Member initiated CC&R Amendment wins with 81% YES votes
Laguna Niguel, December 8, 2003
Today at the Delegate Meeting of the Marina Hills Planned Community Association the votes cast by the District Delegates on behalf of the homeowners in their respective districts were finally tallied up. And the homeowners have reason to celebrate. The proposed amendment to the CC&Rs that allows parking of homeowners's cars in their own driveway has passed with flying colors.
"A record participation of more than 60% of all homeowners in this vote makes this vote very representative", said one supporting homeowner.
A big "Thank You" to all the homeowners who participated in the vote. Thank you for interrupting your dinner when an unknown neighbor knocked on your door, thank you for your time to understand the issues, thank you for your effort in turning in your proxy. Together we can make a change and return Marina Hills back to a place where all neighbors can live peacefully. And today we have successfully made a first change! 81% said YES.
Marina Hills has a total of 1538 homeowners, each of whom has one vote. 931 homeowner votes were counted, resulting in the more than 60% participation.
But the voting process, specified in part in the CC&Rs, is more complex. Marina Hills has 11 Districts ranging in size from about 78 homes for the Cabo Del Mar district to about 278 homes for the Monaco district. The homeowners do not vote directly, but they give their respective District Delegate instructions, by proxy, on on how to vote. The votes in each district are then summed up and checked for the 25% quorum requirement. If quorum is met the yes/no votes are counted and then scaled to the size of the district. (Example: Let's take a district has 100 homes, and let's say half of all homeowners send in their proxy. Let's further say that out of these 50 proxies 30 voted YES and 20 voted NO. This 30/20 ratio of the 50 votes is now scaled up to the full voting power of this district. In this case that is 60/40 for this district with the 100 homes.) At the District Delegate meeting the scaled-up votes for each district are formally given by the District Delegates to the Board. The scaled-up votes for all districts are then summed up to result in the final vote. (If you are interested to learn about the finer details, please consult the CC&Rs.)
Following the above described procedure of summing and then scaling up the votes in each district, and finally summing up the votes of all districts, resulted in 1244 YES votes against 298 NO votes. (Question: Why doesn't this equal 1538, the number of homes in Marina Hills?) Thus the members of the Marina Hills community passed this amendment with an astonishing 81%.
The successful passing of this member initiated CC&R change can be directly contributed to the time and effort that a number of homeowners volunteered. These volunteers went from home to home, answered homeowner's questions about this amendment, stressed the importance of participating in the vote, and collected proxies.
One of the final steps by the Board/Management/Lawyer is to have the change to CC&Rs duly recorded with the County.
The actual meeting of the Delegates was held at the Marina Hills Clubhouse on December 8, 2003, at 7 P.M.
None of the Directors of the Board were present. Mrs Denise Bergstrom from Keystone Pacific as well as Mr Richard Tinnelly, the lawyer hired by the board, were conducting the meeting. Most of the delegates from the Districts were there in person. The delegate from the Monaco District, who was on an anticipated and scheduled absence, had arranged to call in and formally announce the results in his district. He called in at about 7:10 P.M. The meeting lasted for about 15 minutes.
Today the members of the association have reason to celebrate. Not only did the member initiated CC&R change pass, it passed with record voter participation, and, through some last minute arrangements, the votes of all members have been counted. The outcome of this vote speaks the true mind of the members! The spirit of democracy has been served!
Nevertheless, some questions still remain unanswered. Why did the Board fight for the last several months to prevent some votes from being counted? Why has a letter to Mr Tinnelly about wrongful rejections of proxies gone unanswered? While the result of this particular vote is overwhelming clear, the question remains whether ALL proxies have been counted correctly. Why did no member of the Board participate, oversee or show any interest in this District Delegate Meeting on December 8, 2003? Why did no Board Member participate, help answer question of concerned homeowners, or show any interest in the Meeting of the Delegate members on December 3, 2003? Do the present Board Members have any interest in what the homeowners's concerns are?
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