Parkside Reserve residents say HOA board is AWOL

WELLINGTON — Residents of the Parkside Reserve development are raising questions about the homeowners association that is supposed to govern their properties. "I live in an HOA that both exists and doesn't exist," said Jerry Vanderground, a resident of the development, during a phone interview Wednesday. Vanderground said no one has sought dues for years, maintenance has not been done to common areas and no membership meetings have been held. Cheryl Kobisky of Northwoods Avenue asked Wellington Village Council on Tuesday to step into the dispute. She said to have never received a bill for fees from the HOA and that board members refused several times to let her see the financial books. "Nobody wants to pay into anything now because they don't trust these people," she told Council. "I'm not saying that these are bad people, I'm not. I think probably they got this thing dropped on their lap and they don't know what to do." Mayor Hans Schneider said the village has no say in Parkside Reserve's operation. "The village really can't do anything since we don't require HOA and I'm constantly getting questions about it from irate residents," he said in a message Wednesday. As a resident of Parkside Reserve himself, Schneider said HOA board members Sean Buga, Jackie Doehr and Andy Landis have been unresponsive to members' concerns. His biggest worry is the allegation that the HOA has no liability insurance covering a retention pond on its common property. Schneider said homeowners could be left on the hook if there were an accident. The Parkside board could alleviate fears by calling a meeting, he said — "Just be honest with people. Say hey, we've been in a rut, didn't know what to do." When he has called board members, they have told him they don't want to be in charge anymore, Schneider said. "Did something happen? Is something not squared up?" he said. Schneider said the HOA has put liens on homes that have been sold, recouping fees. "If you sell your house, believe me, they're going to get their money," he said. Another resident, Chad Kropff, said he used to receive an invoice for dues once a year, starting at $100 and eventually lowering to $80. That stopped in 2016, when he received a bill for the prior year's fees, he said. "I assumed there was so much money in there, they had kind of postponed invoicing for a while," Kropff said. He is worried that there is no system in place to track who has paid dues and who has not, and no transparency about where the money has gone. "Most people moving in don't even know there is an HOA," he said. "The longer this goes on, the stinkier it gets." The Parkside Reserve development was started in the late 1990s and — after 10 years of control — was handed over from the builder to the residents. Vanderground said he moved to Parkside Reserve in 2016 and was told there was an HOA, but he never received any further information and was never asked for dues. "No one knows where the money is or what they're supposed to do," he said. He proposed that everyone in the neighborhood be given a clean slate, and that the HOA board should agree to hold one membership meeting per year. He said about 75 residents gathered in late 2019 to talk about the situation and build a list of questions they wanted the HOA board to answer but those questions have never been addressed. Buga, who is the president of the Parkside Reserve board, did not respond to a request for comment. Contact Jason Hawk at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.