Electricity, laws, tax returns, etc.
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Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Jan 2, 2022, 2:12:58 PM1/2/22
to headwater
Hi all –
So ironic that today would normally have been our regular Headwaters meeting. Maybe with a brunch, a chance to connect with everyone. I guess the alternative is to do it over email, which is far from ideal. This is hard, all of this is hard. We all get knots in our stomachs over it. I am shattered by the way we have been treated, horrified by the accusations. It just underlines, for me, the fact that despite all my efforts, this is not where we belong.
I can appreciate Tomas’s reaction, after all he is Jana’s big brother. So his defensiveness is normal. Defensiveness is not actually what is needed here, however. What is needed is for Oliver and Jana to meet with me and Michael and work out a solution that is mutually acceptable to all of us. Then we’d discuss it in the infrastructure circle, then it would come to Council. I have been trying to meet with Oliver ever since he wrote that note and he has ignored two requests so far. My concern was that other people here on similar shared systems would be worried that somehow someone could do this to them, which is why I wrote an essay on how the bylaws work.
Nowhere in that message was a threat or bullying of any kind, so the accusations are not true. Threats are things like “I’m going to cut off your backup power and the power to the Earthship.” Refusing to meet with us, denying the conflict, that comes a lot closer to bullying than explaining the bylaws to everyone. We actually have no intention of leaving the power to our house in the hands of someone who would do that – the question now is who pays to replace it, not whether it will be replaced.
That is, of course, unless the Welters are going to be the new owners of my house and everything else, in which case, we’ll leave it to them to sort out. Maybe Marcus will move in. How would he feel about not having backup power, or having to pay an additional $5,000 - $10,000 to get it? How does everyone else feel about the Earthship not having fans, lights, water?
We do plan to make it an agenda item for the next Council meeting if the Welters continue to refuse to meet with us. But even if the Council takes no action, we still have recourse to court.
As for the homeowners here paying for our electricity and internet, let me explain the concept of a deficit, because it seems people do not understand it. A deficit is when there is a budget for something, but the budget is exceeded. The money to pay the bills doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere. So when the homeowners association pays something like $10,000 in condo fees and the costs for the year exceed $30,000, no one in the homeowners association paid for something they shouldn’t have. Au contraire, I have paid for the deficits for the last ten years out of my pocket. Not yours.
That was the entire reason for setting up the HHA account, so it would be clear when the condo fees run out and all of us could then decide what to do to raise the additional money needed for things like new chicken coops and electrical upgrades. It wasn’t because we were planning to leave – we were not planning to leave when we did that. If we had been, we wouldn’t have done it. At that point, we were planning to build the tiny house on home site #3 and to build where the sugar shack is, so it made sense to finally get the HHA set up and not mix it up with the investment side any longer.
Yes, Headwaters Corporation has paid for my electricity and internet and it has been in the budgets and expenditure reports every year, nothing hidden, nothing illegal or unethical. I couldn’t do the job I do here for all of you without electricity and internet, I don’t charge the Corporation rent to use part of my house for business operations, which I could, I don’t charge for my time, so no, I’m not going to give a refund anytime soon for that. It’s a cost of doing business. A very, very low cost compared to what it would be if I charged for my time and rent.
Permits also do not dictate ownership. The fact that the permit says they are shared wells has nothing to do with whether or not I could shut my well off to people who have not paid for it. They would merely have to get another permit. (Their connection to my well came before that permit was issued, which is why it is that way). Permits are expensive, wells are expensive. What dictates how shared systems work here is our bylaws so we avoid large expensive conflicts like that.
As for saving money, while Tomas is looking up the bills he has given us, I’d appreciate it if he finds the one for putting the conduit in for our house and the Earthship. It was thousands of dollars, as I recall, it wasn’t simply the glorified extension cord that he ran through the trees when he and Tara lived here. I truly don’t understand why Tomas and the Welters think it’s OK to just disconnect it on a whim, a wish for fewer “complications.” There is nothing temporary about a buried conduit.
What we were saving was the pain of the Kings and others listening to a generator overnight and during the times, like now, when the sun isn’t shining, along with the fossil fuels to run it. We have a foundation for the generator, so that is one noisy solution we could do. The other solution is to run a line from home site #3. Both of those solutions are a lot more expensive than upgrading the main cable to Oliver’s house so he has all the electricity he needs for his house, the shop, and the uses out here in the meadow. Running a line from site 3 or a generator here will not power up the Earthship either, so everyone here should also have an issue with his threat, not just us.
When Oliver installed the cable from the box to his house, he bought the cheapest one he could, and it doesn't carry enough power to put 100 amps in his house and 100 amps in his shop. He claims to have enough power for his needs, but that’s debatable, especially when you consider power tools and other things his shop might need, and for the high tech electric truck he says he wants eventually. I know this because the first time it came up, I called the electric company, I worked with Oliver and Tomas to try and figure it out. We also priced out the replacement cable so there would be enough power there. I think the total cost of that would be somewhere around $3,000, $1,000 for 200 feet of aluminum 4-0 cable, plus labor and electric company time.
If they didn’t want the truly temporary arrangement to continue, which was the extension cord hanging in the trees, we should have done something different when we buried the conduit, not now when we have already built the permanent solution. At the very least, we are owed the money we paid to put it in. At most, it would be the cost of its replacement. Plus legal fees, if it comes to that.
So ironic that today would normally have been our regular Headwaters meeting. Maybe with a brunch, a chance to connect with everyone. I guess the alternative is to do it over email, which is far from ideal. This is hard, all of this is hard. We all get knots in our stomachs over it. I am shattered by the way we have been treated, horrified by the accusations. It just underlines, for me, the fact that despite all my efforts, this is not where we belong.
I can appreciate Tomas’s reaction, after all he is Jana’s big brother. So his defensiveness is normal. Defensiveness is not actually what is needed here, however. What is needed is for Oliver and Jana to meet with me and Michael and work out a solution that is mutually acceptable to all of us. Then we’d discuss it in the infrastructure circle, then it would come to Council. I have been trying to meet with Oliver ever since he wrote that note and he has ignored two requests so far. My concern was that other people here on similar shared systems would be worried that somehow someone could do this to them, which is why I wrote an essay on how the bylaws work.
Nowhere in that message was a threat or bullying of any kind, so the accusations are not true. Threats are things like “I’m going to cut off your backup power and the power to the Earthship.” Refusing to meet with us, denying the conflict, that comes a lot closer to bullying than explaining the bylaws to everyone. We actually have no intention of leaving the power to our house in the hands of someone who would do that – the question now is who pays to replace it, not whether it will be replaced.
That is, of course, unless the Welters are going to be the new owners of my house and everything else, in which case, we’ll leave it to them to sort out. Maybe Marcus will move in. How would he feel about not having backup power, or having to pay an additional $5,000 - $10,000 to get it? How does everyone else feel about the Earthship not having fans, lights, water?
We do plan to make it an agenda item for the next Council meeting if the Welters continue to refuse to meet with us. But even if the Council takes no action, we still have recourse to court.
As for the homeowners here paying for our electricity and internet, let me explain the concept of a deficit, because it seems people do not understand it. A deficit is when there is a budget for something, but the budget is exceeded. The money to pay the bills doesn’t magically appear out of nowhere. So when the homeowners association pays something like $10,000 in condo fees and the costs for the year exceed $30,000, no one in the homeowners association paid for something they shouldn’t have. Au contraire, I have paid for the deficits for the last ten years out of my pocket. Not yours.
That was the entire reason for setting up the HHA account, so it would be clear when the condo fees run out and all of us could then decide what to do to raise the additional money needed for things like new chicken coops and electrical upgrades. It wasn’t because we were planning to leave – we were not planning to leave when we did that. If we had been, we wouldn’t have done it. At that point, we were planning to build the tiny house on home site #3 and to build where the sugar shack is, so it made sense to finally get the HHA set up and not mix it up with the investment side any longer.
Yes, Headwaters Corporation has paid for my electricity and internet and it has been in the budgets and expenditure reports every year, nothing hidden, nothing illegal or unethical. I couldn’t do the job I do here for all of you without electricity and internet, I don’t charge the Corporation rent to use part of my house for business operations, which I could, I don’t charge for my time, so no, I’m not going to give a refund anytime soon for that. It’s a cost of doing business. A very, very low cost compared to what it would be if I charged for my time and rent.
Permits also do not dictate ownership. The fact that the permit says they are shared wells has nothing to do with whether or not I could shut my well off to people who have not paid for it. They would merely have to get another permit. (Their connection to my well came before that permit was issued, which is why it is that way). Permits are expensive, wells are expensive. What dictates how shared systems work here is our bylaws so we avoid large expensive conflicts like that.
As for saving money, while Tomas is looking up the bills he has given us, I’d appreciate it if he finds the one for putting the conduit in for our house and the Earthship. It was thousands of dollars, as I recall, it wasn’t simply the glorified extension cord that he ran through the trees when he and Tara lived here. I truly don’t understand why Tomas and the Welters think it’s OK to just disconnect it on a whim, a wish for fewer “complications.” There is nothing temporary about a buried conduit.
What we were saving was the pain of the Kings and others listening to a generator overnight and during the times, like now, when the sun isn’t shining, along with the fossil fuels to run it. We have a foundation for the generator, so that is one noisy solution we could do. The other solution is to run a line from home site #3. Both of those solutions are a lot more expensive than upgrading the main cable to Oliver’s house so he has all the electricity he needs for his house, the shop, and the uses out here in the meadow. Running a line from site 3 or a generator here will not power up the Earthship either, so everyone here should also have an issue with his threat, not just us.
When Oliver installed the cable from the box to his house, he bought the cheapest one he could, and it doesn't carry enough power to put 100 amps in his house and 100 amps in his shop. He claims to have enough power for his needs, but that’s debatable, especially when you consider power tools and other things his shop might need, and for the high tech electric truck he says he wants eventually. I know this because the first time it came up, I called the electric company, I worked with Oliver and Tomas to try and figure it out. We also priced out the replacement cable so there would be enough power there. I think the total cost of that would be somewhere around $3,000, $1,000 for 200 feet of aluminum 4-0 cable, plus labor and electric company time.
If they didn’t want the truly temporary arrangement to continue, which was the extension cord hanging in the trees, we should have done something different when we buried the conduit, not now when we have already built the permanent solution. At the very least, we are owed the money we paid to put it in. At most, it would be the cost of its replacement. Plus legal fees, if it comes to that.
Needless to say, It is a lot less expensive, and more kind and neighborly, to do this differently. It will be taken care of before we sell our house, one way or another, now that the threat is in writing. We can’t leave the new owners with this problem.
Now to Monique’s questions. The federal laws that apply to Headwaters are mainly the fair housing and non-discrimination laws. You can’t advertise for only white people, or atheists, or young people, or whatever protected category of person there is in the federal law (religion, age, sex, race, ethnic group, etc.) to live here. The state laws that apply are the Condominium law and the Common Interest Community laws, plus a new category of protected person around sexual orientation. This is why you hire a lawyer when you buy a property, so you understand what you are buying. It is actually not the seller’s job to help you understand that. It is 100% your responsibility.
As for Monique’s acquiescence to Oliver’s needs around wifi, we would have liked to have the same communication about the electricity. It's a lot easier to live without wifi than electricity. If he had expressed reservations, we also would have found a different solution. He didn't. Now thousands of dollars and years later, he is forcing us to find a different solution. He can do what he wants, it's still a free country, but he needs to pay for it if he does, because he will have damaged our home, damaged our shared facilities. Actions have consequences, what a concept.
Now to Monique’s questions. The federal laws that apply to Headwaters are mainly the fair housing and non-discrimination laws. You can’t advertise for only white people, or atheists, or young people, or whatever protected category of person there is in the federal law (religion, age, sex, race, ethnic group, etc.) to live here. The state laws that apply are the Condominium law and the Common Interest Community laws, plus a new category of protected person around sexual orientation. This is why you hire a lawyer when you buy a property, so you understand what you are buying. It is actually not the seller’s job to help you understand that. It is 100% your responsibility.
As for Monique’s acquiescence to Oliver’s needs around wifi, we would have liked to have the same communication about the electricity. It's a lot easier to live without wifi than electricity. If he had expressed reservations, we also would have found a different solution. He didn't. Now thousands of dollars and years later, he is forcing us to find a different solution. He can do what he wants, it's still a free country, but he needs to pay for it if he does, because he will have damaged our home, damaged our shared facilities. Actions have consequences, what a concept.
The tax returns are uploaded now. One of the top things you will notice on the top of the forms is the full value of the assets Headwaters owns, plus at the very end, the amount I'm owed. It's a lot more than what remains on the mortgage, which shows that accepting the mortgage for my shares is a good deal for you. If you don't buy it for the mortgage, I will sell my shares for more than that to someone else in all likelihood.
The other thing that might be confusing (which also would change with the HHA account), is that you won't see my contributions toward condo fees in the income section, because that is counted in the part where there is a loss. I pay the bills, the difference between the income and the expenditures is the loss, I pay that. It's always been way more than the condo fees I would have paid in, if it were a separate account.
What we need in 2022 is more love. More neighborliness. Less hostility. I have been struggling to keep the “assume good intent” feeling going, but it is fraying around the edges, as I’m sure you can tell. Enough for now.
LOVE TO YOU
oliver welters
Jan 3, 2022, 10:32:30 AM1/3/22
to Gwendolyn Hallsmith, headwater
Wow, those last two emails were mind blowing. Last time I lend out an extension cord.
You have to take responsibility for your decisions good or bad. You chose not to have adequate power and have been powered on good will. A favor. I was never asked by you if you could hook up, Tomas did because Tara wanted a freezer. Then one of my kids almost electrocuted himself on the cable and it freaked Tomas out and he told me it had to be made safer. I said of course. So it was put in conduit. That cost $950.
Some information that you should know is: you have used 421kw since November 7th. That is about $40-$45/month on average so far. That is not a trickle charge which you always called it. That is powering your entire house. The extension cord that is there is only a 10/3 cable. That is not remotely enough to run that much power. Especially if you have lithium ion batteries which can take a full 30 amps at a time charging.
That wire as it is now is not rated for a whole house.
I do not want to be a bill collector for any new homeowner.
Also, trying to justify that it is ok for the community to pay for your electricity and internet without consent is ridiculous and illegal. That is so unbelievably disrespectful to all of us who have spent thousands of hours making headwaters what it is today, which of course we don't charge for.
I don't know what you think you are doing burning all your bridges to light your path forward. You have lost all my good will. You are exactly the kind of person you say you are fighting. The 1%. They write the laws and rules, say how great it all is. Then use the rules they wrote to exploit the people they got to sign up. You can gas light, send red herrings, straw men etc all you want in your cluttered foggy emails, but don't think for a second I don't see through all that manipulation and deciet.
Those rules need to be simplified and changed.
You say you want to meet and talk but I can't imagine why, I have been pretty clear, except to try to manipulate me into making a bad decision for me, my family, my house and shop. I planned for my electrical needs. I am not going to Jerry rig some probably illegal solution through my house to power your house. I gave you fair notice. Please plan accordingly. I agree with you that you don't belong here. You don't even know what community is. Now I see, you never wanted a community. You wanted an organization. You want to be a leader. But unfortunately the emperor has no clothes on. Hold on to some humanity and make a graceful exit. At the rate you are going there won't be anything left behind you and no moral ground to move you forward either.
If there is something else you would like to chat about, let me know.
Oliver
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Gwendolyn Hallsmith
Jan 3, 2022, 11:11:36 AM1/3/22
to oliver welters, headwater
Ah, more personal attacks. What a good ending this is turning out to be. If you all end up buying Headwaters, you can do with the bylaws what you will. If you don't, they will continue to protect the person who buys my house and the other people here.
We are going to hook up our back up power through home site #3 as soon as is practical, which is probably not until April or May. This will not solve the problem for the Earthship. So that issue still needs to be addressed, as does the issue of paying for all of it. I am working on receipts now, so I'll post the receipt for the work. It was more than $950.
I guess Tomas is the missing link in this chain. The whole system was his invention. If it is still unsafe, we are very disappointed, it should have been fixed. The maximum shore power we draw is 20 amps. The higher usage since November might be attributable to John being in the guest house and shorter days.
Let's be clear, there is nothing illegal about a legitimate expense that was budgeted and reported every year. If you think it is, send the police. Ridiculous. There is also nothing illegal about you powering up outbuildings from your house, it happens all the time. If that were true, you couldn't power up your shop either.
We will need to talk about how the Earthship is powered after this at the Council meeting. That will be an expense in 2022.
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