HSVPOA – Change has to happen

Written by Frank Leeming, June 19, 2019

What just happened?

    The surreal, chaotic meeting today of the POA’s board of directors is a direct result of three years of trying to wrench our community government into a corporate boardroom.

    With armed police at the entrances and one important door locked to those trying to get in, the meeting spiraled out of control until, toward the end, one Villager went to the podium and asked: “What just happened?”

    It was a great question

    What happened was Village leadership coming face-to-face with years of taking its business behind closed doors and wondering today why Villagers are frustrated because they don’t understand what’s going on.

    Symbolic of the frustration is the Governance Committee.  Now two years old but only beginning to register with Villagers, this secret board within a board was devised to give four persons control over what is on the agenda and talked about.

    Operating under new rules – many now recognized as illegal – and quietly adopted by acquiescent boards, the Governance Committee has scared some into silence and others into meekly going along.

    Today all that began to fall apart

    The three new board members began to push back.  And while they failed in most cases to overcome the four incumbent-member majority, they made clear things are going to change.

    It is likely the board will resume its monthly open work sessions on the first Wednesday so issues can be openly discussed and direction set.  The sessions were canceled three years ago because then-CEO David Twiggs felt they wasted too much of his staff’s time.

    It is likely a standing finance committee will be formed to help guide the POA’s budget process.  Today it’s in shambles and so far out of whack no one really knows where we’re going.

    Efforts to approve a charter for the committee failed today because so much manipulation had been done in secret even the board members didn’t know what was happening.

    Here’s what I took away from today’s meeting:

 Change is coming

    We will get back to a community form of governance, but it will take one more election to sweep out the old and bring in another director or two who respect the will of the property owners.  The four incumbents act as if the Declarations vote and the last board election – both clear repudiations of the way they were running things – didn’t happen.

The Governance Committee has to go

      A finance committee reporting to the board has to be created.  An honest marketing committee not associated with the CMP needs to be created.  The board work session has to be re-established.  Dozens of corporate-oriented bylaws have to be revoked or revised.  Secrecy has to be made a thing of the past.

    It won’t be easy, but change has to happen.  We have to get beyond an environment where the board chair calls in the police because the audience applauds something she didn’t like to hear.  That isn’t who we are.

Written by Frank Leeming, Hot Springs Village

Formatted by Cheryl Dowden

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