BLOCK DIPLOMACY : A new homeowners association board of directors tries to bring a community together but finds that laying down the law is not always easy.

The topic was speed bumps.

“Nobody,” said Michael Morlan, “likes speed bumps.”

But nobody likes traffic tragedies or lawsuits, either, Morlan warned his colleagues on the board of the Tierras Homeowners Assn. Speed bumps might prevent those.

Around the clubhouse, half a dozen homeowners sprang to attention. One backed bumps; another decried them. A third proposed a mid-block stop sign, and both sides hooted him down.

Morlan, an attorney who was elected to the board just three weeks before, watched uneasily. To his left at the paper-strewn table sat board President Jon LeConey, an assistant restaurant manager with equal inexperience in neighborhood politics. LeConey opposed speed bumps. What to do?

So sounded the first stirrings of self-government in Camarillo’s newest community, eight months after its first home sales, not quite four months after the arrival of its first homeowners.

The territory at stake was modest: Vista Arriago, a looping hilltop street in the shadow of the Ventura Freeway, will never house more than 48 homeowners. Via Montanez, site of the proposed bumps, and the two other neighboring streets include just 25 more properties.

But politics were inevitable. Community association democracies, widening their constituency with the opening of every new housing tract and condominium complex, now empower and entangle an estimated 3.6 million Californians. And this winter, as the residents of Vista Arriago contemplated war and recession--and waited for someone to buy the other half of the neighborhood’s houses--speed-bump politics were one of the block’s few signs of life.

There were several young couples, but no children. At Christmastime, there were only scattered wreaths and lights. In the days after the United States began its war with Iraq, there were no flags, no yellow ribbons, no protest posters. There was briefly a hand-scrawled sign on a lawn--”Please pick up after your dog”--but the gusts of mid-January blew it away. Sheriff’s deputies recalled no crime reports. Of the 48 houses on the street, 22 were occupied.

“I don’t feel that it’s taken on any real identity as a neighborhood. But I think that’s coming,” June Hillman said a few days before the Dec. 19 speed-bump debate. Neither Hillman nor her husband, Ira, made it to that meeting.

Nor did housemates Janette Wong and Carole McCluskey up the street, who were putting their energy into home improvement. They built a fence in the side yard, set up a woodworking shop, an office and shelves in the garage, rearranged the master bedroom closet and built a bookcase for the living room. In the back yard, they hung a bird feeder.

“I’ve kind of gotten over some of the bitterness I had when I first moved in,” said McCluskey, a first-time buyer frustrated by lengthy paperwork and multiple negotiations.

But she and Wong could easily find themselves caught in community association politics. Their many improvements to the garage have made it a difficult fit for a car. Their driveway is too short for comfortable parking. And homeowners association rules forbid parking on the street.

“So we’re sort of in a dilemma,” McCluskey said. “And we’re thinking we might try to convince the other people on the street into making it a one-way street and allowing parking on one side of the street.”

But that would reroute a lot of traffic onto a street maintained by Palmeras, the development next door. The Tierras Homeowners Assn. might be intrigued by that idea, but the Palmeras Homeowners Assn. probably wouldn’t.

It wasn’t until 1828, 198 years after the arrival of John Winthrop and his pilgrims, that a few of their descendants convened North America’s first homeowners association in Louisburg Square, Boston.

The Vista Arriago homeowners, who lay out $163 in association fees along with their monthly mortgage payments, endured no such delay. From the start, they yielded control of vegetation in their front yards, accepted bans on unleashed dogs and cats, and pledged not to ride their mopeds, skateboards, bicycles and motorcycles off the street. They would not dive, eat or smoke in the communal spa. A back-yard swing set would require architectural committee approval. Horseplay around the pool was out of the question.

“The community living concept has gained great favor in recent years,” the thick Tierras homeowners handbook noted, “as a means of conserving and improving the quality of the living environment in residential areas.”

Having a homeowners association, said the handbook, means a chance “to ensure that the physical quality of your residential neighborhood will be preserved, and even enhanced, over the years. It also means that you have an opportunity to influence the quality of community life around you.”

It can mean a lot more than that. To Jan Hickenbottom of Thousands Oaks, former president of the Community Assns. Institute’s Los Angeles chapter and condominium-dwellers advice columnist for The Times, it means this:

“The days that you can buy your property and do anything you please with it are long gone.”

Every homeowner has heard a story to illustrate that point--neighborhood feuds over unauthorized white picket fences, lawsuits over basketball hoops and bylaws banning overweight pets.

In Oxnard last year, homeowner Steven Blanchard got tired of waiting on a 4-year-old civil suit and decided to advertise on a housetop billboard that an old oil waste dump had been discovered beneath his property. Officers of the Oxnard Shores Community Assn. hired men to climb up and saw the billboard down. Blanchard and a dozen allies put it up again. A court fight looms.

In Palos Verdes Estates, Mary and Gordon Aughinbaugh set out 14 years ago to build a 6,000-square-foot dream house, but went through two contractors and, as of December, were still building. The Palos Verdes Homes Assn., six years into a court fight to make the Aughinbaughs “proceed diligently,” has threatened to demolish the place.

“I have heard of physical violence,” said Kathleen Daniels, executive director of the Community Assns. Institute’s Los Angeles office, speaking of associations generally. “There is a lot of negativity out there with this.”

On Vista Arriago, there wasn’t as much negativism as there was inexperience and absenteeism.

“I probably should get involved, but I haven’t,” said Yvonne Ellrott, 37, a real estate agent who moved in at the end of October.

Ellrott had resided on a Moorpark ranch with room for a pool and nine dogs. Recently single and in a hurry to move, she said she paid cash for a Vista Arriago unit and since then has been getting used to life with two bedrooms, a den and a single dog.

“I’m only looking to stay a couple of years, and I’m hoping by then I’ll have things back together enough to move to Thousand Oaks,” she said. “I know that sounds terrible, but I’ve spent my life in the Conejo Valley.” As for her homeowners association, Ellrott said: “I don’t have any idea who’s on the board. . . . I may attend one meeting just to see who’s there and doing what.”

It wouldn’t take long to catch up.

It was November when Barclay Hollander Corp., developer of the neighborhood and founder of the homeowners association, asked for two homeowner volunteers to take seats with three employees of the developer on the board of directors. About 15 residents turned up for the meeting. Two volunteered, making the election simple enough, and president-elect LeConey was soon on his way home to study “Robert’s Rules of Order.”

A month later, LeConey was presiding over his first meeting, tentatively calling roll and pondering the treasurer’s report of a $21,453.71 balance. Sheldon Chavin, head of the Tierras property management firm, sat at the other end of the table and quietly guided LeConey through the agenda.

The board agreed to shut the pool heater off from January until sometime in the spring and chose an accounting firm to audit association finances. Then came the speed-bump issue--”the nemesis of every homeowners association,” in Chavin’s phrase--and the sudden flurry of proposals, counterproposals and general disorder.

“Because the board has knowledge of the problem, I see that a potential liability problem could arise,” said Morlan, the attorney who sits on the board. The problem was cars descending the hill faster than the posted 15 m.p.h. limit.

In many associations, Chavin explained later, board members reach quickly for protection as soon as they discover that they can be targeted by a negligence lawsuit. At about $400 each, speed bumps begin to seem a bargain even if traffic is minimal and many of the neighbors resent the inconvenience. Many of the streets surrounding Vista Arriago, governed by older community associations, are thick with bumps.

But this time the issue subsided.

Noting that there had been no accidents or written complaints--and suspecting that the pro-bump movement could be traced to one vocal man who lived near the bottom of the hill--the board united in a decision to delay any decision.

When the January meeting came around, the man from the bottom of the hill didn’t show and the bumps were nudged off the agenda entirely.

“Until that comes up again,” Morlan said, “it’s not an issue.”

There was still plenty to think about. State Department of Transportation workers up the hill were putting up a wall to muffle the hum of Ventura Freeway traffic. Down the hill in the subdivision’s model houses, the stream of shoppers was steady--another encouraging sign. So far, LeConey concluded, the decision to buy on Vista Arriago looked like “a hell of a good idea.”

But the sales staff in those models was now offering $6,000 incentive discounts to those shoppers, a better deal than many early buyers got. Experts agreed that the countywide real estate slump would persist through at least early 1991.

And it didn’t take long for new neighborhood issues to surface.

Out for an inspection stroll, the landscaping committee detected inefficient sprinklers in one of the common areas, along with frost-damaged ground cover and hints of insufficient weeding. A special meeting was scheduled.

Then there was the parking situation. Here a forbidden car parked on the street. There a resident in a guest space. Everywhere, it seemed, a citation waiting to happen.

The management company had issued scattered warnings but had exacted no penalties. McCluskey’s traffic rerouting idea seemed like a difficult sell. And with 26 of Vista Arriago’s 48 houses still empty, the problem would probably worsen. What was a novice neighborhood politician to do? Tee off his new neighbors?

“It’ll be terrible,” LeConey said. “I guess we’re just going to have to.”

THE 4-MONTH REPORT

The Block: Quiet. Vista Arriago, U-shaped and exclusively residential, is the longest block in Barclay Hollander’s Tierras development, which has 48 houses. Prices run roughly from $205,000 to $250,000; sales started in April. By the end of January, officials said, 25 units were sold, with 23 available. Though the houses are detached, they are considered condominiums and carry $163 in monthly homeowners association fees.

The City: Affluent and growing. Donnelly Demographics estimates Camarillo’s median 1990 household income at $41,572, versus the countywide figure of $36,976. The 1990 Census puts Camarillo’s population at 52,303. The city is 45 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, within range of brave commuters. In the last decade, Camarillo has grown 38%, the second fastest rate in the county.

The Market: Iffy. During the last quarter of 1990, real estate analysts at the Meyers Group counted 300 houses sold in Ventura County (up 23% from the previous quarter) and put the median price for a detached home at $312,990 (up 3%). Still, concludes Meyers consultant M’Lis Wainwright, “the lack of buyer confidence is evident throughout the county, as traffic dropped at nearly every project audited.” And in the western half of the county, which includes Camarillo, sales of detached houses fell from 137 to 73 (a 47% drop).

TIPS FOR WOULD-BE BOARD MEMBERS

Kathleen A. Daniels, executive director of the Community Assns. Institute’s Los Angeles chapter, offers these quick tips for those who would serve on homeowners boards:

* Be aware of the fact that this is a business, and it needs to be run in a very professional way, not like some little mom-and-pop thing. . . . They say that people who make the best board members are those who have run their own business--a retired person, for instance, who has had a business and knows how to deal with people and personalities.

* Remember that the purpose of the homeowners association is to protect and enhance the value of the property.

* Try to get everything that you can in writing from people. When people make suggestions or complain, get it in writing.

* Know the laws.

* Have a positive attitude, and that will encourage other people to get involved. Eventually, it will enhance the value of the property--when there’s more interest, people are more involved, and more things are accomplished. . . . The board members shouldn’t walk around as if they’re dying from the job. It turns the other people off.

* And you should have insurance, of course. Director’s and officer’s insurance protects board members from liability if the association is sued. (Daniels said that associations usually pay the premiums, and that policies are available through most insurers.)