Only Two Months In, the New Board Is Validating the One It Replaced

For over three years, a small group of Chatfield East homeowners contrived a case against the prior board. The case grew from flawed analysis of almost every board action and a habit among some of believing what they were told without checking. But the common theme in all the accusations, that the board is incompetent, culminated in one cornerstone accusation in December 2025. They said the prior board had changed the HOA’s bylaws without the authority to do so. Possibly illegally.

The claim was serious. It first appeared at a board meeting when two members with prior board experience, one of them a former CEPOA president, showed up to make the accusation directly. They cited the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act (CCIOA) as their authority. This accusation spread through the community via conversations, emails, and whisper campaigns. It was amplified at the 2025 annual meeting in a Gish gallop of allegations by the same two prior board members, resulting in the turnover of the entire board in December 2025.

CEPOAWatch takes that kind of accusation seriously. With nearly 30 years of property management experience, this publication knows what improper bylaw changes look like. And when a sitting board president Russell Ziegler reviews the records, consults legal counsel, and reports back publicly, his finding deserves the same serious attention the original accusation demanded. Yet somehow this revelation has been swept under the rug with little attention.

Ziegler’s conclusion, delivered after reviewing the record and consulting legal counsel, was this: the amended bylaws signed October 15, 2025 and the six new policies adopted November 19, 2025 were legally compliant, properly approved, and necessary. They were drafted by legal counsel. The policies were missing from CEPOA’s policy framework entirely. The bylaws contained outdated language and provisions required by state law that were absent. Adding and correcting them was the current board’s duty, not an overreach. The bylaws themselves, in Section 8.1, confirm that board-only amendment is the standard process unless a specific provision requires a member vote. He was clear that this process does not require a community vote. It requires only a board vote.

When a board president consults legal counsel and then clears the prior board on the record, he is not tidying up paperwork. He is answering a charge of illegal conduct. And his answer was not guilty.

The small group pontificated that a new board with fresh perspectives would expose and fix what it claimed the old board had done wrong. Russell Ziegler looked at the record and found it wasn’t broken after all.

In fact, at the February 2026 monthly board meeting, former board president Teri Hochstedler, attending as a community member, put it plainly.

Ziegler did not push back. He agreed on the record.

Now consider what happened after the election.

A loud voice in the small group, one who had been vocal throughout the campaign to replace the prior board, attended the first board meeting after the December takeover and asked the current board to compile a list of changes to the policies and bylaws. She had also asked for a list of every decision the prior board had made. Ziegler’s answer was patient and direct.

This pattern of coming to a board meeting to seek substantiation after the damage is done is troubling. All past board decisions are already public on the CEPOA website and have been the entire time. Every board decision for those two years was in the meeting minutes, available to any homeowner who asked or who simply went to cepoa.org. Standard practice requires every board decision be recorded in the minutes. The list she demanded already existed. The answer to her question did not require a new board to find them. It required reading the documents that were already there.

Also worth noting: when the bylaw accusation was brought up prior to December 18, 2025, the same advice was given. Read the documents. One wonders why the answer required a new board when it was available all along.

There is something else worth noting. When the prior board formally approved the bylaws at the October 2025 meeting, no one spoke against them at that meeting. The bylaws passed. They were signed and posted to the CEPOA website. It was the prior board’s policy to send the meeting agenda for membership review one week prior to the next scheduled board meeting so members could see what was being discussed and have ample time to make arrangements to attend. It is also a legal requirement for CEPOA to allow members or their agent to comment before a board vote. Ziegler noted that no member chose to speak against the bylaws restatement at that meeting, including those who would later raise objections.

It was only afterward, after the documents were already signed and in effect, that objections surfaced publicly. A member with prior board experience raised concerns about the bylaws at a subsequent meeting, citing a misapplication of CCIOA. The accusation did not appear in the minutes of the October meeting where it could have been formally addressed. It appeared later, in a subsequent meeting, in conversations, and in whisper campaigns, after the window to challenge the process formally had closed.

The record captures what people say in public forums. It cannot capture what they say in private. That asymmetry is worth keeping in mind.

The transparency concern the small group raised was not unreasonable on its face. Homeowners have every right to understand how their governing documents are changed and why. CEPOAWatch acknowledges that. A board that communicates changes clearly and proactively is better than one that does not, regardless of whether the changes were legal. But there is a meaningful difference between demanding transparency and dogmatically asserting its absence to use it as a weapon. The prior board made required changes under difficult circumstances. Not only did Ziegler find the bylaws compliant, he found the policies compliant. Not only did he find the policies compliant, he found the process compliant. Not only did he find the process compliant, he found it necessary. He confirmed all of it publicly, on the record, after independent review.

The accusation was wrong. Provably, documentably, on the record wrong. Was it ignorance or was it contrived? You have the record. You decide.

CEPOAWatch is not here to answer that question for you. We are here to make sure you have the information to answer it yourself.