$4,965 to Erase Chalk?

Legal bills are piling up as our HOA refuses to restore the public posting space (proof at end of article). In our HOA community, communication has become a one-way street — and an increasingly expensive one at that.

Over the past several weeks, the HOA has removed the community bulletin boards and admitted, in a July 11, 2025 letter, that it refuses to reinstall them. The reason? They’re worried “residents might damage them” and it would “reward bad behavior”. Yet in a striking contradiction, the board has admitted to spending $4,965 paying their attorney for writing warning letters.

Those charges, nearly $5,000 in legal fees — are being used not to protect the community, but to pursue one resident for allegedly using alternative means to communicate once the HOA cut off the official channel. Flyers were removed. Sidewalk chalk was scrubbed away. Invoices were issued. And the legal threats keep coming.

This isn’t governance. This is censorship — and someone is profiting from it.

🧠 Who’s Actually Driving This?

This raises the question: Is the HOA truly on firm legal ground, or simply paying for the illusion of control? The board’s refusal to engage in required dispute resolution, while continuing to escalate enforcement and incur legal costs, suggests they may be relying on an attorney whose incentive is not to resolve conflict, but to perpetuate it. After all, whether the HOA wins or loses, the legal bills still get paid.

Is this truly the board’s decision — or is it being steered by a third-party attorney with more to gain from conflict than resolution?

The board may believe it’s following sound legal advice. But when that advice leads only to higher fees, deeper division, and silenced residents — it’s worth asking whether the real client being served is the community, or the attorney’s invoice.

Legal invoices rise with every letter sent, every dispute prolonged, every enforcement escalated. There’s no financial incentive for the attorney to settle matters quickly or fairly — only to keep the fight going.

There’s also been no response to a formal Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) request — even though state law under Civil Code §5930 requires the HOA to participate in ADR before pursuing litigation over fines or alleged rule violations. Yet the HOA’s attorney has continued threatening court action without honoring that basic legal obligation. Why? Probably because ADR doesn’t pad the bill.

Can residents really not distinguish between my clear parody flyers and an official HOA notice? Is that really “damage” I should pay for? Doesn’t that reflect more about our dysfunctional HOA than about my flyer? Or is this just an imaginary conflict invented by the HOA attorney?

🚫 When Governance Becomes Retaliation

This isn’t just legal overreach — it looks like retaliation. The HOA removed the lawful method of resident communication, then punished attempts to communicate in any other form. That’s a trap, not enforcement.

And when the board refuses to speak directly but lets legal threats do the talking, residents are left with no forum, no dialogue, and no voice — except whatever can be scrawled in chalk before the next invoice arrives.

📣 What Needs to Change

It’s time for the board to reassess:

  • Why are legal costs spiraling while basic community functions are neglected?

  • Why ignore state-mandated ADR while threatening court action?

  • Why silence residents instead of restoring a forum for communication?

  • And most importantly: who really benefits from this prolonged conflict?

This is more than just a waste of money. It’s a breach of trust — and possibly a breach of the board’s fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of the homeowners.

Below are photos of parts of the HOA’s July 11, 2025 letter.

Note, I never claimed I wanted to freely post everywhere. I just want a single place for a 1” QR code that is not censored.

To be clear, they cannot charge me for their legal fees unless they go to court (and prevail). They cannot charge me for mopping public streets/sidewalks. Their invoices claim they are billing me for multiple janitors to call 311 (the city of San Francisco) to mop the public sidewalk. I have video of the team of janitors mopping the sidewalks themselves (see below). Our HOA dues should not go towards mopping a public sidewalk, and I shouldn’t have to pay for contradictory invoices. I also formally dispute all other fines and assessments, I should not have to pay for my own censorship.

Play

If they claim I damaged the bulletin boards, they should replace them then, and bill me for that cost (Probably much less than $5,000). But they won’t, because this isn’t about “property damage” it is about censorship.