“I will leave judgments on this matter to history — but I will be one of the historians.”
–Winston Churchill

This first Silver Springs Community web site began in 2000 when board members of the Silver Springs Master Homeowners Association asked Clay and Lucy Archer to build and maintain a website for our community. October 23, 2000 Brodie Pollard emailed to the Archers, “As we talked about, the HOA is interested in a website and would love to have you help us out in this regard. What do we do to get started? Can you go ahead and get us a domain name? What about www.silverspringshoa.com?”

The Archers registered the www.silverspringshoa.org domain name and paid for it, then paid for each renewal through 2005. The Archers also hosted this domain for five years. Both were paid for by the Archers. Brodie and Brian Zilvitis had many ideas and the foursome worked to build a good site representative of the twelve MHOA subdivisions. Lucy had HTML training and a degree in Computer Technology but little in programming and design. The Archers purchased at their own expense the DreamWeaver software and Lucy took a class to try to learn how to implement it. Lucy, a public librarian and Silver Springs resident since 1982, had collected many Silver Springs items regarding history, legal documents, ballots, minutes, etc. Countless hours researching, learning, implementing, etc, were expended by the Archers on behalf of this project.

The MHOA Minutes for February 26, 2001 and March 19, 2001 both record the Archer’s involvement in the www.silverspringshoa.org website.

Brodie Pollard moved in June 2003 to Willow Creek and Brian lost interest. There was no support by the MA board for the website, and being unable to gain the cooperation of the MA manager to obtain minutes, the board roster, documents, contracts, etc., the site progress did not grow beyond some template pages created by the Archers. They learned that depending on others for resources and information did not work.

On May 1, 2003 board trustee Mike Farkas began making inquiries via email regarding the status of the website. Jerry Romero wrote to Lucy that “although Mike wants to move forward at ‘light speed’, this is going to take a while to sort out.” The admin was expanded to include Farkas and several pages and the logo were sent to him. Lucy was invited by Jerry Romero, SSSF president, to attend a meeting at his house on Tuesday May 12th to discuss the website. Lucy attended but the website was not discussed. Romero stated he did not have a grip on all the board business, “I do not want to “reinvent the wheel” and want to build on the successes of past boards and learn from their mistakes.”

The emails from Farkas and Romero had two very different viewpoints regarding the website. Farkas wanted to make the website more professional and all encompassing, Romero did not have a clue what to do with it. Evidently, Romero felt the website was a past board mistake as he gave did not give support to Mike Farkas or the Archers on this endeavor. Farkas moved out of the neighborhood October 2003 and the website was not brought up again until 2005.

Late in 2005, Steve Kotsenburg and Anthony Sands contacted the Archers requesting that the website files from 2000-2005 be forwarded to Anthony. “Kotz” moved early in 2007. It is uncertain what the status of the website was after the Archers complied, other than no activity or use is known other than that on July 16, 2006 Sands reserved the www.silverspringshoas.com domain (and launched the site two years later).

Skip Domenick, the president of the SSSFHOA stated that he had been trying to get the MHOA board to do something with the website for a long time and was frustrated with the MA board’s lack of action or interest. Skip decided to reopen the website for the SSSFHOA. A November 29, 2005 email from Skip indicates that ‘Steve” (Kotsenburg or Marteney) had volunteered to look into the website the Archers had been administering from 2000-2005.

On December 10, 2005 Steve Marteney sent an email asking the Archers “if they could tell me a little about what was done, the domain name, where it is registered, who is the named admin, where it is hosted, is it still active, etc.” This request shows the level of interest the board had previously shown in the website. Clay Archer responded to Marteney that same day answering that the Archers were hosting and paying for the domain and the address where it was open.

Around March 2006 Skip Domenick authorized Dave Coehlo to re-activate the neglected work that had been allowed to lapse. Dave contacted Cynthia Spangler from P.C. Web to re-activate the domain and design a new website. Cynthia was hired on April 8, 2006 to design and build the ten (11) title pages (at $75. per page) for the SSSFHOA, costing $1,675.45 (all design work, graphics, etc., now available at www.silverspringssfhoa.org). These pages were presented on November 9, 2006 at the Annual Association Replacement Meeting.

After that introduction in 2006 the board neglected, in effect abandoned, their new website as no new content was added and the hosting service, Beco Tech, were not paid from 2006 to mid-2008. (See Lyn Cier email April 18, 2008; check is dated May 31, 2008.)

In November of 2007 and again in February and March of 2008 Skip Domenick and the Archers had conversations regarding the state of the SSSF board, the survey sent out to recruit volunteers to join the board, and the almost defunct website. By March, Skip and the Archers had come to an agreement that the Archers would again take over the website, no other community member had ever actually worked on the website, only the Archers, so it was agreed the position of webmaster was to be a perpetual position. To be in the same class as water master or HOA manager, and hopefully to make a permanent position for Lyn Cier as bookkeeper, though manager and bookkeeper are paid positions, and water master and webmaster are free voluntary positions.

The stagnant website was once again given to the Archers during the March 2008 meeting conducted by Skip. As neighborhood volunteer webmasters they commenced work. Again the support ended with the calling. This time the Archer’s were committed to research and organize information, obtain documents, etc. from the Summit County web pages, and seek other outside sources. Their goal to was build, organize, and maintain this website for the information and benefit of the twelve (13) Silver Springs Associations Members’, and Trustees interested in informed governance.

When Cynthia saw how much work and time Lucy Archer was putting into the website on March 12, 2008 Cynthia suggested that Lucy convert the site to WordPress, a dynamic html that Cynthia had recently learned to use and was very excited to have her clients implement. Cynthia very enthusiastically told Lucy about all the attributes of dynamic WordPress, its portability, scaleability, ease of use, addition of the Search Function, password protected pages, addition of a calendar, multiple individual authorship of pages that could be added and maintained by HOA members, etc. Cynthia offered a sizable discount on the conversion fee by including her annual fee as part of the offer. Cynthia explained that “it is to the group’s good to do this dynamically. This will eliminate the need for any future maintenance contracts [with PCWeb] as this one-time fee includes any help that you need in learning to use this system.” Lucy discussed the conversion from static html to WordPress with a majority of the board in agreement to convert to this new architecture. Further, Winer and board members present authorized Lyn Cier to pay the PCWeb invoice when it came in.

The SSSF April 2008 Newsletter announced that “Lucy Archer had agreed to build up and keep current our website.” On April 18, 2008 Lucy emailed to Lyn Cier asking who was in charge of the silverspringshoa website the last few years. “I have some questions for them.” On April 20, 2008 Lyn replied to Lucy with a cc: to Winer: “Not sure what you mean about the website…other than the early work you did on the website [2000-2003] and then Cynthia’s, no one has done much. I believe, but I could be wrong, that Dave Coehlo was the original connection with Cynthia. Skip would know the answer to this.” This further proves that the website had been abandoned by the board since November 9, 2006.

In July 2008 the interim SSSFHOA “president” who continually made requests that none of his personal information such as address, phone number, and email address be published anywhere. He requested that he be provided with the generic email address info@silverspringshoa.org. When complying with his request the Archers found they had to be authorized administrators in order to commence that address for Winer. The Archers contacted V.P. Dave Coehlo who agreed to re-transfer the domain documentation back to the Archers on August 2, 2008. In this way Winer was provided with the generic email address he requested and the Archers officially became domain administrators

In the meantime, research brought to light many deficiencies in association governance, our MA Draft Bylaws were not signed nor being upheld, or even recognized in the case of the Master Homeowners Association. The more information that was contributed to the HOA’s boards through this site, or in person at board meetings, in hope of returning our homeowners associations to adherence to State law and Association Bylaws, the more resistance grew from some entrenched MA board trustees. Lucy was removed as president of the MHOA because they did not like her agenda. A few members of both the SSSFHOA and the MHOA began to spread libelous remarks stating Lucy recorded the MHOA 1990 Bylaws creating a cloud on all Silver Springs property titles (See Sept 22, 2008 Minutes). This rumor proved to be a rouse to give Lucy a black eye for her efforts to try to uphold the Bylaws, and to put a cloud on the real issue: that the MHOA was not being run according to State Non-Profit Corporation rules or the MA Bylaws, there was little financial disclosure, and assessments were out of step with actual costs, [and on April 12 and 13, 2010, at two separate meeting Duyker had shouted out that the recording of the MA Bylaws had taken deniability away from the MA board.  Had the MA board intentionally kept themselves document free so that they could rule according to their whims?] . The MHOA was being run at the whim of a couple entrenched MA board members. The 2004 MHOA president had accepted the lakes under questionable terms with only his signature, and then the MA board aka “the lake club” commenced assessing property owners for lake maintenance fees without receiving approval from the 508 MA property owners at a General Meeting as stated in the Draft Bylaws, and there are other abuses of fiduciary duty, election process deficiencies, and lack of responsibility to the whole MHOA at large.

Time has proven that the only ramification of recording the MA Bylaws was that now the entire Community has access to the rules by which the MHOA board is suppose to be governing our community. Since the recording of the MA Bylaws last summer, and to date, there have been over 100 recordings in the twelve (13) MA member subdivisions of transfers of title, refinances, reconveyances, deeds and trust deeds, title addendums and agreements, assignments of successor or trust deed, etc…without a single hitch about the recorded Bylaws. In fact, each of the member subdivisions have recorded their Bylaws without incident. The disconcerting, damaging disinformation from the MA board however continues to be spread throughout our community and causing unwarranted alarm.

(Check these transactions for yourself at the Summit County Recorder’s website at http://property.summitcounty.org:8080/eaglesoftware/web/login.jsp?submit=Enter Click on Public Login)”

Back to the website….

According to an email from PCWeb to Dave Coehlo on July 31, 2008, “Someone will want to pay for this domain name soon”, the Archers did not want the domain to fall through the cracks of neglect again and possibly expire. Winer was out of town and not communicating, and the other board members were not responsive to board business. Then the October 13, 2008 Election was ambushed by Bill Gunter and Sue Pollard (as the 74 or so members in attendance witnessed) and the board went into limbo and was dysfunctional. Again no one was tending to business while the bickering was in process.

On November 6, 2008 the unelected Winer called a meeting without giving proper three day notice. Quote from Minutes: “Bill Gunter also made a motion that the web site be shut down until further notice. Michael seconded the motion. The motion passed.” No vote was taken as Pollard was sure to vote in the affirmative and all other elected trustees in attendance, Cody, Archer, Zinn were abstaining from business during this contrived meeting. Lucy was not removed as webmaster nor from her Communications duties on the board. A board member can only be removed from the board by a majority vote of the Association Members. There was some discussion about who pays for the web site and who has control over the content. The Archers had paid for the web site domain from 2000-2005 [and November 6, 2008 to the present], and they administer, research, and build its content free of charge, a great savings to the Association. The Archers have again paid the current costs for the domains and hosting. No other HOA board member has ever contributed to the website. The board had shown no interest in providing input, there had been no direction given, so unaided the Archers developed the site as best as they could.

After the motion to shut down the website Lucy said she would continue to administer and build the website at her own expense on behalf of the Association Members and the 12 other subdivisions that it serves. This website is the only place where Association Members can find full disclosure, transparency, and information on the HOA, news, HOA docs, meeting announcements, board rosters, neighborhood information, and board activities as well as continuity from turn-overs created at annual board elections. She would continue as Webmaster as that was her original agreement when she resumed developing it last March 2008 (See email March 12, 2008). Also the website was not only for the SSSFHOA but for all twelve (or 13) subdivisions in the Master Association and the four contiguous subdivisions to the Silver Springs Community and other board members relied on its content.

Though “the board’ chose to shut down the website, the question remains as to who were the true board members, and who had authority to make motions and vote during the pseudo board meeting Nov. 6th and thereafter. The Oct 13 defamation by Gunter for a “review of the procedure for nomination” has not taken place as the rogues have no evidence to support their claim, and the positions of the trustees remains contested as the December 15, 2008 election is invalid after a full quorum October Election under the Bylaws. Association Member votes cannot be invalided by the board. This election ambush puts the new candidates of both elections in a tenuous position.

On Oct 13th the Association Members had voted in a new board which were usurped by the rogues. The evening of November 6th the Archers felt they had no choice under the circumstances but to act to preserve all the site content not only for the SF but for all the other Master Association Members, through this board crisis. As the domain had already been transferred to the Archers in August and the rogue usurpers had acted to “shut it down”, and being the Archers are the parties most invested in the website, the Archers salvaged the website by extending the term of the www.silverspringshoa.org domain and again paid for it themselves for a few more years. (Also see results of the Association survey distributed on October 2nd and 3rd, 2008, regarding the use of the website.)

On December 15, 2008 a replacement meeting and election, not supported by our Bylaws, took place and two of the rogues were elected, Winer and Coehlo were not elected. The new trustees elected during the legal Association meeting on October 13, 2009 were left out of all “board” actions and activities, and the ballots from the Oct 13th meeting which were “valid for an adjournment thereof” were not counted at the Dec 15 meeting counter to established and written procedure.

Legal fees on the SSSFHOA Budget distributed on November 6, 2008 totaled $2,936.40. On December 2008 Budget the Legal Fees total had increased to $11,329.66. An increase of $8,393.26 for the replacement meeting legal costs for the attorney to help the rogues justify their actions and behavior? A request was made to the treasurer and bookkeeper for details of this expense. None have been provided.

The Archers sought advise from a number of individuals within the SSSFHOA and from former board members, from Summit County Commissioner David Ure, from State Legislator (HOA focused) Gage Froerer, and HOA attorneys from Kirk Cullimore. The Archers were advised that “THE MEMBERS ARE RESPONSIBLE TO HOLD THE BOARD ACCOUNTABLE…MAKE A DEMAND ON THE ASSOCIATION TO SUE THE BOARD TO HAVE THEM FULFILL THEIR DUTIES…THE HOA ENFORCES THE ACTS AND THE GOVERNING DOCUMENTS. THE HOA BOARD HAS A DUTY TO ENFORCE THESE. IF THE HOA BOARD FAILS IN ITS DUTIES, EACH INDIVIDUAL OWNER HAS STANDING AND RIGHTS TO ENFORCE THE PROVISIONS OF THE ACTS AND GOVERNING DOCUMENTS INDEPENDENT OF THE HOA. THERE IS NO GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY CHARGED WITH ENFORCEMENT.”
At the first (unposted)meeting with the “pseudo board” on January 2 or 5, 2009, we were told that the two rogues tag-teamed the nominations for officers and installed each other before the new board members realized what happened.

On January 11, 2009 the Archers were threatened by Bill Gunter with legal action and there began the harassment by “board” members to turn over the community website so that the rogues could remove the minutes of Oct 13 and Nov 6 meetings. The Archers felt that the website content would be cannibalized and much information would be lost in the hands of these folks. Further, Gunter had no authority to request anything from the Archers. First, he had usurped the election and his position was contestable, second, the Archers were volunteers who had been unceremoniously removed from service.

On January 15, 2009 Lyn Cier answered an email from Gunter about the history of the website, she wrote: “As I said before, she and Clay offered to create a web site free of charge. They did put the CC&R’s and bylaws on it. I will look at minutes from back then because I don’t recall even making people aware of the site because the board had very little to do with it. (Lot’s of discussion about the future of using electronic information)” On this same date Jerry Romero wrote to Bill Noland: “…[Bill Gunter] had asked what problems that I had encountered with Lucy when setting up the web site. I had no real problems with her and Clay….I had asked for contact from them regarding some assignments such as bids, costs, and other contractual information [they informed me they had paid for the domain and hosting, and were developing the content themselves for free]…I did not outreach to them as I did not have a good feeling [nor any knowledge of websites, and did not want that much disclosure. Did not provide to them any of the minutes, rosters, and documents, etc., they requested for posting.]..”

Gunter holds unposted meetings in his house, that in essence kept the Archers from representing their side of the issue. In February Clay Archer attended a board meeting but was shouted down by Gunter and Pollard who were obviously in control of the board. It was embarrassing to witness the unsophisticated, oafish way the SSSFHOA board meeting was ‘conducted’ and how the board accepted this kind of treatment of its volunteers.

On January 19, 2009 Gunter sent an email to Lucy requesting information on past board meetings. After making several rude, inaccurate, and false statements, he ended his writing with this: “Your activities have actually alienated you from the members of your community. This is unfortunate as some of the features of the website are quite useful.” The cause of whatever alienation Lucy does endure is due to Gunter’s slander of her on October 13, November 6, and December 15, 2008.

January 23, 2009 letter that Gunter cc:copied to twelve other people, he demanded that Lucy “must prominently display, to the satisfaction of the Board of Trustees, a disclaimer that the site is neither sanctioned by, funded by, nor represents in any manner the Silver Springs Homeowners association nor its Board of Trustees; and reimburse the monies that the HOA members have spent to develop and maintain the site since 2006, approximately $4,080.81 (itemized expenses attached).” This statement is in the Terms of Use on the www.silverspringscommunity.com website.

That same evening Lucy sent an email to all those recipients, plus three more, answering 9 questions. Then Lucy began to make the requested changes to the website that would reflect Gunter’s demands. So the Archers separated their contributions from the April 2006-March 2008 website contents. The webpages that the HOA had paid for during those two years were, and are, posted at www.silverspringsSFhoa.org. The “board” was not satisfied with this arrangement, as it did not give them control over the total content. When the Archer’s refused to give up their site Gunter insisted that the site include a disclaimer stating that the site was not funded or supported by the “board”. This disclaimer is above and in the Terms of Use Policy.

The website was discussed at the February 2, 2009 board meeting. The Archers continued to be harassed for the www.silverspringshoa.org domain. The Archers again tried to acquiesce and tried to make the best of this situation. The work and process took a number of days; the Archers moved all their content (this kind of transfer causes the breakage many links - still to be fixed), costing the Archers and others much time and effort. Their information, pictures, etc. are posted at www.silverspringscommunity.com The Archers felt that until all the links could be re-established, and in order to provide the Association Members with continued access to the website, that a fair compromise would be to make the www.silverspringshoa.org domain a link or portal to both the “official” www.silverspringsSFhoa.org site and the Archer’s www.silverspringscommunity.com website. This would provide to the Association Members the use of the site they were accustomed to using and the choice to visit the “official” 2006 website pages that held the board investment.

Pages and pages of emails flew back and forth between the Archers and Chris Butler and other board members. Little of it seems to have been presented at the board meetings. No matter what compromises the Archers offered they were told by Gunter and Butler that ‘the board’ had rejected them. Gunter asserted that the Archers had committed theft of what he wanted, the website. The Archers asserted that Gunter and Pollard had committed theft of the election, therefore they had no authority to request the website as they were sure that the only reason they wanted it was to remove the minutes and agendas from the October 2, October 13, November 6, and December 15 meetings. The Archers had given Gunter a website without the minutes he wanted destroyed. Therein lay the impasse.
The Archers set up and paid for the second domain at www.silverspringssfhoa.org and then PCWeb, from their archives, transferred the pre-March 2008 webpages to the “official” site with all its graphics, etc., as well as the WordPress capabilities and some additional pages the Archers built for the benefit of the Association, such as the password protected Member Directory, the Search function, the perpetual calendar, the Realtor-Buyer page, and the early HOA documents links. All logins and passwords to this domain were also relinquished by the Archers via email to all the members of the 2009 SSSFHOA board on Gunter’s deadline date of January 27, 2009.

The SSSFHOA board is now in possession of everything the Association paid for in regard to the website, plus the additional benefits named above. Also the Association Members continue to have use and access to both websites and the three domains via www.silverspringshoa.org…..the free site at www.silverspringscommunity.com and the “official” site at www.silverspringssfhoa.org.

On February 16, 2009 PCWeb responding to an email from Gunter wrote to him the following: “A personal observation is that long-time resident and probable original owner of this domain name [www.silverspringshoa.org], Lucy Archer has worked very hard with little direction from the HOA. …The web.archive.org shows that this name was being used in 2001. http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.silverspringshoa.org/…
It is difficult to know who has the right to speak for an organization. In setting up a web site with content management [WordPress], it has been my goal to allow your organization to determine who has this ability.”

On February 24, 2009 in a letter from Gunter to all Association Members Gunter wrote: “A new community website is currently under construction. There is no official Silver Springs Single Family HOA website operating at this time, and any current site that professes to represent the views and business of the HOA membership and Board is misrepresenting itself.” Of course there was no mention that the content on the “current site” has been researched and posted as an independent community service, and a watchdog voice, and at no cost to the Associations or its Members, that no password is required, or that he had tried to shut it down to cover up his slander and usurping of the election.

On March 6, 2009 Gunter stated that he and Chris Butler had a fourth Silver Springs domain address and had contracted to another third party company for a third website, that they launched on May 22, 2009. The board Minutes do not record that either man was granted authority to do this by a vote of the board.

On March 26, 2009 Chris Butler registered a domain in his name and on May 22, 2009 a third SSSF website is launched “for the effective dessemination of information to the HOA members.” However, the catch is that a SSSF Association Member is required to answer 44 personal questions before the ‘administrator’ willprovide them with a password. “Effective”? How many Members are actually using this third website?

In 2009 HOA Attorney Lincoln Hobbs was replaced by attorney Kevin J. Simon. On April 2, 2009 Simon issued a letter to the Archers along with Bill Gunter’s Invoice #101 requesting that the Archers pay for all the expenditures the SSSFHOA board initiated and approved to third-party companies since the re-establishment of the website in April 2006 up to the March 2009 board reimbursement to Chris Butler for his expenditure of $200 for initiating the fourth domain for the third website from HOA-sites.com.

On April 18, 2009 Bill Gunter delivered Simon’s letter to Clay Archer and Invoice #101 for expenses incurred by the board for a SSSFHOA website beginning on April 4, 2006 for the total amount of $4,228.90, mostly for the period of time the Archers were not involved with the board nor the website. The Archers ignored Gunter’s request as Gunter and “the board” were in office through usurping the valid Oct 13 election, the “review of nomination procedure” has not taken place (and nearly a year later still has not been “reviewed”), and some of the elected trustees had resigned in disgust or been intimidated. And the deadline from Gunter for payment, already past due, was April 9th.

Gunter’s Invoice #101 was obviously fraudulent. The amount included 3 years of site hosting and the 3 year lease of the domain. Anyone who knows anything about the Internet and web site development can tell you that both these items are akin to leasing a car. Once your term of use expires you have no further right of ownership and the payments are certainly not refundable by a third party. Gunter, however, thinks that the Archers should refund the board for both these “leased” use contracts for the previous three years when the Archers were not even involved with the board or the website and the Association had received full use and benefit for the entire term. This is the logical thinking of the SSSF leaders.

On June 30, 2009 Clay Archer drove to the Silver Creek Justice Center to pick up the service notice that the deputy had tried to deliver to them. This notice was for an Affidavit filed by Gunter against the Archers. This Invoice will be resolved at Small Claims court on August 5, 2009. It should also be noted that none of the board minutes record a discussion or vote granting Gunter or anyone else the authority to file an Affidavit on behalf of the HOA against the Archers.

July 2009 a board correspondence is sent to all Association Members stating: “We have a new website that we are excited to present to you…We think you’ll find it easier to use with valuable information at your fingertips. It is a work in progress and will continue to be updated.” If you can get a password for this shielded and fortified website. We sent in our registration June 22nd and have yet to receive a password. This correspondence also indicates that another board member has resigned.

The parties, Clay and Lucy Archer, and William “Bill” Gunter and Harry Fuller, went to court Wednesday, August 5th, 2009. The judge said this was a pretty simple case. The HOA board wanted a website, the Archer’s provided a website to them. The HOA had used the website for three years, the HOA board had used third party companies to provide the structure for $4,228 and the Archers had provided the content for free. Association Members and the board still had full access and use of the website and its content. The judge said he didn’t see how Gunter and the HOA had been damaged. No damages were awarded to the HOA board and the judge ruled in favor of the defendants, the Archers.

On Monday, April 12, 2010 the SSSFHOA held a regular board meeting.  Ron Duyker, SouthShore resident and former MA board member disrupted the meeting attended by 28 Members, by shouting out that “Lucy Archer recorded the 1990 MA Draft Bylaws and removed deniability from the board.”  Duyker had let the cat out of the bag.  His anger for Archer’s action was not his pretext of concern over “clouds on all our property titles” (obviously this rant is his way of rousing fear and anger, and therefore support,  from the property owners. This is his disguise for his concern that the MA board and his long entrenched part in its functions, would now be exposed.) Gunter, the usurper SSSF board president, obviously enjoying the slander and outburst allowed it to go on without his intervention.  Chris Butler, elected at the illegal December 15, 2008 “election” contributed to the disruption by bringing up the lawsuit that Gunter and Fuller represented against the Archers on August 5, 2009 in regard to the website.  A lawsuit they lost in favor of the Archers.  Butler insisted that the Archer’s must have felt guilty since they took the advice of the mediators to pay a portion of the requested damages in good faith to settle the complaint out of court.  As usual, Gunter mocked the Archer’s gesture and went into court where Gunter lost his appeal entirely.

On Tuesday, April 13, 2010 the MA board held a regular board meeting.  Due to circumstances and property owner dissent regarding a 200% increase in assessments for little lake repairs the attendance was somewhere between 50 to 75 Members. Again, Ron Duyker, SouthShore resident and former MA board member disrupted the meeting, shouting out that “Lucy Archer recorded the 1990 MA Draft Bylaws and removed deniability from the board, etc.”  This time MA board president Bill Noland, squelched his disruption, told Duyker to address the board if he had a question or comment, otherwise he was out of order and needed to settle down.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The www.silverspringscommunity.com website, though it does not formally represent any of the thirteen Silver Springs Homeowners Associations nor any of their Boards of Trustees, contains the legal documents, roster of units/addresses, maps, photos, board members contact information, content information, etc. for each of the subdivisions. The Association has long been the beneficiary of the Archer’s willingness to pay for, research, and build an informative and expansive website for their information and continual access without cost to the Members.

In this way it has become a necessity to alert homeowners to the existence of rogue board members within our community. We sense that these rogue board members want control of the original web pages so they can delete, censor, and modify the content that reports their activities beginning on October 13, 2008 when they disregarded our Bylaws. No one has presented the Archers with any precise corrections or requests for particular modifications.

A number of Association Members have commented that it is shameful how our neighbor volunteers have treated the Archers, long-standing volunteers who have contributed so much to our community. Another Member who attended the October 13, 2008 Meeting said he “had never seen such uncivilized behavior.”

Lucy Archer has always requested that errors within the site be reported to her in hardcopy so she can make the corrections. Those submitted have been accepted and used. Editing of content is perpetual. Each webpage provides this message: “Webmaster : Lucy Archer - Send additions or corrections to sssfhoa@gmail.com” which has now been replaced with sscommunityUT@gmail.com Yet only one individual has made the effort to report or request corrections.

This experience has taught us that oversight of the HOA process is necessary. A watchdog voice and freedom of the press need to be part of the Association for the benefit of its Members.

———-v———

I

Albert Einstein said, “Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” That is our aim. We want to build and contribute to our neighborhood and to our community. Since 2000 we have tried to do this with information on a website and through newsletters and activities. We have put literally thousands of hours into developing, researching, reporting, and building.

During this work we have become embarrassed by the litigious record of several past and current SSSFHOA boards. The 2008 board racked up $11,329.66 just on Legal Fees mostly in the last month or two of 2008 for matters that could have been resolved simply by adhering to our Bylaws. In their 2009 Proposed Budget the rogues have projected to spend another $11,000 on Legal Fees in 2009, 77% of the SSSFHOA Annual Budget. This is in contrast to neighboring subdivisions who have not spent a single dollar of HOA money on legal fees for over a decade. So what makes our SSSFHOA so querulous? Is this how we want to continue to operate our homeowner’s association? Can we afford to continue to not be involved in what goes on here, allowing rogues to tarnish our neighborhood and subvert camaraderie?

Clay and Lucy Archer have contributed countless hours of work to build our neighborhood, to share information via newsletters and the website, and to motivate our trustees to uphold our Bylaws.

We are shocked by the aspersions on our character, we are heartsick at the way the rogues uncivilized behavior has compromised our election process and impugned our Bylaws, and used anarchy and contention to prevail and rule over our neighborhood.

On April 18th the Archers took the first steps to have a restraining order placed on Gunter, they want him to stay as far away from them as possible. If you have been reading the SSSF minutes of meetings especially beginning in October 2008, you will have a good idea how he has poisoned our neighborhood.

SILVER SPRINGS HAS MULTIPLE WEBSITES

• The first site, www.silverspringshoa.org opened and paid for by the Archers in 2000-2005, then reopened in April 2006 by Skip Domenick, then shut down by the board on November 6, 2008 (weeks later the board also demanded a disclaimer be added stating that “the board” did not fund, support, or was in any way associated with this site), then the Archers paid to renew the domain and continue to host it. This domain now serves as a portal to both the www.silverspringsSFhoa.org site owned by the SSSFHOA and the www.silverspringscommunity.com site provided free by the Archers without any logon or password restrictions.
• The second site, www.silverspringsSFhoa.org contains all the design work and content paid for by the SSSFHOA from April 2006 to March 2008. There are not logon or use restrictions. In February 2009 the SSSF board chose to abandon this site and investment in favor of the fourth site.
• The third site www.silverspringscommunity.com began conceptually in 2000 by the Archers in conjunction with the MHOA board, and was recommenced by the Archers in March 2008 and continues to be developed and built by the Archers. This site contains information pertinent only to our Silver Springs Community and the thirteen subdivisions that comprise the Silver Springs Master HOA plus four other contiguous subdivisions. This site is provided free to the Community by the Archers, and has no lengthy application form nor logon or password restrictions.
• The fourth site is a generic boiler-plate site started by Chris Butler on March 16, 2009 and launched around May 22, 2009 by Gunter and Butler. It has pages with many Park City links external to our community, a few pages belonging to the Weather Channel and other pages and links available on many other websites. The start-up fee was $200. The annual fee is $450 for the initial Pro pages, additional $15 per year for domain registration, and a variety of add-on fees for other pages and services. To access the Resident section the homeowners are asked to answer around 44 personal questions in order to register as users and to receive a password. Why the shroud of secrecy? Why does the HOA need to know the names of each of your children and pets, where you work, etc.? If a homeowner does not register then they are excluded from access to most of the website content they are co-paying to publish.

We registered for a ‘password’ for this fourth site in June 2009, providing our name, address, and email address, we were not contacted by the “administrator” nor given a password for six months to use for access to “the HOA website” that we co-pay for as Association Members.  Does the board site appear as transparency or a shroud of secrecy?

Revised June 2009, November 2009
Contributed by Bill Noland: “Harry Truman once said about his critics; “I don’t give them hell, I just tell the truth and they think its’ hell”.