Important Facts about this Lawsuit:

Join the app. 80 KNC homeowners that have started the fight to reform how the Keystone Neighbourhood Company operates. If you are a KNC homeowner, are you upset that you have no say in how your annual property assessments are used? Are you upset that KNC's Board of Directors, of whom five out of nine are Vail Resorts employees, have decided to underwrite, using our funds, a four-million-dollar snow melt system on Kindred's private property and there is simply nothing you can do about it? Are you upset that when you sell your property, that you will have to pay 2% of your equity to an organization that loses a 1/2 million dollars of your money, year after year, hosting festivals that bring few if any benefits to many of us that pay the lion's share of funds?

Well then, join our fight to reform how the KNC works. Join our fight to reform the voting system, so that those who provide the funds can vote to decide how the funds are used. Join the fight to change how the votes work now, wherein KNC allocates 1,000 votes to Vail Resorts for its ownership of a non-revenue-generating, non-buildable parcel that has no connection, physical or otherwise, to the Keystone Ski Resort.

Given that there a total of about 2,700 votes in the entire KNC master association, this non-revenue generating parcel means homeowners have only about 46% of total votes, yet we pay over 90% of the revenues. This means that we are cut-off from ever voting our interests - since KNC has established that it takes 67% of votes to change the bylaws. Given that there are about 1,200 to 1,300 KNC homeowners in the KNC, this means KNC has granted to Vail Resorts almost as many votes to itself for this unusable, non-revenue-generating parcel, as there are votes for all KNC homeowners combined. Vail Resorts owns less than 15% of property in the KNC, they pay less than 10% of all revenues, yet they get five seats on the nine member Board, and so get to decide how to spend 100% of the funds.

This is horribly unfair, and it turns out, may in fact violate Colorodo HOA law. Our legal challenge asks one very important question? Is this 1,000 vote allocation that Vail Resorts gave to itself when it formed the KNC legal? We believe, our attorney believes, that the 1,000 vote allocation does not comply with Colorado HOA law, that the 1,000 vote allocation violates Colorado law that prohibits a Declarant from discriminating in favor of itself when allocating votes.

Where are we now in our lawsuit? We have filed our initial legal challenge in July, and KNC soon after asked the Summit County District Court to dismiss our challenge. Our attorney filed our response asking for the court to not dismiss and to make a ruling. We are now waiting to hear from the District Court.

We must raise funds for the next step, or we will not win this effort, and the status quo will stand. More specifically, if we prevail in the District Court, KNC will appeal. We must then fight that appeal. And if we don't prevail in District Court, we must then file our appeal in the Colorado Court of Appeals. We need your participation and funding in order to continue this fight, in order to win.

Important Points to Consider:

1. If our lawsuit ultimately prevails, your donation will be refunded (minus minor fees that GoFund.me requires, on the order of 3%, minus the initial cost of the postcard mailings through first-class mail). This is true because if we win, the judge(s) will compel KNC to underwrite our attorney's fees.

2. Our attorney, Alex Dorotik of Ingenuity Law in Denver, believes that our legal challenge has a least an 8 out of 10 chance of prevailing.

3. Our lawsuit asks a very simple question of Summit County District Court - is KNC's allocation of 1,000 votes to the Declarant, i.e., to Vail Resorts, compliant with Colorado law? A basic reading of HOA law certainly suggests that such a 1,000 vote allocation on the basis of an un-buildable lot with no commercial connection to the resort, nor with any revenues generated from it, is not legal.

4. Our lawsuit asks the judge(s) for a simple remedy, either reform the HOA or dissolve it! So, if in fact the current voting allocation is illegal, meaning we are successful, we can then make the KNC the kind of master HOA that it should be! We can make a master HOA where those who underwrite the funds get to vote and decide how those funds are used.

5. Will there be another chance for KNC homeowners in the future to set things straight, for those that would rather wait this one out? Well, it only took 30 years for this one to come along, but who knows.

Please join us and let's fund this effort now, to make an HOA that is fair for all of us. Thank you!

Background

I am one of many Keystone Neighbourhood Company homeowners that was shocked to learn that the KNC HOA operates like no other HOA. The KNC HOA, established 30 years ago, grants complete veto power to the original Declarant, i.e., to Vail Resorts, on the basis of a parcel of land that can never be developed or contribute to the KNC. This 1,000 votes is above and beyond Vail Resorts' votes allocated on the basis of actual property ownership.

This is akin to granting about 37% of an entire HOA community's votes to the original Declarant of that HOA, simply because that Declarant, for example, maintains a mailbox on the HOA's property!

This feels very wrong and very well could be illegal according to state law. And, now that the town of Keystone is incorporated and is tasked with providing the exact same set of services to Keystone homeowners, including road maintenance, security services, aesthetic and architectural review, and economic and tourism promotion services, there is ZERO reason for KOA to exist anymore. Now, even with a full town in place to provide what KNC is tasked with providing, KNC's unfair allocation of HOA votes continues to force KNC homeowners to:

a) pay huge transfer and annual fees that inhibit our ability to invest in our own small communities;

b) suffer year over year losses of reserve funds due to poorly enacted and outdated marketing and economic promotion schemes;

c) pay duplicate sets of taxes (one to KNC and the other to Keystone) for a duplicative set of services, all of this while we have no opportunity to change KNC because of the unfair allocation of votes to Vail Resorts.

As of mid-July, our group has signed a legal services agreement with Denver-based law firm Ingenuity Law. Ingenuity Law has filed an initial complaint against the Keystone Neighourhood Company in Summit County District Court. We need to continue to fund our attorney's work, and the donation goal is what the attorney anticipates may be required in the long haul.

Please help fund this effort. We are up against an entire KNC executive staff and up against Vail Resorts, all of want to keep things just as they are, wherein KNC homeowners pay their generous salaries and fund Vail Resorts'-owned infrastructure, with zero accountability to KNC homeowners.

If you believe that KNC needs to change, please support our legal challenge. All funds donated through this GoFund.Me account will be used exclusively for funding our attorney's work on our behalf and for outreach efforts to reach more of the 1,165 KNC homeowners.

Thank you!

Maureen Barrett, founder, Dissolve-KNC.org