The Strange case of the Summit Seals

Just what the hell is going on in Valencia Summit these days?

One of Awesometown’s nicest and most mature neighborhoods is stewing in bitterness, resentment, suspicion and enough intrigue to make the screen writers of Desperate Housewives blush.

Case in point: the strange case of the Summit Seals youth swim team. One would think an HOA youth swimming league wouldn’t arouse much controversy in Santa Clarita. After all, this place was built as a conformity factory for children. It’s why people move here: to raise their offspring in a healthy, safe, and supportive environment so that someday they too can become good suburban residents.

And there’s no place more built for children & families than Valencia with its meandering paseos, good schools, club houses, and, of course, pools and swim teams.

From what I’ve been hearing, the HOA swim teams of Valencia have existed for decades without much controversy. SCVTalk’s comment section has been bursting at the seams with people writing passionately about what the swim teams meant to them when they were young kids growing up in Valencia. By all accounts, the swim teams were -and remain- a positive, healthy, and fun activity for kids, their parents, and the community at large.

Until 2009-10 apparently.

Background on the Swim Team Dispute

Enter the Stratford HOA board, a sub-unit of the Master Association Summit HOA that represents 210 homes and townhomes at the top of the Summit neighborhood. The Stratford HOA has five board members and makes decisions affecting only the 210 homes in the Stratford complex. They have three pools that only they can use, but they pay dues to both the Stratford HOA and the Master Association HOA (representing 1019 homeowners).

Stratford’s complaints about the Summit Seals began in early 2009 and centered on cost, and, I kid you not, “overly use of the common area pool” . From the HOA’s February 2009 Minutes:

From there, say swim team parents and boosters, Stratford escalated the action against the Master Association’s swim team. By the fall, they had hired lawyers and centered their opposition to the Summit Seals on the grounds that the team was a liability for the community at large.

Stratford representatives, or those who are sympathetic with them, have posted on SCVTalk remarking that only 10% of the homeowners in the Summit have children on the swim team. They allege that swim parents are violating CC&Rs and say that the swim teams aren’t paying dues for the pool usage. Here’s one comment posted earlier this week:

Here’s the problem, for too many years pro swim team board members have disregarded our CC&R’s which clearly state that these activities are not allowed. Pool rules state diving is not allowed and signs are posted, yet the swim team members dive anyway. Homeowners are required to rent the facilities but the swim team gets a free pass.

As our community has matured, homeowners have become intolerant of the favoritism and encroachment on “homeowners rights of enjoyment” by the entitlement meantality of swim team families which represent less than 10% of the community.

Liability remains a huge issue and it’s unclear that the swim team has proper coverage. The Summit board agreed to suspend swim team activity until a resolution was met and the Summit board promptly violated that agreement by approving a new swim team contract.

Swim parents and boosters say they have been responsive to Stratford’s multiple and changing complaints. They tick off a list of accommodations:

• Insurance liability raised from $1 million to $5 million, more than any other swim team in the SCV according to the parents
• Practice times changes from 3-7pm to 2-6 pm
• Eliminated championship meet-up at the pool
• Eliminated annual parent vs kids’ water polo game
• Eliminated “Dive in Movie” night
• Also forbid children from diving into the pool; swimmers now have to push off while in the pool

As a result of these changes, swim parents pay 50% more in dues. The practice sessions take place only during the summer for four hours, five days a week for a total of six weeks. Actual competition meets are held Saturday mornings from 8-12. Swim team boosters say they use the pool for a total of about 128 hours during a given season.

Filming Kids?

But the accommodations haven’t been enough apparently because last week, the drama between Stratford and the swim teams reached a new and rather creepy level.

On Saturday, representatives of Stratford’s management company sent two individuals (including a PI who is a former LAPD officer according to the company) to film a swim meet in the Summit. A swim parent, quick on his toes and cognizant of the controversy, decided to point the camera back at the two individuals:

The individual who filmed the two men said that they were acting to “protect” the HOA.

The Stratford management company denies that the men were filming children and says they were acting only to film “the swim team board and participating parents” for litigation purposes:

With respect to filming Saturday’s registration:  (1) the Stratford board are Stratford homeowners and have the right to be on common property they pay for; (2) no one was filming the children; (3) Stratford filmed the swim team board and participating parents at a public event in the common area (i.e., at the clubhouse/pool at issue here) solely as needed in litigation, through a private investigator and former LAPD officer, by request of our attorney.  This was after Stratford had requested the names of participants on previous occasions, but the swim team would not cooperate.  The film will remain in the custody of the private investigator until, if necessary, our lawyer must use it in litigation.

Since the filming incident, things have really exploded. Parents have created a “Save our Seals” Facebook group that has over 100 members. Members there have posted en masse here in an obvious effort to draw up more media attention. They’re not backing down like their former competitors in North Park, who have reportedly shut down their swim team after similar concerns.

What’s really happening here?

I think we have to look at who the board is composed of and who it represents. Swim parents have alleged that a senior executive of Henry Mayo Hospital is on the board and he is pushing to kill the Seals in retaliation for the Summit’s opposition (lead by Dave Gauny, a Summit resident) to the Mayo/G&L expansion plan. I don’t see any evidence to support that conclusion.

But consider two other board members (one former, one current): Bill Reynolds is currently on the board. Reynolds has a long and interesting history with SCVTalk. You’ll remember that we outed him as the man behind (or at least affiliated with in some way) the infamous Not a Ferry Fan videos that endlessly attack City Hall, the City Manager, myself, and others as urban growth evangelists. The NAFF video library is one long string of incoherent and contradictory NIMBY sentiments, all jumbled up together, with an extreme right-wing bow tied on top.

Then there’s Cam Noltemeyer. The activist, SCOPE member, and City Council commenter was recalled from the Master Association Board last year after an acrimonious and dispute-filled six months on the board. She too has expressed NIMBY sentiments (just today, in fact, she wrote that her neighborhood is under threat) and comes from the left side of the political spectrum.

NIMBYism, it turns out, is no respecter of political ideology. It doesn’t discriminate between 5 story medical office buildings and children’s swim teams. Some people just want to be left alone. And it’s entirely possible that the Stratford board, at least part of it, is representing an aging and maturing Valencia population, a population whose kids have grown up and moved on. A population of empty-nesters that resents the Valencia 2.0 Generation’s activities in their neighborhood. This isn’t about pool resources, liability, the way the kids dive into the pool or “overly use of the common area pool.”

Some in Valencia just don’t want happy kids and parents in their backyards. In Valencia. Of all places.

Which is a remarkable development and one that makes this story much bigger than just a dispute about a swim team.