Chris, thanks so much for your spot-on reply (below) to Rosa and Jerry. No one disputes that there are bad and sleazy board members out there, but those are exactly the people who are NOT going to be coming to Board Talk for discussion. The board members who contribute here are those interested in performing their unpaid and often thankless jobs *better*, not people asking how they can more effectively embezzle funds to pay for their new Rolls-Royce.

As for the abatement/assessment issue, refer to the discussion on this Board Talk thread: http://www.habitatmag.com/Board-Talk/Assessments-and-smart-planning. (note that the period at the end is part of the URL).

To quote one of my own comments on that thread, "It's perfectly fair either way - and shareholders will pay basically the same amount of money in both cases - but it's difficult to explain to shareholders and you're bound to annoy some people no matter how you do it."