MiaR1 (Illinois)
Posts: 46
Posts: 46
Posted:
I’ve recently become familiar with this forum after feeling alone, helpless, and isolated in our self managed condo association for a very long time. We’ve had theft and embezzlement for 15 years, our condo owners lack knowledge and understanding about our CC&R, in addition, they are highly apathetic and most are very impressionable and easily believe the hype, rhetoric propagated by a few members of our board, and no disrespect intended when I say this that those same impressionable owners are more racially, religiously and culturally inclined to believe whatever from their own kind. Or, this is how human nature works and perhaps I have been and am just naive.
Anyways, I have been made out to be a villain in our condo association’s special meeting of the owners called yesterday. I served as the Board President of this association because previous Board President resigned in early 2019 after being on the board for 15 years, from fear of her and the treasurer’s embezzlement being found out because I had put out the petition to see the association’s financials. I took over a very messy HOA. I got to work right away even put in some elbow grease like minor patching to our building’s roof, fixing of our social room minor fixing, to get some work done because we’ve been so low on money. Heck, one person who is on the board had a leak in her apartment from the building’s pipe and after getting it fixed, her drywall had to be fixed. To save the association money on delivery cost, I carried the drywall on top of my small car and brought it back to our association(while slightly dented the roof of my vehicle because of the weight). Sorry for the venting, after experiencing a really bad humiliation openly last night, I’ve become disheartened and am feeling demoralized. I did have some support prior to last night’s meeting, but, I guess I’ve been completely isolated out by now.
Problem has been that other Board members (1) either don’t know nor understand the condo laws, our CC&R or simply don’t care to follow it(2) some owners have been friends of people on the Board(3) treasurer, sec, both board members at large and I always got into many disputes over board’s misconducts by not properly following the rules, but, I was a minority voicing my concerns of their failure to follow our CC&R, so I am not liked by any board member. Heck, when disagreements arised and I suggested to consult the association attorney, that thought got dismissed, so, I don’t real trust these folks that I served with, partly, because, besides their power grab, I can’t seem to understand their purpose for being on the board.
Getting to the point: my question is what invalidates voting proxies? Since last year election, I questioned three voting proxies and one ballot for the following reasons:
(1) one owner put his own name under the proxy neighbor’s name and the owner himself did not attend the meeting(2) one owner completely left the proxy neighbor’s part blank(3) one owner proxy had a white out on it where candidates names were filled in by the proxy holder( this proxy holder is the past treasurer who embezzled for 15 years). (4) one owner illegally owns two units and he voted twice for unfair advantage.
Secretary and other board members, with whom previously we couldn’t get along due to different views of managing the association, said well let’s call those owners and correct those proxies so they can be counted. I objected because in order to be able to count those votes, these people are even willing to ask these owners now after the election to correct their proxies so they can be admissible to count for themselves, instead of invalidating and excluding those proxies from the final count. Some owners, friends of the board members, sided with the suggestion, which I could not believe the level of nonsense.
Some owners had signed proxies and listed my name as their preference. But when the vote count began, board Secretary told me to add two more names besides myself on my proxies for the counting because he had instructed in the annual meeting for the owners to put three names on the ballot, out of the four candidates, so, even if owners listed me as their preference on my proxies, I was compelled to share my votes with two other candidates and by being forced to do that, I ended up showing lowest votes for me. I questioned the Secretary why do I need to do that when the owners listed my name as their preference, he said just do as I said. Mind you, I did not list two other names on my proxies, but, since it was late at night and most owners already left the meeting, the secretary told me they need to hurry up and finish the count so I should do what he said.
Fast forward, I raised objection and asked for recount and voting documents verification. I was repeatedly ignored for the last three months. Finally, I resorted to putting a petition together and that’s why the Board was compelled to call the special meeting, but, that wasn’t without problems either. Leading up to the day of the meeting, some board members made it their mission to approach my petition signers by going door to door to brainwash those owners against me by making up accusations and stories. I lost two owners(from the petition) support because they stopped engaging with me. I was openly communicating with the Board by bccing our association owners, hoping, they can hopefully see the problems within our association and hopefully will finally wake up and get engaged in the process. Instead in the meeting, a few owners called voicing of my concerns ongoing rant, while others said they are tired now this should just stop and that after seeing this play out they will never vote for me again, another unit owner openly called me crazy, another one said I don’t want you to be on the Board, and another one said you lost just move on. These folks who voiced such words are either friends of the board members or the past treasurer who embezzled from the association. Mostly these people packed last night’s meeting. Owners who supported my efforts were just two or three in the meeting, while, others had signed attendance proxy.
Bottom line, I asked the Secretary to count the votes properly without forcing me to share my votes from my proxies with two other candidates. He hesitated to recount and said but in the previous tally your votes were counted for other two as well. I informed him in the meeting again it’s because you said just do it this way and it was not right and I did not write in those two candidates names on my proxies, so he cannot compel me to share my votes. If he would’ve finished the count, his friend from his same country would have lost. And this was the friend that I was compelled to share my votes with in addition to another candidate during the initial miscount.
In last night’s special meeting, the verbal attacks on me started from everywhere as soon as the meeting began. These are the same board members I worked with and we couldn’t get along then, so they were the same people leading the charge of instigation and attacks on me in the meeting and people who had voted for two of them(had packed last night’s meeting) so they were seconding every attack propagated by my fellow board members.
As you read what I wrote, please know that I am not writing this playing a victim. Though I am feeling very discouraged and disheartened and also know that I’ve been humiliated very badly by such instigation of my fellow board members, I wanted to share as much of the facts as possible. I also know that moving out is what will be suggested to me, which, I am very seriously considering. But my questions are
1. What invalidates and inadmissible proxies?
2. Is it appropriate for board Secretary to rig voting counts like this by forcing me to share my votes with two other candidates when owners just voted for me through their proxies?
Your consideration and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Anyways, I have been made out to be a villain in our condo association’s special meeting of the owners called yesterday. I served as the Board President of this association because previous Board President resigned in early 2019 after being on the board for 15 years, from fear of her and the treasurer’s embezzlement being found out because I had put out the petition to see the association’s financials. I took over a very messy HOA. I got to work right away even put in some elbow grease like minor patching to our building’s roof, fixing of our social room minor fixing, to get some work done because we’ve been so low on money. Heck, one person who is on the board had a leak in her apartment from the building’s pipe and after getting it fixed, her drywall had to be fixed. To save the association money on delivery cost, I carried the drywall on top of my small car and brought it back to our association(while slightly dented the roof of my vehicle because of the weight). Sorry for the venting, after experiencing a really bad humiliation openly last night, I’ve become disheartened and am feeling demoralized. I did have some support prior to last night’s meeting, but, I guess I’ve been completely isolated out by now.
Problem has been that other Board members (1) either don’t know nor understand the condo laws, our CC&R or simply don’t care to follow it(2) some owners have been friends of people on the Board(3) treasurer, sec, both board members at large and I always got into many disputes over board’s misconducts by not properly following the rules, but, I was a minority voicing my concerns of their failure to follow our CC&R, so I am not liked by any board member. Heck, when disagreements arised and I suggested to consult the association attorney, that thought got dismissed, so, I don’t real trust these folks that I served with, partly, because, besides their power grab, I can’t seem to understand their purpose for being on the board.
Getting to the point: my question is what invalidates voting proxies? Since last year election, I questioned three voting proxies and one ballot for the following reasons:
(1) one owner put his own name under the proxy neighbor’s name and the owner himself did not attend the meeting(2) one owner completely left the proxy neighbor’s part blank(3) one owner proxy had a white out on it where candidates names were filled in by the proxy holder( this proxy holder is the past treasurer who embezzled for 15 years). (4) one owner illegally owns two units and he voted twice for unfair advantage.
Secretary and other board members, with whom previously we couldn’t get along due to different views of managing the association, said well let’s call those owners and correct those proxies so they can be counted. I objected because in order to be able to count those votes, these people are even willing to ask these owners now after the election to correct their proxies so they can be admissible to count for themselves, instead of invalidating and excluding those proxies from the final count. Some owners, friends of the board members, sided with the suggestion, which I could not believe the level of nonsense.
Some owners had signed proxies and listed my name as their preference. But when the vote count began, board Secretary told me to add two more names besides myself on my proxies for the counting because he had instructed in the annual meeting for the owners to put three names on the ballot, out of the four candidates, so, even if owners listed me as their preference on my proxies, I was compelled to share my votes with two other candidates and by being forced to do that, I ended up showing lowest votes for me. I questioned the Secretary why do I need to do that when the owners listed my name as their preference, he said just do as I said. Mind you, I did not list two other names on my proxies, but, since it was late at night and most owners already left the meeting, the secretary told me they need to hurry up and finish the count so I should do what he said.
Fast forward, I raised objection and asked for recount and voting documents verification. I was repeatedly ignored for the last three months. Finally, I resorted to putting a petition together and that’s why the Board was compelled to call the special meeting, but, that wasn’t without problems either. Leading up to the day of the meeting, some board members made it their mission to approach my petition signers by going door to door to brainwash those owners against me by making up accusations and stories. I lost two owners(from the petition) support because they stopped engaging with me. I was openly communicating with the Board by bccing our association owners, hoping, they can hopefully see the problems within our association and hopefully will finally wake up and get engaged in the process. Instead in the meeting, a few owners called voicing of my concerns ongoing rant, while others said they are tired now this should just stop and that after seeing this play out they will never vote for me again, another unit owner openly called me crazy, another one said I don’t want you to be on the Board, and another one said you lost just move on. These folks who voiced such words are either friends of the board members or the past treasurer who embezzled from the association. Mostly these people packed last night’s meeting. Owners who supported my efforts were just two or three in the meeting, while, others had signed attendance proxy.
Bottom line, I asked the Secretary to count the votes properly without forcing me to share my votes from my proxies with two other candidates. He hesitated to recount and said but in the previous tally your votes were counted for other two as well. I informed him in the meeting again it’s because you said just do it this way and it was not right and I did not write in those two candidates names on my proxies, so he cannot compel me to share my votes. If he would’ve finished the count, his friend from his same country would have lost. And this was the friend that I was compelled to share my votes with in addition to another candidate during the initial miscount.
In last night’s special meeting, the verbal attacks on me started from everywhere as soon as the meeting began. These are the same board members I worked with and we couldn’t get along then, so they were the same people leading the charge of instigation and attacks on me in the meeting and people who had voted for two of them(had packed last night’s meeting) so they were seconding every attack propagated by my fellow board members.
As you read what I wrote, please know that I am not writing this playing a victim. Though I am feeling very discouraged and disheartened and also know that I’ve been humiliated very badly by such instigation of my fellow board members, I wanted to share as much of the facts as possible. I also know that moving out is what will be suggested to me, which, I am very seriously considering. But my questions are
1. What invalidates and inadmissible proxies?
2. Is it appropriate for board Secretary to rig voting counts like this by forcing me to share my votes with two other candidates when owners just voted for me through their proxies?
Your consideration and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!