Deliberate Misinformation or Incompetence or just Carelessness?
As of this writing on January 6, 2004, one week away from the January13, 2004 Board Meeting, the web calendar on the official Marina Hills web site shows the calendar depicted below.
Official
web calendar form the Marina Hills Board lists upcoming Board meeting
incorrectly. The Board Meeting has been rescheduled for the 13th of
January. This information has been
known to SaveMarinaHills.org since December 23, but is not reflected
in the official web calendar as of January 6. The suspicion of deliberate
misinformation to the members comes to mind.
The January 2004 calendar for the master association wrongly lists the date of the Board meeting. The phases of the moon seem to be correct.
That is a 100% failure rate for January 2004.
Note from SaveMarinaHills.org: Thank you for listening! On January 7, 2004, the official calendar has finally been brought up to date and reflects the correct date for the Board Meeting on January 13, 2004.
During the month of December 2003 the web calendar on the official Marina Hills web site did show (and still does as of January 6, 2004) the calendar depicted below.
Note: This calendar does not function correctly. When you first bring it up, it says December 2003, but it shows the days and dates of November 2003 (the 1st of the month is a Saturday). You can recover from this by going to January 2004 and then coming back to December 2003. Wake up Mrs. Denise Bergstrom at Keystone Pacific!. But this particular malfunction is not the reason for this article.
The calendar for December 2003 lists the sub-association Encore meeting, which is correct.
The calendar incorrectly lists the monthly Board meeting, which was foregone by the Board of Directors, as announced during the November Board Meeting.
The calendar fails to mention two other important meetings that did happen: On December 3, 2003, there was a Delegate-Member meeting for the garage door / driveway petition. On December 8, 2003, there was a Delegate-Board meeting for the garage door / driveway petition. Both of these meetings were known to the Board about 60 days in advance of the meetings.
Official
web calendar form the Marina Hills Board lists 3 out 3 (that
is 100%) of the master association meetings wrong. Since it would be
such an
easy task to maintain this calendar properly, the suspicion of deliberate
misinformation to the members comes to mind.in summary, the calendar for the master association misses to mention two meetings and lists one meeting that had been cancelled a month earlier.
That is a 100% failure rate for December 2003.
Does the Board intentionally misinform the members to hinder the democratic process?
Or is it incompetence by the Board to properly instruct and then monitor the implementation of information flow to the members?
All members are paying for an employee of the Board, Mrs Cheryl Wilson, who easily could go on the official web site once a month and initiate a correction of such a problem. Does any Board Member, or the management company or the Board's own employee care?
Information flow - or the lack thereof
CC&Rs and Bylaws The CC&Rs and the Bylaws are the most basic documents of our association, governing among other things the powers, duties and prohibitions of the Members of the Board as well as the rights of the members. These documents are as important to the association, as our constitution and the law is to our country.
It appears that the Marina Hills Board is making it difficult for members to have ready access to this information.
Until recently (Fall 2003), there was not even a copy of the CC&Rs and the Bylaws available at the Club House, as required by California State law.
A homeowner visited the Club House requesting to see the CC&Rs. He was informed by the employee of the Board, Mrs. Cheryl Wilson, that such a copy was not available. Only when the homeowner cited the requirement of the state law, was the unlawful withholding of information corrected.
The Marina Hills Board has hired a management company, Keystone Pacific. Keystone Pacific provides a official web site for Marina Hills which is supposed to provide information to the members. Why does the official web site not provide an online copy of the CC&Rs? It took me more time to find the documents and to check them for completeness that to put them on this web site.
Why are the Members of the Board making it difficult for the homeowners to be informed? Do the Members of the Board believe that such lack of information by the homeowners will allow them to not follow the rules and duties, such as the recent missing of a deadline after homeowners had filed two petitions in accordance with the CC&Rs and Bylaws?
Board Meetings The Bylaws specify that the Board shall meet once a month. Most months that actually happens. Let's assume for a moment that the Board meeting is correctly announced in the calendar. How would a board member know whether or not to come to a particular board meeting? Wouldn't it be good information policy for the Board to post an agenda on the official web site? Instead, according to the official Marina Hills community newsletter "The Monthly Board of Directors Meeting agenda will be posted, each month, on the two recreation center glass-enclosed bulletin boards approximately one week prior to the monthly meeting."
Again, why are the Members of the Board making it difficult for the homeowners to be informed?
Wouldn't it be good information policy for the Board to make a rule to announce Special Meetings for the Board of Directors Meetings on the official web site, rather than just on a prominent place with in the properties?
Wouldn't it be good information policy for the Board to make a rule about posting the Board's Actions without a Meeting on the official web site, rather than just on a prominent place with in the properties?
Wouldn't it be good information policy for the Board to make the Executive Session as short as possible and only to discuss what the Bylaws actually allow, and to discuss all other matters in the open part of the Board meeting.
What is so secret that the members cannot hear it. Is the Board of Directors trying to hide information from the members of the association?
Do the members of the Board feel more comfortable when no or few homeowners come to the Board Meetings?
Minutes of the Board Meetings: Why does it take so long to obtain the minutes of the Board Meetings? As of this writing, about six weeks after the November Board Meeting, the minutes cannot be found anywhere. A homeowner, who wants to know what happened in the November Board Meeting will have to wait until January to find the minutes on the official web site, and until March (that is four months later) until a short summary is printed in the newsletter. And if you go on the web site, the Board Minutes are encoded in PDF format, not easy and for some members impossible to download and decode.
Why can't the Board approve the Minutes as an Action Without a Meeting and post the minutes in an easy to read format on the web site within less than a week after Board Meeting. That would be good information policy. And that would show a democratic spirit.
Conduct during Board Meetings: When one observes the Board Members during a regular board meeting I find it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to follow the discussion. This is because the board members use written information that is only available to the Board Members and not to the attending members.
Example: Mr. Calvin Wilson brings forward the motion to vote on point number 5 of page 121 of the document in front all the board members, but unavailable to any homeowners. Mr. Chuck Johnston then seconds the motion and then all Board Members vote on the issue without the homeowners ever knowing what the vote was about.
In the past other homeowners and I have attempted to ask the board about the context of their vote, only to be told by Mrs. Jane Dry (the lady with that little hammer!) that the members were not allowed to talk out of order, but that they would be allowed to talk at the homeowners forum. I have attempted to push the issue so I and the participating homeowners can understand what is going on, only to be warned by Mr. Calvin Wilson to be quiet or alternatively to be removed by the security guard out of the meeting room.
When one looks at the above documented details, it appears that:
The Directors of the Marina Hills Board are not acting democratically.
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