TALES FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE FILE:
The email subject was "Builder Damage", sent to ARC to President Walton, dated 4/15, from a board member, who is a member of the ARC committee. It is not sent to the entire board, or the complete membership of the ARC. It is not a lengthy email and centers around a truck that has driven across the board member's front yard and left deep ruts and tire tracks. The board member notes that he had placed a call to the offending company. This is the portion that should send red flags, (quoted exactly as written) "I a wait a call from Mr. Blanton, otherwise, I will have the lawn repaired and have the association deduct it from the owner deposit."
COMMENTS:
As I was reviewing the correspondence file, this particular email caused me to stop and think about the ramifications of what I had just read. Questions begin to develop. This is a resident problem - damage to property. If it were you or me, we would have to handle it by contacting the vendor (builder - not mine or his) and work out restoration of property. It happened on private land. Questions and comments follow:
1) Why would a resident involve the board at all, unless they witnessed the destruction of WPA property? Remember, to serve on the board you are required to own property and have kept your assessments current. So, all board members are residents, but the line between personal property issues and of individual board member responsibilities of management, should not be crossed, or it is conflict of interest and possible mismanagement. Serving on the board should not entitle you to use the power of the board seat to settle your personal property problems.
2) Why would a board member write the president only, not the whole board or the entire ARC Committee, and pre-determine that because the association holds the builder's deposit, that any board member can receive a portion of the deposit for themselves? The ARC collects refundable and non refundable deposits on new builds to protect ASSOCIATION property. I never saw a resident receive builder deposit funds to correct their individual property destruction, when I sat on the board. I contacted a few more board members who had served longer terms, and they told me that they hadn't seen it either, because the deposits are to protect WPA property.
I'm not telling you that the board member has received funds from the ARC deposit to correct their private property issue. We don't know. We do know that as ARC chair, President Walton gave a full report at the May meeting, and this was not discussed or mentioned. Wouldn't you think the request/issue would have been discussed by the full board? It should have been. All board members would have benefited by a discussion and the residents would have also.
I'm not surprised at anything. This issue speaks to the climate of this board. They let things ride, frequently do not share with the entire board, or YOU. This is a question of ethics, finance, and management. We are left as we always are, decisions made behind closed doors, lack for months of answers to residents - in writing documenting EXACTLY what your board had to say about an issue, and your board members running committees and handling responsibilities like their own INDIVIDUAL kingdoms. They lock each other out of their information kingdom, and then get many of the others to vote their way on limited knowledge. For instance, one of these board members told me that he was being denied information on the spoil site and previous canal dredging. One of the board members too involved in holding that information has said the first should stay out of HIS business. Do you know a board member asked to sit in on a conference call with the reserve study vendor and was denied by two other board members? Didn't you hear board members deny another's request at the May board meeting, to review the draft of the reserve study? Why???? Because this board is composed of territorial individuals who won't share to protect their individual turf and pet projects.
The problems exhibited here take us directly to the "accounting department" and lessons we have failed to learn from a ridiculous, often mismanaged past, because your board has brought complete management of our finances in house - AGAIN. We are back to checks being written on a the whim, of individual board members, with out the guidance, requirements, and supervision of a professional accountant. Think about it, about when we have tried this before. Prior to 2009 when a CPA was hired and you had to write a request, provide signature of responsible board member, terms of contract if applicable, and proper documentation, and then the CPA wrote the check for signature by two board members.
*Prior to that time, residents were suddenly told an office would be built - initially with a mortgage, and then your board took the funds out of reserves, failed to take any kind of public vote, and checks were written to an individual, rather than a corporation.
*After a board fired the accountant, brought the finances in house to be managed by a contract bookkeeper and the treasurer, the treasurer wrote a road contract that didn't include a total amount of contract, and gave the fail to serve contractor a 40 - 50% advance. The treasurer later said he did it because if he hadn't done it that way, there wouldn't have been a contract at all, and two of the other board officers had threatened to write the check without him.
*A board member announced during the 2011 annual meeting that the 2010 audit had revealed that during the last half of 2010 that there were a lot of reimbursements without receipts. Once again accounting was in house.
*We are back to in house accounting and two bookkeepers and the finance chair - "the accounting department", and the finance chair wrote this email.
