Campaigning and A Candidate Endorsement

Comment added 9/13/09. The information on "Cumulative voting" as contained in our Communications Director's emails and letters is incorrect. The incorrect information was repeated in this blog post.

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:

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.

Towing Incident and Response of a Member of the Board of Managers

During the April meeting of the Association, our Communications Director, who is a member of our Board of Managers, read a statement which she had prepared, signed and presented copies. I am publishing that statement below. I delayed this posting because I wanted to see what outcome, if any, would occur over the following month and at the May meeting. The reading of the statement and noisy followers of the Communications Director disrupted the April meeting in what I would describe as an attempt to coerce the entire Board of Managers. Refer to my blog “Update – Board Meeting of April 9, 2009’.

The position taken by one of our board of managers was very disturbing to me. Our board is a representative body with a legal mandate to represent all unit owners, equally. A member of our Board of Managers should not take a position for one unit owner, that would not be taken for any and all unit owners. The members of our Board of Managers are not empowered to determine who is deserving or not deserving in our Association. Ergo my ongoing concern. It would appear that those of us who would be less deserving in the opinion of the Communications Director would be held to the rules. There are parking rules and the boulevard leading to our complex is posted with a 5,000 lb. GVW restriction. A tractor of the type described has a GVW in excess of 30,000 pounds; it cannot be legally driven to our complex.

Here is the statement made by our Communications Director at the April meeting. I suggest that all unit owners read this and consider the implications. I have altered this only to remove the identity of persons named in the statement. For that purpose underlines indicate where names, addresses and other identification have been removed:

Proposal to the BLMH Board of Directors
April 9, 2009
RE: __Towing Incident

BACKGROUND
The occupant resides at _____with her son, _____. Her sister-in-law _______owns the unit.

The occupant of the unit is disabled ______ and requires around-the-clock attention from live-in caregivers. Her separated spouse does visit the occupant two or three times each month. His visits are typically 2-3 hours long.

Her separated spouse is a long-haul trucker for a company ___, which has a drop garage in ___. Since the unit occupant’s confinement two years ago, he has been dropping the trailer at the garage and driving the tractor to our community to visit the occupant, as he does not own a personal vehicle. Prior to his first visit to Briarcliffe with the tractor, he called the local police department to find out if there were any parking restrictions. The police told him that overnight parking is prohibited and, of course, anyplace where signs are posted restricting certain vehicles. He is very conscientious about observing parking restriction signs and, seeing none in Briarcliffe, he’s been parking the trailer on the street within in our association boundaries.

TOWING INCIDENT
One Saturday in mid-March, after visiting his former spouse, he walked out of the _____ building at around 2 p.m. and discovered that his tractor was gone. Thinking that it might have been stolen, he called the ___ police, who knew nothing about it but suggested that he call the towing company that was listed on the posted sign. He called and was told that his tractor was there and he could have it back after paying $700 by credit card or $600 by cash.

____ drove him to the bank and he paid $600 to get his tractor out of the tow yard. He has not visited his former spouse since the incident. He has no way of getting to our community, unless he takes a cab from the garage in _____, and quite frankly, he cannot afford it.

I do not know who called the towing company. I do not know why the towing company was called. I do know that what was done to him was unjust and, because it happened on our property, we should try to make things right. As part of a community, and especially in these tough times, we should be kind instead of mean to our neighbors.

PROPOSAL
I propose that the association reimburse him $600 to cover the expenses he incurred from the act against him by our community. Whether it was performed by one person or a group of people, this action reflects negatively upon all of us. Not only have we caused a significant financial drain on him, but we have deprived his former spouse of his visits.

I also propose that the association allows him to park his tractor on our streets so he can resume his visits to his former spouse. And, I hope that when we see that tractor, we welcome the thought that an invalid neighbor is sharing a few hours with a friend.

Signed by our Communications Director