IS THIS RIGHT?

There has been a majority shift within our Board of Directors. All the owners who had voted for the new Directors to help our Village be a better place to live have had their representation taken away. Your vote now belongs to director Leroy Mulch and his suing partner Reta Priest. Priest is the ring leader of this invalid recall and is a possible director replacement. They have sued six of our Directors. Three of those six also received restraining orders.

This action has made Directors Burke, Mulch, and Steffensen to instantly become a majority on our Board. It’s no secret that these three have been against the other Directors on issues, the latest being about the replacement of our unlicensed security to which our general manager and Aramark currently benefit from.

Does this seem to be in our Village’s best interest when one out of nine directors is allowed to sue and eliminate enough directors so as to create his own possible majority? Is that what the owners had wished and voted for?

Directors Mulch, Burke, and Steffensen have never once as a group attempted to work out their implied differences with these six Directors. Do you feel its right for them to obtain an authoritative majority from past selective mayhem caused at board meetings and these lawsuits?

Does anybody see something terribly wrong with this?

What did the six Directors do that was so wrong?
The answer is they tried to replace the Long Island Village General Manager. All other reasons seem to have come after or have spread from this action.

Prior to these six being sued, here are just a few things they allowed in part or as a whole in what is now a failed attempt to satisfy these disgruntle three amigos (Directors Burke, Steffensen, and Mulch).
1. They postpone replacing the General Manager in order to do a 90 day evaluation. This was also done in hopes management would attempt to do better. These six Directors even allowed the GM to participate in his own evaluation scoring.
2. They reluctantly but did allowed this recall to be recognized in a regular meeting, even though the procedures done by Reta Priest were clearly not within our By-Law guidelines.
3. They stopped this same regular board meeting in order to meet with the association attorney to obtain her opinion on the validity of the recall proxies being presented. This was to insure owner’s voting rights and that the By-Laws were adhered to. LIV (you) paid the attorney fee.
4. After these recall proxies were determined by our Association Attorney as overwhelmingly invalid for numerous reasons, these six Directors still allowed a members meeting discussion be put on the agenda to entertain again the issue of these invalid and tainted recall proxies.

Here are a few things our six Directors had to contend with before the lawsuit?
1. After agreeing to a 90 day GM evaluation, Directors McBride, Hansen, and Peterson had a voter recall started against them containing eleven reasons why they should be thrown off the Board. These reasons to date have never been proven. Reta Priest was known as an active participant in lobbying recall votes against these Directors.
2. Each Board member had received court documentation about a long ago divorce hardship experienced by Director Peterson. It was requested to the board that because of this very ancient past, they should take action to rid Director Peterson from the Board. It was a tasteless and shameful action by this recall bunch
3. Director Young was accused of mail tampering because he received mail that’s addressed to him. Director Burke gave a speech about this nonsense at a Board meeting and mentioned he should resign. Reta Priest initiated this accusation.
4. Since considering the removal of the general manager, all six have appeared to come under unnecessary verbal attacks from what seems to be always the same small group of friends associated with the general manager’s wife and Reta Priest. Meetings seem to have taken on an adversarial tone from both sides.

The new directors followed through on their campaign promises in trying to make Aramark management accountable for their actions, but were met with opposition from this management and their friends.

It should be importantly noted these new directors did not initiate the request to replace our general manager, our board President did. Those few who have wish to stop any accountability of this Aramark management has thrust our Village into a social chaos, pitting neighbor against neighbor. These same few have yet to provide owners proof of any wrong doing done by these six Directors.

This appears to have come down to this one issue. Do we keep our current general manager with no accountability towards his actions and at what cost to our Village, or let our elected board work this out and hold our general manager accountable or maybe even replace him at what cost to our Village?

Speaking of cost, this will make it the eighth lawsuit pending against our association. Even though these Directors are being sued as individuals, I read in our By-Laws the Association’s is on the hook to protect them with legal counsel. Below is our Indemnification By-Law. See how you read it. It should also be noted that Mulch and Priest wish to be reimbursed for their Attorney Fees. Guess who will pay for that?

ARTICLE XII. INDEMNIFICATION
The Corporation shall indemnify every Director and every Officer, and their heirs, executors and administrators, against all loss, cost and expenses reasonably incurred in connection with any action, suit or proceeding to which said Director or Officer may be a party, by reason of their being or having been a Director or Officer of the corporation, including reasonable counsel fees to be approved by the Corporation, except as to matters wherein said Director or Officer shall be finally adjudged in such action, suit or proceeding to be liable for or guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct. The foregoing rights shall be in addition to and exclusive of all other rights to which such Director or Officer may be entitled.