Election of Directors - Nov. 7, 2023

The next election of four (4) directors of the HOA should be November 7, 2023. On that date four directors should be elected, according to the By-Laws.

How will the board correct the problem of having eight directors on the board, instead of the seven authorized directors?

Who was elected in November 2021 (and, therefore, whose terms should expire in 2023)? 

Justin Martin
Mary Ann Game
Paul Hill (d. April 2022)*
Greg Thomas
Brenda Bryant 

Wait! That's five, not four. Too many directors were elected in November 2021. (George Reynolds had died in April 2021 after being re-elected in Nov. 2020. His position was never declared vacant or filled by the board).

Instead of appointing a successor to Reynolds, the board set up an election of five Directors (not four) for November 2021. It disregarded the vacant seat of the late George Reynolds. This threw off the cycle of electing four directors in one year and three in the next.

Because there were three other directors (Butler, Dellinger, and vacant seat of the late Reynolds), the board, by electing five directors, then increased to eight directors, not the seven authorized in the By-Laws.)

It still has eight (not seven), because there are seven bodies at the front of the room, and there should be an empty chair for Paul Hill. One of the five elected in November 2021 is not a legitimate director. (I urged the Board to consult its attorney for the remedy to the problem.) 

* When Dennis Rybicki was appointed in May 2022 to succeed Paul Hill, who died in April 2022, he was told (incorrectly) that he could serve as Paul Hill's successor for only six months, rather than for the full unexpired term to November 2023). Rybicki was elected to his own two-year term in November 2022, and he should have formally resigned from Hill's seat. That would have created a vacancy-by-resignation. However, the Minutes are silent about that action, and the seat has not been declared vacant (or filled).

The problem is that the President doesn't understand the importance of filling the remaining unexpired term of a deceased director. The rest of the board won't challenge the President. And CAMS (a professional HOA management firm) apparently is ineffective in educating the board to follow the By-Laws.

The Board and the Nominating Committee should get busy now, months before the election, and sort out these problems. This is a good reason why they should not have canceled the July 11th board meeting.

Another, and bigger, problem is that there are no legitimate Voting Members to elect Directors. The 28 Neighborhoods have not been holding Annual Neighborhood Meetings and Annual Elections of Neighborhood Committees, from which come the Voting Members and Alternates. "Getting signatures" is not a legitimate way of becoming a Voting Member.

As of the July 2023 Summit Scoop, five (5) Neighborhoods (Indigo Springs, Maywood, Pine Brook, Waverly Place) show the Voting Member position as "open". Those Neighborhoods are not represented before the board. Some have no Alternatives; others have only one Alternate.

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