Tag Archives: HOA

Mike Pugh – In Defense of a Meadow

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Mike and Sian Pugh in the Meadow he’s defending – an echo of American Gothic?

Mike and Sian Pugh in the Meadow he’s defending – an echo of American Gothic?

Mike Pugh is from Kansas where, as a young man, he worked a fair amount of his time haying.

Despite his work in the fields, he didn’t consciously consider how he might be forming a partnership with nature that would stay with him.

This connection with the land became clear when he came to Western Loudoun County where many are struggling to preserve the land’s rural character.

Mike didn’t expect he’d become a combatant in a debate to preserve what he found. Continue reading →

“NOT WITH A BANG BUT WITH A WIMPER”

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There are those who think the answers to economic progress in a democracy are simply to be had by privatizing everything as much as we can as soon as we can, all the while de-regulating the market place. (Both nationally and locally.) In case you are not yet sure how you feel about that—or even if you think you are, consider your almost 1000% increase in tolls on the Greenway. If that’s not enough to get you “into the streets,” then consider also this local example:

In a current HOA condominium neighborhood in Loudoun, a recent discovery was made of structural repairs needed. There are two cost options for these repairs: 1) $2 million dollars; or 2) $700,000. A vote will be taken of homeowners (never mind the ones who lease and whose lease will increase. They can’t vote.) There is a corporation that owns several investment condos in the community. It gets to vote each piece of property it owns. The rule is “one property = one vote,” not “one person, one vote.”

BUT, each and every homeowner will be assessed either $3500 or $10,000 depending upon the choice this one company makes.
In other words, there is only 1 absentee landlord making this decision – not the resident owners who live in the neighborhood, although they will share the cost burden – most of them seniors or working families… many of them with mortgages under water as a result of the last housing debacle.

Moreover, who will guard against the possibility that the whole repair proposal is possibly a fraudulent scam? The only people who could afford the lawyer to do that are the ones who stand to benefit from having homes dumped on the market at a low price that they can snap up for investment purposes.

THIS is how wealth is transferred from the bottom up… and only a small example. THIS is how we become dis-enfranchised and will increasingly so when corporations own everything. They have already bought Congress and the investment HOAs, and a commuter highway. Why is anyone so eager to give them more?