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Election Tuesday 4/16 at 7PM, Another Bad Bylaw Change by Kevin Wine, Apr 14, 2024, 1:01 PM, reply, branch, edit

The 2023 Annual Meeting/Election will finally be taking place on Tuesday, April 16, at 7PM. It looks like you can attend the meeting either IN PERSON at the clubhouse, or ON-LINE via ZOOM:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7166537709?omn=85458112746

Meeting ID: 716 653 7709

If you still haven't voted, you can vote in person at 7PM. They have to allow you to do this. But you will need to be there at 7PM - they will cut off the in-person voting early in the meeting, so you will need to be there at 7PM! The meeting won't last long, and even if it did, you don't have to hang around.

I'm almost certain this is going to be another close vote - many of the elections over the last 5 years have been a difference of 10 or 15 votes between winners and losers. It looks like the "Tong Block" of 50 to 60 voters have not participated in the process this year, and the "Kevin Haters" have serval other candidates to choose from, which will dilute their votes. I think there is a chance that I, Anthony Blanco, and Zahid Khan can restore some sanity and logic to the decision making here, but I wouldn't leave this to chance. If you can vote, please do so.

On-Line Counting at 2PM
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In spite of what the law says, and the reality that COVID is over, the Board is still going to do the ballot counting BEFORE the 7PM meeting, and ONLY VIA ZOOM at:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7166537709?omn=81273698542

Meeting ID: 716 653 7709

The counting starts at 2PM, which means the result will be known to some people well before the 7PM meeting. This is a horrible idea, as such information could easily be exploited since the voting isn't actually closed until around 7PM. Obviously, knowing what the result is hours before voting is closed could possibly motivate certain parties to mobilize in the last minute and "get their vote out" at the 7PM meeting.

Bylaw Amendment Mailing
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It looks like bylaw amendments are going to be the new normal, as the Board is trying to change the bylaws for the 4th time in the last few years. I finally received a letter a few days ago, dated March 28, over 10 days later. Remember there is a 30 day deadline to reply, so 10 days of that 30 days are already gone. The letter arrived in a windowed envelope with "Presorted First Class PAID" postage, looking very much like junk mail. I assume this is intentional, as this Board continues to use every trick in the book to get what they want.

Only about 45 owners (in good standing) need to vote NO and send back the rejection proxy to force the Board to put this amendment to a vote of the entire membership, as it should be on such a serious change. They are trying to steal our escrow money. They make it sound like it's "free money", but it's not!! It's still your money, and they are taking it. At least force them to do it legally.

Their list of things they are going to do with this money - insurance premium, paving, more roofs, and pool retaining wall - totals to WAY more than $200k in escrow. The paving alone will be well over $200k (was over that already in 2016 quotes), 4 roofs is at least $200k easily (they average $50k to $60k per roof), and the pool retaining wall will easily be blown up into a $200k+ project. They are being very deceptive with their claim that the escrow will cover all these expenses - it won't. They will still need another half a million from us.

In case you didn't see this yet, here is their letter:

https://www.savethehill.org/Legal/2024-4-11_EscrowAmendment2.pdf

Another "Saving Money" Example
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I couldn't help but notice how the wheel-loader (the big yellow machine) hasn't moved in several weeks (parked under the basketball hoop) and that the "new" $58,000 dump truck is missing. I found out that both are broken. So the Board is having the crew mulch the entire property with the "Gator" - the little ATV vehicle that can carry about a third of a yard of mulch. This is insane. It is going to take 2 to 3 times longer to do the mulch. Clearly, and yet again, is is painfully obvious that the Board or whoever is making the decisions over there has never done any of this kind of work before. They think they are saving money by not repairing the equipment, while they are doubling (at least) the labor cost of a project, which amounts to several times the cost of making the repairs I'm sure. Genius.

Kevin