Hello Bell Canyon
MIKE KLEIN, HOA CO-PRESIDENT AND LEGAL LIAISON
VOTE 3 - odd addresses
Mike Klein Town Hall 2024
FROM THE DESK OF
Mike Klein
Dear Neighbors,
I’d like to apologize in advance for the back and forth of the constant letters during this recall. I feel it is so important that you understand the consequences of this recall that I feel the need to once again write a letter to the community.
I don’t find this group of United Recall people to be very honest. They have disseminated so much misinformation to the community that is not true. It’s getting very exhausting calling them out on misinformation and lies. It’s at the point now that I feel that you need to trust this board and just know that we’ve been working very hard to try to turn our Canyon around from the last disastrous HOA board.
The reason I volunteered, although I still have two thriving businesses, is because of what I have witnessed. I think when you witness something that is so wrong over the years, how could a reasonable person ever sit back and do nothing? That’s just not me. I’ve always tried to protect good people from people that I feel are not so good. The motives of the recall are disingenuous and have been built on lies. Let me give you an example: they said the roof on our community center cost $1 million — not true. Mike Klein has an LLC with David Chai — not true. Of course, you’ve noticed they’ve never produced the LLC. Insinuating a shady deal on the HOA land that we sold — disproven by realtor Donna Bebe. The forensic audit will never happen — of course it did, and we released it. "You must support our fire department" and it's a fire department that is not allowed to use our fire hydrants — "Please donate for a garage for our fire trucks" they received a lot of money in donations, the garage will never be built because of zoning. Character assassinations of others and myself are commonplace with this recall group, especially with their constant spam. This United group would love to distract with made up issues, to confuse people. I have a new appreciation for the old saying, "smoke and mirrors"
I find the way that they have conducted their campaign to be pretty despicable. I feel that it would be a huge mistake to have any of these people on our HOA board.
Can you imagine continuing to put up signage on prohibited land in violation of the law? Law enforcement have had to come out to our Canyon three times in order to take down their signs. These are not the people you want on the HOA board by a long shot. They also disseminated a confidential settlement agreement on their website that could end up costing all of us money because confidential means confidential. They also have the nerve to publish confidential emails actually on the BCVWFD website. Of course, it was taken out of context. But that gives you an idea of what this HOA board has been dealing with, like a simple request to see an insurance policy. Along with publishing private courthouse pictures that are prohibited by law and in contempt of court, they were warned about it.
After this length of time, the conclusion needs to be that this group is either under the direction of desperate people or they themselves are desperate. Just to let you know, I’m attaching the original recall petition. Please take note of the signatures that are behind this recall: Eric Wolf, former president and fire chief of BCVWFD; his wife, Jude Wolf; Richard Levy, former treasurer of our HOA board; Lisa Riccomini, former co-president; Steve Kent, former board member; Daniel Samimi, former board member; Garrett Clancy, fire chief of BCVWFD; and more.
I think you can assume if the United Recall group were to prevail, you would probably have to also assume that this group of former board members would be behind the scenes. There is a big likelihood they would be playing a major role in the operation of our Canyon. It would be pretty devastating to have decision-making and influence from the previous board since they absolutely devastated our community financially, and allowed so much to be dilapidated.
We have witnessed the argument already by this group about possibly canceling our claw-back lawsuits. The argument is in the guise of “what happens if they countersuit?” This is an argument from a person that is not an attorney, just a candidate, and has zero credibility. He does not know the facts. You have to ask yourself: would very prestigious law firms ever take on a contingency case if they did not feel they would prevail? Hundreds of hours on a multi-million dollar case? And if this recall group were to cancel the claw-back lawsuits, it would cost each homeowner thousands of dollars. The nuts and bolts of the whole reason for the recall— and the reason they could not wait until October — was to cancel the $8.6 million lawsuits against Eric Wolf and the two other attorneys. They knew that time was of the essence.
Please vote NO on the recall. I always include my phone number, and please call me if you have any questions. The United Recall group never includes their private phone number. I welcome any neighbor to call me. Please take my word for this: the United group are all interconnected with the last HOA board. Please see below and also attached.
Thank you once again for your time.
Sincerely,
Mike Klein
818-203-4888
Mike Klein took a stand with the clawback lawsuit — keeping your money where it belongs.
FROM THE DESK OF Mike Klein
Dear Neighbors,
I need to share my personal thoughts with you, prior to you receiving your ballot. My name is Mike Klein, I am currently the Co-President/legal liaison of our HOA board. Our board has been working almost 24/7 to try to improve the conditions that we we're left with by the last board. We have succeeded to a great degree to improve Bell Canyon in the last year. Seems to me very unfair that the last board was able to finish their term, by the way (many terms) but we have not been allowed to finish even one term. I'm hoping the majority of the Canyon will reject the "United Recall Group"power grab. We have made so much progress and I personally know there's much more to do. I would like to finish my term.
We recouped for the community almost a million dollars, and we settled 12 lawsuits that were left to us by the previous board. We are in the process of fixing up our community center, including we have installed a new roof. We have been fixing up the Equestrian center also and we're in the process of trying to save our decrepit completely ignored roads, it is a big Improvement. We have been able to hire Attorneys on a contingency to be able to claw back some of the 11 million dollars spent by the last board. Now we have a wonderful management team to manage Bell Canyon. We finished the forensic audit and released the results to the community. Our HOA board has hosted incredible events that the whole Community can enjoy. Events where people do not feel left out like they did before. The turnout for our events have been absolutely amazing. We have been able to accomplish much more than I have listed, all in less than a year.
I do feel the majority of the residents understand what is going on. As soon as the new board was convened our community was bombarded with lies. The purpose all along I feel was to set this recall in place for some to regain power. There's so much misinformation from the other side that you actually really need a shovel to get through it.
The leadership of the BCVWFD are some of the same people that put us in dire financial circumstances. Excuse me if I don't trust them. I don't apologize for that. They have been caught in lies. Once you lie in my book you've lost my trust. I think we should have a volunteer group, it would be very advantageous for our community, but there's something about the leadership of this volunteer group that doesn't pass the smell test.
Maybe it's because the assistant Chief of BCVWFD is being sued by our HOA for 8.6 million. Maybe it's because others leaders in this group also are very questionable in their behavior as to how they ran the HOA, BCCC board and CSD. Or maybe it's about the enormous amount of money that they have received from our community (fundraising). I can't predict the future but I'm not going to pretend that everything is great with the BCVWFD no matter how much propaganda is fed to this community. For liability reasons we need to see their insurance policy but they have refused.
When the "United Recall Group" sends out letters from some select Bell Canyon residence stating "We need peace in Bell Canyon" and we need a "New HOA board" Don't believe it for a minute. When this new board was seated there was beginning tobe peace. I even have the letter that my wife posted. In the letter I was thanking the community for the kindness and the peacefulness we were all feeling at that moment. Once again a sense of community that had been missing for years. That is why we had huge turnouts at events. People felt they could take a deep breath for once. They would not be threatened if they didn't agree with certain people. This new board would protect them. This new board was not going to browbeat them, the new board was not going to spend millions of dollars suing residents. Our community knew it, and it was almost instinctual and it felt very real and it was. I personally wanted families to be able to be relaxed and not be bullied, like when I was raising mydaughter, it was so wonderful. But the peace I am speaking about did not last long by design. Soon after I was seated on the board the old characters convinced some people that we had to have a recall. That's when the name calling started again, just like before, only now they seem more desperate.
They are experts at dissension. In my opinion names that we are all too familiar with, I feel cooked up the recall as a plan to once again divide our community and regain power through their candidates. The recall petition signed by Eric Wolf, Lisa Riccomini, and other former board members should give you pause. Also in my opinion they're using innocent volunteers that mean well, to regain power. I have always said it's the the leadership of BCVWFD we need to worry about. I feel their ultimate goal is to cancel ongoing litigations and much, much more.
In closing, in my life I've had many various businesses and I've had to deal with many different types of shady people. There was never a reason to have this recall, if you call for a recall it can't be based on absolute lies like this recall. But that is what has happened. I think it's tragic to put our community through this once again. If you believe this "United recall group" has no connections to the past board then I do not know what to tell you, but they are intricately intertwined.
I have been exposing wrongdoings for years about the last board. Sad to say I was correct. Don't believe the "Johnny come lately group" I've never have heard any of them speak up about the millions of dollars that were being spent or any warnings about the wrongdoings of the previous board. I spoke up and that's is when some started spreading outrageous rumors about me. Of course I never stopped speaking up because I consider some of them very insignificant, due to their lack of actionin the past and how some have conducted themselves during this recall. People that have a tendency to not tell the truth can do a lot of damage to a community.
Vote NO on the recall. Send a message to this group to stop dividing our community, and stop this recall with your NO vote. We would like to finish what we started. Let's get things back to normal like they were before the Wolf era. Prior to the Wolfpack, Bell Canyon was so amazing. Let's reclaim Bell Canyon and save it. Let's not go down the road and waste another 10 years of low property values, horrible decisions, false police reports and ignoring people when they have something to actually say. Your opinion does matter to me and the rest of the board. VOTE NO, we can achieve this together. Please call me if you have any questions I am here to answer to all.
Thank you for listening,
Sincerely,
Mike Klein,
818-203-4888
FROM THE DESK OF Mike Klein
Dear Neighbors,
I want to introduce myself. My name is Mike Klein, and I am the co-president of the HOA board and the legal liaison. I want to share my thoughts. I am writing to you personally as a community member and as a homeowner who has lived in Bell Canyon for many years. The Recall Candidates sent a letter to the community stating, "No more lawsuits" We can all agree we do not want lawsuits, but then you have to ask yourself why they commented when they never said anything about this before?
Eric Wolf and Lisa Riccomini strongly support this group of candidates. Eric and Lisa, ex-board members, are the ones who oversaw all the multi-million-dollar lawsuits. I found the Candidate's letter calling for an end to lawsuits inconsistent with Eric and Lisa's years of suits. Worse, these candidates said nothing during these board members' years of getting Bell Canyon into its legal quagmire. Why didn't these candidates petition for a recall then, or even proclaim "no more lawsuits" when their key supporters ran the board? Their friends left the current board with 12 lawsuits?
Futher, the new board eliminated all 12 lawsuits during their first year. It wasn't easy, but hard work, creativity, and skilled negotiations by competent board members made it happen. Also, our community has had no new costly lawsuits since we have been on the board.
We have filed lawsuits against Eric Wolf and the two lawyers to recoup your money. Are the recall candidates trying to help their friends against the financial clawback that could return money to the community? That's what I suspect. Are these candidates all hypocrites? Are they so committed to their buddies to get them out of an 8.6 million dollar jam? Why don't they all take up a collection rather than stick it to our community? Why would two law firms take this case on contingency if there is nothing there? We have been taken advantage of, and one day this will go down in the annals of HOA history as to what not to do on a HOA board.
We released the forensic accounting audit to the community, which is pretty shocking. If these candidates get elected, they will likely cancel the suits, thus eliminating the community's opportunity to claw back fuds, costing each homeowner thousands.
But do they even care? Has the Wolfpack ever cared about this community? Save me their preaching from on high when these recall candidates sat back when our community was virtually pillaged of all of our money. This recall is a scam.
If they prevailed, we would open a Pandora's Box with Irreparable harm. It could harm our community for years to come. It could trigger Recalls every 2 months. Based on Judge Walsh, the previous board "breached their fiduciary duty, and did not act in good faith." That ruling became the call to action to recall the board led by Eric and Lisa. Since then, as displayed in the forensic audit, additional corruption has been identified. It must be clear that anything specific past board members are associated with requires a deeper look, and their association with these Recall candidates is unsettling.
These Recall candidates are running on the guise of saving the fire department.
We appreciate the volunteers but NOT their leadership. Their leadership has taken our community's name and has put us all in financial jeopardy. Volunteers should be allowed to volunteer without being under the thumb of Eric Wolf and the other tainted players. The Ventura County Battalion Chief and other certified firefighter leaders explained last week that they are not a fire department and they are not recognized. Why does the "leadership" of the fire department have to have donations of over $500,000 from our community? Troubling.
I find the recall of the Candidate's association with Eric Wolf, Lisa Riccomini, and Richard Levy a problem. I believe they are not independent. Some led the BCA, CSD, and now two not-for-profit organisations. In each case, bad decisions were made, increasing legal fees were incurred, and community division and chaos followed.
From now on, we genuinely need independent people who will not feel their "friends" are more important than the community. We must demand that letters that have gone out to the community are no longer littered with lies. Most Bell Canyon residents elected "the new board" for a Fresh Start, and got it.
We have accomplished enormous goals to date. We made promises and kept them. With constant misinformation and letters intended to distract and discredit, the recall group has tried to make our daily efforts to improve the community for you as hard as possible. It's been nonstop, but as you can see, with your help, we will continue to make great strides regardless of their noise.
Our goal is for Bell Canyon to be the amazing community it once was. I have no doubt we will accomplish that goal and much more. Vote NO on the recall.
Thank you for listening, and thank you for being such great Neighbors.
If you have any questions please feel free to call.
Mike Klein 818 203-4888
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