How can an Association have this sort of power? I always thought the Homeowners voted in the Associations to act as advisors who abide by the wishes of the Homeowners?-not controllers of what they personally think and wish.. I hope that the homeowners go to the meetings to find out what is going on. When are the meeting dates?

gillfish, the first meeting is this Saturday Feb 2 at 10:am at the Chalet, then Feb 9 and Feb 23rd. all at 10;am.

I too thought that they had to abide by our wishes, as I'm sure most every one else believes but apparently our HOA wants to do things their way.

How can we stop them if in fact they can because the Davis-Stirling act gives them that power ?

I was president of the Alpine Forest homeowners association several years ago.

A quorum was only needed at the annual meeting to elect the new board.

A quorum is important because without requiring a quorum the board can

appoint itself to a new year without any election.

If I were you I wouldn't allow this to happen.  As for complying with laws the board

can act at any meeting to comply with mandated law and they don't need

a quorum.

Joe, Thank you

the Alpine Forest Homeowners association needs to be abolished all together. I don't take too kindly to a homeowners association telling me what i can and can't do with my own property. The whole association is usless and it seems to me that these people have nothing more going on in their lives.

I didn't even know there was a HOA out there.  We almost bought out there, in fact we would have if we could have afforded just a little more.  After seeing the CC&Rs for Bear Valley and Stallion, it was very refreshing to see the whopping 2 pages of CC&Rs for the city!  I don't see much point in HOAs either.  My neighborhood looks just as nice, if not nicer, than many neighborhoods out there.  And it seems like a lot of those CC&Rs aren't even enforced unless you piss your neighbor off.

I currently live in Alpine Forest ( took over my Mom's home after she passed) and so far I am dissastified with the security here. They are very predictable of what time they patrol and when they are in the security rooms. Every morning they drive by between 6:15am and 6:30am and at about the same times during the later parts of the day. And as long as my Parent's have lived in Alpine Forest ( 20 years) there has been alot of this same stuff going on. It seems like the board gets a wild hair now and then and tries to pull the wool over the people's eyes, the question is are they going to get away with it this time???

we have acerage  in Alpine that we wanted to build a house on and retired one day but we now have the property up for sale.

Julie and Moday, you are so right about your comments, the HOA needs to be disbanded along with the security, at least the security shack on LeManns should be moved to the entrance of Alpine not 1/2 way up the hill, what about all of those homes prior to the security shack ? they don't get protection ? do they get a discounted HOA fee ?

We need to continue to blog about their stupid and self serving decisions and question them. THEY DO NEED TO BE DISBANDED !

Moday - How ?

I wonder how they can be disbanded?

I don't know how to go about having it done but someone knows.  continuing on with more comments, a friend of my father's lives in BVS and he hung a sign from his porch with his last name on it, so it was maybe 8 inches x 12 inches, he got a warning and was told to change the little eye hooks holding it to the tiny chains because they were too shiney, "they didn't have shiney metal like that in the old west". This how our HOA wants to get, they want to dictate what we should and shouldn't do.

I don't mind paying a fee for services, if we recieve them. But I don't want to pay money out of my pocket into some one else's pocket for something I don't want to start with. I would rather pay myself to do what they apparently aren't doing than to pay for incompetance.

Moday, your going to create a website for this ?  THATS GREAT   Does Joelazzard have the info to contact Mr. Kates ?

If you are really dissatisfied with the HOA then you're only recourse is to start a petition to disband it.

You will need 3/4 of the HOA members to do that.  In my experience it is almost impossible to do as

most HOA members are absentee and don't care.

You could try sueing the HOA if they violate their charter, but again that takes money.

The easiest way to may be to elect a new board at the annual election.

Another way is to get together with a significant number of people and withhold payments

of the annual HOA dues.  The HOA will lien your property, but they can't foreclose until five years.

You will be out a couple hunderd in penalties when you finally pay, but the HOA will be out of

existence as they cannot last more than 6 months without your payments. The staff, guards,

maintenance and lawyer will all be gone as nobody got paid.  Believe me I know how tight

their budget is and they won't last.  Of course, you need 300 or so people to make this happen.

You may want to get a list of all HOA members and their addresses.  You can do this by writting a letter to the

HOA and requesting the list.  They may charge a resonable amount for photocopies.  If they refuse you can

sue them for the list.

Kates is listed in the Bakersfield phone book under lawyers.

If you are really dissatisfied with the HOA then you're only recourse is to start a petition to disband it.


You will need 3/4 of the HOA members to do that.  In my experience it is almost impossible to do as

most HOA members are absentee and don't care.


You could try suing the HOA if they violate their charter, but again that takes money.


The easiest way to may be to elect a new board at the annual election.


Another way is to get together with a significant number of people and withhold payments

of the annual HOA dues.  The HOA will lien your property, but they can't foreclose until five years.

You will be out a couple hundred in penalties when you finally pay, but the HOA will be out of

existence as they cannot last more than 6 months without your payments. The staff, guards,

maintenance and lawyer will all be gone as nobody got paid.  Believe me I know how tight

their budget is and they won't last.  Of course, you need 300 or so people to make this happen.


You may want to get a list of all HOA members and their addresses.  You can do this by writing a letter to the

HOA and requesting the list.  They may charge a reasonable amount for photocopies.  If they refuse you can

sue them for the list.


Kates is listed in the Bakersfield phone book under lawyers.

Joe, thanks for your reply. I'm going to try and call Kates now and see where his thinking is and find out if he'd get involved with us.