Chronicles
From the MyRSF.net archives of the Email Chronicles
RSFA Elections/Voting, Cars & Coffee, Volunteering
Author: Phil Trubey
Date: August 22, 2026
Hello, Phil Trubey here, sending an occasional email about RSF.
Board Election
Every year I post the results of the Board election along with the graph below, but this year I must have been having too much fun in June and forgot. So, here it is.
Reynolds and Simmons (incumbent) got 737 and 704 votes respectively and won, Finch received 565.
Board members are now:
Courtney Lebeau (President)
Skip Atkins (Vice President)
Courtney Silberberg (Treasurer)
Jeff Simmons
Mark Simpson
Joanne Marks
Chuck Reynolds
Voting
I got a few surprised emails from some newer RSFA Members about how our assessments work. Turns out that our assessment structure isn't the only unusual governance mechanism we have.
RSFA gives each Member two votes in all things requiring a Member vote, ostensibly so that spouses can vote separately should they so desire. I asked AI about this and it could not come up with any other HOA that has this provision.
The genesis of this unusual provision was, as many things are in Rancho, due to a court case. In 1979, a court adjudicating a marital dispute declared that married couples could each get one vote, but left those who weren't married with just a single vote. Needless to say, this was itself quite unjust (no one ever said courts always make the right decision), so the two votes for every membership interest, whether or not you have a spouse, was a way to comply with the court while making it fair for everyone.
RSFA has an even more unusual provision in our Articles of Incorporation which states that each Member only has one vote (really two, as per above) no matter how many properties they own. So a Member might pay assessments on five properties, but only get the same number of votes that a single property owner has.
To give you an idea how unusual this is, it runs afoul of the current California Code of Regulations (10 CCR § 2792.18) which states that Members are entitled as many votes as they have ownership interests in a common-interest subdivision. Again, I could find no other HOA that does it like we do.
And then we have condos within the RSFA. Some of our condos have their own HOA and are allocated just two votes per entire condo complex (meaning 4 votes as per above). So there are condo owners who are RSFA Members and do not have any voting rights (absent maybe being the Condo HOA President, or some kind of internal poll).
Which is why we have the situation where we currently have 2,028 properties that pay assessments, yet only 1,735 voting Members, meaning 3,470 ballots sent out during the last election.
For those with a masochistic streak, the Articles of Incorporation can be amended by a Board vote and a Member vote with a simple majority of ballots received. This was last done in 2016 when Fred Wasserman chaired a year long Governance Committee to clean up the Articles and Bylaws which had seen dozens of incompatible changes through the years. It is not a process for the faint of heart. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, conspiracy charges, and false information being disseminated, voters approved the new Articles and Bylaws with a 75% yes vote (with only about half the Members voting).
Assessments Don't Matter!
This is the point I was trying to make in my previous email and I don't think everyone got it.
Compared to the total cost of owning and maintaining a house in Rancho, assessments are a tiny fraction of your cost of living here. It doesn't matter if you pay a lot or a little in RSFA assessments since property taxes, utilities, and house maintenance dwarfs RSFA assessments.
I used to think that changing our assessment structure was worth pursuing, but have changed my mind due to this realization.
And anyway, changing it requires 50% of all Members to vote yes for a change. Look at the chart above again. It shows that in Board elections, we typically only get 37% voter turn out, meaning you'd have to do some serious cajoling to get more people to vote. In fact, you'd probably have to get almost 100% voter turn out.
Electronic Voting
Something that could help increase voter turn out would be electronic voting so we could vote from our home computers. California legalized electronic voting for HOAs starting last year.
Given that we have a fair number of people that use Rancho as their second or fifth house, this would make it far easier for them to participate.
There are companies that will take on the entire election process, including being the inspector of elections, and handle mail in and electronic ballots.
Maybe something for the Board to consider asking staff to look into.
Cars & Coffee
One of the most common questions I get from people is whether the Association can stop the Saturday morning Cars & Coffee gathering.
In a word: no. The village streets are public and you can't stop people from peacefully gathering.
What the Association can and has been doing is to engage the Sheriff and the CHP to manage it.
This past Saturday I drove to and from the Village around 10:30am and saw two different CHP cruisers who had pulled over cars, presumably for speeding. This is great to see, and I must say that I have noticed a reduced noise level of loud cars racing on our streets Saturday mornings, so kudos to the CHP for enforcing the law.
Likewise the Sheriff and our Patrol routinely makes a presence in the Village every Saturday morning to ensure everyone's safety, so thank you to them too.
Personally I like Cars & Coffee as long as our neighborhoods are kept safe, and our law enforcement officers appear to be doing a great job at that.
Other Ways to Help
By the way, there are many other local Boards, Committees and Groups that could really use some help.
San Dieguito Community Planning Group
Advises the County on development projects in our area. Get your name on the ballot in time for the November election if you want to serve.
RSF Community Services District
The RSFCSD has a dual mandate to maintain our sewer network, and to beautify our public roadsides.
SFID is a public water utility that sets rates and delivers our water.
Think fire codes are too strict? Too lenient? The Fire Protection District has a say in that.
All local residents can apply or run to become a board member of these public boards.
Previous emails, Rancho information, poll results, and the old RSF Post archives available at myrsf.net. If you aren't on my email list and want to receive my occasional scribblings, go to this web page and click on the "click here to subscribe" link after the preamble. To unsubscribe, click the link below.