I recently visited the WPA office to review files. I reviewed 6 months of the correspondence file. I observed some interesting details. First, our correspondence file, really is NOT a real correspondence file, it is just an assembly of resident unanswered letters. A business or organization file usually contains all correspondence: letters received, answers to questions, announcements of meetings of the organization, inner agency communication, etc. The WPA file no longer (with rare exception) contains those items. It did at one time, I know because I've reviewed it for several years now. When did it change? For the most part, with this board. For instance, if a board meeting, other than the monthly meeting was called, the notice was filed along with responses to the notice. If a resident had a question that required an answer from a particular board member, that board member prepared a draft response and sent it for review and comment, and fellow board member comments or approvals were filed. I do understand that some items might be sensitive, contain financial or legal information about a resident, but that is rare, and even then there are ways to remove names, etc. and file it. Some items may have to be copied and placed in two files to provide a concrete flow of information in all areas.
I reviewed 26 letters from January to May 21st. NOT ONE WAS ANSWERED. Residents have written, yet each month our association president sits back, calls for a report from the community liaison, and THERE IS NO REPORT. Each month, no one on the board says, "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" That appears to be, just the way your president and board want it. There are some hints that residents are answered. For instance, on April 26th, a resident on Joanna Guillard Lane writes the drainage chair about water in their yard because of a vacant lot for sale that has been cleared and is extremely low. In that case they may have received an answer, but you and I don't know what it was, but we do know that the chair has sought and received approval of funds, to work on drainage on Joanna Guillard Lane and his road, saying everyone on the drainage committee for the last 6 or 7 years were wrong. What we don't know is who built that particular resident's home and what they were promised. In any case, it appears our drainage chair doesn't want to write a proper answer, send it, and have it reviewed by the board, and reported by the board community liaison. If the drainage chair is confident that they are correct, we'd all be able to read or hear what the resident was promised.
There is another instance on April 10th, where a resident has written two or three times, copying the Concerned Citizens. He wants some trees cut back. He goes on about canal dredging , over one million , "for dredging mud out of property, we don't own". He further states the board is not keeping up with the roadways and the "entire plantation is wearing down." Additionally he states, "Come on now, let's start using funds for the benefit of everyone and for appropriate purposes! Are not the roadways traveled by everyone?" He has written two times earlier. Some of his writings on this subject were written when the management company was in place. Remember that awful management company that is being blamed for so much now? Well, answering resident concerns, part of their contract, was usually held up by the board FOREVER. On Feb. 19th, the management company representative writes the following to the resident, "Last week I emailed the board your pictures as well as the email that states your concerns. I added my comments as well about the issue of safety to larger vehicles. I have not yet heard from them in regards to this issue. As soon as the board responds to my email I will forward this on to you." Your board didn't answer, they stifled the management company, and your president doesn't see to it that his community liaison does his job. No one on that board wants any of us to know too much. Could it be because they don't intend to treat us all the same?
On March 20, a resident writes our president and the legal chair. "Is it possible to quit claim the portion o the canals supposedly owned by the association, the rice fields and the spoil site to either the state or the canal lot owners?" We don't have a answer from the board. Why? At first I thought the question was a bit off the wall. This resident, a Concerned Citizen, is often at monthly meetings. They have possibly heard your legal chair discuss quit claim of other association property to canal lot owners. Hmmm, wouldn't you think legal would at least explain since they are in the process of giving away association property?
On February 27, a resident on Francis Parker writes of a neighbor and asks, "prevents the development of any unclean, unsightly, or unkept conditions of buildings or grounds on such lot which shall tend to substantially decrease the beauty of the neighborhood as a whole or the specific as a whole or the area'. They go on to say, "there have been numerous occasions of NOXIOUS OR OFFENSIVE ACTIVITY (the resident put this phrase in caps). I am writing this to place Wedgefield Plantation Association on notice and would ask that this be passed onto the appropriate parties." There is no response to this resident. Why would there be? Consider this, I haven't done a drive by lately, but one of the officers of our board, who lives in that area, has a lot, has allowed a blue trap to be placed on the lot, in the trees, that makes it look like an area where homeless people gather, live and sleep. This same board member sits on ARC with ARC chairman, our president! These same words could apply to old dock number one being dragged into our back yard - the canals.
COMMENTS - WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS? SERIOUS!
*Your board wants to keep you in the dark. There is a procedure in the policy manual for answering residents. Your board is constantly changing the policy manual while ignoring the steps required by our by-laws (See next item.). They don't provide a hard copy of the policy manual. Recently they have removed it from the WPA website. So you are left in the dark! You don't even know what they are changing. You can't read it anywhere. I had asked what the problem was? I was told on May 21st that it would be up on the website within a week. The time has passed. I checked today and it is not there. It could look like, keep the target moving, keep them dumb and in the dark. Remember, it appears they are expert at everything! One thing I'm sure of is that the policy manual doesn't say, "don't answer anyone, don't put anything in writing, and don't report that there were questions in the first place."
*Are all these changes to the policy manual important? Yes! It appears, they keep changing them to accommodate what they want to do in the moment, to shut each other up and deal for the board votes they want for their projects. THE CHANGES TO THE POLICY MANUAL ARE IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF OUR BY-LAWS!!!!!!! Look at the annual meeting minutes for 2011. YOU, as residents VOTED to approve a by-law change that basically says that when the board wants to change the policy manual they must read the changes at two meetings AND post the proposed changes on the WPA website for resident review and comment. THEY HAVE NEVER posted ONE!!!!! In some cases, they have NEVER read the complete change at a meeting. YOU can't read the RESIDENT APPROVED BY LAW CHANGE, because they have posted the by-laws but have not included the new one - SINCE NOVEMBER 2011. I wrote and asked how any of these MANY, MANY POLICY MANUAL CHANGES CAN HOLD WHEN THEY HAVEN'T FOLLOWED THE BY-LAW????!!!!! They didn't answer me, but when I went to the office I was told that the legal chair had to see if the by-law was registered. This legal chair was in place in early 2012 on. He reported at the May board meeting that the by-law was registered. What does that mean, when he doesn't tell us when, and how registrations trumps your vote?????? He doesn't tell us what he has been doing, except making sure there are NO WRITTEN LEGAL OPINIONS for you to review and read for yourself! Even after he said it was registered (??????, forget your VOTE, he didn't see that it was posted for you to read on the WPA website. I checked today for myself.
So....No answers to residents, change the policy manual to suit your individual board member agenda, don't get legal opinions in writing, ignore by-laws, and count on residents putting up with it and remaining SILENT! Many of you are doing just that.
