It was the most disciplined community meeting public comment period I have ever witnessed and its discipline made it more effective than any amount of raised voices would have. When the comment period concluded, the board chair, a man named Robert Finley, who was not Renata, who was the board's vice president and who had the look of someone deeply aware that he was now at the center of something he had not expected, asked Renata if she wished to respond to the comments. Renata said she stood behind her record as HOA president and that the incident that had prompted much of the evening's discussion was being mischaracterized and that the police matter would resolve itself appropriately. Robert said he thought the board needed to discuss the matter in more depth than could be accomplished at the current meeting and that he was recommending a special session of the board within two weeks to which homeowners would be invited to review the governance concerns that had been raised. Renata said she did not think a special session was necessary.
Robert called a vote. Three board members voted for the special session, one abstained, Renata voted against. The special session was scheduled. In the two weeks between the regular meeting and the special session, three things happened that I will describe in order. The first thing was that Detective Reyes concluded her review and sent a summary to the county prosecutor's office recommending that the matter be reviewed for a misdemeanor charge of malicious destruction of property.
The charge was minor. The monetary value of a snowman is not significant regardless of how you assess it, but the recommendation itself was significant because it was a formal finding by a law enforcement officer that what had occurred on that Saturday morning was not an accident. It was deliberate. Detective Reyes had reached that conclusion from the footage, from the trajectory of the vehicle, and from her interview with Renata in which Renata had apparently made statements that were not consistent with the footage. I found out about the prosecutor's referral not from the police department, but from my attorney, a woman named Sandra Polk who I had consulted after filing the property damage report.
Sandra had contacts in the prosecutor's office and she had been monitoring the case status. She called me to say the referral had been made and to ask how I wanted to proceed. I said I wanted to discuss the situation with my grandfather before making any decisions about whether to pursue a private civil complaint in parallel with the criminal process. I spoke with my grandfather the following evening. He was in better spirits than he had been in the days immediately after the incident.
He had heard from my mother that the situation had developed, the camera footage, the police report, the meeting at the HOA, and he had processed all of it with the particular equanimity of a man who has lived 81 years and knows which things are worth holding on to and which are not. He said the snowman did not matter. I said I knew. He said what mattered was that someone in a position of authority over a community had behaved in a way that was unkind and that had been seen and would be remembered and that the seeing and the remembering were their own form of consequence. He said he did not need the formal process to go further on his behalf.
He said he was fine. I called Sandra and told her we would not be pursuing a private civil complaint. The criminal process, if the prosecutor chose to proceed, would proceed on its own merits and I would cooperate if asked, but we would not add to it from our side. The second thing that happened in the two weeks before the special session was that a homeowner named Paul Whitmore, who had been in Millfield Commons for 12 years, and who was quietly but widely respected in the community, announced that he was running for HOA president at the upcoming annual election, which was scheduled for March. Paul was a retired school principal, patient and thoughtful, and genuinely interested in the community as a community rather than as a compliance exercise.
His announcement on the listserv was brief and undramatic. He said he thought the community deserved governance that was fair, consistent, and conducted with respect for all homeowners. He said he had specific ideas about how to improve the amendment process and the enforcement procedure, and he would share them at the candidates meeting in February. Paul's announcement generated 37 responses within 24 hours. They were uniformly positive.
Renata made no announcement about her own candidacy. The third thing that happened in the two weeks before the special session was that Renata's SUV was towed. I want to be very clear about this part of the story because the clarity matters. The towing of Renata's SUV was not something I arranged, requested, encouraged, or had any involvement in. It happened because of Renata's own actions unrelated to the snowman incident or the HOA controversy, and I found out about it the same way most of the community found out about it through the listserv, where someone had posted about seeing the tow truck at her address.
What had happened, as I eventually pieced together from multiple sources, was as follows. The county had been conducting a street sweeping operation on Clearwater Lane, Renata's street, on a Thursday morning. Street sweeping operations were announced in advance with posted signs indicating that parking on the affected side of the street was prohibited during the sweep window. Renata's SUV was parked on the affected side of the street during the sweep window. The county's contracted towing service had towed it as they tow any vehicle in violation of the street sweep restriction.
Standard procedure happens regularly. The only remarkable thing about it was the timing and the vehicle. Renata went to the impound lot to retrieve her SUV. At the impound lot, the process of retrieving a towed vehicle involves presenting identification, signing paperwork, paying the towing and storage fee, and then driving the vehicle out. This process had proceeded normally until Renata's SUV was brought around from the storage area, at which point it became apparent that the SUV had sustained damage during the tow.