The Community Associations Institute (CAI) is an international advocacy group serving the needs of its member homeowner communities. The Central Indiana Chapter of CAI is headquartered near Indianapolis, IN. The organization takes an active interest in any legislation, trends, and best practices that may affect the management of homeowner and condominium associations, both of local and national origin.
In the early stages of HB1058, CAI-Central Indiana commented on the cost/benefit of the legislation, what it was intended to accomplish and how it was drafted. The organization viewed that the legislation was unnecessarily broad and “exposes any/all homeowners associations to a resident who disagrees with the valid fiduciary activities of the board…”
CAI was also of the following opinion…
“…We recognize and support the intent of these bills; however, in 2 cases (HB1058 and SB0104) the current implementation of the intent of these bills will have major adverse financial impact to the Homeowner Associations in Indiana.”
Those points were made in a memo issued on February 28, 2011, a copy of which can be found at this link. Despite CAI’s concerns, HB1058 continued through the Indiana legislature without amendment. CAI is not simply in opposition to efforts to regulate HOAs; indeed, the linked memo expressed CAI’s support for another piece of legislation (HB1541) moving through the General Assembly at that time.
Reaction from OAG and Harbours Complainants
The stance of an organization like CAI with respect to HB1058 was of obvious concern to the Indiana Office of the Attorney General (OAG) and the Complainants–so much so that one of the Complainants penned an email to CAI with his comments. See link. Tom Pike sent this email just prior to the Indiana Senate hearing on March 29, 2011 atte
nded by a large group of Harbours Complainants.
Mr. Pike forwarded his email to the OAG and other Complainants, and the OAG responded to the same group of people although there is no message. We can assume it was deleted by the OAG before responding to discovery.
CAI’s involvement was important at two levels… It presented another opportunity for the Harbours Complainants to work on behalf of the OAG and for the two groups to coordinate their efforts. Again, this was at a point during the OAG’s purportedly unbiased investigation of The Harbours initiated by Tom Pike and these same Complainants.
Furthermore, an organization devoted to the betterment of homeowner communities saw problems with the legislation from the beginning. It wasn’t accusing legislators of having agendas or attacking HOAs. The problems that CAI saw were that these new statutes would make managing HOAs more difficult and give malevolent homeowners the power to interfere in community government, to the point of intimidating Board members and property managers.
Owing to their experience, it’s interesting that CAI may have correctly anticipated harassment and threatening behavior of the type still shown by disgruntled homeowners at The Harbours. Check out the following internet posts, all from one person–Complainant Betty Cantrell–and all on one recent day (1-23-2017)…
“Part of the problem is that it’s the same few people saying the same old thing over and over again and getting nowhere. In previous years you finally got somewhere when you got action in numbers as a result of this Facebook page…” (Kathy Bupp, 1-24-2017)
“There is still no transparency or unilateral fairness.” ( Complainant Sheila Rudder, 1-25-2017)
Harbours Lawsuit 
Kudos to CAI for understanding the breadth of House Bill 1058 and having the foresight to recognize its shortcomings. CAI feared that minority interests driven by biases, lies, and hypocrisy could usurp majority rule that was operating under sound lawful governance. That is exactly what happened at the Harbours. The tail began wagging the dog.
The OAG and Complainants waged a strong campaign, speaking as one voice to convince naïve lawmakers to enact a law to cover problems that never existed.
At one time , Complainants, Betty Cantrell & Sheila Rudder were prominent members of CAI. I suspect that the relationship soured over time as Cantrell & Rudder began to lose credibility within the organization. I don’t believe Tom Pike belonged to CAI but he certainly tried to manipulate their thinking. Apparently, after seeing the writing on the wall, Pike began packing and no longer lives at the Harbours.
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In my lifetime I have known many bullies and people who are impressed with themselves. These people are only important in their own minds. Threatening to file a complaint with the AG’s office is not impressive to me. In my mind, I believe it would be their only option. Threats are cheap. If you feel it is in your best interest, go for it. Posting lies and calling people by cute little nicknames is so childish. From this day forward, let’s call Mr. Pike “tom thumb” so we may interact on his level.
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The only reason the Complainants and their friends evoke “AG” is because they’re cheap. They want someone else to foot the bill–like taxpayers–to pursue their own flawed agendas. And they’re willing to pay ($0) proportional to their commitment to those agendas. At this point, I doubt seriously that the Indiana AG even returns their phone calls.
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