PM comes to meeting with 8 proxy votes!

So our HOA has been a huge mess, mostly because of our PM. The PM has resigned effecive the end of this month and so is her crony on the board. Another board member resigned last month because he didn't want to deal with the mess anymore. There have been questionably illegal acts, lots of screw ups, and simply shady business.

At a meeting last night to replace the board members she shows up with 8 proxy votes (our community is only 87 homes)! Note that she lives in our community, and the conflict of interest issue has been brought up several times in the past. During the meeting she actually slipped and said she was going door to door, but quickly corrected herself saying "I mean, in communication with homeowners." She also cheerleaded for one particular person during the meeting, saying repeatedly how great they were.

And to top it off, the person she was cheerleading for at one point suggested she stay on and not resign! And then at the end of the night, guess who got elected?

I doubt there is anything illegal or any conflicts with the CC&Rs/Bylaws, but how sleezy is this?

Daryl,
I suggest your HOA consider amending their Bylaws to limit the number of proxies to 2.

It would not be bad if she were not the PM. A PM that we pay, a PM that is resigning (we guess because she does not want to be fired from her own neighborhood), and a PM that has been a disaster.

As PM she is in a position of power, when she goes door to door looking for proxies, people that do not know what has been going on give her instant credibility.

At the least she has proven to me why it is a conflict of interest for her to live in our neighborhood and be PM.

My take on a PM is a neutral third party there to manage things and make sure things go right. Canvasing the neighborhood for proxies and pushing for certain people to get elected (people that wants to keep you employed) is far from being a neutral 3rd party!

Just my $.02 and why I'm steaming this AM!

Not to add fire to your steam, but:

If you pay her, then set expectations and objectives with her, and discipline her if she fails to achieve them. She works for the board, don't blame her if the board doesn't manage well. If an employee is a disaster, 95% of the time, it's because their manager allows them to be.. through inaction, bad management, ostrich management, etc.. As the board, YOU control all the power. How did she get to be a disaster without the boards approval, overt or tacit?

You say that "people who do not know what has been going on" give her credibility. How is that her fault? So you have idiots who are happy to give away their votes without knowledge. Why not be upset with the idiots, not the person smart enough to harvest them. Unless there is coercion, those owners are free to act like idiots, give their votes to anyone they wish, etc.

As for her disappointing your take on a PM being neutral, is that spelled out in her job description? If not, then basically, it's your opinion of what a PM should be versus hers... and hers is that a PM should be an active player in the political process, working hard to get people she believes are best for the HOA into power, etc..

like I said, she probably has not broken any rules. I just think it's really sleazy.

And i agree, shame on our board for letting her stay this long.

I always find it interesting when people complain about someone gathering proxies when they, in fact, have the same rights and could have done the same thing!

Although it may have the appearance of being a bit unethical, I see nothing sleazy or shady about the PM -- who IS a member of the HOA -- gathering proxies. And, if she was gathering proxies to sway the vote I would think she would have wanted to get alot more than just 8.

I don't see the sleazy, either. If her job as PM does not prohibit her from gatherihg proxies, then she is acting like any other HO and exercixing her Member rights.

The board goofed in not defining her job role and limitations when she (as a member) got the contract for the PM position.

Time for the board to re-visit the PM contract BEFORE you hire anyone else or re-sign her contract.

But seriously Mike.. i am curious, how does secure web based voting work?

She is resigning at the end of this month. If she wasn't resigning I have little doubt she'd have been fired by the end of the year. Chances are she resigned to avoid a lawsuit as some of her screw ups are pretty bad. I had reason to take to the attorney general as she ignored my requests to view financial records.

And, she only had 8 proxies because that's about all the people in the neighborhood that doesn't know what is going on and didn't kick her off their door step! Seriously.

There is a lot more to the story as well. Maybe that's why it is so clearly sleazy to me.

Plus, if I can't win a vote just with people hearing both sides of the argument and I have to resort to canvasing the neighborhood giving just my side of the story and getting proxys, do I deserve to win the vote? I like the idea of a 2 proxy max.

Plus, plus, as the propery manager, doesn't it come off as a little more offical then just a home owner when i knock on your door and ask for a proxy? People could think she was acting on behalf of the board?

Oh well, thanks for the thoughts and opinions

And for the record, I agree, on line voting would be horrible!!!! You need to be able to discuss things before voting.

The big problem as I see it is having a home owner as a property manager. I just wouldn't want that to happen. And in my opinion, if she is working for another company, they should not have allowed that to happen either. Quite frankly I think a large part of our corporate problems are caused by the lack of real governance caused by those in power also holding so many votes in the corporation.

As for the elimination of proxies, that to me is unwarranted government intrusion.

As for the permissibility of electronic voting, I don't see where your documents have to specifically authorize it at all. I would posit that if the issue isn't addressed it is up to the organization to address it. As a BOD member I would always vote for putting such an item to the membership for decision though. But if you are going there, why not go the whole way and stream the meeting allowing someone to watch and cast votes in real time? I predict this will happen in the future. All the same, either one takes a certain technical knowhow.

The biggest issue with secure voting via the web is that you simply must trust those running the web vote to be honest. The issue is less problematic if the votes are cast via a live interface in real time. Of course those votes won't truly be anonymous. Those collecting the votes will know who voted what. If you are not taking real time votes, then I would recommend outsourcing the vote to a trusted vendor to reduce the possibility that someone would rig the election.

Mike---WHINE!!!(don't whine and tell me that not everyone has access to the web.)

Not everyone has web access, sorry to tell ya. I had a Board member/ ARC committee member who did not. He did a terriffic job without the cyber world and there are more around than you think.

Donna - Not in our area...

lol.. i suspect your laptop and card still won't work out here... unless you have access to the only cell service that does work reliably, at least.. my HOA is a killer for cell phones and wireless, nothing works more than a few feet in any direction except the infamous Bell Baby...

Brian,

The sites would not stop people from freely giving out their usernames and passwords. But I would expect that fewer people would just give out that information then would sign a proxy statement.

Many people will sign a proxy statement because they won't be attending the meeting and know that a certain number of votes must be represented. Why they won't could be because they can't, or maybe because they don't care to.

In my neighborhood I would expect that getting people to vote online would be much easier then to vote in person. I have counted that at least six of the nine houses on my street have high speed internet. I would not be surprised if all nine have high speed internet.

I think Kirk, you have more faith in people than I have. I am pretty convinced that if someone is stupid enough to give their vote away (ie, a blank proxy, not a directed proxy), then they are stupid enough to give it away no matter the form. I am a pretty cynical guy. I am glad you still have hope for people-kind...

First, I find it highly unlikely that proxies will be outlawed -- I mean, I get proxies every year from the companies in which I have voting stock.

You're not seriously saying that I would have to show up in person at the annual meetings to vote, are you?

Kooky.

Second, we have fewer than 10% of our residents who regularly use the internet or have web access at home.

We have a "website" (a free thing that's pretty much informational only), but out of 300+ homes, we only have email addresses for about 10 or 15 of them.

Kooky, number two.

Finally, how many board members are there? Did I miss that info somewhere? So even if the PM got a "favored person"on the board, that's still only ONE vote, right?

And if she's "resigning," is there a new PM waiting in the wings?

Just curious.

I would say that you might be surprised at how often BODs have a dysfunctional member on them. We elected our president and then came to find out that she has major issues with us telling people what they can and can't do with their property. She claims it was obvious. The only thing obvious is that she hadn't realized the situation until closing. Many people aren't sure when they close but come to realize the benefits of having covenants.

Our president claims that her statements about not knowing about the HOA until closing and that we should carefully consider all rules should have been an obvious tipoff to her position that we shouldn't be able to tell others what they can do on their property. I figured it out about two or three months into our tenure. She doesn't know it, but I plan to work hard to ensure she is not president of the HOA again next year. And I may work to get her elected off at the end of her term.

I don't think most people realize that she is against the idea of covenants. I also don't believe that she would have been elected if they had known. I think there is a good chance that the candidate who didn't make the meeting may have been elected instead.