SAN ANTONIO – Most suburban San Antonians have to pay hundreds in yearly dues to their homeowners’ association (HOA). This money goes to all sorts of things that are supposed to help beautify and improve the neighborhood, which - in turn - increases property values for the homeowners. So everybody benefits.
Homeowners in the Longs Creek neighborhood contacted the News 4 WOAI Trouble Shooters because they felt the money they paid their HOA was being terribly misspent. Longs Creek is located on the North Side near Madison High School. With over 1,300 homes, it’s one of the biggest associations in town.
Shortly before we aired this story the homeowners delivered a flyer to every neighbor telling them about our investigation and urging them to watch our story on TV or at WOAI.com.
The neighbors wanted everyone to know exactly where their dues were going, so they also presented their findings at a recent HOA meeting that got so out of control some people were threatened with arrests.
"People are outraged," exclaimed Peggy Sue Wilson-Schmueckle. She’s the homeowner leading the fight to rid the association of what she calls gross mismanagement of funds by the board. “Once we uncovered it and did an audit, people were very outraged. They want them [the current board] to resign.”
The information we uncovered explain why the homeowners are so bent out of shape. Records detail board meetings at nice restaurants; meetings that were not open to the public. We also found a document showing a $4,200 expense paid to the board president's son-in-law for brush work he did in the neighborhood. Additional records showed the HOA donated thousands of dollars to random charities. The HOA even gave more than $1,300 to a group of HOA lawyers to help them lobby the legislature.
The homeowners paid for all of it.
I asked Peggy how the board responded to her complaints. "They haven't answered,” said Peggy. “And we asked them point blank at the last regular meeting, and they again wouldn't answer. They had their attorney present and wouldn't answer.”
We wanted to help them get answers, so we tried numerous times to get the board to sit down for an interview. They never responded to us either, so we caught up with the board president Lynn Starkey as she was going into an HOA meeting. Starkey was the perfect person to get answers from because we found association records showing she advanced herself thousands of dollars in order to pay for HOA events, but had not paid back the money that was left over. Starkey only recently paid back over $500 to the HOA after homeowners began questioning the expenses.
