The CotoBlogzz

Posted by CotoBlogzz 04/19/2009 6:00 PM

Laguna Wood Village - CA.  So what do you do when you are HOA/CID board of director’s president and want to get something approved, such as a manor’s stock transfer paperwork without discussion?   You can do like Speaker Pelosi and get a historic 1,073-page spending bill just hours before lawmakers have to vote on it so no one has a chance to read the contents, or do like Frank Sinatra, as in “I did it my way“!.

Or if you are the president of the United Mutual board of directors in Laguna Woods, you can simply shout: “I’m the Board President and you’ll do as I say!“  “HA!!  I almost fell out of my chair laughing …” says Michael Curtis, as he heard the command from Lloyd Foster. “The duty of the President is to facilitate the board’s activities - not to dictate or lead by mandate.  Every board member has a responsibility to think for themselves and do what they believe is right. “  Mr. Curtis added. Apparently Mr. Foster wanted to push through a manor’s stock transfer paperwork without answering a very specific and simple question, according to Mr. Curtis

United Director Mr. Michael Curtis

“The paperwork had already been rejected twice by board members in recent weeks because of questionable payment history and credit.  In the latest version of the paperwork, the buyer obtained an unconditional agreement of credit support from a third party,” Mr. Curtis added.

Mr. Curtis implies that Mr. Foster is not only unable to distinguish the urgent from the important, but wonders about his motivation for doing so: “Who was pushing Foster?  It was PCM’s Laguna Woods Properties and PCM Inc. - Oh, the escrow is closing this afternoon - this is an emergency - it must be approved now!  (Guess who runs the escrow company.)  In a memo to Directors, dated April 15th, PCM used their worn phrase “Upon advice of counsel, staff recommends … approval.”

Perhaps heeding author and columnist D. Vanitzian’s advice in the piece titled The New Lawyer World, an Orgy of Fright, Mr. Curtis asks the simple question:  “Who was the attorney and what was the form of the advice?.”  According to Mr. Curtis “Foster didn’t want to answer.  “Just give it to me!” he kept shouting regarding the paperwork I was physically holding (and had already approved).  I kept responding, “When I get the answer to my question!”  I finally had to ask Wendy Bucknam to call Security.  Dr. John Paulus, who was with me, ended up leaving after things got really hot.  I thought Foster, who was standing above me as I was seated at the conference table, was going to physically attack me.”

Apparently the stand-off went on for more than five minutes.  Once Mr. Foster agreed to find out the answer to Mr. Curtis’ question, Mr. Curtis gave Mr. Foster the signed paperwork, and so ends another chapter of how the lawyer world turns.

We are looking forward to seeing a formal “Incident Report”

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 6:27 pm and is filed under Misc, Laguna Wood Village, HOA/CID, Politics, Fiduciary Responsibility, Senior Advocacy, Leisure World/Seal Beach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.