By: ABQRAW staff
Posted: 8/9/2022 @ 8:30AM
Anita Beers speaks at her husbands, Lt. Fred Beers, memorial on July 27th, 2022. Lt. Beers was one of the crew members of the Metro 2 helicopter that crashed.
NW ABQ – As BCSO Lieutenant Fred Beers was being laid to rest last month, a far northwest side neighborhood association was secretly planning to go after the numerous “trash can violators” in the subdivision. Lieutenant Fred Beers was the co-pilot aboard Metro-2 when it crashed in mid July.
Recently Anita Beers, the widow of fallen BCSO Lieutenant Fred Beers, posted on her Facebook page that the day after her husband’s funeral, she received a potential $50 fine notice from their homeowners association (HOA). We spoke with Mrs. Beers to see what was at the root of the issue and learned that it was because they didn’t put their trash cans inside of their garage.
You read that right, someone within their HOA apparently didn’t read the news or is so heartless that they didn’t care that her husband died while serving our community. Mrs. Beers received this fine notice the day after she laid her hero husband to rest.
Mrs. Beers is now trying to find people to help her get into compliance with the HOA or else, she may face more fines or potential lawsuits.
Compassion is apparently not part of the HOA rules.
The neighborhood association in question is called Cottonwood Hills/Mirador Sandias Homeowners Association. The association is managed by Elite Business Management, LLC.
The letter was sent to numerous residents in the subdivision citing “potential violations.” The letter went on to state (or remind residents) that they are to place their city issued garbage containers behind gates or inside of their garages (imagine the smell) instead of “on their driveways” or on the “side of their property.”
Mrs. Beers did reach out to the association via the management company to try and figure out a fix to her trash can violation. At the time, Mrs. Beers was preparing to attend the funeral for Undersheriff Larry Koren and she was horrified about the timing of the notice of violation. When Mrs. Beers reached out via phone to the management company, she was informed that they were prepared to sue her if she didn’t comply with their letter. When Mrs. Beers heard that she would be sued, she politely told the management company that she would skip the funeral for Undersheriff Koren and immediately comply with the letter to avoid a lawsuit. The homeowners association immediately had a change of heart and said that she now has 30 days to comply so that she could attend all of the funerals.
To attempt to be compliant with the HOA, the first thing that Mrs. Beers did was to study the side of her home where she was being asked to conceal the trash cans. She noticed that it would not be possible to store them there since her refrigerated air compressor was blocking that access and any space needed for the trash cans was unavailable.
A second attempt to comply with the notice was to build a gate on the side of Mrs. Beers property, which would conceal the trash containers. Mrs. Beers did reach out to Home Depot for a solution to her dilemma and to discuss secondary gate options. Home Depot did submit a plan, which Mrs. Beers submitted to the homeowners association and they immediately denied the build plans. Mrs. Beers asked what needed to be changed in the design and they told her that they could not answer that, and she would have to continuously submit plans until they agreed on one for her.
We reached out to the management company for comment, but the woman who answered stated that she was only representing Elite Business Management, LLC and that any questions would have to be submitted via email and would be forwarded to the board. We submitted questions for he board, but we never heard back from them. We specifically wanted to know when weeds became trash cans, which is what is specifically being cited in the homeowners association letter to Mrs. Beers, they do not mention trashcans.