Last year at the Park West HOA meeting, Bobby Thomas realized residents were upset from a lack of communication in the neighborhood. His apology is in the minutes of last years meeting (paragraph 5).

He promise a year ago to come up with a communication solution. This year we also heard other apologies, excuses and even a story about how we all get the minutes of all board meetings when it turned out to be fiction.

One year ago, soon after the HOA meeting, I suggested the neighborhoodlink.com site you are now looking at. Bobby & Wes decided that the FREE neighborhoodlink site would not work since neighbors could post messages. They said that feature was unacceptable and would not work. After a few days, I realized I could do the site without their approval and I did.

Last week, one week before our HOA meeting this year, I reminded Bobby of his promise of some sort of neighborhood communication and asked for $19.99 to pay for an easier to remember web address for all residents. I was thinking about something like www.OurParkWest.com

I figured, hey $19.99 is not much and then he could say he took a tiny step toward his promise of better communications.

After the HOA meeting last night, Bobby called me over and told me that the HOA could not pay $19.99 for the web address since the PW BOD had concerns of being liable for defamation for being involved with the discussion board and website.

All I can say is this: Someone needs to advise ohan.org and the other 750,000+ neighborhood websites to shut down the free speech discussion boards because of defamation liability.

What is Defamation?

Defamation is a FALSE publication that damages a person's reputation or exposes him/her to public hatred, contempt or ridicule or injures him in his business or profession.

More on...What is defamation?

Question: What is defamation?

Answer: An attack by speech on the good reputation of a person or business entity. Speech that involves a public figure--such as a corporation--is only defamatory if it is false and said with actual malice. It also must be factual rather than an expression of an opinion. In the United States, because of our strong free speech protections, it is almost impossible to prove defamation against a public figure.

CAN LIBEL SUITS BE BROUGHT BY A PUBLIC FIGURE?

These suits are a bit dicer for the public figure.

A public figure may be an elected or appointed (a politician) or someone who has stepped into a public controversy (e.g., movie stars and TV stars, star athletes). Public figures have a ''harder road to toll'' than the average person since they must prove that the party defaming them knew the statements were false, made them with actual malice, or was negligent in saying or writing them. Proving these elements makes the chance of a successful lawsuit slim.

....and still no communication

Is it just me or did anyone see any BOD minutes from our P/ HOA ?