Barony Place I/Barony Place II

On Saturday, October 26, the Nominating Committee was to meet and interview applicants for the three positions open on the HOA's Board of Directors.  Only the members of the Nominating Committee and any interested Voting Members were to be present at that interview session. Current members of the Board should not have been there. The requirements of a candidate are are quality candidates are of the highest caliber possess [good] interpersonal skills are dedicated to the betterment of the Association are free of any personal agenda Following that interview session, the members of the Nominating Committee were to meet in closed se ssion and select which candidates (if any) to nominate for election.  The Nominating Committee  does not have to  nominate a candidate (applicant).  The HOA must notify all Voting Members in writing of the scheduled election date (November 12, 2024) at least ten days in advance of November 12. So, they must be informed by November 2...

How does a homeowner run for the HOA Board, if the Nominating Committee doesn't accept his application and approve him as a nominee for Director? Last week I emailed the Chair of the Nominating Committee, as follows: Will you please let me know how Write-In votes will be handled on November 12 in the election of new directors? If Voting Members write-in an eligible homeowner, will those votes be counted?  If a Write-In candidate receives at least the third-highest number of votes, will s/he be considered as elected? I can understand that the Chair might not know the answer; she is the newest member of the Board. But somebody should know the answer. Perhaps another board member? Perhaps the CAMS on-site property manager? Perhaps the new attorney for the HOA? A short return email would have been nice. Something like, "I don't know the answer, but I'll get it for you." Instead, crickets. Nothing. Zilch. Nada.  If you are a homeowner and want to be on the board, conta...

On November 12 the HOA will elect its officers for the following 12 months. Officers are elected at the Organizational Meeting, which is the first board meeting after the Annual Meeting of Voting Members. If Voting Members meet at 5:00PM. the November meeting of the Board at 6:30PM is the first board meeting after the Voting Members' Meeting.  Maybe this year they'll get it right. While all board members are equal in voting power, it is the President who sets the tone for the leadership and for the board. If you have been following the HOA this year, you have watched dysfunction in action. The President is supposed to lead the team (the other six board members). The current President failed to declare vacancy on the board after Tommy Williams resigned in May. He hasn't kept control of meetings or run a "tight ship". There has been a sound system at the board meetings, but the President won't use the microphone. Meetings have gotten longer and longer, with lit...

The Minutes of the October 1, 2024 board meeting have been published. Who wrote them? Did anyone proofread them? Presumably, the on-site property manager reviewed them before they were sent out to board members. Did any board members bother to read them before the office published them? The HOA is a million-dollar business. It has a contract with a so-called professional HOA management company. Paragraph B, 1 in the 10/6/23 contract with CAMS reads, "On-site Staff shall prepare minutes of the meetings of the board..." I'll be "kind" here and say that it appears to me that CAMS has not trained the office staff to write professional Minutes for a business. A high school newspaper editor would easily spot all the errors. Has each board member actually read the Contract with CAMS? It was entered into by the previous board and signed by Justin Martin and Vernell Butler. Butler was the Treasurer. Why did Butler sign it and not Greg Thomas, the Secretary of the HOA? An...

The November 12th monthly Board meeting will be one of the most important of the year. It is the Annual Meeting of the HOA. It is the first board meeting following the Annual Meeting of Voting Members. Newly-elected (and re-elected) board members are seated at this meeting.  It is the Organizational Meeting of the Board. Officers are to be elected in public at this meeting, unlike at the November 7, 2023 board meeting, when officers were not elected until the following Friday, when the board met in a private, closed, secret, Organizational Meeting. (The Board couldn't understand, or refused to understand, that the 6:30PM board meeting on November 7th was the first board meeting following the 5:00PM meeting of the Voting Members.) ¶ The proposed budget for 2025 should be presented to the Board, so that Directors have time to study it before approving it at the December 3rd boar d meeting. Will the 2025 Budget be balanced, as required in the PRM, Art. III, §C, ¶4(l)? Or will it have...

Will The Summit's HOA hold a legal election next month? Is "legal" the right word? Is the HOA election illegal , if it is not held in compliance with the By-Laws? And if it is illegal, then the HOA does not have a valid Board of Directors, as required by State law. For the election to be legal, the convening of the Annual Meeting of Voting Members (AMVM) on November 12 must be legitimate; i.e., in compliance with the By-Laws. Has anyone with the HOA asked the new lawyer about this? For the AMVM to be legitimate, there must be a quorum of legitimate Voting Members in attendance. And therein lies the rub. Upon information and belief, there is only one (1) legitimate Voting Member in the entire HOA, and that one is right here in Barony Place. One other neighborhood is contemplating a Neighborhood Meeting. If one-third of its homeowners attend, in-person or by proxy, it may be an official Neighborhood Meeting.  At the AMVM the HOA Secretary should inspect the documentation th...

National Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. Early Voting starts Monday, Oct. 21, and ends on Saturday, Nov. 2. Early voting hours are 8:30AM-6:00PM. Early voting for Summit residents is at Brookland Baptist Church Northeast, 1203 Summit Parkway. You can vote at any Richland County early-voting location .  Take your photo ID. Print your sample ballot at www.scvotes.org   Click on "Voters".

Know this car? Know this driver? Grey Nissan Maxima, South Carolina license plate G TOWN Generally, it is a good idea not to drive recklessly, when your car has a license plate that is easily remembered.  The driver of that car almost took off the left-front fender of my car at 2:50PM yesterday on Summit Parkway, heading toward Clemson Road from Summit Ridge Drive. Guess where I got this photo? At the red light at Clemson Road! He committed several traffic violations: following too closely; unsafe lane change; failure to signal lane change; reckless driving; speeding; heavily-tinted window (side/front). The driver's  lane-change came close to being Assault with a motor vehicle. If you are going to drive stupid, a better license plate would be O0QO0OQ. Try to remember that one, when you are in a hurry. Or maybe WVWVVWV.

14 Barony Place Circle 32 Barony Place Circle Is three years too long to wait for landscaping to be done? There are 48 homes in Barony Place II. At $510/year for each, this neighborhood pays $24,480 in annual Association dues. In three years homeowners have paid $73,440 in dues. Wouldn't you think that the HOA would spend at least a little of that to repair the damage that was caused by an ice storm? Plus make the entrance presentable after removing a beautiful, tall, mature tree? The HOA likes to collect money, but it is stingy when it comes to spending it.  Unless a past President wanted a $40,000+ gate-lock fob system for the pools (which turned out to be a fiasco). Unless a past President wanted to hire off-duty deputies to ride around after-hours and perform duties are not authorized in the By-Laws. Unless ...   Unless ... Why hasn't the Projects or Landscaping Committee been on top of this? One excuse was no irrigation to the islands. OK, so put in something that do...

Can homeowners attend the Annual Meeting of Voting Members and witness the election of three directors on November 12, 2024? The PRM provides that the Nominating Committee Chair (Patricia Pollin) will preside* at the Election and will select several members of the audience to assist in the proceedings. What is "the audience"? Is it Members (homeowners)? If the authors of the PRM didn't mean Members and instead meant "Voting Members", wouldn't they have said so? Shouldn't Members have the right to witness the election of directors, who will govern the HOA? The PRM conflicts with the By-Laws in who presides over the Annual Meeting of Voting Members.  Art. II of the By-Laws covers Annual Meetings and Voting. Art. II, §3 states that "Meetings [of the Association] shall be of the Voting Members or their alternates." Art. II, §12 states "The President shall preside over all meetings of the Association, and the Secretary shall keep the minutes of...

An election of three directors is scheduled for Tuesday, November 12, 2024. On that date an Annual Meeting of Voting Members (AMVM) will be held, probably at 5:00PM.  The AMVM precedes the November Regular Meeting of the Board, which will start at 6:30PM. For the AMVM to be convened, there must be a quorum of [legitimate] Voting Members (VM). The PRM (Art. III, §H, ¶15) provides that a quorum for the AMVM is 51%. 28 x .51 = 14.28  There must 15 legitimate Voting Members (or Alternates) in attendance. The HOA's Secretary, Tanisha Holmes, is to call the roll of all Voting Members. How will she know that the VMs who show up are legitimate VMs and eligible to vote? The HOA's Property Manager (PM) should inspect the Association records and examine the documentation on file from each of the 28 Neighborhoods that informs the HOA of the Annual Neighborhood Meeting date at which the Voting Member was elected.  The PM should be careful to confirm that date is within approximately o...

In thinking about my next writing project, yesterday I approached a potential co-author about writing a book about all the good things Kamala Harris has done. The working title was going to be  Every Good Thing That Can Be Said about Kamala Harris. I was thinking of a small hardcover book, maybe about 100-150 pages. Every page would be blank! This morning I wondered if someone had already thought of this (I'm too often the last to think of a good idea, not the first). Checking on Amazon I found The Achievements of Kamala Harris , by Jason Dudash. $15.59 on Amazon. But there was one good thing in the sample on Amazon - a quote of Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.):  "If anyone can refute me - show me making a mistake of looking at things from the wrong perspective - I'll gladly change. It's the truth I'm after, and the truth never harmed anyone." For more than four years, I've been waiting for a member of any of the boards of directors of the HOA to refute me. ...

For four years this blog has been full of negative information about the Summit's HOA. What would it take to convert this blog into a vehicle of praise for the operation of the HOA? It's simple. Comply with the By-Laws. Is that too much to ask, on behalf of 2,480 property owners? If the Board was even just trying to comply, that would go a long way.  Many times I have offered help. I have explained the By-Laws to them. I have urged them to seek legal advice; competent legal advice, that is. And in writing, so that a record of it would survive from one board to the next. CAMS could do a lot to help the board. Instead, CAMS puts nice, but untrained, people in the office. It would be better if CAMS put nice trained, knowledgeable, and experienced people in the office. That's what the HOA is paying for, and that's what CAMS should provide. The Boards have allowed that. The Board forgets that IT is the one that hires CAMS. CAMS works for the HOA, not the other way around. ...

Nominations for the upcoming Board of Directors election closed last Friday, October 4. By now, the Nominating Committee should have met and reviewed the applications. There are three directors to be elected. The seats of Dennis Rybicki and Tanisha Holmes are up for re-election. The vacant seat* (Butler/Williams) on the board will be elected. The Nominating Committee is Patricia Pollin, chair; Michael Bryant, James Glenn, Jeff Lummel, Carmen Claud, and Kristie O'Brian. At the October 1st board meeting, Pollin announced that the Nominating Committee would meet on October 8.  According to the PRM, the Nominating Committee distributes copies of applications to the Voting Members, but  not to the current Directors  on the Board. She also announced that there would be a meeting on Saturday, Oct. 26, 9:00AM of the Nominating Committee and the Voting Members. At that meeting the applicants would be interviewed. Current Board members are not to attend the Oct. 26 meeting (PRM, Ar...

Here we are, almost 9½ months into 2024 and the HOA still has not published the 2023 Annual Audit. According to the Governing Documents (By-Laws, Art. III, Section C, Paragraph 19(g)), the Annual Audit should have been completed, delivered to the Board, and distributed to all the Members (homeowners) of the HOA by about May 1, 2024. Section 19. Accounts and Reports. The following management standards of performance will be followed unless the Board by resolution specifically determines otherwise:  (g) an annual report consisting of at least the following shall be distributed to all Members within one hundred twenty (120) days after the close of the fiscal year: (1) a balance sheet; (2) an operating (income) statement; and (3) a statement of changes in financial position for the fiscal year. The annual report referred to above shall be prepared on an audited or reviewed basis, as determined by the Board, by an independent public accountant; ..." Can the proposed 2025 Budget be prep...

Neighborhood Committee   Mission: Responsible for helping each community in the Summit to locate and elect a local neighborhood committee that will represent their community at SCA board meetings and thereby allow their Voting member to vote on vital issues that affect the Summit and their local neighborhood. The Neighborhood Committee will assist and advise local neighborhoods with problems that they encounter. Reginald Mack , Chairperson (Source: Summit HOA website 10/6/24) This may be the most important committee of the HOA. It was unilaterally disbanded in December 2023. In September 2024 homeowner Reginald Mack, a homeowner in Summit Hills IV, was appointed as Chair.  There was no formal restoration of the committee. Because it is a Standing Committee of the HOA, according to the PRM, the President's announcement in December of its dissolution should have had no effect. Why aren't there any members of the Committee? There are 27 "communities" (Neighborhoods) that...

Take a good look at the entrance to Barony Place II. At the direction of the Board of Directors, Green Earth tore out shrubs on both sides of the entrance Barony Place Circle and then did NOT come back to restore the ground. Thanks to Tracy Manderino and Gail Luckey we can enjoy the new appearance. When you see them, please thank them. I told Tracy to submit a bill to the HOA, but I don't think she is going to do it.

At last night's Board meeting, questions were asked about the Nominating Committee. At the September 10th Board meeting, the President announced that Patricia Pollin had agreed to chair the committee. I wrote recently that she is a nice person, but she is the newest member of the Board. A person in the audience asked how many people are on the Nominating Committee and how they were chosen. Patricia began to search through papers in a file and never did say how many are on the committee. After a month, she should have know the answer. Five are on the committee (Michael Bryant, Carmen Claud, James Glenn, Jeff Lummel, Kristie O'Brian). The members of the committee are supposed to be appointed each year, but the HOA has been sloppy about doing that. Danny provided part of the answer but could not be heard in the room, because several people were talking at the same time. A man in the audience  could be heard saying,  "The chair makes the decision who is on the committee."...

No, I'm not talking about Voter Fraud on a national level. Should Voter Fraud be allowed right here, in our own community? How am I defining Voter Fraud? It occurs when people who are not eligible to vote, are allowed to vote. The HOA is scheduled to elect three Directors on November 12, 2024. Voting Members will elect three directors. However, there is only one (1) legitimate Voting Member out of the 28 Neighborhoods - far short of a quorum for the Annual Meeting of Voting Members. Discussion has started about amending the By-Laws. This cannot be done without the approval of the Voting Members. The requirement in the By-Laws cannot be met, because there is only one (1) legitimate Voting Member. The very first order of the HOA should be for each Neighborhood to hold a Neighborhood Meeting and elect a Neighborhood Committee, which then elects its chairman (Neighborhood Representative / Voting Member. Will the newly-appointed chair of the HOA's Neighborhood Committee, Reginald Ma...

When are officers elected, after new directors are elected at an Annual Meeting of Voting Members? Every November three or four (depending on the year) directors are elected at an Annual Meeting of Voting Members. Officers are then elected at an Organizational Meeting. According to the By-Laws (Art. III, B. Meetings . Section 8. Organizational Meetings ):  "The first meeting of the Board of Directors following each annual meeting of the membership shall be held within ten (10) days thereafter at such time and place as shall be fixed by the Board." Question: If the annual meeting of members (the Annual Meeting of Voting Members) is held on November 12, 2024 at 5:00PM to elect Directors, and then the Board meets on November 12 (the same day) at 6:30PM, isn't this Board meeting "the first meeting" of the Board of Directors after the annual meeting of the membership? It just happens to be on the same day as the election by the Voting Members, and it is within ten (1...

One more monthly Board of Directors meeting has ended, and there was no Treasurer's report. A print-out of the August 31, 2024 financials was on the back table, but not a word was said by the Treasurer about the general financial condition of the HOA.  Remember how previous Treasurers used to say, "The HOA is in great shape financially"? It wasn't true, but it was always nice to hear. I haven't heard that even once in 2025.  There was mention of renewing a CD. And the Treasurer said, "We made a decision..." When was that? At the secret, private, closed, pre-board meeting last week? I thought they had stopped making decisions in secret earlier this year! (Except at the end of May, when they approved the "No Guns" sign on the gate to the office and pool.) The Board fails to discuss or approve the increasing variances clearly shown on Page 1 of the monthly Financial Overview Report. Why are those categories over-budget by so much in just eight mon...

At this time of year the HOA's Nominating Committee takes on importance. What is it and what does it do? From the Summit HOA's website on 10/1/2024: Nominating Mission: Provides quality candidates to hold office on the Board. Candidates will be of the highest caliber, selected for interpersonal skills, dedication to the betterment of our Association and community, and free of any personal agenda Open , Chair.   Michael Bryant, James Glenn, Jeff Lummel, and Kristie O'Brian. You'll notice that the position of Chair is shown as Open. Is it? At the September 10 monthly board meeting, President Danny Trapp announced that he had appointed Director Patricia Pollin as Chair of the Nominating Committee. She is the newest member of the board, having been appointed to succeed Greg Thomas, who resigned shortly after being elected in November 2023. Sheis a nice person, but should an experienced Board member have been appointed? With good coaching and support, there is no reason why ...

At the monthly board of directors' meetings the Treasurer makes numerous motions to expenditures, such as for tree removals requested by Green Earth, the HOA's landscaping contractor.  All expenditures over $200 now require the approval of the board. The previous threshold for approval by the board was $800, but late last year the then-office manager blew through that by authorizing $8,000 for a sign, even though she was just supposed to obtain bids. Earlier this year a member of the Finance Committee asked the Treasurer at a board meeting whether the requested expenditures were coming out of the budget. I don't recall the answer. The question should be asked again. As of the July 31, 2024 monthly financial report, the Annual 2025 Budget for Contract Landscaping (Line 6020) is $505,780.00. 7/12 of that is $295,038.31. The actual amount spent through July 31 is $294,805.00. The monthly contractual payment is $42,148.33. The August 31st financial report should be available at...