking for when it comes to lasting societal change.

After activists bring a problem to our attention though special means -- protests, passionate speeches, calls to action -- a transition into institutionalized policies needs to happen. Otherwise the bell-shaped curve thing occurs, a big flurry of ascendent activity followed by a descent into business as usual.

I realize that this is difficult for activists to hear. It's the truth, though. For example, Black Lives Matter protests have done their job in raising public awareness of systemic racism and other inequities within police departments.

But now those protests have reached the point of diminishing returns. People tune out protesters when the same message is repeated over and over for months on end, as has been happening to the city to the north of where I live in Salem -- Portland, Oregon.

This has been exacerbated by a small group of troublemakers who hijack the otherwise peaceful protests, setting fires in police buildings, breaking windows, and such. That encourages counter-protests by the law and order crowd, fueled by Trump's lie that Democrat-led cities are being wrecked by angry mobs. 

What's needed at this point is institutional change within police departments. That process isn't nearly as exciting as marching in the streets. It is equally or more important, though.

Here in Salem, Oregon's capital, our city council has embarked on a months-long effort of conducting a performance audit of the Salem Police Department which will be led by an outside consultant. Sure, a performance audit doesn't exactly lend itself to a stirring chant: What do we want? Performance audit! When do we want it? In a few months!

However, if all goes as planned, and that's a big "if," the performance audit could produce marked improvements in the police department in line with the demands of Black Lives Matter protesters and allied groups.

Institutionalizing change is how lasting progress has been made in civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, environmental rights, all sorts of rights. It is more difficult when political leaders on the local, state, or national level are opposed to the cause being promoted. 

Difficult, but not impossible. Elections can alter the political landscape. Pressure can alter political minds. So let's strike a balance between raising awareness of societal problems through in-your-face methods, and institutionalizing the needed changes.

Why I think "Our Last Tango" is such a great dance movie

Thanks to Netflix, recently my wife and I enjoyed watching "Our Last Tango," a documentary of sorts about the passionate relationship between two highly talented Tango dancers, Maria Nieves Rego and Juan Carlos Copes.

I say of sorts, because the film bounces back and forth between footage of Maria and Juan in the present day (the movie was released in 2016) when they were 80 and 83, respectively, videos of them performing when younger, and reenactments of memorable moments in their relationship by four skilled Tango dancers -- two for their early years together, and two for their later years.

It's a creative way to tell their story. 

Maria is more compelling than Juan as she speaks about how they met and fell in love, as well as hate. Maria makes clear that her constant lifelong love was for Tango, though she also loved Juan when she wasn't hating him. Their relationship was complicated, though also simple in a way, since both Maria and Juan weren't shy about expressing how they felt.

Which is the mark of artists. 

Crazily, my wife and I took Argentine Tango lessons some years back, even though our partner dancing experience up to that point had been very minimal, just some West Coast Swing classes, if I recall correctly. 

I soon learned from our instructors that Argentine Tango is akin to a Ph.D. level form of dance. And we were first-graders, basically.

Still, we enjoyed the classes. Except when we didn't. I learned quite a bit about leading and following, which stood me in good stead when Laurel and I took a series of ballroom dancing classes -- American Tango, Salsa, Waltz, West Coast Swing, Nightclub Two Step, Rhumba, and others.

Dancing really is addictive, something that comes across strongly in "Our Last Tango."

The thing with Argentine Tango, insofar as I understand it, is that it is almost completely led and followed. Meaning, you can't count on patterns to get you through a dance. Ideally there has to be a strong, intimate connection between the leader and follower, even if you have just met.

Here's some of the blog posts I've written about Argentine Tango.

Tango, where men lead and women follow
Dancing through life the Argentine Tango way
Tango, a three minute love affair
l jump back into Argentine Tango, again a beginner
In Tango, as in marriage, the man is always wrong

Laurel and I no longer are dancing mainly due to foot and leg problems. But maybe one day we'll put our dancing shoes back on. I was impressed by how fit Maria and Juan look in the movie, given their over-80 ages. They've continued dancing, and obviously quite well, which is a testament to the ability of dance to keep us mentally and physically fit.

After watching "Our Last Tango" I"m going to experiment with doing my Tai Chi, a passion for the past sixteen years, to Tango music. My intuition is that there is something to the notion of Tai Chi Tango. And I can do it myself, no partner required.

And having become a 71 year-old TikTok addict, I've started to learn some Shuffle moves, a simple dance that I've enjoyed seeing in numerous TikTok videos, demonstrated, not surprisingly, by much younger people. Twenty Shuffle variations are shown in this YouTube video, I've more-or-less learned the first.

Here's the trailer for "Our Last Tango," which I note from Rotten Tomatoes only made $99,928 in its release in theaters. Which shows that movie profits don't equate to entertainment value.

What I like and don't like about my 2020 Subaru Crosstrek Limited

When I meet someone who has just moved here from California, I give them advice on how to disguise where they came from. Which includes, ditch the California license plates ASAP. Then put them on a Subaru.

I've lived in Oregon for 47 years. Seems like I should have a Subaru.

Six months ago I bought another Subaru after owning a Legacy way back when. Here's my Adobe Spark web page review of what I like about my 2020 Crosstrek Limited (lots of things) and what I don't like (a few things). Click below to be led to the web page.

Dumb stuff our HOA is trying to do

From what I can tell, Homeowners Associations (HOAs) are about as beloved as the IRS -- a necessary evil that people want to have as little to do with as possible.

Which means I must be an aberration, since for about 25 years I was the secretary for our HOA, Spring Lake Estates Recreation Property, Inc. here in rural south Salem, Oregon. 

That meant I not only had to attend almost every meeting of our HOA board for a quarter century, I also had to stay awake enough to take notes and write minutes that were close enough to what actually happened to be approved by the board at the next meeting, by which time, thankfully, most board members couldn't remember what occurred very well.

But seriously, or let's say even more seriously, I enjoyed being the HOA secretary for the most part.

Our meetings were informal, often filled with gossip, jokes, and laughter. We welcomed the occasional property owner who would come to a board meeting out of curiosity, because they were interested in an agenda item, or had a problem they wanted fixed.

Partly things were so relaxed because we're an old development, formed in the early 1970s, without CC&Rs. So we have few rules, just some charmingly archaic deed restrictions like "No poultry in commercial quantity." So if you've ever wanted to have a lot of chickens on your property, right up to a factory farm level, give us a look-see.

I resigned a few years ago after Dumb Stuff #1 our board did. I'd put considerable effort into fashioning a trial web site for our HOA using software from a company specializing in this. About a third of our 96 members signed up for the site and liked its features: calendar, message board, online documents, and such.

However, a few nit-pickers in our community worried that the web site wasn't secure enough, even though it required a password to access it and didn't contain any sensitive information.

The fact that we were behind the Internet times, lacking the ability to let our members quickly know about "breaking news" such as water test results for our community lake, which got a lot of use during the summer months, was ignored by our HOA board. That lack of neighborly concern caused me to bail out on being secretary. 

Since, the board has had two short-lived secretaries, each lasting about a year, and now is on a third. That tells me that either I should be admitted to the HOA Secretary Hall of Fame or I am even crazier than I thought for spending so many years laboring in the secretarial trenches.

My wife has served on the board for many years, too many for me to remember. This month she lost her re-election bid by one vote, so she's now an outsider like I am. But we still are keeping tabs on other dumb stuff our HOA board is trying to do, which led us to spend a frustrating couple of hours yesterday at the Annual Membership Meeting at the Spring Lake picnic area.

This gets me to Dumb Stuff #2 our board did. Well, actually just the board president, who keep saying at yesterday's meeting, when the discussion about my next dumb stuff #3 got a bit heated, "We're now in Executive Session! Only board members can speak."

The president obviously didn't know what an Executive Session actually is, a fact I was pleased to remind her about today, along with the other board members, in an email I sent to them. Here's a few excerpts.

It was obvious to those of us familiar with how executive sessions work that _____’s repeated “we’re now in executive session” at yesterday’s membership meeting had no basis. 

 

Here’s some links on this subject for board members to educate themselves, since it is important that yesterday be the first and only time “executive session” is proclaimed by a SLERP board president in the midst of a meeting. 

 

https://kuester.com/can-hoa-board-call-executive-session/

https://blog.realmanage.com/6-reasons-a-board-should-hold-an-hoa-executive-session

https://findhoalaw.com/executive-session/

https://blog.hignellhoa.com/when-can-an-hoa-board-call-an-executive-session

 

...So none of the reasons a HOA board could meet in executive session pertained to yesterday’s membership meeting. And even if there was, the board would have to vote in an open meeting whether to meet in executive session.

 

Since executive sessions are private, obviously saying “executive session!” at our membership meeting was even more outrageous, since that would have required all non-board members to leave the picnic area, thereby defeating the purpose of a membership meeting.

 

Lastly, here’s an additional link from a law firm regarding Oregon and Washington law concerning executive sessions.

http://www.barkermartin.com/blog/condo-hoa-blog/post/executive-session-lifting-the-veil-of-secrecy

 

This post contains a pertinent statement, because this is exactly what _____, the board president, was trying to do with her repeated off-base calls of “executive session” — shut down discussion of a controversial subject.

 

Executive session should not be used as an avoidance tactic. Boards should not convene or threaten to convene in executive session every time a controversial or contentious issue arises. The issues upon which a board can legally enter executive session are stated expressly within the statute applicable to their association, and the statutes can be used as guidelines for all communities.  

 

Dumb Stuff #3 a few misguided members of our HOA board are trying to inflict on our community concerns trying to change how our bylaws can be amended. 

This obviously is a big deal, because the bylaws for an HOA are akin to the United States Constitution, the core guide to how the HOA operates. Our bylaws say that the bylaws can only be amended in this way: 

The By-Laws of this Corporation may be amended, added to, or replaced only when approved by a mail vote of the majority of the membership of the Corporation.

Now, it seems obvious to my wife and I, seemingly along with anyone else who can read English, that a "majority of the membership of the Corporation" means 50% plus one of our 96 property owners, each of whom gets one vote for each lot owned (a few people own more than a single lot). So roughly 49 votes would be needed to approve a change to the bylaws

This also is the view of a land use attorney we hired after our HOA board indicated that it wanted to start making bylaws changes that only required a majority vote of those returning ballots.

Since we have a rather apathetic group of property owners (many people live in rural areas like ours because they want to be left alone), this would mean that if, say, 10 out of the 96 property owners returned a bylaws change ballot, six votes would enable that change to pass.

Which seems really wrong, since a very small minority could make changes to the bylaws that affect everybody in our community.

Yesterday we made some strong arguments against that interpretation (or rather, misinterpretation) of how our bylaws can be amended, including the possibiity of a lawsuit by disgruntled property owners who don't appreciate having the HOA board ignore what the current bylaws say.

Pleasingly, our board voted to get a legal opinion from another attorney before moving ahead with bylaws amendments. That was good news, so hopefully I'll be able to scratch Dumb Stuff #3 from my list of HOA grievances fairly soon.

I'll end by saying that I do have considerable sympathy for the current HOA president, even though I don't think she is doing a very good job. This cartoon is apt.