Mercy Donation!

Hello Amsterdam Village Property owners. As you recall, Amanda Drake and I (Jeff Niccum) embarked on organizing the property owners to take over the management of our property owners’ association. Several owners expressed a desire to organize our HOA; however, nobody was up to doing it.

Amanda engaged an attorney and asked for a review of the CC&Rs to determine if there was a path to do so. After studying the CC&Rs, the attorney put forth the opinion that the property owners did have the right to amend the documents if 70% of the property owners agreed. The attorney drafted the amendments, and Amanda went to work to acquire the necessary 27 signatures. Up to this point, she had personally funded the attorney's fees.

At this stage, I became involved in an effort to assist Amanda with the signature gathering and then organizing a property owner meeting, soliciting volunteers for the Board position, building an email database, communicating with the members, setting up the voting software, and leading the December 1st meeting among other things.

After 29 of the 27 needed signatures were acquired, unexpectedly, Wayne Freeman ignored the wishes of 29 of 38 property owners and publicly, at the December 1, 2022, special meeting with his attorney present, threatened to sue all 29 signatories to the CC&R amendment if we didn't rescind the amendment. He claimed that losing control of the Board would jeopardize the prospect of selling Phase 3, which none of us knew anything about when starting to establish the Association's management process.

Several property owners were not intimidated by this threat and wanted to continue on. However, several other property owners did not want to be embroiled in any litigation, therefore out of respect for the wishes of those not wanting involvement, Amanda and I reluctantly started the arduous task of going through the signature-gathering process a second time in order to rescind the amendment.

During this process, I also got involved with funding legal fees.

The entire process was not without some gains. Mr. Freeman agreed to allow two property owners picked by the Association to become Board members. One as Secretary (keeper of minutes) and liaison between the Board and the members. We, as property owners, will now have representation at Board meetings. This was a big win.

Attached in the e-mail sent out to the property owners is a copy of the settlement agreement, which spells out the gains to the Association as a result of our efforts. All told, we likely had a combined 100 or more hours of donated labor.

It is this explanation that supports the humble request by Amanda and me for voluntary donations through this website to assist us with the attorney fees we alone paid out of pocket solely for the benefit of the Association. Between the two of us, we have spent $5,288.95, supported by the attached invoices and accounting summary in the e-mail that was sent out. We would certainly appreciate everyone's help with a donation to defray these costs born solely by us. If we raise more than the sum of these invoices, the monies will be turned over to the Association's treasury. I appreciate your consideration, and in advance, thank you for your help!