Help with annual election, board is changing the criteria

hello, Our annual elections are coming up.

at the 2021 annual meeting. The association put all 9 seats up for election. There was attrition and some confusion because of covid limitation the previous year.
Our bylaws state the the terms of directors are staggered. see attached copy of bylaw. The byalws are clear, the election where 9 are seated. 4 candidates are assigned 2 year terms and 5 candidates are assigned one year term. Thus, the following year those 5 seats are up for election..

Now the board is trying to claim that only 4 seats are up for election. It's clear that they know that there are likely to be replacements at this election. In my opinion, they are trying to assure they keep a majority.

background..

Although we are self-managed, we do employ a company that to handle all billing and payments. This company also is a full-service management company and has that role with many communities. The owner of that company lets call him "JD" for as long as i can recall( at least 15 years) has always attended our meetings in an"advisory" Capacity. At a previous annual election 3 years ago, 9 board members were seated. At that meeting, the advisor JD indicated that the terms of office will follow the bylaw designation for a first seating of 9 seats. 4 seats were 2 years and the other 5 were 1 year. I made sure to clarify this and insisted it be put in the minutes. I was one of the 2 year terms.

1 years later, 3 board members wanted to remove me. I knew there was no ability for a board to remove a member that was duly elected. When the annual election was discussed , JD send an email that stated in his opinion because of the confusion of resigations and reinstatemets of several board members, all 9 seats would be up for election.

I knew this was wrong and i immediately sent a notice to all of the board and included JD the minutes and stated there was no confusion. And only 5 were up for election. He had no choice but to agree that's what the minutes state and he must have forgotten. My point is, he has a history of mistatements that allow him to have plausible deniability but are factual wrong and would distort the governance of our association.

I resigned from the board in between January and February 2021. I was still on the ballot but announced to everyone and send emails to the owners that i was not running.
At that meeting. 9 seats were filled.
I specifically asked him who are the 4 that are 2 year terms.
Because I wasnt' on the board, I couldn't insist on proper documentation. I did however immediately go to the facebook page that is used informally by owners. The day of the election, i posted the election results and specified the 4 that were 2 year and the other seats were one year.

So here we are 2022, I have a group of 5 resident owners that are running and gathering proxies for the election. At the last board meeting, at the end of the meeting, JD instructed the board that they need to get busy getting proxies if they want to keep the group together. He mentioned the faction that was running for the available seats and he on his own started offering suggestions on how to ensure the current board members remained in office. (he didn't know I was on the call at that point).

anyway.. the board is now claiming that only 4 seats are up for election. This is a clear attempt to hijack the potention change in power of the board.

I brought up to the property manager(board member) the bylaws yesterday and he said he would check with JD. JD is saying, nope, only 4 are up for election.

additionally. the notices to owners to request owner bios and announce the meeting date gave a deadline for candidates to turn in their names to JD as this Friday jan 28. However. the notices didn't go out until last Friday. I have no received my notice and I'm sure many other owners haven't received them. I spoke with the property manager and brought this lack of reasonable time for owners to reply. He seemed to agree , but then today he said, JD says no extension of the Friday deadline.

augsutine,the two angles i think could be used to contest this would be , JD does not get to assign deadlines. His deadline is created only to give him a reasonable time to send out notices. Additionally, There was some changes in 2015 that required notice and reasonable time for owners to respond. however, it was in texas 209. our documents are silent. there must be something somewhere that requires reasonable time for owners to respond.?? help

forgot to attach bylaw clause regarding terms of office and staggering .

mean to say that the OP think he/she is correct...

LaskaS,

-- In my opinion, your fellow owners should have a pretty darn good idea of when bios et cetera are do. Besides, you can tell them to just turn in their bios right now, right this instant. As long as the formal notice requirements from TPC 82 (when applicable to pre-1994 condos) and BO 22 are met, I do not think you have much recourse.

-- Regarding the number of seats up for election: If you have already presented your arguments to the board, then I am afraid your next step is to hire an attorney and threaten a lawsuit. I did not study your arguments closely.

-- I am not sure where your fellow owners are at. I will say that, if you simply do not have enough people supporting your point of view, then accepting this and waiting until you do is important. I think learning how often justice and fairness (or one's perception of justice and fairness) do (does) not prevail is a hard lesson.

Yada yada my new HOA wants new order...