Leisure Village’s Serenity Broken : Residents Are Trying to Oust Board Head Accused of Breaking Community Bylaws

CAMARILLO — On 450 acres, below the Los Padres foothills, is the quiet, safe and very private world of Leisure Village--a gated community of 3,500 residents dedicated to the vision of the easy life.

Within the gates, the senior citizens of Leisure Village spend their time playing sports, attending club activities and committee meetings and socializing.

Serving them is a work force of about 100 employees who handle security, maintenance, recreation and administration. When problems arise, there is a 90-page rule book and a five-person board of directors elected by the residents.

In short, it has been a place virtually devoid of turmoil and divisiveness since its opening 23 years ago.

But lately, some residents say, a note of political disharmony has intruded on the usual amenities of Village life. In fact, in an unprecedented act, more than 450 people from the retirement community have petitioned for the recall of the president of its board of directors.

Disgruntled residents distributed a detailed list of complaints about board President Dick Griswold to all 2,136 homes in Leisure Village in November.

Among the many complaints were claims that Griswold has violated the association’s bylaws by maintaining a business in his residence for the last six years, approved an exercise room that is not accessible to disabled people and acted without board authority.

Griswold denies all the complaints and says leaders of the group that initiated the recall are now trying to stop it, having decided that they had no basis for their claims.

But some residents active in the recall effort say they remain committed to the ouster effort. Homeowners have received proxy ballots to vote on the recall in the coming weeks. A special meeting has been scheduled for Feb. 6 to announce the ballot results and to elect a new board member if the recall passes.

In order for a recall to go through, there must be 1,069 votes--half the homeowners plus one--in favor of it. In any board election, each of the 2,136 households may submit a ballot.

The recall movement centers around the three key issues of Griswold’s residential business, accessibility to the exercise room and charges that he has acted unilaterally as board president. Griswold, who was also on the board from 1993 to 1995, asserts the allegations against him are unfounded.

The first area of controversy--whether Griswold has been acting against Village bylaws by conducting a business in his residence--basically boils down to who is interpreting the codes and regulations.

The code states that no industry, business, trade, occupation or profession of any kind, whether it is commercial, religious, educational or otherwise, and whether it is designed for profit or not, may be conducted, maintained or permitted in any residence in Leisure Village.

However, Griswold has operated two businesses in his home since he moved to the Village in 1988. He sells high-potency multivitamin and mineral tablets through Sportabs International Inc., and he sells Magic Pipe Water Conditioners through Griswold Distributing Co.

But Griswold said that the association’s attorney, James Lingl, has interpreted that code to apply only to businesses that would generate pedestrian or vehicular traffic and said that other businesses are allowable.

“We don’t have a store, and people don’t drop in and buy products,” Griswold said. “We have a post office box and orders are received by mail. They are filled and we take them to UPS for delivery, so there is no foot or vehicular traffic. The rule in the CCR [the association’s code book] simply does not apply.”

Lingl declined to comment on his interpretation of the code.

“The fact of the matter is you can’t prohibit people from doing in their home what they want to do,” Griswold said. “And that’s why the attorney has interpreted this the way he has.”

However, several people did give up their businesses before moving to the Village because of the rules, said Clary Morgan, a resident who has served on Village election committees.

“Years ago, a previous board authorized me to conduct business in my home,” Griswold said. “Many businesses are conducted in Leisure Village.”

The second main issue of the recall effort focuses on whether the exercise facility has adequate access and equipment for the disabled. Griswold says he thinks disabled people can use it.

“But what kind of equipment could be used by a disabled person?” Griswold asked. “As far as I’m concerned, when the facility is installed, if a disabled person wanted to use it, I don’t see any reason why they couldn’t.”

Griswold stressed that it was the entire board, not just him, that approved the fitness room, adding that it has not yet been funded.

The state code governing this type of facility has an accessibility clause in it, but it is a little complicated, said Greg Robinson, a building official with the Camarillo Building and Safety Department who has jurisdiction in the matter.

Basically, the code does not give officials the power to tell people to change existing structures that were correct at the time they were built. But additions or remodeling would have to comply with the accessibility codes.

Robinson said he has not received a formal plan for the exercise room, so it is difficult to make a final judgment.

“An exercise room would technically have to comply,” he said, “but only if they’re making structural changes.”

Finally, there is the issue of Griswold himself and complaints that he has taken on too much power and acted without board authority.

Griswold said that he makes a “conscientious effort to bring every decision to the board for determination on a continuing, regular basis.”

“Any decisions made by the board are made by a majority of the board--they are never made by one person alone,” Griswold said.

Last spring, Edward Hawthorne, chairman of the board’s nominating committee, wrote a letter informing Griswold that the committee voted not to recommend him as a candidate for the board of directors in the community’s election last June.

Griswold won the election anyway. He said he was nominated through a petition he had already circulated and won the election by more than 1,000 votes.

But Hawthorne’s letter, which he intended to be confidential, just added to the foment in the community. It was copied and anonymously distributed to all residents before the election.

“There are a lot of troublemakers in the Village causing problems and distributing information not for public consumption,” Hawthorne said. “This is a confidential committee matter.”

Hawthorne’s letter led to an incident last year when Leisure Village resident Dave O’Connor, who moved to the Village in 1993, submitted a question card at a candidates night asking Griswold to read and discuss the letter.

O’Connor says Hawthorne marked “don’t ask” on the card. O’Connor later wrote a letter to Hawthorne asking why his question was censored. Hawthorne replied that he read all of the cards with one exception.

“The one exception was a question regarding confidential matter, which also had my name on it, which I would not at any time agree to discuss in public in any shape or form, not the day before the open board meeting, not at the candidates night, and not now or in the future,” Hawthorne stated.

O’Connor brought this up at a board meeting last month along with several other issues.

About midway through his speech, O’Connor said: “Only the current officeholders get their wishes, and we residents get the wishbone. This is a dictatorship.”

At that point, Griswold declared O’Connor out of order and had a security guard escort him from the building.

Several residents believe O’Connor’s constitutional and civil rights were violated when he was silenced and thrown out of the meeting. Both Griswold and Hawthorne say O’Connor has no right to speak at the meetings because he is not a homeowner.

But O’Connor and Betsy Gruber, who holds the deed on a Leisure Village home, married shortly after they moved there, and O’Connor receives correspondence from the association, pays $215 each month in membership dues and is listed as a homeowner in the association’s computer.

“If they treat me this way, they will treat other people this way,” O’Connor said. “People are scared to death to stand up and talk around here.”

As the recall effort approaches its final showdown, new issues have been added to the original list of complaints.

One complaint by Morgan is that the proxy vote allows board members to identify who is voting for and against Griswold’s recall.

A proxy vote goes against Leisure Village bylaws, which state that voting must be done by secret written ballot, Morgan said.

“People are changing their minds on how to vote because their name has to go on the proxy,” he said.

Morgan also says that some residents have been threatened with lawsuits if they vote in support of the recall.

Some residents who originally voted for the recall have contacted those in charge of collecting proxies, requesting they return them because of the threats, Morgan said.

Griswold denies that he has made any kind of threats against his fellow residents.

“I’m not that kind of person,” Griswold said. “That is part of the rhetoric of the other side that is trying to paint a picture that simply isn’t true. They are lying. I have not threatened anyone. This is ludicrous.”

One Griswold supporter is not hesitant about taking the battle at Leisure Village to the courts if necessary.

Barbara Simmons, chairwoman of the Committee Against Recall Election, said that her committee has collected enough money to secure legal counsel and that board members will be served with a summons this week to appear in court.

In her view, they are legally responsible for validating what she considers an illegal petition.

“If we’re going to court, there won’t be a Feb. 6 meeting because we’re going to get this whole thing stopped,” Simmons said.