Barony Place I/Barony Place II

Some of you already lived in The Summit on 9/11/2001. What were you doing that morning? That was one of the days etched in our memories forever. Me? I remember exactly where I was. I was flying from Austin, Texas to Chicago O'Hare. My flight was close enough to ORD that it was not diverted. As we landed, the woman sitting next to me (a work colleague at Sears, Roebuck and Co.) turned on her cell phone before the nosewheel ever touched down. I heard the tones on her phone and was just about to tell her to turn it off when she said loudly, "WHAT? New York? How many planes?"  Her boyfriend had called her to tell her what was happening in New York. Other passengers heard her and turned on their phones, placing calls. The plane was directed to a holding area and, after about 20 minutes, the pilot announced that, since many passengers already knew what was happening, he would tell us what he knew. Eventually, the plane continued to a gate. By that time, the terminal was empty! ...

Does the Board President have an obligation to get a Board Member under control? When a board member reacts in an over-the-top manner to harmless events, the question naturally arises whether that person really belongs on the board of the HOA. I was reminded of a night (January 25, 2002 ) at a Richland 2 school board meeting. Before the meeting started, I stepped forward to introduce myself to a woman who had taken a seat in front of me. I didn't know who she was, and I had never seen her before. Unknowingly, I used words that must have struck fear into her heart.  What did I say? In a calm, friendly, polite manner, all I said was, "Hello, I'm Gus Philpott."  What did she say? "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! DON'T TALK TO ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Talk about being blind-sided... I asked the two men and the student with whom I had been speaking if they knew who she was. They didn't know, either. She turned out to be Supt. Baron Davis' wife, and she was a teache...

In just over two weeks the management of your HOA will change. CAMS will depart. The new HOA management company, Town & Country, will begin services. Managing a HOA of 2,480 properties and a large number of amenities and amount of Common Property is a daunting task for any property management firm. Who knows where all the keys are? Who knows where shut-offs are? Who knows the actual status of all projects that are in process? Who will know exactly how many homes there are in each neighborhood? (The list from the office in June 2024 showed 2,595 homes, when there were actually 2,480!) Did the Board have the foresight to require CAMS employees to create procedures manuals for each position in the office (property manager, assistant property manager, maintenance technician)? I recommended those several years ago to a past Board. The Board has been recent changes in numerous roles involving Board leadership and committee assignments. There are three unannounced vacancies on the Board,...

On December 28, 2024 a judicial proceeding against Gus Philpott (me) was started in the name of The Summit Community, Inc. This is your HOA. That legal action was specifically prohibited in the CC&Rs (Art. XIII, §10 Litigation ), because the Board had never sought or obtained the approval of 75% of the Voting Members. Further, the Board never voted to approve it. And the Board never authorized the Board President, Danny Trapp, to have it filed by the HOA's attorney at Turner Padget. There is no record in the Minutes of Board Meetings of any approval by the Board. The full board has been aware of the case for some time, and it has never discussed the existence of the case during a monthly Board meeting or voted to stop it. Because the Board has failed to stop an unauthorized, prohibited legal action, could the HOA and the Board members be liable for their failure? The law firm of Turner Padget was retained on May 7, 2024 as the attorney for the Association ; its legal fees are ...

Vernell Butler showed up at a meeting of the Voting Members this week. He claimed he is a Voting Member. Is he? Vernell was on the HOA's Board of Directors until shortly after November 7, 2023. He had been elected to the Board on December 1, 2020 and was re-elected to the Board in November 2022 for a two-year term (2022-2024). But, when he was not re-elected as Treasurer at the board-officer election in 2023, he quit abruptly - both as Treasurer and as a Board Member. He must have heard about the Voting Member meeting this week and showed up, uninvited. He claimed to be a Voting Member. But is he? On what date was the Neighborhood Meeting in the neighborhood of his property? Was a quorum of homeowners present, in-person or by proxy? Who was elected to the (local) Neighborhood Committee? Who was elected as chairman of that Neighborhood Committee? That person becomes the Voting Member. When was documentation filed at the office? Vernell is the guy who tried to block me from entering ...

The next election of directors will be Tuesday, November 4, 2025. Four directors are to be elected. Applications close on Friday, October 3rd. The seats of Danny Trapp, Brenda Bryant, Linda Potter, and Patricia Pollin will be open. Why is this election so important? The chaos of the past two years must be stopped. Poor decision-making, pettiness, divisiveness, and arguments must cease.  The Board of Directors should work together for the betterment of the Association and the community. Personal agendas should be left at home. Unilateral decisions must stop. Danny Trapp was elected to the Board in November 2023, and then the Board elected him as President.  He declared himself as the sole contact with the new lawyer. The Board never voted on that and should not have allowed it. Having one person on the Board who is sole contact with the lawyer is not necessarily a bad idea, but that one person must keep the full board involved on all legal matters. That has not happened. Trapp ...

When you look at the Committee listings on the HOA's website today, you will see some changes that have not been announced. The most-important committee of the HOA, the Neighborhood Committee (of the HOA), no longer has a chairman. Reginald Mack's name has been removed from the list on the website. Did he quit or was he removed? This committee should have had 5-6 members, but none has ever been identified. Is that committee dead in the water now? The Neighborhood Committee is responsible for  assisting the 28 Neighborhoods to hold Neighborhood Meetings, elect Neighborhood Committees, and elect the Voting Member. That Committee has never operated in a manner to accomplish its Mission. Another change is that Mike Bryant's name no longer appears as a member of the Finance Committee, the Nominating Committee, or the Covenants Committee. Mike is a long-time homeowner in The Summit, having purchased his home in about 1992.  You'll see Mike's name on these committees in th...