General Discussions/Comments

It's easy to pinpoint where the moral compass goes astray. Our bylaws deem any election invalid if the quorum threshold is not met. As we all know it's essentially a mission-critical item for the community to have a board of directors to manage the affairs and obligations of our association. It is not practical, economical, or realistic to have everyone distracted by perpetually holding elections every 15 days. An opinion from a scumbag corporate attorney (our paid servant) provides the board with cover to vote and accept "in good faith" the results of their own election. In this instance, it may indeed be "good faith" because the association does require a board to operate and members and their interests could be harmed if we do not have anyone steering the ship. Somehow that justification has turned into a blank check to continuously violate every member's rights well in the future with various justifications. It started small. Instead of continuing to act "in good faith", the board simply changes the bylaws to lower the quorum threshold in an attempt to eliminate the ethical dilemma the bylaws create each election cycle. They were even generous enough to put it up for a member vote but when the vote did not pass the quorum threshold

they simply applied the changes anyway. easy peasy lemon squeezy. I ask anyone this key question to put that particular decision to an ethical test. Was the decision to re-write our bylaws mission-critical? Did the success or failure of the community depend upon changing the bylaws in the first place? Would members and their interests be harmed if the documents were not changed? Would the roads continue to be attended to and would the water still flow from the well if the scribbles on the paper remained unchanged? The reason I ask is that our bylaws belong to everyone. They are yours and mine. If you think about it our governing documents are actually community property. As we all know our board of directors has a fiduciary duty to protect our community property. We trust our leaders to safeguard it for future generations. Instead, the board chose to violate it. our property. our rights. Multiple times. The justification I reviewed stated basically the board had gotten away with it once, so they were justified to do it again. This tyrannical attitude is reckless, disgusting, and unacceptable. This brings me to my next main point. Elections are the sole mechanism for members to exercise their power over the board. We as members have the right and power to elect or recall & replace our board members. Elections are our sacred right. Our original bylaws permitted the members to exercise this right annually for the entire leadership team and that provision must be restored. Our right to elections was stolen first when the bylaws were rewritten to increase the term of board members. I wish that is where the story ended, friends but my examination of corporate documents, meeting minutes, and general testimony revealed the board would continue to violate our rights because as we all know the allure of tyranny can be addictive. It was stolen again just last year when another board member was generously granted a three-year term. Think of it. The board granted itself the power to exempt another member from the next two elections. Our board conspired together to deny each of us the power and ability to exercise our sacred right. Where did this power come from? If you had gambled the board diligently solicited all members for input with an exhaustive inquiry as they had previously done before changing the bylaws to grant themself this new power over elections you would be mistaken. The board allowed it through a simple vote amongst themselves. So there you have it. Tyranny is only a hop, skip, and jump away. I implore the new board to start fresh with a clean slate and show some "good faith". Promptly restore all the original rights and property of all members and owners including provisions of bylaws that allow for annual elections of THE ENTIRE BOARD and any other rights that were deleted and remove provisions that were inserted without proper authority to act. Finally moving forward please take this pledge I promise to follow our governing documents to the best of my ability, protect and preserve our community property, and disavow any effort to blatantly violate our member's trust at any time regardless of how alluring tyranny may be.