With the petition secured, Frank drafted a formal demand for a special meeting of the members for the purpose of recalling the entire board of directors, as was our right under the bylaws. We sent it to the HOA's management company, copying Karen and the board. They legally had 30 days to schedule the meeting. The third front was the media.
Frank had a contact at the local news station, a young, ambitious investigative reporter named Jessica Vale. He gave her a call. "I've got a story for you," he said. "It's got everything.
A decorated veteran, a beautiful natural resource, a power-mad HOA president, and tens of thousands of dollars in missing money. David versus Goliath with financial records." Jessica Vale met with me and a few other members of the alliance the next day. I walked her down to the spring, told her the story from the beginning, and showed her the binder.
The Martinezes' told her about the basketball hoop. Mrs. Gable, now a fiery revolutionary, passionately defended her gnomes right to exist. Then we gave her a copy of the USB drive. Her eyes widened as she looked at the invoices.
The story aired on the 6:00 news 2 days later. It opened with a beautiful sweeping drone shot of my spring, then cut to me standing on my deck looking resolute. "All I did was buy a piece of property with a natural spring on it," I said to the camera. "And for that, the HOA president demanded I commit an environmental crime and has been harassing my family for months."
The report then cut to interviews with the Martinezes and Mrs. Gable, followed by shots of the suspicious invoices. The reporter explained the allegations of embezzlement in clear, simple terms. The station had called Karen for a comment. The footage they used was of her getting into her Lexus, turning her face away from the camera and snapping, "No comment.
This is a private matter and a smear campaign by a disgruntled resident." The contrast was devastating. I was the calm, reasonable veteran protecting his family and the environment. She was the frantic, guilty-looking bureaucrat running from the truth.
The story was the talk of the town. The pressure on Karen was now immense and coming from all sides, the courts, the state regulators, the media, and her own community. Her phone started ringing off the hook, not just with angry homeowners, but with investigators from the DBPR and the state attorney's office. Barry and Janice, the other two board members, cracked under the pressure.