May 2022 HOA Living Magazine

MEET THE BOARD | Bruce Latta

By Marilyn Ramos

This article is part of an ongoing series featuring CAI-CV Board members and Committee chairs. Today, we profile the Chapter’s newest board member, Bruce Latta. Bruce has recently served as chair of the CAI-CV Homeowner Leader Committee. He is the recipient of the CAI-CV Above and Beyond and Coachella Valley Homeowner Leader of the Year awards. He has also completed CAI’s new national board member certification. Bruce recently served four years on the board of directors of the Parc La Quinta Homeowners Association, and as board president two of those years. Bruce was born and raised in Azusa, in the San Gabriel Valley suburbs of Los Angeles. He came to the Coachella Valley in 1994 for work and has lived here ever since. He and his wife, Wanda, live in Parc La Quinta, a gated community of 150 single-family homes. They have three grown children.

Bruce received his BA degree in political science from Cal State University Los Angeles. He also has earned several certifications, including Meetings and Event Planning from San Diego State University Extension, and another in Customer Service from College of the Desert. He is a Certified Fair Executive (CFE) earned from the International Festivals & Events Association (IFEA) and has completed FEMA’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training. Bruce also holds CAI’s Certified Manager of Community Associations (CMCA) designation.

Bruce’s management career included working for 23 years in the fair, festival, and events industry. He was the Operations Department Manager at the Los Angeles County Fair and later appointed by Governor Pete Wilson as the Program Manager for the California State Fair. Locally, he served as the manager of the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival and the Indio International Tamale Festival. He worked for the U.S. Department of Commerce on the 2010 census as a field

supervisor and then started his property management career. Subsequently, when he worked for a commercial developer, heserved as the startup manager for the Jackson and Monroe Master, Commercial, and Residential Associations. Bruce has also served in two elected positions — two terms on the Citrus Community College Board of Trustees and following that, two terms on the Azusa City Council.

Currently, Bruce is a sole proprietor and provides commercial property management services. His clients include two commercial land developers in Indio. Bruce said, “My services and duties vary and include just about anything that affects the properties, including proper maintenance, signage, creating

some marketing, advertising, and promotions, representing the clients with city and county government agencies, and addressing code enforcement citation issues such as cleanup of illegal dumping or homeless camping.

Bruce Latta most interesting HOA related jobs was assisting with the dissolution of the Jackson and Monroe Associations. A large well-known retailer refused to close escrow on the purchase of a parcel until the associations were eliminated. Bruce assisted the developer by obtaining the needed signatures from 75 percent of the 50 different parcel owners in the associations, which also resulted in eliminating his job as the manager of the associations.

When asked about his greatest professional achievement, Bruce gave a couple of interesting examples. He organized a community group in Azusa to obtain paramedics for the community. The group circulated petitions and qualified an initiative for the local ballot. It called for merging the city’s fire department with Los Angeles County’s fire department in order to have paramedic services. It would also reduce the city’s fire service costs. It was approved by 60 percent of the voters.

When operations manager for the LA County Fair, Bruce tells of how the large weekend crowds could be a little overwhelming. He assisted forming and chaired a traffic control committee, which included the fair’s staff and all government agencies affected. It met and planned for months. The next year’s busiest Saturday, “We parked 50,000 vehicles and there were over 170,000 people on the grounds that day. We got them in, entertained them, fed them, and sent them home with hardly a glitch.”

When not busy with clients or CAI, Bruce has been an active member of the Indio Rotary Club community service organization for 25 years. Bruce said he first joined CAI-CV as an association manager for the educational opportunities and more recently as a homeowner leader member to help him understand his role and do the job as best he can, and now he is a CAI-CV Board member. Thank you, Bruce, for your continued service to CAI-CV. Bruce can be reached at lattabruce@aol.com.

Marilyn Ramos is a paralegal for Guralnick & Gilliland, LLP. She can be reached at (760) 340-1515 or by email at MarilynR@gghoalaw.com.