She gestured at the crowd: 200 homeowners. Quorum, as specified in the CC&Rs, was 15% of membership, 45 people.
Douglas Farrell, standing five feet away, said quietly but clearly, "I second the motion."
Lacey Drummond's photographer was shooting continuously. A county building inspector who happened to live in the neighborhood had walked over to look at the foundation seepage and was now on his phone. Whitfield Pruitt, who had apparently been invited as a guest, was looking at his own phone with the expression of a man whose afternoon has gone very badly wrong.
Constance stood in the middle of her party in her yellow blouse, in front of her placard-decorated Escalade, surrounded by 200 neighbors, a civil engineer, a TV crew, a county inspector, and a woman with a legal pad calling for a vote.
And she said nothing.
That silence was the mic drop.
The settlement came six weeks later, negotiated between Shepherd and Pruitt, with Douglas Farrell now cooperating fully on the board side.
The HOA agreed to:
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Reroute the drainage pipe within 60 days at their expense through a properly engineered solution designed by Priya and approved by the county;
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Pay me $11,400 in documented damages;
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Dismiss all six outstanding violation citations; and
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Conduct a retroactive membership ratification vote on the 2018 loan with full financial disclosure.
They also agreed to cover my legal fees, which had reached $4,200 by the time we settled.