Hard feelings on both sides in long-running feud at
Hopkins condo complex
Star Tribune
By John Reinan
11 February 2015
Mel
Pittel has had a restraining order barring him from attending condo
board meetings. —David Joles
It started with a complaint about late-night noise. Now, more than five
years later, a feud at Minnesota’s largest condo complex shows no sign
of ending.
The long-running dispute at Meadow Creek Condominiums has included
malicious websites, vulgar protest signs and noisy demonstrations. The
fight has spilled out of the complex into City Hall and the courts,
with six-figure judgments and six-figure legal fees. The mayor of
Hopkins and the City Council urged the two sides to work out their
differences — to no avail.
Mel Pittel, a Meadow Creek condo owner, has led the battle against the
condo board and its longtime president, John Ward. In the tale’s latest
twist, Pittel was elected last month to serve on the board he’s spent
years fighting. But his victory was short-lived.
The condo’s lawyer informed Pittel a week later that he can’t take his
board seat because of a restraining order that bars him from entering
the Meadow Creek office building and forbids him from attending board
meetings.
Not surprisingly, Pittel disagrees.
“There’s no law that says because you don’t like someone, you un-elect
them,” said Pittel, a semiretired travel agent. “They could drop that
restraining order if they wanted to.” That’s not going to happen,
according to Ward, whose tenure as board president spans more than 20
years.
“I don’t think so,” Ward said this week. “He’s pretty disruptive.”
Pittel’s beef began one night about five years ago, he said, when Ward
began remodeling a unit he owned adjacent to Pittel’s. Ward owns nearly
50 units at Meadow Creek, according to court documents, but doesn’t
live there.
In fact, about two-thirds of the residents at Meadow Creek rent rather
than own. The units are modest, typically selling for $50,000 or so,
according to property records compiled by Pittel. With more than 530
units and more than 1,000 residents, the complex at Smetana Rd. and
11th Avenue S., is larger than many Minnesota cities.
Ward carried on his remodeling in the evening and other hours when the
condo rules called for quiet, Pittel said.
“It made me mad,” he said. “I thought, ‘We have to follow the rules.
Why doesn’t he?’ ” Not long after, the condo made expensive repairs to
its swimming pool that wound up going far over budget. Pittel said he
began to be concerned about the management of the complex.
Pittel created several websites and began posting accusations against
Ward and the board members. He appeared at board meetings and loudly
asked questions. He once appeared waving a sign reading, “Chicken
[expletive] Board.” Finally, Pittel and 11 other residents sued Ward
and the board, alleging that they withheld financial statements and
other information about the operation of the complex. The board
countersued, charging Pittel with defamation on his websites.
The result was a resounding victory for Ward and his fellow board
members, with a scathing ruling from Hennepin County Judge Tanya
Bransford. Pittel, who has a 1993 felony theft conviction for misusing
client money in his cruise business, was found “not credible.” The
judge noted his “volatile behavior” at board meetings. For his “false
and libelous statements,” she ordered him to pay $100,000 to the condo
association, $50,000 to Ward, and $10,000 to each of the other eight
board members. The board is also seeking to make Pittel pay its legal
fees of more than $237,000.
‘There are always issues’
Situations like the one at Meadow Creek are part of life in
“common-interest communities,” said Todd Iliff, an Edina attorney who
specializes in condominium law.
“There are always issues,” he said. “In some cases, there is a
substantial amount of acrimony. As a general rule, if you have a large
enough condo/townhouse community, you will have disputes … that will
ultimately involve legal counsel on both sides.”
The city became involved because of a loan it made to the condo
association more than 20 years ago, when Meadow Creek was facing
serious financial issues. The City Council spent more than an hour
discussing the Meadow Creek situation at a meeting in 2012. Ward
acknowledged that the condo complex had gotten into financial trouble,
then went on to express frustration over Pittel’s attacks.
“I’ve been cursed by his lies and accusations for the last two years,”
Ward told the council.
Hopkins City Manager Mike Mornson said the city’s involvement with
Meadow Creek was an unusual situation unlikely to occur with any other
neighborhood.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time we would not get in the middle of
these things, nor would we want to,” he said.
Ward said Pittel’s actions harm all the condo owners. “He’s hurting
their value, he’s hurting the salability” of their units, he said. “It
is difficult.”
‘I’ll file bankruptcy and tell them to
shove it’
Despite his mounting setbacks, Pittel isn’t giving up the fight. He’s
got a paralegal doing research, trying to find an avenue for him to
take a seat on the board.
“If I am seated on the board, my intentions are not to be
antagonistic,” he said. “I’m there to make sure I’m going to be a
watchdog for the owners.”
He’s not worried about the legal judgments against him, either.
“At this point in my life, if I have to file for bankruptcy, it’s not
going to make that much difference to me,” said Pittel, who is 71.
“I’ll file bankruptcy and tell them to shove it. I’m tenacious. I’m the
bulldog.”
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