Election of Officers - Dec. 7

Attention all Homeowners and Residents of The Summit, including the Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II).

Be sure to attend the December 7th virtual monthly meeting of the Board of Directors. It should be interesting. Call the office to be sure that you receive the Zoom link in time for the 6:30PM meeting.

One of the most important responsibilities of the Board at the December meeting will be to elect the officers for 2022. Four officers are to be elected: President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer.

The By-Laws, Art. IV, Sect. 2 dictate how the officers are to be elected:

"Section 2. Election. Term of Office, and Vacancies. The officers of the Association shall be elected annually by the Board of Directors at the first meeting of the Board of Directors following each annual meeting of the Voting Members, as herein set forth in Article III. ..."

The Board is already a month later in electing the officers, because the first meeting following the annual meeting of the Voting Members was November 9.

NOTE that Section 2 reads "The officers of the Association shall be elected annually by the Board of Directors..." [emphasis added] Notice that it does not say "The officers of the Association shall be appointed annually by the president of the Board..."

BUT WAIT. There was NO annual meeting of the Voting Members this year. That was a MAJOR violation of the By-Laws. Unfortunately, the 2021 board has not cared very highly about complying with the By-Laws. Ballots were distributed to the Voting Members and then collected by Nov. 5. The ballots were counted on November 9, but the Voting Members did not witness the counting. 

Only four Directors should have been elected on November 9th, but the board circulated ballots calling for the election of FIVE Directors. 

The current (2021) board violated the By-Laws further on November 9th by electing a successor for the vacant position on the board that was created by George Reynolds' death in April. The By-Laws require the board to appoint Reynolds' successor. Instead, the board never declared the vacancy.

In previous election cycles, four directors were elected in odd-numbered years (ex. 2019) and three directors were elected in even-numbered years (ex., 2020). Justin Martin, the president of the HOA, decided that this year five Directors would be elected. This means that next year, only two directors (not three) will be elected. If you read the board Minutes, you will find no decision (vote) by the board to alter the election cycle.

In fact, the board cannot change the election cycle. That's because the board cannot unilaterally change the By-Laws. 

Decisions are supposed to be made by the board, but Justin makes the decisions and announces them. And the 2021 board has let him get away with doing that.

How will the board vote on December 7th? Will there be nominations for each office? Can a Director self-nominate? Will nominees be ready to state why other directors should vote for them? Will there be a change in board leadership? 

The board should elect someone other than Justin Martin as President. He and George ran things "their way". And "their way" too often disregarded the By-Laws. 

It's time to follow the By-Laws.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Annual Meeting, Barony Place Neighborhood - continued to 5/4/2024

Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II attempted to hold a Neighborhood Meeting this afternoon. Of the 78 homes, seventeen (17) homes were represented, and that was not sufficient to meet the quorum requirement of 26. The meeting was continued to Saturday, May 4, 2024, 1:00PM, at 44 Barony Place Circle. An effort will be made to have at least 26 homes represented in-person or by proxy. Three homeowners have volunteered to be on the Neighborhood Committee: Tracy Manderino (Barony Place II), Della Glynn (Barony Place II) and Gwen Hayes (Barony Place I). If a quorum is present on May 4th, those present, including by proxy, will elect the Neighborhood Committee. Once the Committee has been elected, it will select one of its three committee members to be the Voting Member for the next 12 months. The other two members will be Alternates. A new announcement will be distributed to your newspaper box, along with a proxy. If you will not attend Saturday's meeting, plea
Read more

Open Letter to Barony Place "Voting Member"

An open letter to the "Voting Member" of Barony Place Neighborhood. Good morning, Billie, If you and/or an Alternate attended last night's board of directors meeting, will you please send out a recap of the meeting to Ann Stirlen and me (and to all the homeowners and residents in Barony Place)? About a dozen homeowners from throughout The Summit showed up for the board meeting  at the church  last night, only to learn from one person that it had been switched to Zoom, which allowed the board to meet in secret. Many of them had not received the email from the office that the board was (illegitimately) closing the meeting to homeowners. There are only about 1,800 (73%) email addresses of the 2,480 Members in the website database. I attempted to join the meeting on Zoom, as I am Attorney-in-Fact for Ann Stirlen, but I was not admitted to the meeting. The HOA's attorney has quoted a section in the By-Laws that she believes allows the Board to close the meetings. That spec
Read more

Special Assessment Possible?

How would you feel about a $3,000 Special Assessment levied by the HOA against you and every other HOA Member (homeowner)? Article X, Section 4 in the CC&Rs allows this. Are you aware of that? Should the Board do everything possible to eliminate the possibility of such a Special Assessment? What is the Board doing that might just lead directly to such an Assessment? The HOA, by actions of the President (Justin Martin), the Treasurer (Vernell Butler, and the Safety Committee Chair (Dennis Rybicki) entered into a contact with the Richland County Sheriff's Department, effective February 1, 2023. They arranged for special patrols in the Summit at a cost of $48.00/hour. In the Special Duty Agreement is a Liability clause. It reads,  "The Requestor will hold harmless the Richland County Sheriff's Department from any and all claims or liabilities resulting from service and indemnify RCSD for any loss due to any injury of its employee unless there is a determination of neglige
Read more