How It Started

Watch How Fast A Simple Question Gets Complicated

On January 28, 2026, unit owner Dennis Kmetz asked management to send him the voting member list: a list of the names and contact information of every unit owner in the building. Under Section 19(a)(7) and Section 19(e) of the Illinois Condominium Property Act (ICPA), that list is a right every unit owner holds, not a document request, and not a favor the boards grant on their own terms.

Kmetz filled out and attached the HOA’s own required certification form with his initial request, satisfying every procedural requirement on the first attempt. Management responded that the list would be ready for in-person pickup in paper format only, at $7.50 for an estimated 30 pages.

Think about what that response tells you. Management said the list would generate a 30-page document. That means it already exists on a computer somewhere in the management office. Nobody is hand-writing this list. The digital version exists. The only question is why it cannot be attached to an email.

Kmetz replied within the hour. Cost wasn’t the issue. Charge his account. But he requested an electronic copy.

Management’s response: “Please know that this list is available in physical format as provided in the past.”

It sounds like “we’ve always done it this way” is doing the work of justification here. No mention about why it’s supposedly been done this. No rules citation. No documented rationale of any kind. Kmetz accepted the paper copy, followed up weeks later asking management to complete the investigation into the paper-only rule they had volunteered to look into, and that is when HOA board president Scott Timmerman stepped in.

Round 1: Assertion Without Basis

Pay No Attention To the Process Behind The Curtain.

Nine minutes after Kmetz’s follow-up to management, Timmerman stepped in with this:

“The Board previously established a process for responding to all document requests. That process includes distributing hard copies.”

What just happened: An elected Board President just told a unit owner that a policy exists, offered nothing to back it up, and expected the conversation to end there. No meeting date. No motion number. No board record of any kind. It seems like the plan was for the authority of the office to do the work that documentation was supposed to do.

There is also a sneaky conflation embedded in that sentence that circles back later in the process: the voting member was labeled by Timmerman as a document request when it’s actually a statutory right. That’s a fancy name for a legal entitlement that exists independently of whatever document request process an HOA has established.

Applying the document request process to a statutory right is like telling someone they need to file a permit to use their own front door. Kmetz caught this immediately and said so. Perhaps conveniently, Timmerman never engaged with the distinction.

Round 2: Doubling Down

Timmerman Says A Policy Exists. The Record Says Otherwise.

When Kmetz pressed for documentation, Timmerman supplied a specific, verifiable source: “This was discussed a the February 2024 meeting.” Now there was something for Kmetz to check, and check it he did.

Here’s the February 2024 motion Timmerman cited:

RESOLVED, to approve a policy of responding to document requests by including the costs for making those documents available, as authorized by Section 19(f) of the Illinois Condominium Property Act, and in accordance with counsel advice.

That motion is about one thing: reimbursing the 175 E Delaware Pl. HOA for the cost of processing document requests.

• It says nothing about paper-only format.
• It says nothing about restricting digital delivery.
• It says nothing about creating a policy, but approving a policy.

Kmetz attached the motion text, linked to the timestamped audio recording of the meeting discussion, and told Timmerman directly: you are mistaken.

🚨 Here’s where things get interesting: Timmerman did not defend his citation. He abandoned it. What came next is fascinating.

Round 3: The Transparency Two-Step

The Source Disappears. So Does the Staff Member Who Might Have Found It.

Instead of explaining why the February 2024 meeting supported his position, Timmerman simply moved on to a new one (emphasis added):

“As stated, we have a long established process that includes printing. As with most Board discussions, the non-controversial aspects are not specifically debated/discussed. [Ms. Cozma] can’t provide you with the rationale or change the workflow.”

🚨 What just happened: this is the first major pivot in the process.

• The HOA President alone creates policy details: Timmerman is not describing a board decision. He provided his justification for circumventing the board. If this feels familiar in this day and age, it’s because we see it play out on the national level: one person declares which rules require oversight and how they are enforced. One person. No vote. No record. That is not a board decision. That is one person using the board’s authority without asking the board.
• The investigation got shut down: Remember, Cozma had volunteered to look into the rationale for the paper-only policy. Timmerman closed that door explicitly, on the record, in writing. The one person who had committed to finding an answer was told by the Board President that she cannot provide it and cannot change anything.
• The original question still has no answer: How does a restriction on a legal right become a document request?

Round 4: Outsourcing Authority

Suddenly There’s a Lawyer Involved.

Per my request, Kmetz forwarded me his email exchange with Timmerman and the management company. I sent Timmerman six specific questions on April 3, 2026. He replied on April 7 with a justification that had not appeared anywhere in the two months of exchanges with Kmetz: the board’s legal counsel.

Here are the key points from that exchange.

Round 5: The Contradiction

Bringing A Bucket For The Fire You Started

Timmerman reply created more questions than it answered so I reached out to address the contradictions directly.

In February 2026, Timmerman told Kmetz the policy was established at the February 2024 board meeting. In April 2026, he told me it predates his time on the board entirely. I asked which one was accurate. His response:

“Your statement is incorrect. This is easy to verify from the emails in your PDF. I said the process was previously established or long established and subsequently discussed at the Feb. 2024 meeting.”

🚨 What this actually means: Here is what Timmerman actually wrote to Kmetz in his February 23, 2026 email, quoted exactly as it appears in the exchange above: “This was discussed at the February 2024 meeting.”

Not “long established and subsequently discussed.” Not “previously established and revisited in 2024.” Seven words.

What does it mean when a Board President tells you that you’re misreading a document you’re both looking at?

He also added, unprompted, at the close of his reply:

“I strongly disagree with your understanding of the role and authority of the President of the Board. It is my opinion that the President should not and cannot act unilaterally against Board established policies.”

I made no claim about the role and authority of the Board President anywhere in my emails. That position does not exist in any of the correspondence. Timmerman invented a position, attributed it to me, disagreed with it, and used that disagreement as a closing statement instead of answering the questions that were actually asked.

What does it tell you about the strength of a position when the only way to defend it is to manufacture an opponent who never existed? It’s like bringing a bucket for the fire you started.

No Answer

Hoping Things Just Go Away

My final message to Timmerman went to the core of it. Under the ICPA, the voting member list is a statutory right. Routing it through a counsel-supervised document request process is not compliance: it is a condition the law does not require, applied to a right the law already grants.

I asked four questions that followed directly from that, including what it costs owners every year in legal fees to have their own rights processed through a system the law never required.

Timmerman has not replied.

🚨 What this means: Four justifications. None of them documented:

1. One directly contradicted by the meeting record he cited himself.
2. One attributing governing authority to an outside lawyer whose advice residents can never read.
3. One manufactured disagreement with a position I never took.
4. And a final set of questions that received no answer at all.

This began with Kmetz asking to receive a list of his neighbors electronically.

Timmerman turned this procedural molehill into a mountain. More importantly, the fundamental question of why the information can’t be provided electronically has never been justified.

What you just watched was a Board President cycle through every tool available to avoid answering a simple question from a unit owner he was elected to serve: assertion without evidence, a source that doesn’t say what he claimed, a consensus too uncontroversial to document, a lawyer to hide behind, a contradiction he rewrote in real time, and finally, silence.

Every one of those tools has a cost. Some of it is measured in legal fees. The rest of it is measured in what kind of building you want to live in.