Cynthia requested that her discussion on ineligible voters be posted at bcmatters.org. Thank you Cynthia for your thorough research. (Patricia)
My questions and research on the eligible ballot interpretation continues....
As many of you know for the first time in 32 years of Big Canoe life, my husband, David and I were one of the 323 properties denied the right to vote in the current POA Board election.
We filed a complaint with all of the concerned POA leadership.
Lou Stephenson sent us a copy of the 11/27/19 Memo from the board.......sent in an e -blast to property owners.
Per the Explanation the denial is supported by:
1988 covenant Article VI, Sec. 7...regarding assessment past due date (30) days from statement date
2006 By-law Section 2.7 .....Suspension of rights.....to vote AND use amenities etc.
But this still seems to contradict what our monthly statements imply.
What are the practices and precedents on this?
Where has this rather arbitrary interpretation been clearly communicated?
In our case the 30 day past due date was October 30, Jane Hagan ran the ‘record date’ for ballots on October 31, our payment was posted on November 1. Per the board’s interpretation of the 2006 By Law, Section 2.7, our rights to vote and use amenities was suspended. No ballot ......nor could our property be utilized to establish a QUORUM calculation ....per the POA Board’s e-blast on November 27.
Our questions....
What is the impact of omitting our property from the Quorum calculation?
Why would our BC leadership desire to omit 323 properties from voting as well as being considered as part of the community in the quorum calculation?
Why would our board continue to allow the monthly statement language to MIS-LEAD us and other property owners as revealed on Facebook and in conversation with neighbors to assume that we were only a few days past due from the 25th as indicated on the statement.
This action did not seem like an act that would be acceptable in our Big Canoe community .....noted for its leadership transparency, effective communication and for fostering property owner PARTICIPATION .....not exclusion.
So we further searched for clues to shed light on these questions.
We began searching for some public announcement we had missed earlier (as the e blast indicated that it had “been followed for years”.)
I also e mailed Bob Crouch, former POA two term POA board member as he and former GM Roger Klask signed the suspension of rights by-law in 2006. He has not answered yet. (See updated information at the bottom of this article.)
So I began searching Smoke Signals archives to see if some alert reporter picked up on the announcement, or a board member briefed us in a column, or the elections committee alerted us in their many announcements of the candidates each year. I queried the Smoke Signals archives every way I could think of.
I read every announcement of board candidates, board candidates’ meet and greet sessions, debates etc. from 2008 to present. While almost every article indicated that ballots would go out in November to property owners, NONE said “to property owners who are no more than 29 days past due”! It would have been so easy, to just say it!
HOWEVER, I did find one very clear explanation of the interpretation of the COVENANT and BY-LAW that is referenced by our current board in the 11/27/19 e-blast.
It was in 2008 .....long after the covenant was written in 1988 and passed by the property owners ......and two years after the 2006 POA Board wrote and voted on the referenced 2006 By-law to suspend voting and amenity rights and privileges.
It was found in a Smoke Signals article dated 8/15/08.
This Smoke Signals article reviewed questions regarding our attempt to pass a Capital Reserve Fund in 2008. ( It did not pass.)
The Smoke Signals article clearly indicates that a potential ‘voter in good standing’ is a property not more than 60 days delinquent.
Note also the described voter as a ‘voter in good standing’.
It also describes eligible votes used to calculate the quorum. This quorum calculation was redefined in the 2006 By Law change. (Previously the base of the entitled votes to calculate the quorum had been the county records of a certain date multiplied by the entitled votes in each class of property. )
I also found a 2005 Smoke Signals article titled Monthly Chat with POA General manager concerning unpaid property owner accounts which substantiates that the 1988 Covenant was interpreted by GM Stan Stewart to suspend voting rights at 60 days. This coincides with an Assessment Delinquency Policy of May 18, 2005, Board action 05 18 05-02 given to me by a POA board member.
Praise goes out to Smoke Signals staff for our archives on line! What a great historical record!
NOW, who, what, when, and why was this interpretation changed somewhere between 2008 and today! Did we decide to get ugly and be despotic at some point since 2005, write a suspension of rights by-law in 2006, but then say very publicly in 2008 (as most of us assumed until this election) that it was 30 days after the date indicated as the past due date on the statement which would be 60 days. Or did we think the cost of sending out all those ballots needed to be reduced so we just eliminated those paying 18% for being a few days late. Did we think at some point on some ballot that having a smaller quorum would give more potential strength to the known yes votes?
The mixed messages and lack of transparency on this decision causes me to wonder outside my normal “box”.
So today I went back to the governing documents on our web site and pulled up the RULES to see what they say about voting rights and suspension of privileges to use amenities. They are confusing as well. In the “General” introduction to the rules (page 1) indicate 30 days is automatic yet on page 7, A.5, 2., 2.2 “If a Property Owner has a past due balance of more than sixty (60) days, the following will apply:
a. Loss of all amenity usage......
b. Loss of all member charging....
C. Loss of right to vote on membership issues....
So, it is no wonder that the property owners were bewildered by this ineligible voter decision.
Go to POA site>log in>menu>POA>governing documents>rules...page 1 and page 7. These rules were reviewed May 23, 2019 by our current leadership.
Why would we leave A.5, 2, 2.2 as 60 days for everything if our intention is an arbitrary 30 days on voting rights and 60 days on amenity rights as Amy Tropfenbaum posted on Facebook last week?
Who is writing these documents? Who is reviewing? We need to clean this up and I personally think anyone who was less than 60 days on October 31 should get a ballot and an apology.
I also plan to turn this information over to our auditors and attorneys.
Hopefully, they can motivate our leadership to clean this up and answer my questions.
Has our voting been legal since this interpretation was made?
Cynthia Hendry (0017 Petit Ridge Drive)
Updated Information: Former 2 term POA Board Member and 3 year president of our board just telephoned to say that the Smoke Signals archives clearly reflect his board's interpretation of this referenced by-law and covenant . . . no one was omitted until they were delinquent for more than 60 days. This would cover 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,2010. My questions remain . . when did it change? Why did it change? What outcome on voting results did this change generate as the current interpretation misrepresents the quorum calculation and the potential voting result.