Just because of the fact that my wife and I are easily entertained, we made the short trip down to the Lodge of the Great Northwest to attend a Town Hall meeting presented by the GNWCIA.
The point of the meeting was two-fold; first we would all get to meet the two candidates running unopposed for the two open – or should I say, soon to be open seats on the board of directors for our association. The second item on the agenda was to receive a presentation on the proposed by-law amendments that will be on the ballot during our annual meeting.
Based on the less than capacity turnout for this Town Hall meeting, I’d say that we are in danger of not having a quorum for the annual HOA election. What this means is that, the vote for both directors and by-law amendments would be null and void, and the five remaining directors on the board would have to appoint two new directors to fill the vacancies. 
As a resident and voter, you should know that there is no guarantee that the remaining directors will automatically appoint the two candidates. This is especially true considering what I will politely call an underwhelming performance by the two candidates during their opportunity to address those people that were interested enough to show-up for the meeting. This is not to cast a stone at either of the candidates; the average person, myself included has a problem getting before a crowd and giving a political speech or oral resume before a mostly unknown crowd. But it was not as though it was a surprise. At minimum, I think both would have served themselves and the voters better had they at least had a few notes or even a statement to be read explaining who they are, their views on the association problems, and what they would do to help the board fix things. Instead, in the five minutes allotted for each to speak, we got a lot of uncertain jibber-jabber.
In fairness to both candidates, they interacted much better with the crowd after the formal presentation and I suspect they will do fine once elected (or appointed), and can be severed from the umbilical cord of a former board chairman who prompted their desire to be candidates in the first place.
Up next, Director Myrl Britten provided a solid presentation on the two proposed by law changes; the first would allow the assessment of fines for people who violate deed restrictions, the second would remove a cap of $300,000 for the association to have in reserve funds. I have discussed these by-laws in a previous post.
The usual suspect was prepared to debate both by-law changes (and any associated punctuation they might incur), and he came armed with a folder full of spreadsheets, old reports, hand-written notes, and one might presume, the dead sea scrolls. I could give you great entertainment in relaying the various arguments but A) you should really make an effort to see these things first hand, and 2) it was all the usual jibber-jabber we have heard time and time again. In the end, and I don’t wish to put words in the mouth of my friend, Joe Martinez, it would appear that he doesn’t necessarily oppose the changes to the by-laws, but the method by which the board is pursuing them.
Reasonable folks can disagree and there is always more than one way to skin a cat, provided it is legal. Mr. Martinez would like the approach of having people who want to change the association covenants go out door to door and gather support for changes by having people sign petitions. I say the reason you have an elected board is to let them represent the residents, and if they screw up, you vote them off the board, or I suppose, you remove them from the board, ahem.
More important to this discussion is the suggestion by Mr. Martinez that the board isn’t providing the residents with enough information. I laugh at this on two fronts: First, he makes this statement in a well publicized town hall meeting that is open to all the residents and frankly, anyone who felt like wandering in. There is no price of admission or checking of IDs etc. Nobody was discouraged admittance, yet, we had roughly more than a handful of people – most of who are the regulars at all the board meetings.
Secondly, the information is delivered to homes in the form of Passages, the local newspaper, and every homeowner receives a mailing containing the ballot. How much more information could be made available?
The truth of the matter is; I find that people are not interested. They aren’t interested because either they are tired of the constant bellyaching by a few people who aren’t so much against what the board does, but just how the board does it. And for the people who aren't tired of the bickering, I submit they must otherwise be happy enough with their lives in the GNW, because apparently attending town hall meetings or board meetings simply aren’t worth the hour or two that it takes to move away from the TV. And I can’t blame them.
I can tell you that I have never been to a City Council meeting downtown (though I have watched many, many times on TV). I can also tell you that I did not attend my first GNWCIA Board meeting until about two years ago, even though I have lived here for 10 years. In other words, I acknowledge to an extent being the pot calling the kettle "black"; I recognize that we have many people who did their time serving on committees, being involved and trying to participate, but they have lost the motivation. Likewise, I submit that some of you reading this (or not) will get the urge to one day come out and join the fun. Everyone in their own time.
So there you have it. Get involved if you want, vote if you want, move away if you want. I’m not going to second guess the interests of my fellow residents or attempt to tell them how they should proceed. But I will tell you this: I doubt we will have a quorum for the second year in a row, and frankly, that is pretty sad.
Eva and I were saddened to learn late last night that Guy D. Pucci, a Director on the Board of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association, has passed away. No real details at the moment other than he seems to have died of natural causes at his home in Ridge Creek.
Guy D. was a frequent visitor and left comments here in spite of the fact that in several of the original posts on this Blog, I questioned his lawsuit against the association. Okay, I said it was frivolous waste of money.
In the last year or so since then, having gotten to know and occasionally do volunteer projects with Guy, I have learned that he was a man of action and not mere words. Not more than a month ago, he and I had a conversation about the fact that we both lived in the community for years before ever demonstrating any interest in what the association did, as long as things seemed to be running smoothly. I think most residents can appreciate that attitude. It was not until, as a resident, he personally felt that things weren't running smoothly and he chose to take action in the form of a lawsuit and running for and winning election to the board.
Since that time, Guy has put in an unimaginable number of hours volunteering his time for association related projects including spearheading efforts to enhance security, taking on the responsibilities as the voting officer in the last election, and where I saw him most, helping out with painting, raking, and picking up trash as a member of the A-Team. But he did so much more behind the scenes.
Our last series of conversations and e-mails revolved around Guy's proposals for a greater Great Northwest. As outlined in his published response to the association, granted as part of the lawsuit settlement, Guy used the editorial to describe improvements and ideas on how to benefit all residents. He had suggestions for meeting the needs of homeowners who may violate deed restrictions by assisting them with finding locally owned businesses who could provide substantial discounts on lawn services, simply for being a GNW resident. He wanted to use the power of this large block of voters (The GNW is, I believe, the largest neighborhood association in the city) not only to garner services from the City of San Antonio, but from the business community that thrives from our buying power. And yes, I agreed with his suggestions. You can read his complete editorial in the July 2008 Passages.
At this point, I'm not aware of any arrangements. Guy was single but his father, Mr. Ben Pucci (yes, the former professional football player and childhood friend of Yogi Berra and Joe Garagiola) is also a resident of the Great Northwest, and we send our condolences to him and the family.
The board has cancelled their Thursday, 21 August meeting, and will probably have it next Thursday.
UPDATE: Funeral Arrangements:
- Tuesday, August 26:
- 9:00 Visitation
- 9:30 Rosary
- 10:00 Funeral
Prince of Peace Catholic Church
7893 Grissom
For more information: www.meadowlawn.net
I made a solo trip down to the lodge of the Great Northwest to attend the meeting of the Board of Directors of the GNWCIA this evening; my wife was off gallivanting with the girls over at Johnny Carinos, and by all accounts, I got the better end of the deal. My wife can address the failures of Carinos on her own time; I'll fill you in on the details of the board meeting.
This new board is all about getting on with it. No endless whining or demands to consult the lawyer. But in fairness, some of the audience members would like to get a little more interaction. We had several folks sign up to speak and instead of being able to ask questions to the board, they are simply making statements. The board takes note of anything that needs to be responded to and I assume it is addressed later. I know some of my neighbors don't like this; a resident should be able to voice a complaint and get an answer from the board.
Hmmm. I'm gonna have to say I've witnessed the free-for-all in the past, and I prefer this method.
The other thing the board is doing is sticking to the three-minute rule. And in fact, we had one resident speaking on multiple topics regarding the recreation department, the pools, the bulletin boards and, oh yes, some person threw-up in one of the pools today, prompting it to be closed for an hour. Apparently, upon close inspection, no chlorine shock of the system was conducted which meant that it may well have been a re-make of the pool scene in Caddy Shack! Eewww!
Okay, so with that the speaker's three-minutes were up and she responded with, "But I just got to the best part!" To me, that's like saying, "Hold my beer and watch this!"
What I could discern from the conversation that took place away from the public address system, was that the speaker felt that another resident owed a board member an apology for comments that had been made at the previous board meeting. This resulted in the challenged resident to respond that she did not owe anyone an apology. There was some Yes you do - No I don't back and forth, and then the speaker left the podium.
As God is my witness, my camera was sitting in the console of my van in the parking lot and my cell phone was powered off, so my primary source of pictures and the alternate were both out of action. I was convinced fisticuffs would ensue in full cat fight fashion, and I'd be standing there gawking with a pen and the back of a Styrofoam coffee cup trying to sketch artist my way onto the front page of the Express-News. But no luck. Calmer heads prevailed and the meeting moved on without further incident.
I am pleased to report that the story I did regarding the greenbelt in our area was picked up for publication in Passages. I'll be happy to sign your copy next month.
One other thing to note. There is an issue about getting the budget or the financial report submitted for review. Some of the residents who spoke would like to see the thing finally finished up and presented to members. I've said it before and mentioned it again to a few of the concerned residents that, maybe we should give the folks a chance to get things figured out. We have a fairly new community manager, we have had numerous staff changes in the accounting area and of course we have a new board. But, it has been a while.
Okay, so there you have it. My quick minutes. You do know of course that as a resident, you can always go to the office and request the official minutes of the meetings and the closed sessions. All you have to do is ask. But I bet there won't be any cat fight references. So always check here, first.
Talk about smooth and efficient! My wife and I headed down to the Lodge of the Great Northwest to attend the meeting of the board of directors of the GNW Community Improvement Association (GNWCIA), and it was wrapped up and we were on our way in under an hour. Outstanding! No bickering or infighting, no ridiculous interruptions asking to consult the lawyer; just honest, volunteer members trying to do the business of the association. I'm a huge fan of that. So here goes with a quick recap if you care...
- We heard from one resident asking about a financial report that hasn't been presented.
- After that, the meeting was called to order and the community manager gave the report:
- Some residents have asked to see the ballots of the recent failed election. These ballots have been secured in binders to keep them from being tampered with and now arrangements are being made for the interested parties to review them. On a personal note, I have to question going through the expense of this. Simply put, the ballots are irrelevant becasue no quorum was reached. Yes, the board chose to appoint the top three vote-getters from the ballots submitted, but they were not required to do so. Therefore, the only possible conclusion that I can draw from this is that some resident(s) want to see my personal votes. Well, let's save everyone a lot of money. Why not simply take note of the election signs people put in thier yards (you know, Vote for Smith, Jones and Schmedly), then the people who have the most signs posted on lawns win the election - and everybody knows everybody elses vote. Short of that, I thought it was a secret ballot.
- Financial report is almost ready to be delivered to the baord. Some issues with a past office member have created a problem with the accounting. They are working to get it fixed. C'Mon people. If you expect some foul play, then call the police. Otherwise, give it a rest.
- Swimming has increased more than 3X the number ofver last year. Last year it rained every day. Today it was 102 degrees. You do the math.
- A pipe broke in a pool pump and a vending machine was vandalized.
- People are having a hard time adjusting to the new garbage collection system. Folks are parking their cans directly in front of thier garages. This is a no-no, per the City of San Antonio. Your ticket is forthcoming. The next edition of Passages will have some creative ideas on how to store your cans.
- Greenbelt between Timberwilde and Tezel is getting cleaned up this week. Workers are clearing spaces behind privacy fences to avoid fire hazard. FYI: some kids tried to light the place on fire and an alert resident busted them and put out the fire.
I'd like to point out that this format of having the Community Manager provide slides and the report for all departments is the way to go. Not that we don't like to hear from the department heads, but this is smooth, efficient and on track. Kudos to Darin.There were no committee reports other than it was announced that the GNWatch meetings will be starting at 6:30 PM, last Wednesday of each month versus 7:30PM. One person said that she had not received an e-mail stating that change so perhaps it was lost in the Internet. If you know someone on the Watch, let them know that next Wednesday it will be at 6:30PM at the lodge.
That's it. And now you know enough to pay your monthly Homeowner's fee!
I hope you can forgive my lack of exciting reporting coming from The Five-Oh in the past week or more but things have been quite hectic and rewarding on several fronts.
I shan't bore you with the Neighborhood Watch related issues that made big news, but I'll send you to this link regarding a tragic situation and leave it at that for the time being.
In other local neighborhood excitement, our board of directors (there are only four currently) figured out who would be the new Chair and vice-Chair. I'm not sure if it is public info or not, so I suppose we'll have to wait until the next meeting for the announcement. The really interesting thing to me is that one of our board members no longer lives in the neighborhood. In other words, someone who will not be impacted in any way by decisions of the board is helping (or in some cases, hindering) the things that impact me! I think that is wrong. What about you?
Okay, forget all that unpleasantness. So last night we were off to attend my son's commencement ceremony - he graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). Unlike many of his fellow graduates, he was on the 4-year plan as opposed to the apparently common 5, 6 and 7 year programs. You know, a lot of people go to college for seven years. I know, they're called doctors. Sorry.
Just as we were leaving the house, my daughter called and said that her flight from Philadelphia had been delayed and that now, she wouldn't be getting into San Antonio until Saturday AM instead of late Friday night. I know, you are probably asking yourself why I, as a good father, didn't volunteer to drive to Dallas, pick her and her husband up at DFW, then drive back to San Antonio?
People, Texas is a big state. It would take me five and a half hours to get from my side of SA to DFW and and other five and a half hours to get back! And we still had to attend my son's graduation!
Luckily, she has a friend who lives just near the airport, so they got to have a nice visit and about 4 hours of sleep before taking a flight out this morning. Oh, and in case you are wondering, American Airlines didn't offer them a hotel room, or a pillow - and surely no coupon for a free flight or bag of peanuts.
But back to the graduation. This event was held at the UTSA Convocation Center. Not a bad place for a ceremony of this size.
We are usually pretty good at picking out our kids from a crowd of people, but without binoculars or a telephoto lens, we spent most the ceremony fawning over some kid who looks like my son from half a mile away. I'm sure that kid will do well in life, but as soon as he got up to walk, we knew it wasn't our son. Bad posture. As it turned out, we were never in a position to see our son until he got up to walk to the stage. Perhaps that other young man's parents were in the audience and made the same mistake with our kid.
So, they have these things down to a science. The administration knows that you couldn't care less about the other 700 people graduating, you only care about your own kid. Speeches were short, there were no politically motivated anti-W comments and in general, once they started reading off names, it was like fine clock-work.
Unfortunately, they still go alphabetically, and with a last name starting with "S", we had a lot of waiting to do. And we did wait, very politely I might add. But funny, as the end of the commencement neared and as we began to get excited for our son (and apparently some kid who looked just like our son), we noticed that the people who have graduates with last names starting in the first half of the alphabet were starting to simply get up and leave.
Hey, I don't care if you want to leave and not watch my kid graduate even though I gave a heartfelt golf-clap when your kid walked the stage, but please don't block my view of the stage as you exit your seat. How discourteous is that? And it wasn't one or two families. I'm talking half the place was emptying when there was literally ten minutes left.
Well guess what suckers, when the commencement was over, UTSA brought out the Mariachis! How Purro San Antonio is that, to bust out orange sombrero wearing mariachis? And they were damn good. To all you people who left early - piss off!
So it isn't over yet. My daughter and son-in-law got in this morning and shortly, we are off to my son's commissioning ceremony. I know a few of you have seen me around minus the mustache and goatee. I'm stuffing myself into my service dress uniform for the ceremony and had to shave to be in "regs". Hopefully there won't be a weigh-in. My daughter has come with her uniform and she will give my son his first official salute. Bust out your hankies.
We'll zip over to Florida shortly so my dad (who for medical reasons couldn't make it tonight) can slip into his uniform and provide another salute. As you might expect, our military family is pretty proud of our first officer in the family.
So, if I don't have more goofy pictures or updates on the latest restaurants for several more days or so, I hope you can understand. Maybe now is a good time to go back and read some of the older posts. You know you want to.
I hope this won't sound a little too much like a public relations pitch, but I wrote up a quick article for our neighborhood newspaper called, Passages. Our local paper is distributed on a monthly basis to the 5,000 homes that make up our association, and honestly, they do a wonderful job in providing news and information to residents. My only complaint is that, like any monthly publication, often articles that would be relevant for a particular month don't make the deadline for publication. But, I enjoy my copy and appreciate the fact that the people who put it together use some of the pictures I take and the words I write for them. Instead of waiting for the hardcopy version, I thought I'd adapt my story for the web.
So as it turns out, this morning, about 20 members of the Great Northwest A-Team got together for some painting, clean-up and fun. Members of all ages took paint brushes in hand and covered over the much detested graffiti that seems to dot the privacy fences and utility boxes throughout the main thoroughfares around the association neighborhoods.
As one group of volunteers made quick work of common areas along Timberwilde Drive, others fanned out along Timber Path to seek out offending marks on the privacy fences that line the road. Several A-Team members commented on how with the enjoyable weather and many people helping out, the job was more fun than work. As each new spot needing a little touch up was identified, several members would join in to clean it up.
Between painting and using heavy duty graffiti remover, numerous utility boxes, signs and fences were cleaned up by the group in less than two hours. Great Northwest Community Improvement Association Board Director and A-Team member Richard Garcia commented that small events like this one don’t take an entire day from volunteers limited weekends, yet the allow people to get out and help make the community a nicer place to live. And from the many friendly waves and honks from cars and trucks passing by, it was evident that the residents appreciate the work the A-Team is doing to battle the graffiti and efforts to keep the common areas clean.
Future A-Team projects may include the cleaning up of greenbelts, helping residents in need with minor repairs of fences and such, and of course, we’ll continue to keep the graffiti at bay.
How can you become a member of the A-Team? It is as simple is contacting A-Team coordinator, Mike Yager or stopping in at the Lodge of the Great Northwest office to learn more. You will find that there is no commitment to how much or how little time you participate, and if you can’t do a lot of heavy lifting, we can always use supervisors and cheerleaders!
My wife and our son and I all made the short trip down to the Lodge of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association so we could enjoy another fun filled, excitement packed meeting of the Board of Directors. Thankfully, someone made coffee and people like my neighbor Ruby brought in some delicious Christmas cookies, otherwise it may have been a wasted trip.
Nothing to see here - move along now...
Okay, they did have the auditor's report provided by a member of the Goldklang, Cavanaugh & Associates Certified Public Accountants firm. There were no major zingers here and the gentleman was kind enough to answer questions from the peanut gallery. I have a copy of the presentation and I'm guessing if you are so inclined, you can get a copy from the office. Really, I'd just wait for the movie.
But, as just an aside, there is a line item for Allowances of Doubtful Assessments. What that means is, there are people who have not paid their annual HOA fees and in fact, they are so overdue that the account has been deemed "doubtful". Doubtful as in getting that money from the homeowner who owes it to the GNWCIA who it is owed to. The amount is only $266,814.00. I know, chump change. But seriously, I agree with those who say, if we aren't going to pursue it, just write it off and be done with it. Why list it and feel miserable about it?
Okay, so after the report from the CPA, it was time to start the meeting. As has been the format with the meetings I've attended and as indicated on the agenda, they start with a Moment of Silence then the Pledge of Allegiance. Then they hear from people wanting to address the board and finally, the meeting is called to order. Once the meeting has been called to order, someone is supposed to move that they adopt the agenda (If you are keeping track, of the 8 items listed on the agenda, adopting the agenda is number 5.), then they start the new business.
So I point this out because during the moment of silence and the pledge, one of the members of the board, Director Pucci, chose not to participate. This created a visible stir amongst members of the audience and other directors on the board.
Before we all run out and get a rope or call for the McCarthy Commission, I must tell you that while I prefer to stand and go along with the assembled mob, I can't seem to find anything in the Bylaws of the association that explains why we start the meeting off with a moment of silence or the pledge. The association is not a church, a school nor a government entity, so I have to wonder where this little ceremony started.
Please don't misunderstand, I gladly say the pledge of allegiance whenever I get the opportunity in the same way that I proudly stand for reveille and retreat when I am over at Lackland AFB. These are things I do out of pride and habit. But I'm not about to tell the next guy (no pun intended) that he has to do it or should do it.
Would I be upset if the board didn't have a moment of silence or say the pledge? Not at all. But since someone is offering, why not go with the flow? Or, more importantly, why not make the board put it in the bylaws that it be required if everyone else feels so strongly about it?
Anyway, it wasn't a big deal; just awkward to those of us lemmings who can't be bothered to ask why we do the things we do - just because. NOTE: Please check out the Comments Section below - Director Pucci responds, revealing my inept journalism skills.
On to bigger and better muckraking.
One resident got up to thank the board for the recent cut in the yearly assessment and to let the board know that many of her neighbors appreciate the way the board is coming together recently. Bravo indeed.
Another resident had some concerns about the delivery of Passages, our neighborhood newspaper. It seems that the delivery of said publication has been spotty at best. I do recall not receiving it at least once in the last several months. Anyway, she was concerned about application process, do we have enough information about the kids doing the delivery and do we have back-up delivery boys. All valid concerns. The Community Manager is addressing this issue and informed the board that a plan is in the works.
Not to be adversarial (because after all, if these kids are getting paid to deliver the paper, it should be delivered), but out of curiosity, I asked the board if there was any thought of reducing the printed number of the paper and directing people to read it online, but making it available in hard copy format at the office for those who like to read it the old fashioned way. I must tell you, Passages has adorned the upstairs library on more than one occasion in my house if you get my meaning, but I just wonder how many people have it delivered to the door and promptly toss it in the garbage?
Director Doherty was very quick to point out that many residents enjoyed receiving the paper and not all folks are into the computer age, and as a service they are paying for, they should not have to go to the office to get it. Agreed.
Someone (I think Director Pucci) Chairman Besing added in that they could even offer a delivered version to those residents who opt to receive the hard copy but simply not deliver it to those people who opt not to receive it.
Who knows? I'm not really some kind of environmentalist but why add more paper to the trash can (or the recycle bin) when many people could read it online and be done with it? Just a thought.
And with that bit of excitement, the little party was over for the peanut gallery and the board moved into the executive session where they talk about the real issues.
.I think if you go as far as making an effort to have a blog, there must be some sort of self-promotion involved. I mean, the primary enjoyment for me in this project is the writing about things I see or do, but admittedly, I love the feedback from family and friends and even strangers who happen upon this little place.
Okay, so having set the stage in agreement that this is purely for the benefit of my own ego, I thought I should let you know that an edited version of one of my blog posts was published in a highly respected local publication called, Passages, the official newspaper of the Great Northwest Community Improvement Association.
You can read about it here on Page 6. I'm the long winded bastard with three full columns.
Or you can read the original version here.
Either way, my next goal in life is to either win a Nobel Peace Prize for local reporting, or to appear in The Sentinel*.
*The Sentinel is the "unofficial" newspaper of the Great Northwest.
I'd like to think that if you find any enjoyment in the things I post, reading about the minutes of the Great Northwest HOA meeting would be a low priority on your list of reading. I'll try to be entertaining, but if you skip this one, I'll understand.
I took quite a few notes during the meeting and even spoke with a few folks to make sure that I understood things I didn't completely hear. Unlike my first meeting, this one had very little in the way of outbursts or comic relief.
At some point in the meeting, there was even reference to me and this blog, a result of my award winning 4th of July Parade coverage. I'm going to skip through a lot of the boring stuff and get right to a few points, so here goes.
During presentations by department heads,(and as I mentioned before) I was impressed by some of the questions Mr. Guy Pucci asked.
Examples:
- On the purchase of new computers, he asked if the old computers were still under warranty (no).
- On the auditing firm coming July 19th, he asked if there would be a pre-conference with board members (no)
- On the report from the Rec Department, he asked if there was a record of how many visitors to the pool were non-residents - the answer was "no", but they would start keeping track. The Rec director mentioned that she could go back and count money collected to figure out the number. This may have been lost on other observers, but I think the point was, if you don't keep track of the number of visitors, how do you know how much money should be in the kitty at the end of the day? Right?
- To the Security Chief, Mr. Pucci asked if there were any issues in hiring new staff (no) and also asked about any remaining life in a vehicle that the Security Department is seeking to replace. (Yes, and the vehicle will be transferred to DRACO). Mr. Pucci also asked about Logs the officers might keep.
- During the Maintenance Department report, Mr. Pucci asked about the status of diving boards (Rec director looking into it)
- And during a board discussion regarding the review of election materials, Mr. Pucci made a recommendation to help speed up the process.
Now call me a bumpkin, but in each of these cases, it sounded as though Mr. Pucci's questions were certainly value added to the process, and certainly not invasive or overstepping the boundaries of what board directors would be voted into office to be aware of before making a decision. If someone can give me a valid reason as to why we would want a board full of directors who calmly sit back and simply listen to the reports from staff with no question, I'd submit that we could save a whole lot of money and not have meetings at all.
Am I out of my mind on this?
My observation was that Mr. Pucci did exactly what a member of the board of directors should do. Make a decision based on well thought out and vetted information.
Now I stated previously, and currently stand by my position that, if you can afford to spend the kind of money Mr. Pucci did on a lawsuit against the HOA, then your priorities are a lot different than mine. But having said that, I still don't see the types of questions he asks at the meetings are anything more than in the best interests of the association as a whole.
Okay, so moving on and speaking of the lawsuit. Ms Sigrid Long, whom I had the pleasure of meeting and seemed very nice, if not a bit unsettled by my report of the first meeting I attended, added an item to the meeting agenda. She wanted the board to discuss an article that her and another board member, Mr. Steve Mifflin, had written for publication in The Passages. The topic of the letter was the story of the Guy Pucci Lawsuit. There was a lot of banter amongst the board members and I think ultimately, they decided to discuss the issue in closed session.
But since you are here anyway, let me give you my two cents. I am strictly opposed to publishing the letter in Passages, because I'm tired of seeing it used for the purposes of board members bashing one another. If Ms. Long or Mr. Mifflin would send me a copy of the letter, I'll post it here, unedited, and I'll be happy to give Mr. Pucci free reign to respond to it. But people in the Great Northwest don't read this blog to see pictures of their kid's Soccer Team or read about the pool schedule. So send the dirt to me, and keep that crap out of the association newspaper.
What I do believe should happen is, the opposing sides should come up with a joint statement which explains what was done, how it was resolved and any homeowner in good standing should be able to request that document and have it provided to them. End of story, case closed, see ya and good night.
Oh, the good news is, the guys who had requested to start an area Motorcycle Club, got permission to run some free adds in The Passages, so they could determine interest. Well done.
There were some other odds and ends, but really, I encourage any of you who want to see your board in action, to just come to the meetings. You can sit near me and we can giggle together.
Now, enough of this nastiness. I find it more entertaining to tell you about the new things I saw and did this weekend. More on that next.
Based on the less than capacity turnout for this Town Hall meeting, I’d say that we are in danger of not having a quorum for the annual HOA election. What this means is that, the vote for both directors and by-law amendments would be null and void, and the five remaining directors on the board would have to appoint two new directors to fill the vacancies. 
As a resident and voter, you should know that there is no guarantee that the remaining directors will automatically appoint the two candidates. This is especially true considering what I will politely call an underwhelming performance by the two candidates during their opportunity to address those people that were interested enough to show-up for the meeting. This is not to cast a stone at either of the candidates; the average person, myself included has a problem getting before a crowd and giving a political speech or oral resume before a mostly unknown crowd. But it was not as though it was a surprise. At minimum, I think both would have served themselves and the voters better had they at least had a few notes or even a statement to be read explaining who they are, their views on the association problems, and what they would do to help the board fix things. Instead, in the five minutes allotted for each to speak, we got a lot of uncertain jibber-jabber. 
Up next, Director Myrl Britten provided a solid presentation on the two proposed by law changes; the first would allow the assessment of fines for people who violate deed restrictions, the second would remove a cap of $300,000 for the association to have in reserve funds. I have discussed these by-laws in a previous post. 
