A Wealth of Secrets: The Curious Case of the $50,000 Certificate of Deposit

It is with great anticipation that we discuss the diamond - errrr Harvest Creek $50,000 Certificate of Deposit - of the season.

Board Meeting Minutes from the 7th of March in the year 2024 show that the former Board of Directors of CJ Cook, Barbara Pastine, and James Connolly discussed placing (they never vote on anything)  $50,000 into a Certificate of Deposit. Harvest Creek Board Meeting Minutes state:

“The Board discussed the surplus of funds available. The board decided that they will be moving 50k into a 5.05% 7 Month CD. This will leave over 100k in operating cash plus Q2 funds.”

On March 27, 2024, CJ Cook declared to homeowners that because Harvest Creek HOA was in such a fantastic financial situation (no actually evidence provided aside from the word of the property manager), Lindsey Frietas recommended that the Harvest Creek HOA place $50,000 into a 7 month Certificate of Deposit. 

Speculation regarding bank accounts continued to grow when former board members CJ Cook and James Connolly admitted in a February 8, 2024 meeting to not knowing where the Harvest Creek Bank accounts were and admitted to not having access to the bank accounts. At the above mentioned meeting on March 27th, 2024, CJ Cook continuously refused to answer whether he knew where the Harvest Creek HOA bank accounts were or if he had access to them.

Readers, this author did some digging and discovered that Stockman Bank does have a 7 month Flex CD at a rate of 5.05%. The word on the Ton is that the money belonging to Harvest Creek HOA Homeowners is tucked away in a Stockman Bank account; however, the former Board continues to refuse to confirm or deny such whispers. Why hide the homeowner’s funds from them? My dear readers, we must ask why.

Concerned homeowners were highly skeptical of the existence of such a Certificate of Deposit and as such emailed a series of three questions to former board members CJ Cook, James Connolly, and Barbara Pastine at the request of CJ Cook asking the former board “can you verify who the owner is on the Harvest Creek HOA bank accounts, including the new CD account? Also ask the bank about the $50,000 CD. Who owns this account?” They say silence is golden and there has a great deal of practice in the matter of silence regarding the Harvest Creek HOA financials for years.. No response was ever received.

Low and behold, dearest readers. This author became aware of a scandal regarding this $50,000 Harvest Creek HOA Certificate of Deposit. The news was released in the form of Board Meeting Minutes dated 26 June, 2024.

There never was a Certificate of Deposit.

The meeting minutes read “The Board and SPP discussed that the funds that were previously voted on to put into a CD as of March 2024, had not yet been transferred.”

Shall we do some basic math, readers? $50,000 placed into a Stockman Bank 7-Month Flex CD on March 8th, 2024 at an 5.05 APY would yield the following:

The author graciously thanks NerdWallet for the above graphic.

Readers, a Harvest Creek HOA Certificate of Deposit of $50,000 would have gained the Harvest Creek HOA an approximate total of $1,037 in interest to date. Had the Certificate of Deposit actually been created, it would have been reaching maturity and the Harvest Creek HOA would have earned $1,457 in interest. Alas, this never occurred.

Now the question arises as to whether the $50,000 was removed from Harvest Creek accounts in March 2024 only to by replaced upon the discovery of the missing Certificate of Deposit. This, dearest readers, is an intriguing question the author would greatly love an answer to.

In truth, one can hardly be surprised at this news. Such actions follow a pattern that has been emerging for years regarding the Harvest Creek HOA and its finances. There are too many discrepancies. There is not enough oversight. There is no transparency. 

So dearest reader, this author begs to know what Harvest Creek Homeowners plan to do about it.

Yours Truly,

Lady Whistleblower