Ethics Not on Board Agenda
ETHICS NOT ON HOA ROGUE BOARD MEMBERS AGENDA
https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/10-13-2008-association
-mtg-agenda.htm This link contains other links and notes to the October 13, 2008 Election.
Silver Springs has its own Chicago-style ethical dilemma in progress right now. Like Rod Blagojevich, the step-in board president refuses to step down. This man has served as interim president of the Silver Springs HOA in a convoluted manner; he took over in March 2008 for a term that had already expired in November 2007. He has never been elected by the Association Members to serve on the Silver Springs Board. At the October 13, 2008 Annual Association Meeting he received 15 votes from 120 ballots cast. Yet he continues to insist that he is our board president.
This thorny situation has been supported by two rogue members, one whose term expired and one who is an 8 month volunteer, not previously elected….This “president” was absent from the October 2nd board planning meeting and the October 13 th meeting but had given his proxy to Sue Pollard. These rogue members conspired to ambush the October 13th Silver Springs Annual Association Meeting and Election. The rogue board members’ own script gives the following reason for the meeting ambush:
I, Bill Gunter, “move to call a Special Meeting of the Board of Trustees to be held as soon as all are able to be present, to review irregularities, some of which pertain to the process of the nomination procedure in accordance to Article 5, Nomination and Election of Trustees, in our bylaws.” Seconded by Sue Pollard. See full Ambush Script at: https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/
suepollard-script.pdf
* * * *
SILVER SPRINGS HOA BYLAWS: “ARTICLE V
NOMINATION AND ELECTION OF TRUSTEES
Section I. Nomination. Nomination for election to the Board of Trustees shall be made by a Nominating Committee, except for the first reorganization meeting then the nomination shall be made by the Steering Committee. Nominations may also be from the floor at the annual meeting. The Nominating Committee shall consist of a Chairman who shall be a Trustee, and two or more members. The Nominating Committee shall be appointed by the Board of Trustees prior to each annual meeting of the members, and such appointment shall be announced at each annual meeting. The Nominating Committee shall make as many nominations for election to the Board of Trustees as it shall in its discretion determine, but not less than the number of vacancies that are to be filled.”
* * * *
A meeting, for which board members received but a few hours notice, was held on November 6, 2008, and is the only meeting the board held between October 13th.and December 15th. On Nov. 6th Michael Winer distributed a letter that attorney Lincoln Hobbs had written to him. See at https://www.silverspringscommunity.com/wp-content/uploads/attorney-hobbs-letter-11-6-08.pdf –the penciled notes are from the Nov. 6th meeting.
Attendees agreed Lucy Archer had been named chair of the Nominating Committee for the Annual Election and that all board members had agreed the meeting would be held on October 13th, verified by e-mails, etc. between the board members. It was apparent the rogue members reason for their ambush was poorly timed cronyism. Silver Springs HOA Bylaws were not upheld by their actions. The four rogue members stated they had not expected that more than ten to twenty Association members would participate in the October Annual Meeting.
Notably, the rogue member’s stated reason to adjourn the Annual Association meeting was not addressed within the attorney’s letter. It is clear attorney Hobbs was hired (at $250 per hour) to advise Sue Pollard and Bill Gunter on how to clean up the train wreck they created on October 13th, and how to get the two rogue members elected in a second election. Read the attorney’s letter, it shows his bias to his clients, it addresses his perception of five or six irregularities that are based on the attorney’s ill-conceived premises while he proceeds to bash our HOA Bylaws. The health of our HOA was not the primary concern of the attorney’s advice.
It was recognized that the true irregularities in the Annual Association Meeting and Election were (1) that the meeting had been ambushed; (2) the manner in which Sue Pollard (acting as chair by proxy) had passed motions that were approved by only a minority of attendees; and (3) Sue’s failure to announce the Nominating Committee or (4) to call for Nominations and Votes from the floor. However, it was noted that any new nominations or votes from the floor, with 64 – 75 Association members in attendance, some of whom had already cast their ballots, were very unlikely to change the results of the more than 60% proxy ballots (120 cast votes).
All persons nominated to the Nomination Committee by the deadline were elected. Michael Winer was not nominated by anyone. He sent in his request to be on the ballot after the ballots were printed and delivered to the Members. He wrote: “You may take this as my YES, that you should put me on the ballot, if indeed it is neccesary.”… No one nominated Sue Pollard. Sue e-mailed “Hi Lucy, My term is up, but as you know, you just keep getting suckered into more and more…I’ll decide at the meeting if I really want to do it again. So don’t put me up until we’re desperate!! Haha, Sue” ….Bill Gunter nominated himself…. Dave Coehlo, whose term expired Oct. 13th, responded to put him on the ballot again this year. On Oct. 2nd Dave said, “If Michael doesn’t respond we have to assume he doesn’t want to be on the ballot or board anymore.”
The Nominating Committee also received the candidate names of Jan Zinn, Lucy Archer, Ed Cody, James Larson, Natalie Shein, and John Coursen.
The October Annual Election produced the following results: Lucy Archer 97 votes, Ed Cody 91 votes, Dave Coehlo 91 votes, James Larson 91 votes, Natalie Shein 88 votes (resigned), Jan Zinn 89 votes; write-in votes: John Coursen 25 votes, Michael Winer 15 votes, Sue Pollard one vote. Tabulated by an independent third party, these ballots are valid for the October 13th meeting and for any adjournment of that meeting, in precedence of past Silver Springs elections and as stated on the ballots and in the Silver Springs HOA Bylaws. The verbiage of these proxy ballots is the same as has been provided on past annual election proxy ballots. The October 13th meeting had 81% of the Association Members participating; our Bylaws do not support a replacement meeting or election when an Association Members quorum has voted at the annual October meeting.
The Dec 15th meeting plans were carried out without including the full board. Between early October 2008 to December 15, 2008, the rogue members have spent around $3,000 of Association money for their attorney, for printing, postage, paper supplies, and room rental, etc…. We feel this second meeting is a display of their failure to act responsibly, their failure to uphold the Silver Springs HOA Bylaws, they missed the deadline for nominations, they did not communicate or assist with board work, and underlines their disregard of their fiduciary duty to the Association Members.
Silver Springs HOA has some clean up to perform. It is proposed that the optimum solution for the health of our HOA is for the rogue board members to resign and to stand down from any further or future Silver Springs HOA board membership and participation. The already elected board members, Jan Zinn, Ed Cody, James Larson, Lucy Archer along with three of the newly nominated board members that receive the most votes by December 15, 2008 should comprise the new Silver Springs HOA board for 2008-2009.
Please send your comments to Lucy Archer at: [email protected]
.
.
IF YOU HAD WITNESSED ALL OF THE ABOVE, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
Lucy Archer and a number of her supporters boycotted this bogus second election by not submitting ballots. The 120 ballots submitted at the legitimate October 13, 2008 meeting are valid for the Annual Association Meeting and any adjournment of that meeting as stipulated in the Silver Springs Bylaws and on the ballots themselves.The October 13, 2008 Annual Association Meeting Election results are as follows:
Lucy Archer 97 votes
Ed Cody 91 votes
Dave Coehlo 91 votes
James Larson 91 votes
Natalie Shein 88 votes (written resignation)
Jan Zinn 89 votes (verbal resignation);
Write-in votes:
John Coursen 25 votes
Michael Winer 15 votes
Sue Pollard one vote.
The December 15, 2008 illegal election meeting notes:
- 32 property owners attended this meeting. (see list)
- No meeting agenda was provided to the attendees.
- There is a long list of serious irregularities for the Dec 15, 2008 meeting.
- The rogue board members attorney attended (billing the Association approximately for three hours = $750). The attorney’s advise to the board in his November 6, 2008 letter can be read as unsupportable, self-serving, and harmful to the Association. The more convoluted his instructions, the more he would be called upon to interpret and support their application, the more revenue he could assure for himself.
- When the attorney was asked to give specific irregularities for the October 13th meeting he said that the October 13th meeting had been held on a holiday, Columbus Day (began in 1971). Our Bylaws (written in 1985) state that if the board of trustees do not want the Association meeting to be held on this holiday then they have the power to change it to the Tuesday after the second Monday of October. The trustees did not change the date of the meeting, and have held the Association Meeting on Columbus Day during many other years. On December 15th the attorney did not voice any other irregularities for the October 13th Association meeting.
- The valid 120 ballots from the Annual Association Election at the October 13th meeting were not included in the vote count. This is in violation of our Bylaws.
- The 32 ballots for this meeting were not counted by the Association Board Secretary, as provided by the Silver Springs Bylaws, but were instead “counted by a woman from a nearby subdivision”, a friend of Sue Pollard’s, in a back room not visible by HOA witnesses. The tally numbers were not announced, only the names of seven candidates “in no particular order”.
- The attorney made a motion to have the officers of the board of trustees be installed according to the number of votes they received tonight, the highest number as president, etc. Lucy Archer stated that our Bylaws stipulate that officers of the Board of Trustees are to be elected at the first monthly meeting of the newly elected Board of Trustees by the Trustees themselves. A vote on his motion of the members present was taken. The attorney’s motion was defeated. Our Bylaws are to be upheld.
- The 2009 Proposed Budget was not brought up nor discussed during this meeting. The Association 2008 Budget was not brought up nor reviewed, the 2008 HOA Budget was presented at the October 13th Annual Association Meeting.
- Bill Noland gave an extemporaneous report on the 1978 underdrain system. This system was part of the HOA responsibility when the subdivision was organized in the 1978-1982, but all reference to the underdrain system has been removed from the current HOA governing documents, and all Declarations of HOA CCR’s prior to the 1985 revision were repealed by a vote of the Association members during their Columbus Day Annual Association Meeting on October 14, 1985.
- The cost to the Association Members for this illegitimate meeting is now hovering around $3,000. Our annual budget is around $14,175.
The verbal announcement, “in no particular order”, of the results of the approx. 32 ballots were as follows:
Bill Noland
Kristian Mulholland
James Larson
Sue Pollard
Bill Gunter
Jan Zinn
Chris Butler
Voting on officers, and on term of office, will be taken by the elected Trustees at their first board meeting.
Lucy Archer and David Coehlo took down the minutes for this meeting.
When these minutes are prepared and approved by the new board, they will be added to the HOA Meeting Minutes page.
32 Attendees at the December 15, 2008 Association Meeting