The POA Board Of Directors eblasted another “Communication to the Community” today, in an attempt to update regarding the ongoing series of Voting mishaps. While the message did offer some helpful information, and began to explain some of the path forward, the Board once again failed to inspire confidence in their abilities to lead this community. They missed an opportunity to show true transparency, and to answer some critical questions.
First and foremost was their total avoidance of the “30/60 days past billing date” issue which left 323 properties, and an estimated 570 Voting members disenfranchised due to confusion over what exactly the Covenants and By-Laws state regarding ineligibility issues. They had two attorney teams rounded up, and with all of the confusion, bad sentiment, and sound arguments for a different interpretation than the board has offered – WHY did they not seek a legal opinion on the eligibility issues as well? My guess is that this Board is more motivated by saving face, than properly governing this community. That is no way to run a community, and we have reached an “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment, where the obviousness of this to the property owners is glaringly apparent, but the Board continues to act as if none of these problems exist, if they can only keep pretending.
The second issue will no doubt receive outcries of “heresy” for my audacity in even raising the question. WHO is the POA Staff member that “advised the election committee chair and the Board president that an attorney had been spoken to” and provided what appears to be clearly unsound legal advice? I think it is a legitimate question, and I further think that the second part of the question is… which Attorney gave the advice? Was it our long standing POA Attorney George Nowack or a member of his firm? Was it the same attorney that submitted the recently incorrect $5,000 Voter Approval Covenant language?
I’m sorry, but ACCOUNTABILITY, or lack thereof, is a huge part of the problem in Big Canoe. It is never anyone’s fault – just a cascading series of tragic and comical errors – that the Property Owners keep picking up the tab for. One only has to review the 2016 Land Deal Purchase Sales Agreement, or the 2005 Covenants to quickly ascertain that the Big Canoe Property Owners Association has historically NOT always been well served by it’s chosen legal representation. And now we have two (2) votes that are in recall – BOTH the result of legal incompetence.
The Property Owners deserve a full accounting. We are beyond the excuses of “we don’t want anyone’s feelings getting hurt”, which by the way is the general excuse always given for why property owners are NOT allowed to see election results either. Personally I would like to know if we are running close elections, blowout landslides etc. Not to embarrass people – but as a metric to judge how well our elections committee is doing in bringing forward quality and balanced canditorial representatives. Again, it is a well known secret in Big Canoe that nobody rises to any position of actual inside access, unless they have been “approved”. And that is why we have stagnated, and continue to stagnate under a small, tightly controlled group of elite, developer friendly individuals.
We need to let some sunshine into the process. Elections are only as good as the Voters understanding of the “Big Picture”. In Big Canoe we don’t have that, and that is unsettling given that we are all supposed to be “neighbors” – but those that ask questions or demand answers are all too often treated as adversaries in a power struggle for control of community funding – funding which we are not even allowed detailed access to the books thereof.
How much money are we spending on all of these attorneys? Is the attorney that was consulted at the outset, that provided the bad advice, going to refund our fees also? Perhaps more importantly – will we continue to use them?
– david / publisher
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