Banner Violating POA Rules
The Board discussed the issue of the Duke banner/flag that has been displayed for some time on the street along the Governors Drive entrance. I am covering this point for two reasons. First, it gets lots of attention because it is in a visible location. Second, I have heard more than a few people question why this flag is allowed to stay in place when it clearly violates POA regulations. Those people will be interested in the outcome of this discussion.
Our policy on banners was put in place roughly 18 months ago and says that they are only allowed if attached to the house itself. This one is attached to a tree out by the street.
One of the Board members stated that, during a conversation six months ago, the owner promised to take it down once the “season ended”. Nobody was sure which “season” he was referring to. But it is still there.
After detailed discussions of numerous aspects of the issue, the Board directed the staff to send a formal communication to the owner asking that the banner be removed. It appears the Board wants to enforce the current policy on this and any other flag/banner of which they are aware.
Executive Session
In the middle of this meeting, the Board went into Executive Session for over an hour; during which no spectators are allowed. Only Board members attend these sessions, so I can’t report on exactly what was discussed.
However, see the next item for a change in procedures that will affect future Executive Sessions.
Resolution on Board Meeting Disclosure
The Board passed a resolution dealing with meeting procedures, and the most pertinent change had to do with Executive Sessions. As noted above, these are closed sessions among the Board members only (and staff when necessary). No spectators are allowed to attend.
This resolution says the following: “Legitimate reasons for closing a meeting generally concern issues that – if discussed in public – could violate privacy laws or harm or cause embarrassment to the association or another party.” It also lists examples of such items. Any motion or resolution agreed to in Executive Session must be formally moved and voted on in open session.
According to this resolution, from now on, when the Board moves to go into an Executive Session, the items to be discussed will be clearly stated as part of the motion. Until now, nobody outside the Board had any idea of what was discussed in Executive Session (unless a resolution was passed in open session; which does not happen very often).
Since the resolution was passed after this meeting’s Executive Session was held, there was no mention of the items discussed. The disclosure aspect will be effective for future meetings.
The full resolution can be found here:Exec Sessions Resolution
(Editorial note: This is a welcome change in as much as there must be good reasons for an item to be discussed in Executive Session; as opposed to simply wanting to avoid disclosure to the community.)
Hiring of Outside Advertising Salesperson
The Board passed a resolution authorizing the hiring of an outside person to sell advertising in our newsletter. Compensation will be a flat monthly fee plus an appropriate performance incentive. Since this decision was discussed in Executive Session and not in the open meeting, no further details were provided as to why this decision was made.
Update 6/1/12: Further information, which I assume was covered in Executive Session, has now been posted on the POA web site.
This was a recommendation of the Communications Committee. The committee “believes that the cost will be paid for by newsletter revenue”. Previously, sales were handled by staff members. However, with the reductions in staff that have taken place since year end, this was no longer a feasible option.
Resolution on Use of POA Member Information – Blast E-Mail Issue
This issue was raised two months ago and had to do with the use of member information (primarily e-mail addresses) from the POA Directory. It was prompted by blast e-mails which were, at that time, against POA policies. Background from that meeting can be found here: 3/12/12 Meeting Summary
When the Board ended deliberations on this issue in March, it was left to Kelley Hunter to do further research and come up with a proposed policy.
At this meeting, a resolution was proposed which apparently contained the policy being adopted. There was no reading of the resolution and no discussion. The Board voted unanimously in favor of the resolution. At that time, I had no idea what it said.
Three days later, the resolution was posted to the web site. It turns out that it simply contains the exact language from the state law; which is the same language Kelley Hunter presented back in March. If there was any further research done since then, it was not apparent.
The net effect of this policy is that any resident is allowed to use the POA Directory information to create an e-mail list and send blast e-mails to the entire community; even anonymously. This can be done only in accordance with state law; meaning that it must deal with a “member’s interest as a member”.
Since there was no discussion of this resolution, there was no indication that legal counsel had reviewed the language to confirm that it applied to our association. That most likely happened, but nothing was said about it during the meeting.
Two months ago, an idea was floated when discussing this issue. It was suggested that the Board adopt a resolution that prohibits the use of directory information for blast e-mails, anonymous or otherwise; and ask that residents voluntarily comply out of courtesy to other residents. Given the wording in the state law, there would be no recourse if somebody did use the information for those purposes; because compliance would be voluntary. However, it appears the Board was not interested in pursuing this option.
The full text of the resolution can be accessed through the link below:
Resolution on Use of Member Information
POA Web Site Blog
The Board and the Communications Committee will be running a test on a new blog section to be added to the web site. Assuming it works and the details can be ironed out, the intent is to make it available to the entire community. People will then be able to post their thoughts and observations; and others will be able to reply and comment.
(Editorial note: Perhaps those sending blast e-mails will find this to be an acceptable alternative to that behavior.)
Infrastructure/Roads Update
Larry Edwards received approval for the Infrastructure Committee to enter into negotiations with Philip Post & Associates for the engineering plan on the Front Gate to Manly project. This is the plan that can be given to contractors for bidding purposes. See last month’s update for the timetable. 4/17/12 Meeting Summary
Long Range Plan Committee
An update was given by Doug Frey; chairperson of the committee. He referred to a focus group meeting that the committee had with some local realtors to discuss marketing efforts. He also mentioned that other focus group meetings would be held with interested residents as well as past volunteers (past Board members, past committee members, etc.)
The worth of doing a “reserve study” was discussed at some length. This is a study that examines all of the community’s assets and estimates how much money should be put into reserves to ensure that everything is maintained properly. For example, such reserves would ensure that money would be available to replace or repair a capital asset (ie: the roof of the POA building) without necessarily assessing the membership to cover the cost (similar to what we are doing with the roads right now….).
Comments noted are as follows:
- “Best practices” would indicate that this be done every five years. The last one was done five years ago. I could not tell from the discussion whether that study had any effect on our finances or whether anybody was even paying attention to what it said. One director remarked that, after reading it, there was a sense of being underwhelmed.
- Staff commented that, from their experience, the studies were often “canned” and based on generic formulas to the point that they might not be of much use. One commented that a knowledgeable committee (or committees) might do a better job than the engineer.
- People seemed to recognize that the concept itself was good; namely to ensure that money was collected and put away for capital replacements and repairs. It was also noted that it might provide good reasoning and justification for “doing the right thing” and setting money aside from our dues for such reserves.
- The last study cost $30,000. Since we would not need it for the roads (since we are already doing those studies), it was suggested that a current study might be less expensive.
It was left that the Finance Committee would look into the concept and the projected scope of the work to see if they could come up with an estimated cost before deciding whether or not to go forward with a study.
Back Gate Update
Unfortunately, I am unable to provide updated information, because this item has not been discussed since the March meeting. See previous meeting summary: 3/12/12 Meeting Summary
There may have been information in the management reports, but these have not been made available to me.
Back in March, it was noted that the conversion costs had exceeded $45,000. If the costs have gone higher, there was no mention of it. There was a reference to the gate possibly being converted in June, but it was not a definite statement.
Update: From a management report dated 5-15-12 received on 6-1-12
The kiosk was to be installed by May 14th, and testing was to be done during the week of May 21st. The conversion was set for June 1st. No mention was made of any revised costs
Item not mentioned……..
There was one interesting item that was not discussed or even mentioned in the open meeting.
A week or more prior to this meeting, five of the seven members of the POA Marketing/PR Committee resigned; including the chairperson. One reason overrode all others. They felt that one Board member circumvented the Marketing/PR Committee with his own agenda after receiving committee plans which were open for discussion. More importantly, they felt that the rest of the Board was more supportive of this member’s actions rather than supportive of the committee and its efforts.
These members felt it was best to resign and let the Board pursue a broker relations program with which it felt more comfortable.
Some additional background may help you to better understand this situation. Since this was not discussed openly in the Board meeting, the following summary is distilled from conversations with several of the members who resigned. They spoke to me with the understanding that this was information that would be posted to this site.
The POA Marketing/PR Committee has, for all intents and purposes, been a realtor relations committee. Since no money has been allocated for any serious marketing efforts, better realtor relations has been the primary objective. Much of this has to do with the dynamic that has existed among three separate parties; Governors Club Realty, outside realtors and realtors that live within the gates. Over the past 10 to 15 years, that dynamic has occasionally been both unusual and strained. In particular, relations with realtors outside the gates have, for a number of reasons, suffered greatly.
To overcome that, the committee has been focusing its efforts on improving relations with outside realtors and increasing the local visibility of the community as a place to bring prospective buyers. Examples of such efforts included getting favorable press in area newspapers, holding open house functions for outside agents and providing better and easier access to information. All of this has been done with the ultimate goal of creating a welcoming atmosphere for outside realtors and making it easier for them to show and sell our houses.
Over the past few years, this Marketing/PR Committee has done a great deal of work with very little money. If you are not an agent or not reading all the newsletter articles, you would not know this. The work has been done quietly with the full knowledge of the Board and for the benefit of all residents in the community.
(Editorial Note: When dealing with real estate agents, one critical thought must be kept in mind. In the highly competitive world of real estate sales, what is good for one agent may not necessarily be viewed as good by another agent. For that reason, comments and suggestions from agents must be tempered by knowledge of the agency marketplace and an understanding of the dynamic of overall agency relationships both within and outside the gates. In other words, the opinions of one or two agents may not necessarily be worthy of accepting at face value.)
Now, to the issue that sparked the resignations. The Chairperson of the Long Range Plan Committee recently decided to have his committee meet with a few local realtors to discuss our current efforts to market to the realtor community. Nobody from the Marketing/PR Committee was informed of or invited to the meeting. Neither were the two outside realtor liaisons to the Marketing/PR Committee. Neither was the Board Liaison to the Marketing/PR Committee nor any other member of the Board.
From that meeting, the Chairperson produced a memo (sent only to Board and Long Range Plan committee members) that made suggestions to supposedly improve the marketing efforts. However, when the Marketing/PR Committee members finally saw they memo, they felt that the suggestions reflected a lack of knowledge of their committee’s efforts as well as little understanding of what agents in the community already knew. In fact, it could easily have been interpreted as being unjustifiably critical of the committee’s efforts; especially since nobody from the Marketing/PR Committee was there at the meeting to correct mistaken impressions.
The lack of any unified Board response to the concerns of the committee members left them with the feeling that the Board was supportive of this one Board member’s actions and opinions and not supportive of the committee’s efforts and opinions. Hence their collective decision to resign from the committee to let the Board pursue whatever broker relations program it felt was appropriate.
(Editorial Note: So far, to the extent news of this issue has spread within the community, it has been by word of mouth. As we all know, that can sometimes result in misinformation being passed on from person to person. I believe one key reason why those who resigned were comfortable with this information being posted is that, from their point of view, it gives an accurate summary of the entire situation; which arguably is better than relying on what might be just rumor and innuendo.)