Town Hall Meeting 12/06/2008

Larry Schroeder was the moderator of this town hall meeting. He said purpose of this meeting was not to vilify anything; it is not to tear down anybody’s reputation. It is to simply give the people of this association a chance to air their perceptions, their assumptions, of why we are here and why there has been such a problem. Moderator Schroeder gave his opinions of our Village’s current situation from attending one meeting. He gave us the long history of Outdoor Resorts that evolved into Long Island Village. He explained that the Dec. 3rd, 2008 by invitation only Wednesday meeting was not about putting up a slate to run for the board as a political party but was an informal get together to discuss their concerns of not having enough candidates to run for the board this March. He said his group would help anyone who wants to run. He proposed that they will support meetings so candidates can voice their opinions and discouraged what he called “sound bites”. He said owners elect directors from their agendas and it appeared to him that agendas of the new directors is what got us in the position we are in today. He explained the position was that we have more lawsuits against us than we ever had in our lives. He said it didn’t bode well while trying to sell his home and having somebody a few days ago rescind an offer based on that. He said twice that this upsets me.
Moderator Schroeder said since the original meeting was canceled, his group decided to have this meeting. He said Bill Zerbe took it upon himself to just schedule the hall and is not his meeting. Mr. Schroeder said this meeting has the same agenda as what the original meeting would have had before it was cancelled. Larry Schroeder talked about the Declaration and bylaws, their importance, and proceeded to say in his opinion the use in executive session for the purpose of business not normally covered in executive sessions, is a violation of the Texas open meetings act. He then went on to state that if a board member takes action in an executive session that he is not allowed to, they waive their right to director officers liability insurance. The said this board has had more executive meetings than the three previous boards combined and that amounts to someone making decisions when I don’t get to hear the discussion. He said twice that’s not right.
Moderator Schroeder discussed their agenda items. The first was to be about the conduct of the directors. He said they, the directors, will get an opportunity to address that. He said the second item was by court order this board was to remain status quo and the directors are not following this. This court order was imposed after one director, Leroy Mulch and Reta Priest, recall leader and previous board candidate who lost; suing six directors of our Board The third agenda item was a board code of ethics in which moderator Schroeder thought we didn’t need it. The fourth item the people supposedly wanted to discuss was in Mr. Schroeder’s opinion the cause for all of this; the discussion of what created the problem with management and the current board’s explicit desire to terminate the manager. He gave the audience his rendition of the hierarchy of board and management with a lengthy synopsis of his perceptions about board procedures in which should result in blaming the prior board instead of management themselves for any unacceptable performance.
Moderator Schroeder said what we hear today may be hearsay and assumptions, and in some cases false hearsay and false assumptions. If someone says something incorrect, just get up and correct them. He said if it gets into a shouting match, I’m going to just walk out.
The Board President Dennis Sullivan said this was exactly what he had intended as a meeting. He mentioned the lawsuit and its cost. He felt that the dissention could have been mended without this lawsuit to which you could hear the start of the ahs and moans start from the crowd. He thanked everyone for coming to the meeting
Owner Bill Zerbe began asking why the board President didn’t let the owners know in the meeting cancellation letter, that there will be a member’s town hall meeting. He said he did things that he shouldn’t have out of frustration. He criticized the seating arrangements of the directors. He brought up issues that had not been accomplished in a timely manner. He asked why discussions could not be done on a personal basis between the directors instead of at the meeting where it appears I’m going to nail you on something. He thought this all started with the firing of current director Jim Peterson and gave his reasons why. He said current director Ed McBride mentioned at a party he wanted to get rid of our GM. Mr. Zerbe said if they were unhappy with things they should have express that before being elected. He gave his version of this summer’s history from the replacement attempt of the GM up to this Town Hall meeting. He said this lawsuit came about when certain people in the park were unhappy about what was going on. We started with a recall and gave the number of responses that were received. His opinion is that these directors were not representing persons in the park and needed to step down. He said people had a problem with these directors not being present at a 9 am board meeting. He had a problem with our Village lawyer’s actions towards the recall, but agreed with her that instead of suing they should have compromised. He said the Board President left us no choice but to sue when he wouldn’t change anything we wanted. He said it’s time for everyone to start changing and get along. Mr. Zerbe said a minimum three times that we filed the lawsuit.
Lot #677 said he was confused. He said the directors didn’t follow their agendas stated in March. He called the new directors puppets. He complained about executive meetings. He said there are rumors that the new directors were going to take over and run this park. He complained about the new security company. He talked about other stuff I am not sure of.
Lot 354 & 391 said they’re here during the summer and announce he and eight others will run for the board. He said he would like to personally like to see where we have to go to get it back to the way this place was before. He mentioned the problems the swimming pool wrist band enforcement was causing and the increased perception in vandalism from the renters the past year. He wants to bring the summer and winter owners together.
Lot 306 complained about the lawns not being mowed. She said management should not be part of our board in meetings. She referred to everyone as being a stock holder and to put a pencil to the issues. She talked positive about our Village lawyer and said right now our security is a joke. She said the previous board was at fault that many things have not been done correctly. She said the board lawsuit was pure craziness. This received loud ahs and moans from apparently the same group who disrespect our board meetings.
Moderator Larry Schroeder corrected her metaphor of being stockholders. He said this is run like a business but it is not a corporation. He described in length his security background and made the statement that a license security officer was no more than someone who went to the quickest 40 hour class to get certified. His impression was our Village will not gain from it.
SC27 said he was asked what side he was on when he came back. He said the people here are acting like kids. He said the Board should make policies and management should manage. He referred to our management as experts. He said if a person has an agenda, they should not run for the board. He said our GM was great during the Hurricane. He said to the board, don’t get on an agenda to fire our GM.
Lot 779 said he wanted the new elected board to hire a professional to come in and teach the board what their roles are and do the same with management.
Lot 28 said he has never seen this kind of hatred. He said the only horse he has in this race was his investment in buying here. Whoever runs for the board please keep in mind that these properties are an investment?
Lot 759 said she liked the idea of Sat. meetings. She said the newsletters say nothing and asked for a little more information. She said she would not blindly sign her proxy anymore. She said she had both types of experiences with the GM. She questioned the evaluation of him. She asked what his duties are. She asked for someone to answer.
Moderator Larry Schroeder gave his take on how our board meetings schedule came about. He commented about the size of this current crowd. He talked lengthy about the minutes and complained that the Village attorney is here way too often and inferred that the board is using an attorney to make every business decision. He said we should have a court reporter instead of an attorney if there is a problem in taking of the minutes.
President Sullivan addressed the evaluation procedure of the manager and the current proxy. Moderator Schroeder said they did not have an evaluation of the manager when he served on the Board. Someone from the crowd said that there should be something available to the owners to evaluate the management.
Director Hansen said the prior board did not evaluate the GM. He said he felt that all nine board members have the park at heart. This brought out the disrespectful moans and ahs. He went on to explain the history about our LIV funds not being evenly distributed for them to be insured after numerous times being told by management it was to be taken care of. He explained the history of our Village consistently being overbill on trash pickup. He said he made our GM aware of it and requested the GM to come up with a solution. He said our GM did nothing. He said that three board members sitting to the President’s right have voted the same on every issue while the five on his left haven’t. This received a loud chorus of boos from the same people as before. He corrected the history given on the number of meetings before the GM’s April replacement attempt. He then commented on the number of times he received the finger from Bill Zerbe and started to walk towards him. The crowd came unglued and Moderator Schroeder started yelling at Hansen and Hansen was yelling at Zerbe and Schroeder. The lady from Lot 759 came up to the mike and said excuse me but you are all out of order.
The people in the meeting started to disband with moderator Schroeder started pleading for people to stay.
Director McBride came up to explain the different attacks, rumors, and lies that were let loose on him from certain people. He said it was sad that people are having to make decisions on such conjecture. He said he just simply does not think our GM is doing a good enough job for our Park.
It had appeared that about a third of the people left this meeting. It continued with:
Lot 213 said good things about our GM and didn’t want him to be called hired help. She said the upside is that it seems now more people will be more involved. She said be happy with what we have.
Moderator Schroeder summarized what he thought that we, the owners think. He seemed to validate the totally invalid recalled with saying it was invalid because the I’s were not doted and the T’s were not crossed, then brought up Reta Priest’s tabulation as a somewhat valid number that people weren’t happy with what was going on and said that’s a wakeup call twice.
Lot#? I couldn’t hear what lot this lady lived at but she was upset that she was laugh at by the board last March when she asked a question about breaking laws and then received death threats afterward over the phone saying we are watching you.
Lot 96 complained that people don’t obey the stop signs. Let’s have the Christmas spirit year round.
Lot 97 said when the board speaks, it speaks for me and I don’t speak to people like they speak to people. He said we need to have more respect and get the President a very large gavel.
Moderator Schroeder said this is a record for the number of people who spoke and again talked about this has affected home values and sales. A person in the crowd asked who would like to run for the board.
Moderator Schroeder brought up that the bylaws in which we live by here were done solely drawn up by the outdoor resort developers. He said they wanted to make it impossible for the owner’s to have ratification rights to the changes to our common grounds in making the bylaw to require 75% of the owner approval
Lot 499 asked with the technology today why we can’t have board members who stay here only six months out of the year serve?
Director Burke explained the evaluation form. She explained also that she got too busy the year before to evaluate the manager. She explained the procedure she said she laid out on the GM’s 90 day evaluation prior to Sept. She said in her opinion the evaluation of our GM is done. Ms. Burke explained that in 2002, her mother transferred the ownership of the property of where she lives to her six children. She rambled for fifteen more minutes about herself. She spent ten more minutes explaining the different lawsuits we have. She made a point at saying she made a living as a criminal prosecutor. She wishes to have everyone get along until the elections.
Director McBride said Leroy Mulch has not held up his end in any of this with suing the six of us and should not be in his appointed authoritative Secretarial position.
Moderator Schroeder said I’m not an attorney, but said to Director McBride and the audience if you make that decision in an executive session; you are in violation of Texas open meetings act.
Lot? An owner asked the question about if the board is following the court order. President Sullivan responded that all have not.
Lot 79 spoke about the letter her sister drafted and basically wish for everyone to get along.
Our GM spoke about having just not having one evaluation but three a year. He spoke highly of himself and said that many people have asked him why you don’t retire be on the board. He said his reply after talking with his beloved wife was that he could better serve the park as your general manager.