|
 |
|
||||||
| |
||||||||
Letter to SAHBASAHBA Attn: Carole Pawlak, President April 20, 2004 Dear Ms. Pawlak, This letter is a formal complaint about the behavior of SAHBA management this weekend. On Saturday April 17, 2004 our family picketed the SAHBA Home Show which was being held at the Tucson Convention Center . This protest was conducted lawfully and was well within our First Amendment Civil Rights. We were protesting SAHBA's Custom Home Builder Certification process and standards and publicizing our personally devastating experience with a SAHBA certified builder. (View our website at www.mymccrearyhomesucks.com for more information) Our protest resulted partly from your organization's total lack of response to our concerns regarding McCreary Homes. Not one of the 13 members of your executive board responded to our emailed inquiry about your standards for building certification, and your continued support of McCreary Homes. What standards would you say the pictures on our website support? These pictures are unsupportable. How can the home building public trust any of the builders affiliated with or certified by SAHBA to constitute any guarantee of quality? We trusted SAHBA's certification and look what happened to us. In the end we lost our home because the defects made our house un-saleable. Our house value dropped in half. This non-action on the part of your board was pivotal in our decision to protest, as was the advertising of McCreary Homes as a SAHBA certified builder in your Home Show program. Your apparent lack of concern regarding the quality of McCreary Home's work and the consumer who relies on your recommendations is appalling. We have been contacted by other McCreary Home owners whose experiences were similar to ours. His work is disturbingly substandard! There is an established pattern to McCreary's incompetence. We believe your support of him makes you legally liable for his work. As consumers, we relied on your certification as a sign that this was a reputable builder. We were misled by your “standards”. Your lack of concern about the public was only magnified by your staff's response to our First Amendment right to legal protest and their utter disregard for our civil rights. As a part of the protest, our car was circling the TCC with magnetic signs attached to it. The driver and the vehicle were on public roads and all traffic laws were being obeyed. Near the entrance to the main West parking lot, a member of the TCC security squad aggressively and threateningly stopped the car, commanded it be turned around and exited, and some time later falsely alleged he had been hit by the vehicle. We will leave it to the driver to relate that incident in greater detail. Shortly after this incident the police were called by either a member of SAHBA or the TCC. After speaking with personnel from both organizations, the officers spoke with us. They informed us that we were indeed protesting lawfully and that we were free to continue. They also said that the security guard was not allowed to stop our vehicle in the manner that he did. Such behavior is an affront to law abiding citizens. This country was founded on the right to speak out and the TCC and SAHBA have obviously failed to educate their personnel about the civil right to protest. As the afternoon wore on, and our protest continued – we were obviously having an effect on both SAHBA and McCreary Homes. Denise McCreary, president of McCreary Homes, started snapping pictures of the picket line and shouting at us from her car. She screamed “We're going to get you for the money you stole from us!!” We are astounded that she would think that withholding money for a defective build is tantamount to stealing. In fact it seems to us to be a rather scurrilous accusation, tantamount to slander. Shortly after this outburst, Mrs. McCreary illegally backed her car up the full length of the down ramp of the TCC, creating an obvious traffic hazard. Within 10 minutes of her theatrics, a group of SAHBA executives and TCC security personnel approached our group on the public sidewalk. They told our picketers that they must stop walking and accused Ray of backing our car into one of the security guards almost 1 & 1/2 hours prior to the accusation! The facts are that Ray was not driving the vehicle and it did not hit anyone. SAHBA Vice President Ed Taczanowsky told Ray he was going to be arrested. Our response? - “Go Ahead. Arrest Us! Please! We insist.” Both TCC security and SAHBA officials tried detain the group on the public sidewalk. We declined to be held and continued our protest. The whole incident was emotionally traumatizing to the members of our group particularly the two members threatened with arrest. The police were called again. Once more, the officers quickly determined that the charges were trumped up and bogus. First the “injured” guard identified a 48 year old man as the culprit – then he identified our 18 year old son – then he said it was a 44 year old woman– The actual driver was a male – 74 years old – who did nothing wrong. The officers once again displayed exemplary professionalism and told us we were free to continue our picketing. The officer also mentioned that the guard never told him of any kind of “accident” or being hit by anyone having anything to do with us when they first interviewed him – just minutes after the “incident” and approximately 1 & 1/2 hours before it was reported. It is clear to us that your “victim” could not even distinguish between male and female let alone the age of the person he accosted and who he claims “hit” him. It seems “coincidental” to us that this trumped up charge occurred right after Mrs. McCreary went back into the TCC. Could it be that SAHBA officials and the TCC were trying to mollify an angry woman? It is a sad day in Arizona - indeed a sad day in America when a corporation is so afraid of public exposure that they will fabricate a story to try and stop a legal protest. What could possibly explain such abhorrent standards? This is the kind of behavior one would expect in Communist China or a third world dictatorship. Are these the ethics that SAHBA and the TCC stand for? At what point did your group decide that infringing on the civil rights of others was an appropriate response to a lawful protest? At what point did your Vice- President, Mr. Taczanowsky decide that it was your right to inform others they were about to be arrested. Is he a police officer? Was he threatening a citizen's arrest? Or were your staff provoking peaceful protesters and escalating things into a confrontation? We knew our rights. We had consulted with the ACLU to determine the parameters of a legal protest – and we never broke those parameters. We will be consulting with them further to find out our legal rights to both your personal, and your organizations interference with our civil rights. We understand why SAHBA was upset. It is always uncomfortable to have the public become aware of ones shortcomings. However, to fabricate criminal acts, file false police reports and try and incite the protesters by physically putting themselves in the middle of what was a very polite and peaceful protest seems unwise at best and criminal at worst. In fact we understand that it is a criminal offense to file a false police report. On both occasions that the police were called, the officers protected our right to protest and affirmed that we were within the bounds of legal behavior. We were neither arrested (as both SAHBA and TCC officials told us we would be) nor were we cited. Both SAHBA and the TCC should be required to explain why they interfered with a lawful demonstration and why they tried to escalate a peaceful protest into a confrontation. Lizzette Galindo, Home Show Manager of SAHBA made disparaging remarks to our 18 year old son, and actually called him “pathetic” for his peaceful protest. She also put her face within 12 inches of his face looking him up and down. Her effort to escalate and her obvious interference with our protest was outrageous. What is truly pathetic is the response from both SAHBA and the TCC and the infringement of our civil rights by both organizations. Is this the training your employee's receive? We expect an answer from you about what your security policy is regarding civil protest, what training you provide, and what corrective measures you are taking against those who interfered with our right to protest. Certainly SAHBA recognizes that when our civil rights are allowed to be eroded by unlawful interference it weakens the Constitution for all of us. You should also be aware that we will continue our efforts to educate the home building public about the lack of meaning behind SAHBA designated builder certification and will continue meeting and talking to the state legislature about reform. SAHBA's inappropriate behavior against our civil rights has only strengthened our resolve. Just because SAHBA is able to buy political influence does not allow you the arrogance to trample on our civil rights. Until SAHBA actually has a designated builder program that sets verifiable standards, with rules that actually protect and inform the public – we will exercise our constitutional rights and continue to picket at all your future public events. Cc |
© Copyright My McCreary Home Sucks! 2004. All rights reserved. |