Tempest in the Village
Order and serenity are bywords at Village Homes, one of Thousand Oaks’ oldest planned communities, noted for 687 color-compatible houses connected by landscaped walkways. But lately, matching earth tones are one of the few compatible aspects of life in the suburban refuge, where a feud among homeowners has gained the attention of law enforcement authorities.
Postal inspectors are trying to determine whether the feisty, 81-year-old president of the Village Homes Property Owners’ Assn. broke any laws when he recalled the July issue of the group’s monthly newsletter, the Village Voice, said Public Information Officer Donald Obritsch.
“This is an unusual case for us,” said Obritsch. “But it is an intriguing story.”
Obritsch said Tuesday he was doubtful that any charges would result, but that inspectors were obligated to look into homeowners’ allegations that the embattled board member, E. C. (Nick) Nicholides, impersonated a printer to gain access at the Thousand Oaks post office to the already-mailed newsletters. As a rule, Obritsch said, agents of the organization that printed a bulk mailing are allowed to retrieve the material, and often do so, to update information or make corrections.
But angry homeowners, who include past board president Crosby Fentress and resident Geraldine Sanders, claim Nicholides recalled the July flyers for the purpose of censoring letters and portions of the minutes of the June meeting. The material, which was deleted before the newsletters were remailed, contained references critical of Nicholides, who was seeking reelection to the association’s board.
Nicholides, who was vice president of the board when the newsletters were recalled in July, was elected president in August.
The controversial newsletters, meanwhile, are being held in a vault at the Ventura County sheriff’s station in Thousand Oaks as potential evidence at the request of the homeowners’ association.
Homeowners said they consider the newsletter the best way to find out what’s going on in their development and resent any tampering with its contents.
“The whole homeowners association is being held hostage,” Sanders said in a recent interview. “How do we stop that?”
Nicholides acknowledges that he retrieved the 687 newsletters from the post office, but argued that he was within his rights as a board member. He said he recalled the flyers to insert a rebuttal to charges that he harassed homeowners. He noted that the five-member board later agreed to remove any sensitive material from the newsletter that might stir controversy before the elections.
“A rebuttal of mine had to be printed,” said Nicholides, who charged that the June issue had been “rigged by homeowners making false statements.”
Asked whether he pretended to work for the association’s printer when he retrieved the flyer, the retired aerospace manager replied: “Oh, hell no.”
Nicholides said he identified himself to postal authorities and did nothing by subterfuge. “I had just had hernia surgery, so a man from the post office helped me carry them to my car,” he said. “Now that is really pilfering, huh?”
Sanders, Fentress and other homeowners agree with Nicholides on one point--that the dispute reflects years of bickering and long-held grudges in a community where the same people tend to run for the association board over and over again, and where residents remember who served on the architectural committee when the proposed color of their house paint was rejected.
Participants in the feud and other residents voice a host of gossipy accusations against each other, ranging from breached business ethics to questionable private morals.
Four of the five board members are retired men who govern “by default,” according to homeowner Lawrence Borelli.
“I really feel it’s a bunch of old men with nothing better to do than squabble,” said Borelli, an orthopedic surgeon who recently discovered that he does not have full title to his house because of a clerical error made when he purchased some adjacent property owned by the association several years ago.
Borelli said Fentress, the past president, had been reluctant to correct the matter because the land may have been sold without a required full vote of the association’s membership. Fentress blamed the alleged inappropriate procedure on Nicholides.
Sanders--who compares board members to the leadership of China as “a few old men” who maintain power by controlling communications--claimed that Nicholides has nursed a grudge for 17 years after she and her husband bought the Ashford Court house he had wanted. One of the items deleted from the July Village Voice was a notice she wrote soliciting members for a homeowners’ complaint committee.
Meanwhile, Nicholides said Sanders is being used by Fentress to discredit him as part of a power play on the board. And Fentress said Nicholides has irritated homeowners for years with his authoritative, controlling style.
“He always delays the issuance of the Village Voice so he can insert stuff,” charged Fentress, a retired engineer.
“They’re like two little kids,” said Borelli of Fentress and Nicholides. “So what you have here is World War III, a tempest in a teapot.”
