Mike has disenfranchised us all

Mike has disenfranchised us all Gillian Fryer posted 4 months ago

2018 represented a turning point for the GWLUA: it was when I started questioning everything, and it was when board division started happening.

If you recall, I said that Mike called an emergency meeting of the board to meet at the Waybee… I had ten minutes to stop what I was doing at work to get there. That meant neither I nor any other board member could prepare.

The reason for the meeting was officially to discuss what to do about a long term over-sized vehicle violation. At the end of that discussion, Mike surprised us with proposing Judy Sutton as a board appointee, saying that he had the right to appoint her regardless of what the board wanted

Violation #1: according to Robert’s Rules of order, emergency meetings are supposed to be limited to the proposed agenda only.

Violation #2: no contemporaneous minutes were taken. If it’s not recorded, it didn’t legally happen.

I now believe that the reason for the meeting wasn’t about the rule violation at all, because I have since been told that the community member in question had NEVER signed the membership agreement form, and therefore could not be legally compelled to comply! Both Mike and Amy knew this, so they both perpetrated a fraud by running the Waybee meeting in this manner.

The real reason for the meeting was solely to get Judy on the board.

Violation #3: Judy’s position was up for re-election a few months later. Alan Jolley put his name into the ring. Mike Reynolds and Amy Duke discussed Alan’s nomination privately, outside of the board emails, and concluded that he was ineligible to run because he had not lived in the community long enough. That's a conspiracy.

They then told Alan he was ineligible to be placed on the ballot, but that he could run as a write in candidate. Excuse me, if someone is ineligible, then they can’t be a write in candidate either! What cosmos is this?

Furthermore, I told the board there were no written rules anywhere that limited candidacy to any timeline. Amy ignored me. Mike said there should be such a rule.

So Alan canvassed the community as best he could. In the end he lost to Judy by approximately 12 votes.

Violation #4: Mike controls about 12 votes. His employees all vote in concert with Mike, with 5 people controlling about 21 votes. Historically, Mike has controlled every election but one… the one where I clawed my way onto the board. Only about 35 votes are cast in any election, largely because members know their votes don’t count.

If you look at the HOA Act under Declarant Control of the Board: Section 8, subsection I.

What it means is that the declarant, Michael Reynolds, cannot use his cumulative votes to control an election. This means every election since the effective date of the HOA Act, 2014, was likely improper. This rule means one vote per person! It’s what we wanted all along, and we didn’t realize the HOA Act mandated it for us!

I know for a fact that several community members tried to change their votes after they discovered Alan’s candidacy, but they were denied. Between cumulative voting, and the advantage of actually being listed on the ballot, Alan would have won in an honest election.

Judy Sutton should not have beaten Alan Jolley in the 2018 elections. That would have changed EVERYTHING!

Lately, board members have run unopposed, so whoever runs would likely win. But we all know that 1/3 of the community is not in good standing and so they have their voting rights rescinded. It has been pointless to vote because we all know that Mike can control the outcome of any election. Had we known this was illegal per the HOA act, we would have been able to change things a long time ago!

BTW, the current GWInc bylaws also provide Mike with cumulative voting rights, in DIRECT VIOLATION OF THE NM HOA ACT.

The GWinc By-laws now require that every proposed board member has owned their property for at least 6 months, however there is a current board member who had not owned his property that long, when he was nominated for the board. Mike and Amy had to have known about that double-standard when they allowed the nomination.

This is what happens when you give your power away... despots take advantage.

Have I shown you enough examples of blatant disregard for the community yet? Isn’t it about time we did something about this once and for all?