Dusk on the pier at Rancho Mirage begins with fading orange light, the steady hum of commuters returning home from Phoenix and hundreds of white flies and mosquitos flitting across faces from their hives in the soggy, patchy grass.  

The flies appear immediately when approaching the community’s crowning landmark, a manmade lake at the mouth of the subdivision. During interviews with homeowners there, every person shooed insects from their eyes, mouth and hair. 

The flies, along with the rusted benches and pergolas, the busted lamps and pier painted white with bird droppings, have been a common sight for years, the homeowners said. One early evening in November, it appeared the neighborhood’s management company finally sent someone to clean up. 

Well, sort of. 

“It looks like they power washed it,” said Donna Palumbo, a Rancho Mirage resident of more than seven years. “This is the first time it’s been cleaned since I’ve been here. Except there, that’s still dirty.” 

She pointed to a part of the pier where the white fecal matter appeared almost baked into the wood and cobwebs and dust coated concrete railings and broken light fixtures.  

But the maintenance of the community wasn’t the only concern for Palumbo and her neighbors. Residents consistently said while fines for yard maintenance, incorrect mulch colors or other fairly minor infractions were annoying, they were tired of spending years feeling unheard in a community they cannot govern.  

‘Completely unfair’ 

Any random homeowner will likely give you a “necessary evil” perspective on HOAs.  

InMaricopa last month polled 426 Maricopa residents on the fairness of their HOA’s declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions, or CC&Rs. This document explains the rights and obligations of both homeowners and the association.  

Maricopa residents, in general, harbored polarized views. Roughly 2 in 5 said they believed their CC&Rs contract was mostly fair, while nearly half of all respondents believed the agreement — which isn’t really an agreement, because signing on is mandatory — was unfair in some way.  

Some 35% of respondents said they felt the CC&Rs contract was “completely unfair,” and they would disband the HOA if they could. Another 14% said while there may be some merit to having CC&Rs, they still believed it was mostly unfair.  

Palo Brea resident Paul Kirincic called HOAs a “plague on humanity” and vowed to never live in an HOA community again.  

“It’s bad enough having to pay taxes and abide by the rules of the federal, state, county and city governments,” he said. “But to add a bunch of Karens on top of that is too much. Never again.” 

Robert Robran held a similar perspective. 

“They are not fair in our community, Senita,” he said. “I would not buy in an HOA ever again — it’s a waste of 70 bucks a month. I personally have not had issues with being fined but I’ve witnessed some really outlandish enforcement here.” 

HOA violated the law, says one man 

Because Ismael Verdugo moved to Rancho Mirage as a teenager in 2007, many of the problems didn’t faze him until he bought his own home in 2019. The Army veteran said while the maintenance issues have been a concern, the financials were what really caught his attention.  

“My wife handled the bills until I went back to school to work on my bachelor’s degree,” he said. “I started looking at them deeper and I don’t like paying for things I don’t utilize. For me, that was the Orbitel fee.” 

On top of the monthly $84 dues Verdugo and his neighbors each pay, they also pay a $19.63 fee for services from Orbitel Communications, an internet and cable provider contracted for the area since 2005.  

The only issue is a good chunk of residents don’t use Orbitel and the community’s previous management company, Associated Asset Management, stopped communicating with the cable company years ago. This, Verdugo believes, has led to a surplus of revenue and potential mismanagement of funds.  

He added that while the new management company, Tempe-based Trestle Management, has acknowledged his concerns about the financial issues and the “poor condition” of the community since taking over in May, little action has been taken. There has been no announcement about when the audit will be completed and keeping the public informed has not been timely. 

“In that period, they failed to disclose that to any of the residents. They failed to put out an announcement, an email or a letter saying, ‘Hey, this is what may have happened,’” he said. “They’re supposed to let us know under fiduciary law, and they violated that. They aren’t being transparent with community members.” 

‘Hoping for some grace’ 

Marc Vasquez said he empathizes with Rancho Mirage’s residents. The vice president of Trestle Management Company said during a recent visit to the community he saw the state of disrepair in a lot of the common areas.  

“I would agree [with their concerns] based on my inspection and familiarity with the property,” Vasquez told InMaricopa.  

He said over the last few months, his company spent a significant amount of time addressing major concerns, such as inoperable water pumps at the community lake, dead grass and flooding issues. But these things can take time, he said.  

“We’re kind of unpeeling the onion, trying to understand the last 19 years of management on the finance, contractor and maintenance sides,” he said. “We’ve been on the job six or seven months, so we’re hoping for some grace.” 

Some of the projects, such as painting the walls or treating the wood on the pier, require a vetting process of proposals and approvals through the board of directors before they can hire contractors to complete the work. Others are considered emergencies that can be addressed in real time.  

Homeowners agreed Trestle has been a slight improvement over AAM so far, but they still felt the work was spotty and their main points of contact were unresponsive.  

“AAM was worse. I waited on the phone for hours before someone answered,” said Kisha Lever, who moved to the community last year. “But Tami doesn’t answer emails.” 

Other residents shared similar tales about Community Manager Tami Eden, including Verdugo, who said he had video evidence she was stopping by his property in search of citable infractions out of spite after he requested receipts for the purchase of rubber safety pads in one of the playgrounds. 

“She came to my house the next day and took pictures,” he said. “I caught her on camera. She waited down the street, and after I left in my car to go pick up my kids, she left.” 

Verdugo added that on one occasion, Eden even threatened to cancel the HOA board’s meeting — it only meets once a year — after stating he planned to involve “media and legal representation to further advocate” for the community.  

“Tami warned and threatened that the annual HOA meeting might be canceled due to my actions, stating that the declarant board controls these meetings and is not obligated to hold them,” he wrote in a Nov. 3 letter to Eden and the management company inspected by InMaricopa. 

Eden did not respond to a request for comment, instead deferring requests to Vasquez. And while he didn’t answer questions about Eden, Vasquez said Trestle planned to host its first town hall in January and is attempting to correct some of AAM’s 19 years of mistakes.  

“We’re just working to move forward because there’s frankly not a whole lot we can do about the past,” he said. “We want to make sure they’re advocates for the community, and we can stop any adversarial feelings they’ve had over the years.” 

They might start picketing 

Yet several homeowners in Rancho Mirage said the only communication from the new neighborhood managers has been notices about when builders will break ground on new blocks of homes. 

“The fountains were down for a year, and we kept asking for them to be fixed,” Palumbo said. “I think they only got fixed because a new builder came in and said, ‘Oh, we need it to look good so we can sell houses.’” 

Aaliyah Bushong, who moved to Rancho Mirage with her husband in 2019, likened the relatively well-off community to the most derelict neighborhood in Phoenix. 

“How is it they’re building new, almost million-dollar homes and our subdivision looks like it’s in Maryvale? It’s horrible,” she said. “I’ve even started sending information and complaints to Meritage, the developer.” 

Palumbo said she didn’t want to see others go through the same experiences she has.  

“We just would like to be able to walk down a well-lit path that doesn’t have broken glass, or have our children sit on benches that aren’t rusted out,” she said. “I’ve fallen three times because there’s always dirt and mud in the walkway and its usually flooded.” 

That’s why residents said they are ready to take more drastic measures than writing letters and making phone calls. 

“It sounds like depending on the response we get [from Trestle], we might be picketing,” Lever said.  

That plan would involve a large group of residents standing with signs along Rancho Mirage Boulevard both warning potential residents not to move there and calling out the management company and the developer, the residents said in interviews. 

“I am willing to sit at the entrance with a picket sign that says, ‘Do not buy here, corrupt HOA,’” Bushong said. “It has to get done because we love our community, but we don’t love what’s happening to us.” 

Little illegal libraries  

A supermajority of Maricopans live under the thumb of an HOA, so getting hit with a non-compliance fine isn’t uncommon. But some have endured legal ordeals over seemingly innocuous actions that were well-intended — and backed by the First Amendment. 

At least two Little Free Libraries were shelved by HOAs recently. The program is part of a nonprofit organization aimed at building community and expanding book access through a global network of tiny, publicly accessible libraries.  

The first was Tellie’s Little Free Library in Alterra in 2022. After rebuilding a version of the library that was stolen in 2021, Tellie Avila’s library came under fire from her HOA the following year.  

Board members allegedly threatened to “bulldoze and haul away” the library, requesting city permits, inspections, petitions and other reviews to keep the library operating. Avila claimed board members also told her: “People cannot just put whatever they want in their yards,” and “this could start to get out of control.” 

In September, Anjelic Garza’s proposal to install a Little Free Library in her yard met similar policing from her Homestead South HOA.  

“The board denied this as it could be added so that the entire community would be able to have access to it,” said Jennifer Jenkins, responding to Garza’s proposal on behalf of the Homestead South Homeowners Association. 

She did not explain which people would not have access to the unlocked, roadside box containing free books, leading many to scratch their heads in disbelief and frustration. 

“Our HOA can be extremely difficult to communicate with. I don’t know why people can put up political signs and flags, but you couldn’t put some books out for people to give and take,” said Homestead neighbor Erin Kisicki. 

Currently, four Little Free Libraries are registered in Maricopa: Tellie’s, one at Copper Sky Regional Park and two in the Lakes at Rancho El Dorado. 

What is a political sign, anyway? 

Election season — the hottest one in American history ended days ago — reliably sees a wave of political signs peppering roadsides and yards across the city. But some HOAs have a problem with the First Amendment, it seems.  

At least according to Rancho El Dorado resident Kenneth Mangum, whose HOA apparently had a problem with his Trump signage hanging from a pergola in his yard.  

“I was aghast at the insensitivity of the HOA in threatening the political rights of homeowners,” Mangum told InMaricopa. “The HOA cited me for a flag violation. I appealed, arguing that it was a political sign and therefore allowed by Maricopa ordinances and by legislative-enacted statues.” 

Mangum was able to bend the rules by declaring the flag was, in fact, a sign. 

“Do you realize that ‘flag’ is not defined anywhere in the CC&Rs? For that matter, neither is the word ‘sign’ defined anywhere,’” he wrote in an email to Community Manager Katie Payne that was reviewed by InMaricopa. 

Mangum scored a rare come-from-behind win against his HOA and said he hoped others would follow his lead and question authority at every juncture. 

“The notice was sent in reference to the political flag, which is not protected under A.R.S. § 33-1808 nor permitted by our community documents,” Payne said in response. “However, since you have clarified that it is a sign or banner rather than a flag, the matter is resolved.”