# Institutional Relationships and Participation Standards **Project:** Kane Diagnostics — `diagnostics.kane-il.us` **Version:** 1.0 **Jurisdiction:** Kane County, Illinois — Illinois statute **Operator:** TheRON — CURRENT_RESIDENT, HOA_MEMBER --- ## Purpose of This Document This document describes the institutional relationships that underpin Kane Diagnostics, the standards for professional participation, the fee structure, and the foundational principle that governs all of it. It is written for three audiences simultaneously: the Community Associations Institute, the law firm whose association certifies the methodology, and the attorneys, mediators, and civic protection entities who may choose to list themselves as homeowner-side practitioners. This document is intended to earn the approval of all three. --- ## The Diagnostic Record Kane Diagnostics produces a structured, public, standing-verified diagnostic record of HOA governance conditions in Illinois. Every record is submitted under verified HOA_MEMBER standing. Every record is public. No record can be sealed by settlement. No record can be removed by the association. The diagnostic record is organized using the same case law taxonomy published by the Community Associations Institute at the Community Association Annual Law Seminar. The methodology is public. The case law annotations are written from the homeowner's perspective. The standing verification mechanism is physical — a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope anchoring every participant to a real, verifiable address in Kane County, Illinois. The record exists because it does not currently exist. Every other organized HOA resource in Illinois serves the association management community. No organized, public, standing-verified resource serves the homeowner. This project is the other side of the same record. --- ## The Community Associations Institute ### Role The Community Associations Institute provides the baseline. Their case law taxonomy — the categories published annually at the Community Association Law Seminar — is the correct legal vocabulary for organizing HOA governance disputes. Their certification standards — CAM, LCAM, and CAI professional designations — are the standards against which manager qualifications are measured in the Kane Diagnostics Vital Signs framework. Kane Diagnostics adopts the CAI taxonomy directly. Not as a copy. As a parallel structure that organizes the same case law from the homeowner's perspective, using the same categories courts and attorneys already recognize. ### The Relationship CAI's association with Kane Diagnostics is an acknowledgment that the homeowner's side of the diagnostic record deserves the same organizational rigor as the association management side. It is not an endorsement of any specific diagnostic finding. It is not a departure from CAI's institutional purpose. It is recognition that a complete diagnostic record — one that serves both sides of the same dispute — is better for the health of community association governance than a record that serves only one. CAI and Kane Diagnostics are not in friction. They address the same governance conditions from different institutional positions. That is not a conflict. It is the complete picture. ### Display CAI's name and mark will be displayed prominently on every page of the three Kane Diagnostics addons, following their written approval. This display is free of charge. If CAI's institutional policy requires payment for any service received, they may pay whatever amount their own policy requires. CAI may withdraw their association at any time. Withdrawal does not create liability in either direction. The association is voluntary, ongoing, and subject to review by both parties. --- ## The Representative Law Firm ### Role The representative law firm certifies the methodology. Their association with Kane Diagnostics signals four specific things to every attorney, participant, and institutional visitor who reads the diagnostic record: **Legal standing** — the diagnostic record meets a standard of evidence the legal community recognizes as useful for case evaluation. **Non-competition** — the firm is not in the business of generating referrals from the diagnostic record. Their association is an endorsement of the methodology, not a commercial arrangement. **Freedom from conflict of interest** — the firm does not represent HOA associations. Their practice is on the homeowner's side. They have no institutional interest in protecting the conditions the diagnostic record documents. **Independence** — the firm's approval of the methodology is their professional judgment, freely given, based on the quality and integrity of the record. ### Display The representative law firm's name will be displayed prominently on every page of the three Kane Diagnostics addons, following their written approval. This display is free of charge. If the firm's institutional policy requires payment for any service received, they may pay whatever amount their own policy requires. The firm may withdraw their association at any time. Withdrawal does not create liability in either direction. The association is voluntary, ongoing, and subject to review by both parties. --- ## Attorney and Professional Listings ### Who May List Listings are available to entities whose professional purpose aligns with the homeowner's interest: - Attorneys in private practice representing homeowners in HOA disputes - Mediators who work with homeowners — not exclusively or primarily with associations - Government agencies with consumer protection or civic oversight jurisdiction - Consumer protection organizations - Civic protection entities Entities whose primary purpose is to represent HOA associations, management companies, or vendor networks may not list. This is not a judgment about their legitimacy. It is a boundary that protects the one thing the project cannot afford to compromise: the homeowner's trust that this is their Infrastructure. ### Attorney Qualification Standard To list, an attorney must meet the following standard: **At least one concluded court case won for an HOA unit homeowner in Illinois, filed and decided on or after January 1, 2016.** This is a binary qualification. Either the attorney meets it or they do not. There are no exceptions, no waivers, and no grandfathering. The standard is permanent — it will not be changed as the listing grows. The qualifying case is a matter of public record. Illinois court records are publicly searchable. Any visitor may verify an attorney's qualification independently without the project's assistance. The project does not certify qualifications — the public record does. ### The Fee Structure The listing fee is derived entirely from the documented operational cost of the `diagnostics.kane-il.us` domain infrastructure. It is not profit. It is not revenue. It is cost recovery. **The formula:** ``` Annual operational cost × 4 = total annual fee pool Total fee pool ÷ number of listed entities = fee per entity ``` The reserve is set at three times the annual operational cost. The total pool — operational cost plus reserve — is divided equally among all listed entities. **Example at current costs:** - Annual operational cost: $200 - Reserve (3×): $600 - Total pool: $800 - Fee per entity: $800 ÷ number of entities **The threshold:** Until there are 13 or more listed entities, listing is free of charge. The fee activates when the listing reaches 13 entities and the cost is shared from that point forward. The fee per entity decreases as more entities join — growth benefits everyone already listed. The operational cost is published publicly. Any listed entity or visitor can verify the calculation at any time. ### Public Access Search, browse, and read — free to every visitor, participant, and listed entity, always. The diagnostic record is public by design. No part of it is gated by payment, registration, or institutional affiliation. Any restriction on public access would contradict the project's foundational purpose. --- ## The Foundational Principle Nothing in this project is designed to be irreplaceable. The credibility of this specific implementation rests on the person of the operator — a named, located, verifiable current resident and HOA member of Kane County, Illinois, whose own case is the founding diagnostic record. That credibility is not transferable. It is not licensable. It belongs to the person who earned it by standing inside the same civic rule as every participant. But the methodology belongs to civic infrastructure as a civic function. Any person or entity — in Kane County or elsewhere, in Illinois or another state — may stand up a comparable or superior implementation using the same methodology. The public repository is the invitation to do exactly that. No permission is required. No license is required. No institutional approval is required. If this implementation ceases — for any reason — the methodology survives in the public record. The diagnostic records created under this implementation remain permanently pinned to IPFS. They do not disappear when an operator stops operating. Another person, in the same county or a different one, can read the repository, understand the design, and continue the work. This is what distinguishes civic infrastructure from a service. A service ends when the provider stops. Infrastructure persists because it was never dependent on a single provider. The project's openness to being superseded is the proof that it is not self-serving. The purpose is not to own this. The purpose is to begin it — because someone has to, and because not beginning it is unthinkable. --- ## Summary of Institutional Positions | Entity | Role | Display | Fee | Withdrawal | |---|---|---|---|---| | CAI | Baseline taxonomy authority | Prominent, every page | Free — or their policy amount | Voluntary, any time | | Representative law firm | Methodology certifier | Prominent, every page | Free — or their policy amount | Voluntary, any time | | Listed attorneys | Homeowner-side practitioners | Listing page and relevant DSC pages | Cost-share formula above | Voluntary, any time | | Listed mediators | Homeowner-side practitioners | Listing page | Cost-share formula above | Voluntary, any time | | Civic protection entities | Homeowner-side resources | Listing page | Cost-share formula above | Voluntary, any time | | All visitors | Public access | Not Applicable | Free, always | Not Applicable |