Recent ly enacted Administrative Resolutions

  • Rating: 5 after 1 vote
2 new resolutions were recently adopted.

John Whitbeck and Hani El Naggar should be commended for recently voting against an administrative guideline placing new and onerous restrictions on the recording of Board meetings.  This additional formality and restriction is unnecessary and the language at the end of the resolution that is practically threatening to those who wish to record and comment on such recordings is out of line.

I would be interested in hearing other board members explain why they felt this additional regulation was necessary.

The resolution on document requests appears to have one provision that is not legal, although the practical case may not arise.

Without looking it up, I believe the law says that any member of the HOA may request information, including salaries on the top 5 paid employees of the association.  This guideline seems to attempt to thwart such requests by excluding personnel information from valid requests.

Why this may not matter is I don't think our association has any employees.  I believe we have completely outsourced it.  But if we ever do have any this resolution would not be able to be enforced because of superseding law.

One other minor note, I see nothing in these resolutions that references severability.  Perhaps that is higher in the chain of our governing documents, but at this level, it appears that a court could overturn the entire administrative resolution because a particular provision is inconsistent with applicable state or county law.


Views: 1

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by johnf on June 26, 2010 at 9:26am
Janine,

Can you please explain why you moved for the resolution on recording board meetings?

John Whitbeck,

Can you explain how the regulation on document requests is compatible with laws around the requesting of information on the top 5 paid employees? If not, can you commit to moving to repeal or amend this resolution?
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 10, 2010 at 11:50pm
JohnF,
I see you have not received an answer or at least not publicly so everyone may know why they have taken such actions. I would like to know why did our LOTP BOD motion to increase the HOA legal fees by making the onerous changes to the two resolutions. Some of our fine and respectable residents have begun to record meetings for reviewing purpose and some residents have requested to see and get copies of HOA documents and records. Because our BOD cannot stop these requests did our BOD decide wisely that it is of great value to increase HOA legal fees to fine methods to hinder residents from exercising their rights? Additionally, when I exercise my right to challenge their decision they reply back with Ms. Peacock added to the email meaning our HOA legal fees are again increased. Are these wise and just decisions our LOTP BOD are making. They are so willing to spend $2.7 million (estimated) on Clubhouse and pool repairs, thousands of dollars on fighting daycare in our community and then later paying several thousands in settlement costs. And now they are spending more money in an attempt to limit or block residents from their legal rights? But when the residents request that we use our HOA legal team to break us free from the OpenBand bondage our LOTP BOD says no. Is this right?
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 10, 2010 at 11:57pm
John Whitbeck,

Has the residents requests for copies been so expensive that the BOD found it necessary to expend money on legal fees to limit residents from asking to review or get copies of documents?
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 11, 2010 at 3:52pm
JohnF,

Thank you for your information. I am surprised that neither Janine or Mr. Whitbeck will respond to your fair and reasonable questions.

As for myself, I did not receive an email from Ms. Peacock. I send you and everyone my apology if I had state that in error or confused everyone in my writing. What I was addressing is that I received an email from Larry Miller. What I was referring in my discussion was that Larry had cc;'ed Ms. Peacock in the correspondence from him to me. I suspect that either Larry was not confident in what he was writing to me or Ms. Peacock had provided him the details as to what he should write to me. Either way, it is sad that our Board members have to choose to use legal attorneys as part of the BOD process of communicating with residents and answering questions residents may address to them.

Thank you for your understanding and openness.

Kevin
Permalink Reply by james on July 12, 2010 at 5:00pm
I can confirm this pattern. Mr. Whitbeck has failed to answer my questions too. He did at first, but i guess they got a little harder. It surely seems as though our board is either acting on their own personal wishes, or the wishes of some unknown party because they aren't acting on behalf of the lansdowne residents , that is plain to see.
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 13, 2010 at 11:00am
JohnF,

Thank you for sharing your thought and opinions about legal understanding and interpretation. This is a fine way we all have a chance to grow in knowledge and subject matters.

From what you have just posted, I can comprehend misunderstanding and misinterpretation for most people (including myself). However, it is very hard to accept this concept when we could be referring to two attorneys speaking and communicating with each other. Is it possible that John Whitbeck is having difficulty understanding legal terms that Ms. Peacock uses? Is John Whitbeck the only board member speaking and communicating with Ms. Peacock (and other attorney’s within Chadwick Washington)? It seems to me that at least two or more board members should be communicating with legal of each legal issue LOTP encounters.

I will hope that at least one board member will speak out and provide clarity to this subject matter.
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 13, 2010 at 11:38am
JohnF,

I wish to make a correction to my assertion about changing LOTP Resolutions. As Larry Miller nicely pointed out, these resolutions (3 and 4) were nonexistent to May 2010. The LOTP have just created these in May and ratified them into the LOTP governing documents.

However, I still question why did the LOTP BOD decide that these documents needed to be created and placed within our HOA governing documents? In an email, I have received this explanation from one of the board members.

“These two Resolutions (#4 and #3) were established for the purpose of setting in place consistent, efficient, effective, fair procedures that complied with the Virginia Property Owner's Association Act for our members who requested document review and/or recording of meetings. Both of these Resolutions were prepared by our attorneys to ensure full compliance with the Act.”



Now if the state of Virginia already has already documented rulings of actions and procedures, why should any community need to spend money on legal fees to recreate what the state has already done/documented. Will the LOTP BOD now motion to have legal attorneys recreate the full Virginia Statutes “for the purpose of setting in place consistent, efficient, effective, fair procedures that complied with the Virginia Property Owner's Association Act”?


Towards my point, referencing the LOTP A-RES-03 document, Virginia Law has already documented the following:
"§ 55-510. Access to association records; association meetings; notice.
A…..
B…..
C…..
D. Prior to providing copies of any books and records to a member in good standing under this section, the association may impose and collect a charge, reflecting the reasonable costs of materials and labor, not to exceed the actual costs thereof. "
Permalink Reply by johnf on July 13, 2010 at 12:01pm
Kevin,

I cannot say why there might be a disconnect or even that there actually is one. All I can say is that new information was brought to my attention that raised the possibility that Chadwick/Washington have provided accurate advice and that it has not been properly communicated through to the community.

At this point it is too much hypothesis for my comfort level, so I just withdrew my critique of Ms. Peacock and will leave it at that.
Permalink Reply by Kevin Donovan on July 13, 2010 at 8:40pm
JohnF,

I understand and I am not looking at you for answers. I meant my question and opinion to be more of a seed for readers to think about decisions that have been made and are being made by our Board of Directors. Just as there can be chances for misunderstanding and misinterpretation there can be chances of misleading or incorrect information. It would be nice to always look through rose colored glasses (I actually prefer blue) but in the real world sometimes we need to looked deeper and between lines (as in all the clichés we hear).

I thank you for your dedication to truth and facts.

▶ Reply to Discussion

RSS

Events

Featured Ads

 

 

 

 

Videos

  • Add Videos
  • View All

Birthdays

Birthdays Today

Birthdays Tomorrow

Local Ads

 

 

 

 

 

© 2012   Created by AGDIL.

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service