By Jan Bergemann, President, Cyber Citizens For Justice, Inc.

                                        www.ccfj.net

Most likely our founding fathers and the authors of our Constitution would turn in their graves if they would see what is going on in many of our homeowners’ associations.

Mankind invented many systems to “improve” daily life – some good, some bad!  We saw many of these systems fail as soon as ordinary human beings got involved.

Communism is by far the best example of a system that looked great on paper but totally failed in daily life!  The reason for the obvious failure:  Power hungry and/or greedy neighbors!

It seems there is a little dictator hidden in many people, much more than we ever anticipated before moving into these associations.  Many of the persons who are willing to “serve” on the boards are not knowledgeable enough to do the job – making decisions regarding contracts and dealing with huge budgets is a lot more difficult than just organizing a potluck dinner.  Many board members have let the assumed power go to their heads.

The fact that individual autonomy was suddenly replaced with autocratic enforcement created “power hunger” in some of these folks, something that obviously wasn’t anticipated when this system of community living was established.

Certain specialized attorneys began to argue that the declaration of rules and regulations (CC&Rs) supersedes even constitutional rights and that the First Amendment doesn't apply in these homeowners’ associations.  That faulty reasoning laid the groundwork to kill our democracy.

Some of these attorneys even argued that homeowners signed away their constitutional rights at the gate.

Legislators even allowed kangaroo courts to levy fines – pitting neighbors against neighbors.  But since a homeowners’ association is not a government entity, this is clearly another violation of our constitutional rights.

    
Even higher courts seemed to agree that contract law supersedes the United States Constitution – and law enforcement agencies refused to prosecute even criminal acts.

That was until the SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY -- APPELLATE DIVISION -- found that private communities such as Twin Rivers are "constitutional actors" and that residents within their bounds do not surrender their constitutional liberties, no matter what their deeds say. 

Hopefully, the New Jersey Supreme Court will uphold this decision later in autumn.  We can start again to honor the democracy the U.S. Constitution grants us – a democracy that should rule inside our gated communities as well as all over our nation! 

You have to start being heard, my friends, and we shall overcome and get our homes back into our own hands without the dictators, etc., that we all experience in our developments.