Sharman Miller thought she had settled the issue about the interior of her fence through mediation a decade earlier. 

The crux of the dispute: the condo association wants the fence to be painted dark “Turkish Coffee” brown to match the outside of the fence. But Miller says that for 17 years she’s kept the interior of her fence painted a light tan, known as “Universal Khaki” — more the color of a soy latte than the dark coffee color that the board wants.

But instead of following the result of a 2013 arbitration proceeding, Miller says, her condo association this past April sent over a locksmith and a painter, along with a vice president from condo management company Cadmus Properties Corp., to enter Miller’s Hawaii Kai property where they intended to paint the offending fence without her consent.

Miller called the police and the trio left. The fence remained khaki.

Miller’s color scheme hardly stands out at  Colony Marina, where she lives. The khaki color matches the exterior of the rows of town homes that make up the complex. And it’s only the interior of the fence that Miller has painted khaki. The exterior of the fence is Turkish Coffee. And the khaki portion of the fence is barely visible from outside Miller’s property. 

What’s more, a recent visit to the complex found at least three of Miller’s neighbors have a similar color scheme: coffee outside, khaki inside.

Now the dispute has devolved into litigation. Miller has sued the Colony Marina condo association and its president, Andy Scontras, asking the Honolulu Circuit Court to make them honor a mediation agreement Miller says she and the board entered in 2013.

Miller also wants the association and Scontras to drop what she says are bogus fines over the color of the fence.

Finally, the suit asks the court to order the association to quit trying to come onto Miller’s property and paint her fence against her will.

Miller says the board is retaliating against her for asking questions about association finances.

“Based on the Board’s threatening letters, even if Plaintiff decided to paint the fence ‘Turkish Coffee’ color, the Board would still be charging her for the fines and late fees allegedly ‘accrued’ in 2022 and 2023,” Miller’s complaint says. “The Board’s ongoing failure to provide the requested documents reinforces the fact that this is nothing more than a repeat of a decade of harassment.”

Chea Paet, a vice president with Cadmus Properties, said there indeed appears to be long-running animosity between Miller, who was board president a decade ago, and Scontras, the current board president. 

“They just have this personal feud with each other,” he said.

At the same time, he said, Miller’s fence color doesn’t match those of her neighbors, which Paet said is a violation of house rules.

Paet said it’s costing the association needless time and money to fight over something that could be solved with a $200 paint job.

“It’s really doing a disservice to her other owners and her community,” he said.

Scontras declined to comment.  

As Miller describes it in an interview with Civil Beat, the tensions between her and Scontras started in 2011. She was the condo board president at the time, and Scontras, then not a board member, ran into questions from the board about Scontras’ plans to renovate his condo. Correspondence shows Scontras’ attorney fired back with a letter to the board’s lawyers challenging the board for scrutinizing his project.

The 2011 letter also made a jab about Miller’s khaki interior fence, saying, “The current board president’s unit exterior was altered to include an unapproved paint color scheme.” 

Two years later, Miller had left the board, and she was asked to repaint her fence. According to her lawsuit, the matter ended up in mediation, and Miller “was allowed to maintain the fence color of her choosing.”

Now, Miller says in her lawsuit, the board has brought up the fence issue again “to intimidate Plaintiff into repainting her fence by citing repeated baseless violations of AOAO’s House Rules, and assessing arbitrary fines, fees and penalties to her account.”

Specifically, in June 2021, Miller received a letter from the board saying, “the interior portion of the common element fencing along the left side entrance of your unit is the incorrect color and does not match the color scheme of the other units.”

“The correct color is Sherwin Williams 6076, Turkish Coffee,” the board continued, according to Miller’s complaint.

The board added that it would deny Miller’s request for her to install a sun shade on her back lanai until she changed her paint color.

The board reiterated its request in a letter dated September 2021, warning that Miller’s failure to repaint her fence could “result in the assessment of fines to your account or other legal fees.”

The next month, the board passed a resolution broadening its power to impose fines. The timing of the resolution made Miller question whether it was to benefit the condo owners or simply make it easier to punish her.

Board Refuses Second Mediation

In July 2022, the board sent Miller another letter saying she would be fined if she didn’t paint her fence Turkish Coffee within seven days. In March 2023, the board escalated the threats, saying it would have the fence painted and charge Miller for a locksmith’s services if needed to get inside the gate of her property and onto her front lanai.

The board also said it would not resolve the dispute outside of court.

“Also, please note that the Association will not agree to mediation regarding this matter,” the letter said. “The AOAO may paint the common element fence as the BOD deems appropriate to maintain a uniform appearance, prevent damage, and protect property values.”

On April 15, Paet, the property manager, showed up with a painter and locksmith. Miller called the police.

Although Paet says the association had the right to access the fence as a common element of Colony Marina, he said, “We just decided to leave.”

Miller’s lawyer, Terry Revere, alleges the actions amounted to trespassing. 

Still, the overarching theme of Miller’s lawsuit involves retaliation: allegations that Scontras and the board are retaliating against the former board president, using as a pretext a purported violation of a trifling house rule that Revere said was resolved a decade ago through mediation.

Miller says she can’t think of a valid reason besides retaliation for the board to be going after her. From her front lanai, it’s clear that at least three of her neighbors have a similar paint scheme on their fences: Turkish Coffee on the outside and Universal Khaki on the inside.

While her fence might be the same as those of some of her neighbors, Miller says there is one thing that makes her different from them.

“I am the only one here that requests the financials. No one else looks at them. No one else asks for accounting. No one else asks, ‘Why? When? Where?'” she said.

“I go to board meetings and ask,” she added. “And that irritates them.”