HOAs should stay out of political races

HOAs should stay out of political races

Recently, the Calabasas Park Homeowners’ Association (CPHA) for the first time in the city’s history endorsed a candidate for the city council. In their February newsletter, which just came out, the president’s message stated that the vote to endorse the candidate was unanimous. CPHA has five officers and 14 directors, for a total of 19 boardmembers. It’s hard to believe that all 19 would unanimously agree on just one candidate, but even if they did, is it proper for an HOA to endorse candidates? The purpose of an HOA is to govern a group of homeowners according to their CC&Rs and bylaws—not to get involved in political elections.

CPHA should be congratulated in sponsoring the debate of candidates. I was at this debate and it was conducted fair and square.

However, for CPHA to come out after the debate and endorse a candidate was wrong. This was against the city council’s policy that had been followed since the city was formed. That policy held that anyone sponsoring a forum could not endorse a candidate before or after a forum. It seems that any member of the CPHA board who has lived in Calabasas any length of time would have known that. The city council and CTV wanted to prevent exactly what has happened here. It was a clever way for CPHA to get a lot of free exposure for their candidate.

The city council was right Wednesday in voting for the recommendation of CTV to pull further running of the debate on TV. One doesn’t ignore or change the rules in the middle of the game. They did, however, leave the door open that if all six candidates agree to run the CPHA debate, they would allow the debate to be run on TV.

CPHA represents several separate HOAs including the one I am a board member on, plus a number of individual residents. They should not try to use their exposure to support any candidate in elections. I hope the people of Calabasas will make their comments heard.

Fred Marsic

Calabasas