The information was corrected by our professional manager during the Association Meeting of September 10. For the correct instructions, contact me or our Architectural Director, our Rules and Regulations Director or our Vice President.
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As posted September 7:
We are approaching the next election for our Board of Managers. I have received my “official” packet, including the list of candidates, proxy form and instructions.
Some, and perhaps all, of the members of our new “Neighbors Club” have received additional information and instructions. This club, according to the membership form is “dedicated to bringing together in a positive way the residents of BLMH.” The following was sent by our Communications Director, so apparently email addresses were passed from the club to the ROC leadership:
“Hello ____,
It’s board member election time again and I wanted to send you this note regarding the four candidates that I’m endorsing this year. I personally know all of them -- ______________, ____________, _____________, and ___________. – and will be privileged to have any one of them sit on the board with me. They all possess the integrity, conscientiousness, and compassion that will help create a new kind of association governance. Together we’ll begin to cultivate a fresh mindset among our community leadership that encourages rather than stifles the individuality of our homeowners and that places the highest value on sincerity, honesty, and respectfulness.
In our elections, votes are calculated according to the voter’s percentage of ownership. That percentage is divided into the number of candidates you vote for. For example, my D unit’s percentage is 0.002721. If I vote for one candidate, the entire value of my percentage goes to that candidate. If I vote for 2 candidates, each gets 0.0013605 or half of my percentage. If I vote for four candidates, my percentage is split into four and each candidate gets 0.006802. If I vote for the full slate of five candidates then my vote is diluted further and each candidate will only 0.0005442…….”
There are several things about this campaign endorsement:
- There are 10 candidates running for five board member positions. Candidates include our current Vice President, Rules & Regulations Director, Architectural Director, myself (Yes! I am running), and six others.
- I am publishing this so that you, and all unit owners of BLMH have access to the same information. I have been opposed to some of the events of the past year because they seem to be based on a vision in which there are several tiers of unit owners. However, all unit owners are equal, and we should all be treated as such. There should be no difference if we are living on site or off site, if we are employed or unemployed, retired, etc. Private emails, other forms of communication directed to specific groups of individuals are an example of an attempt to reduce many of our unit owners to a lower status.
- I ask you, do you want an association that works? If you do, then contact your neighbors and discuss what type of association you really want. Do you want our architectural programs, which are in progress, to continue as scheduled? That includes new roofs, new driveways and other projected repairs? Do you want our association to develop a landscaping plan as thorough as the architectural plans? Do you want our reserves used for these purposes, or not? If you do, then I suggest you re-elect our current board members. I would like our Board to focus on its fiduciary duties and run our association. I would like to get beyond meetings in which there are lengthy discussions spanning multiple board meetings about how to get light bulbs changed, in which board members orchestrate disruptions to permit tractor trailers on the property, or to have arguments about the why and wherefore of developing thorough landscaping plans, and so on. I would like an Association that works for all of us and wisely spends our hard earned fees.
- If you want to socialize with your neighbors, then by all means, join the "Neighbors Club". However, that club should not be politicized. This club is open to all residents, which includes unit owners and renters. Renters can be good neighbors, but they have no financial stake in our Association. They lack the financial commitment made by unit owners. Unit owners who do not reside on the property may not be able to participate and so this club cannot be anything other than a social club.
- The campaign endorsement promotes an association where a “fresh mindset” will “encourage…..individuality”. You may recall this was the same generalized language that was used last year under the “Residents of Change” banner. Well, after a year our official newsletter has been expanded, but are we really getting more information? What do we know of the issues and challenges facing our Association? The newsletter has contained copyright infringed photos of cathedrals and ponds, for which the owners never received the proper acknowledgement, even after they asked for it. We don't have a timely and functioning blog. True, THIS blog exists, but if you are reading it, it is only because you or a neighbor took the initiative. If you find this blog informative, pass it along, because that is the only way any of your neighbors will see or hear of it.
- We, as individuals, will choose the degree of neighborliness that we want, as I have written in earlier posts. However, I don’t want to confuse being neighborly with running the association. There seems to be an attempt to use “neighborliness” for a political slate. Isn't that inappropriate? I have yet to have any member of the board, and that includes our Communications Director, make a statement of how the Board of Managers will enforce the “neighborliness” that she and others seem so intent upon implementing by replacing the entire board. However, as a possible example, she did attempt to coerce the Board to effectively change the rules so that a semi-trailer, which weighs in excess of 30,000 pounds, could be parked on the property and to reimburse the owner with Association funds (collected from our fees) for towing charges when it was removed per the rules and posted signs. This event she called “unjust". I suggest unit owners consider the damage that parked vehicles of this type can do to our streets and the consequences of allowing such vehicles to be parked on our property. For example, to be fair to all unit owners, shouldn't we each be allowed to park our commercial trucks, campers, boats, etc. on the property? If not, what is the criteria for selecting who is to park their oversize and banned vehicles on the property? I do not want our streets destroyed by oversized vehicles. We pay fees to maintain those streets. We have parking issues due to lack of space. Even if our streets could accommodate these vehicles, where are we to put them? I am not in favor of arbitrary changes due to circumstance, nor am I in favor of changes to the rules, to accommodate a few people at the expense of the majority.
I'll be publishing additional election information in the coming days.
Norman, talking about "Beating a dead horse". How long are you going to keep bringing up the Truck parking incident? Is this going to be your platform, just like Jane Byrne did with the snow issue? Wake up and smell the coffee, with the credentials that you say you have, that doesn't make you more qualified than the others. People just don't like you, period.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous:
ReplyDeleteThe issues aren't a dead horse. People ran for office and made a lot of grand statements. In the process of running they trashed the board, and did so again, repeatedly last year. When they trash the board in the name of their pet agendas or their personal view of "justice" they trash all of us.
Consider this: when running for the board, does that make one "god" when one is elected? To decide what is just or unjust? Of course not. The successful candidate is given the opportunity to operate in accordance with the Illinois Condominium Act, which is Law, and the opportunity to represent all of us.
Shortly after the "truck incident" our President resigned. There was no public or formal statement as to why. I take that to mean that our President resigned over this issue. We needed a full board. This is a large association to run. So as I see it, this incident cost us the services of a potentially valuable member of the board. We'll never know, will we? But here we are a year later, and we have board members scrambling to complete necessary projects, including driveways. I attended two sequential meetings, that's 60 days, in which "more important matters" including the "truck incident" replaced this and other pressing matters on the association agenda.
There are consequences for the actions, or the inaction of the board. I intend to make unit owners aware of that.
I see this past year, in some respects, as a "lost year". There is limited time and limited opportunity to accomplish what must be done in this association, each and every year. Our roofs will not stop aging, our driveways will not miraculously renew themselves. Problems with streets won't simply go away, or wait for a new board next year or whatever. Our association took 20 years to nearly destroy itself. It took 10 years to financially recover from that near disaster.
This is not about popularity. This association is a business and most of us, your fellow unit owners, have made a significant investment in BLMH.
However, "anonymous" you have decided that you speak for the other 335 unit owners. Did you interview each of them to make your remarks? I doubt it. That's the issue in a nutshell. Who elected you to speak for all of us???? I have others who tell me they like my blog. Obviously, you don't speak for them. So just who are the "people" in your statement that "people just don't like you?"
In case you cannot figure out the issues, let me say this loud and clear. This association is a business. It's OUR association, not yours and not mine.
Individuals who run for office should remember their fiduciary duties and act accordingly. They represent all of us. They have no authority to run their agenda, they have no authority to represent a few of us who agree with their views. When one takes on the elected role of a member of the Board of Managers, that means they take on the mantle of "being of service".
I don't think the individual who "ran" the truck issue and disrupted that meeting has acted in accordance with that responsibility.
Perhaps I am incorrect. Their actions define who they are, just as mine define who I am.