News
Chief
continued from page 1
used excessive force. Investigators
also raised concerns about biased
policing.
In an interview this month,
O’Toole told The Seattle Times it
lic safety positions in Massachu-
setts, including as the state’s
secretary of public safety.
She returned to serve as Boston’s
police commissioner from 2004 to
was crucial to bring a sense of
urgency in reforming the department
and that she believed doing so was a
top priority for Murray.
‘‘I have a passion for this stuff. I
have a passion for public service and
a passion for policing,’’ she said.
O’Toole, 59, joined Boston Police
as a patrol officer in 1979 and
worked her way up through the
ranks. She later worked in other pub-
2006 before completing a six-year
term as chief of an oversight body
responsible for reforms in the Irish
national police force.
She has since focused on consult-
ing work, including helping to
monitor whether police in East
Haven, Connecticut, are complying
with a federal mandate to curtail
false arrests, discriminatory policing
and excessive force.
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
‘I have a passion for this stuff. I have a
passion for public service and a passion
for policing’
Interim Seattle Police Chief Harry Bailey, Kathleen O’Toole and Mayor Murray after press
conference.
Marriage
continued from page 1
Kelly and Patty Reagan of Washington
County took the day off to get married, tak-
ing along their kids 11-year-old Kaelan and
7-year-old Sophia. The couple has been
together for nearly eight years.
“It’s important for our kids to be part of
this,” Kelly Reagan said. “It’s the final val-
idation for them; this is the official stamp.”
Added Patty Reagan: “It’s the final step to
be truly a family. Everyone else takes for
granted that they have this right.”
Oregon law has long prohibited same-sex
marriage and McShane’s opinion came a
decade after Oregon voters amended the
state’s Constitution to define marriage as a
union between one man and one woman.
Four same-sex couples challenged the ban
last year. In February, state Attorney Gener-
‘It’s the final step to be truly a family. Everyone
else takes for granted that they have this right’
al Ellen Rosenblum said she would not
defend the ban in court, citing last year’s
U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck
down key parts of the federal Defense of
Marriage Act.
Not everyone celebrated the ruling. The
Oregon Catholic Conference issued a state-
ment saying “authentic marriage remains
what it has always and only been according
to God’s design: the loving union between
one man and one woman for the mutual
benefit of the two who have become one
flesh and any children born of their union.”
In Portland, Jeana Frazzini, executive
director for Basic Rights Oregon, simply
told the crowd gathered at the group’s head-
quarters: “We won!”
The tightly packed room of gay and les-
bian couples and their supporters filled with
cheers, fist pumps, and hugs.
One of the plaintiffs in the case, Chris
Tanner, embraced her partner and wiped
away tears as the decision was announced.
“I’m speechless,” she told the crowd.
“I’ve anticipated this moment for at least 10
years. So I’m thrilled.”
McShane’s opinion was then read aloud to
the audience by lead attorney for the plain-
tiffs, Misha Isaak.
“It’s a surreal, exciting moment, and not
just for Oregon but for our nation,” said Ben
West, while leaning on the shoulder of his
long-time partner Paul Rummell. The two
men, who were also plaintiffs in the case,
and their 8-year-old son Jay then went to the
county office to get their marriage license.
They were married later that day.
HOA
continued from page 1
Kraft also has to cover the HOA’s attorney
costs – bringing her total to almost $20,000,
on the house she paid $30,000 in cash for in
2009. She will be charged 9 percent interest
on that debt for every year it takes to pay it
off.
How many other Northwest home and
condo owners have lost all their property
through HOAs? It’s impossible to know,
because unless states act to tighten up their
laws, the homeowner- and condominium
owner associations don’t have to report that
to anyone. In fact, the Freedom of Informa-
tion Act doesn’t apply here at all, nor does
the U.S. Constitution.
Kraft, like HOA residents around Oregon,
Washington and many other states, is being
nickel-and-dimed out of her property, while
elected officials and government bureaus
turn a blind eye to basic consumer com-
plaints.
“I have gone my whole life without a
home, and this was going to be the best
thing that ever happened to me and my fam-
ily,” Kraft says of her little house in
Snoozy’s Hollow.
“I put everything I had into this house,
and now I’m going to lose everything.”
From Wacky to Tragic
Homeowner associations are a form of
private government. They involve local
governing boards set up by developers, with
official approval from the local municipali-
ty, to run their communities based on
Say the words ‘homeowners’ association’ and eyes
tend to roll. The steady stream of news about the
privatized neighborhoods, run by resident boards of
homeowners, ranges from mafia takeovers to boards
demanding DNA tests on dog poop.
In our two-year look into homeowner associations
and their affiliated businesses, The Skanner News
heard many stories about simple disputes that led to
eye-popping legal costs; some residents have even
lost their homes. Because the industry is “self-
regulating,” many of these homeowners have
nowhere to turn for consumer protection.
“CC&R’s,” which are “covenants, condi-
tions
and
restrictions,”
contracts
homeowners must sign to live there.
Although the roots of rule-enforced com-
munities are ancient around the world,
HOAs really started popping up in larger
numbers in the United States back in the
mid-1960s, with the advent of planned
housing subdivisions, especially condo-
miniums.
The heart of any homeowner association
is its board of directors, which is an all-vol-
unteer panel elected by the homeowners to
run the community based on the rules con-
tained in the contracts they signed as a
condition of property ownership.
The point of such rules and governing
boards, in theory at least, is to protect the
equity of homeowners and make sure the
community’s property is well-kept in the
estimated 350,000 such developments
nationwide.
It sounds simple enough — and it is for
sure that many HOA boards are well-run
and appreciated for their efforts. But all
over the country, these boards have made
headlines over controversies, both wacky
and tragic.
In March of last year a scandal erupted in
Florida over a board that voted to ban skate-
boards, roller blades, bicycles, scooters,
toys and ball playing inside the gates of its
condo development.
In Las Vegas, Nev., a rash of alleged sui-
cides
was followed by more than two dozen
arrests alleging organized crime figures
enlisted straw buyers to rig HOA elections,
take control of nearly a dozen boards and
steer construction, management and legal
work the conspirators’ way between August
2003 and February 2009.
More recently, the Sanford, Fla., home-
owner association governing the condo
development where Trayvon Martin was
killed by George Zimmerman settled with
Martin’s parents for $1 million in a sealed
judgment.
Observers there say the incident has made
some associations re-examine their neigh-
borhood watch programs.
Read the rest of this story online at
www.theskanner.com
May 21, 2014 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 3