Once more into the fray …

So I’m running for the Board again. The response has been … interesting. The Mean Girls on Facebook woke up and began seriously trashing me. I wonder how much of this stuff is actionable?[0] But I’ve been taking the High Road.

“Bill, although I am not a voting member. I want to make sure everyone remembers your reign of terror and intimidation.
You were personally responsible for closing the pool early for an entire season, intimidating grandmothers and cussing neighbors out.
The pool was under constant surveillance by you, and your behavior was vulgar and not appropriate for a board member. You were drunk with power which should be an embarrassment.
I have receipts and am happy to share them with anyone who is interested.
You chose to route all board emails to yourself so that all complaints were funneled through you. You ran off several board members due to your toxic behavior.
Your removal from the presidency of the board was long overdue and anyone choosing to vote for you again would be doing the neighborhood a huge disservice.”

“It's important that neighbors that were not aware of what happened the last time Bill served on the Board be made aware. I posted much of this in a response, but wanted to be certain it was noticed.
I was serving on the board when Bill was initially elected. We went into executive session and he immediately began cursing and yelling at those of us who had been serving prior. It was unprofessional and toxic.
He was not removed from the Board, but he was removed from his position as president due to inappropriate behavior such cursing at neighbors at the pool and forcing a representative of our management company off the road and yelling at him in the middle of the street.
These are just two examples of many instances of inappropriate behavior.
This is consistent inappropriate behavior that alienated neighbors, vendors, and board members and made our neighborhood feel unwelcoming and unsafe.”

“I am very concerned that someone who was REMOVED from the board is now allowed to be a candidate again. There seems to be a major flaw in our bylaws that I hope the new Board is able to address.
I have never served on the Board, but my husband did. His term seemed relatively smooth and everyone got along....until Bill was elected. As I was leaving our office after that zoom meeting severalyears ago, the board was going into executive session, I heard Bill dropping F-bombs and things just went down hill from there.
Berating fellow board members, yelling at neighbors and just not presenting himself as an honorable human being. Many Board members quit due to his lack of respect and unprofessional behavior, to the point where he had to be removed because he was so toxic. So I beg everyone to keep this in mind when they are casting their vote this time. He may appear the "concerned citizen" but he is really a wolf in sheep's clothing. I don't want to see our neighborhood fall for his antics a second time.”

“Bill, there is no secrecy. I've served on the board, as have others. Those who serve on the board are our neighbors who give of their time to help. They are not the enemy and never have been. You have already served before and were voted out because of your beligerant behavior. Everyone is afraid to say it, but I'm not. (I'm also moving soon, and I don't want to see everyone quit the board again because of your lack of professionalism. I care about my friends and neighbors.). You have cleaned up your previous comments and posts in this forum and have suddenly reappeared as a
"hero" for the underdog. I don't understand why you are interested in a board position when you screamed at fellow board members, screamed at people at the pool, refused to cooperate during board meetings, etc.
For those who are voting, we have enough strife in our country as it is. We need board members who can cooperate with others. I'm "taking one for the team" by posting this because people are afraid of your retaliation.”

There are pages and pages of this stuff, all from the same 4 women. Pretty much every one of the ‘crimes’ they accuse me of is untrue, but … after the first few, I just said “this is obviously a coordinated attack effort, I’m not going to play this game.” But they still continued to pile on.

FWIW, I’m not sure how much being attacked like this is hurting my chances of winning (2 open positions, 5 candidates). I won’t be terribly unhappy if I lose. But the Board really has been operating under a cloak of secrecy, and it would be a good thing to shine some light there.

Unsurprisingly, this kind of rhetoric has a chilling effect on other members: nobody wants to speak up for fear of being targeted.

[0] there’s a fairly long history of this stuff, I suspect it would be easy to show malice.

Don't reply and feed the trolls.

Stick to the issue of transparency. Even if you don't get elected, perhaps it will raise enough membership concern that things will change.

I’ve been maintaining silence. It pains me to say it, but “taking the high road” does not always seem to work. *I* look at this and think “these women are insane” - but at least one person (that I don’t know) has responded about how it seems fishy to them, and how anytime someone has been removed from the Board, they shouldn’t be allowed to run again. Never mind that I wasn’t removed from the Board. So it *is* causing damage.

I may look to see if there’s some kind of defamation per se case here. But in the meantime I’m going to work on some campaign material (last year the Board “surveyed” the neighborhood with one of the worst surveys I’ve ever seen. They got 150 responses back out of ???? surveys: ie, they don’t know how many surveys went out; they don’t know if they all went to homeowners; they don’t know if people filled out more than one per household; etc).

Thanks for giving it to me straight, Mark!

Are any of those things "close to accurate"? All of that stuff about cursing at grandmothers, no, that's false. I *did* - with the agreement of 2 of the 3 other Board members - shut down the pool a couple of weeks early one fall, because we were having serious issues with scary homeless people. A number of people got upset over that *shrug*. Although if I had to do it all again, I wouldn't change a thing.

Do you agree that my reputation has been trashed?

Bill

I'd estimate only 30% of my community read facebook. Given there are 5 people running for 2 seats mathematically speaking you could very well loose over those comments. I wouldnt' vote for you, if you didn't respond back to those comments.

we amended our ccrs to record board meetings and have them archived on google drive so anyone can view them latter on, we also pretty much banned executive meetings, yes they might happen once a year, but are very very rare.
I am so glad we record meetings I had 2 crazy board members who said they didn't vote for something and I could go back to the exact tiem stamp and show them they did.

Well ... I began my 'candidate bio' with "I served on this ROA Board from 2021 to 2024 ... by doing the work of reading contracts and proposals and reviewing financial reports, our neighborhood’s cash assets grew from $350,000 to $524,000."[1] I didn't go into all of the (very tedious) details.

Are you suggesting that I begin to publish a list of my successes? I could do that, I guess, although I'm not sure exactly how I could work that in 'naturally'.

Bill

[1] this is not BS; on at least 3 occasions I was the person who put the brakes on something that would have cost the HOA a ton of money and problems. Remember the proposal to rent our swimming pool to a local private school swim team? You guys all helped me with that. And I have financial reports that show all of this, with real numbers. I don't mean to sound churlish.

No.

MarkM19, if the only thing people read about Bill is what has been said on FB, then no, I think he has no chance.

I also think that, if he does not start right this instant taking steps to change his communication style, then I think he has no chance. I am talking about the style I see on this forum. I presume this carries over to no small extent offline as well.

Hmmm … any concrete pointers on how to change my communications style?

I *have* taken to running things through an AI to smooth them out. The responses to the women who have been savaging me, for instance.

FWIW, I talked to a lawyer yesterday. These same 4 women have been at it for *years*, and I’m really getting tired of it. I’ll be interested in what he has to say.

What do you mean by "cash assets"? Are you saying the reserves increased from $350k to $524k?

I presume this is some round-about way of saying either (1) the board with your support cut expenses and was able to put more in reserves; or (2) the board reduced annual operating expenses and was looking to cut the assessment; or (3) similar.

The above is pretty much the version which I think should be your between-floors elevator speech. Slight re-write:

While I was on the board and with 100% support from me, the board: (1) worked with the HOA attorney on an easement deal that brought money into the HOA; (2) promoted being frugal and skeptical of certain expenses; (2) rejected a proposal to install a remote water control system at the pool that, on closer inspection by the Board, ended up not fitting in the space the pool area has; (4) pushed for collection on delinquent assessments and was successful in collecting large amounts of owed dues. There was more the board did, but what I just described are the highlights.

I want to return to the board to help the board continue to be careful with expenses. I also want more transparency, as required by the bylaws and state statutes. Thank you for considering me for the position of director.



One reason I do not like your version: If reserves are being handled correctly, the total dollar value in reserves may very well go up and down and by a lot, by design.

Discussion of Texas defamation per se: https://www.touchstonelaw.com/articles/defamation-per-se-new-texas-supreme-court-case-addressing-professional-issues/

If I had authored what you describe in your first post; assuming there are multiple lies; and because of Texas law on defamation per se, I would knock off posting to social media and telling people any lies.