Southern Walk HOA Board of Directors meeting

As listed in the November Broadlands newsletter:

SW HOA Board of Directors Meeting
Thursday, November 21, 2013
6:30pm in the Nature Center Conference Room

 

Anyone have updates about Annual Meeting and elections, yet?

 

Wouldn't it be nice if the SWHOA Board of Directors posted the meeting agenda in advance, just like the Broadlands HOA did today for the HOA meeting tomorrow?

 

The November SWHOA meeting is canceled because the SWHOA is now forbidden from using the Broadlands Nature Center and there is a conflict with the Broadlands Community Center. The SWHOA will be renting the Mill Run Elementary School Library on Thursday, December 19th at 7:00pm for the annual meeting for the fiscal year ending June 30th. An official announcement will be coming in the Broadlands Newsletter and residents should receive a meeting packet and election notices in the mail in the next few weeks.

 

John, Thanks for posting here.
Few Questions:

1. Does the fiscal year always end on June 30th?
2. Last year, the special assessments were assessed from Jan 2013 to Dec 2013 which means fiscal year for 2012 ended on Dec 31, 2012
3. SWHOA Board can make assessments only on an annual basis and they cannot span multiple fiscal years. If the the last fiscal year ended on June 30th, 2013, the special assessment of $30 should have ended in June 2013.
4. Did the fiscal year changed recently? If so, when, and are the SWHOA members informed about it?
5. If the fiscal year ends on June 30th of 2014, why is the annual meeting scheduled 6 months ahead so close to Christmas Holidays when many homeowners would be on vacation? Why not schedule it for April/May 2014?
   
6. Will the SWHOA Board give sufficient time for the candidates to file nominations this time around to their names appear on the proxy? According to the SWHOA governing docs, candidates must file the nominations 25 days prior to the election.

Thanks in advance.

 

I know that Loudoun County's fiscal year runs from July-June, and they assess taxes that are for the physical year Jan-Dec. Maybe that's the way the HOA works, too?

 

It sounds like the SWHOA was to be given a waiver to the new policy for their scheduled meeting, (said new policy enacted due to the lawsuit naming BHOA as a defendant), but SWHOA decided to change the date of their meeting because of a "change in management agent". The new date they chose was already booked at the Community Center, so they chose to move the meeting to Mill Run. Is this a correct statement of the facts? It seems like BHOA tried to allow the SWHOA use of the Nature center for their previously scheduled meeting in good faith, but SWHOA couldn't meet on that date.

 

The scheduled November meeting was a regular monthly meeting and not the annual meeting, so it looks like there will not be a November monthly meeting. I haven't seen an official notice yet for the December 19 annual meeting, just a forum post stating that the annual meeting will be held on December 19. There is a question regarding the timing of the annual meeting since someone had pointed out that the SWHOA bylaws state that the annual meeting shall be held at least 30 days before the beginning of each fiscal year.

 

So the SWHOA November meeting wasn't cancelled because the SWHOA isn't allowed to use the Nature Center, but because they had to change the date of their meeting. If they had decided to meet on their regularly scheduled date in November, they could have done so, but they needed to change it because of a change in management agent.

 

But, John Hines posted that the Dec 19th meeting is for the fiscal year ending June 30th, 2014. As far as I know, the fiscal year always ended on Dec 31st. I suspect fiscal year is moved to June 30th deliberately. There is a provision in the CC&R which mandates that the homeowners have the keep paying the same assessments if the HOA fails to adopt a budget. I suspect we will see a budget from July 1st 2014 to June 30th 2015 in the Dec 19th annual meeting. If that happens, HOA will be operating without an approved budget from Jan 1st 2014 to June 30th 2014 which means they can collect $185/month for 6 additional months without actually assessing that additional $30/month. I could be wrong here, but I smell this sinister plan here. Of course, they will lower the $30 assessment from July 2014 onwards.

I will pay the assessments needed to support the litigation, but I want HOA to be forthright.

 

The way that I read the posts:

November 21 monthly meeting:
Cancelled because the SWHOA is forbidden from using the Broadlands Nature Center because of the lawsuit and there is a conflict with the Broadlands Community Center so the meeting cannot be moved from the Nature Center to the Community Center.

December 19 annual meeting:
Will be held at Mill Run Elementary School Library on December 19. While last year's annual meeting was held in November at the Nature Center, this year's annual meeting will move to Mill Run because the SWHOA is forbidden from using the Broadlands Nature Center. The December date was unofficially (SWHOA has not yet posted an official notice of the annual meeting) scheduled prior to the announcement of the lawsuit, so it would appear that the meeting being held in December this year is not related to the lawsuit.

Two different meetings.

 

Does anyone know if a change to the fiscal year was approved at an advertised, public SWHOA meeting? I can't believe that a motion such as this could be approved outside advertised, public SWHOA meeting?

 

That's exactly the kind of twisted member-hostile thing the SWHOA board would do.

 

According to this forum post;
http://www.broadlandshoa.org/hoafor...to-nature-center-facility-for-meetings.30759/

the SWHOA November meeting was to be allowed at the Nature Center because it had been scheduled before the lawsuit was filed. The BWHOA was willing to give the SWHOA a waiver for that one date. The SWHOA decided to change the date of their November meeting, thus the meeting needed to be held in the Community Center, but on the date they wanted there was a conflict with another group.

 

The dates for SWHOA meetings are published in the Broadlands Newsletter. Thats technically a public announcement.

Since the board does not publish the minutes of the meeting and they will not answer any questions, the only way to know what decisions were made is by inspecting the HOA documents. And we know what happens when we request the inspection of the documents.

SWHOA typically has 2 executive sessions in the monthly meetings. The first one is held at the beginning of the meeting for 30 minutes to discuss the delinquent accounts. The second executive session is held at the end of the meeting. All homeowners are asked to leave as they enter into the second executive session. Board comes back into regular session from the executive session and votes on the decisions made.

In October 17th monthly meeting which you attended, the Board told us they have not decided on the annual meeting as there is a conflict of dates in November. They also told us that they would be discussing the scheduling of the annual meeting in the executive session after we leave. There is no need for an executive session to discuss scheduling conflicts, but they choose to. We can assume they discussed other “confidential” issues which determine the scheduling of the annual meeting.

We now know the following:

1. SWHOA board knew about the scheduling conflict for the November meeting (21st?) as early as October 17th and they did not bother to work out the schedules with BHOA for the Nature Center usage until recently.
2. SWHOA board decided the Dec 19th date for the annual meeting in the Oct 17th meeting, and they have chosen to keep the date secret until a couple of days ago. Now, they don’t have enough time to send the nomination papers to the homeowners so they can file the papers 25 days before the date of election and have their names printed on the proxy ballot.

This board never records any discussions in the BoD meetings. They record the decisions in a very cryptic manner which makes little or no sense to the reader. Here is an example:

This extract is from the May 9th BoD meeting.

New Business: On the advice of the Law Firm of Segan, Mason & Mason the Board considered a revision of the Policy Regarding Delinquent Assessment Payments. After a brief discussion Vice President Hines moved that the revised policy be adopted. The motion was seconded by Treasurer Ward and was approved unanimously (6/0). (A copy of the revised policy is attached to and is part of these minutes).

I asked for the minute’s packet in the June BoD meeting and was given except the revised policy referred above. Sent an email request, no response. Asked about in the July BoD meeting. John Hines stated that the minutes were wrong, there is no attachment. Erika Cotti went further and stated that the entire section is wrong; it should not have been there.

Whatever is in that revised policy is being guarded by the Board. It is a policy which affects all of us and they don’t tell us what it is?

Hope to see you and many more SW residents in the Homeowner meet on Tuesday night.

 

Are the minutes being captured by a volunteer board member or someone for which the SWHOA is paying for the service of recording the minutes? If the SWHOA is paying for the service to record the minutes, I would expect that the minutes be captured correctly or some accountability from the company to make them right and then redistributed to those who were provided an incorrect copy.

 

Don't they all have to approve the last month's minutes at the beginning of the current meeting? I'm pretty sure that's part of how all meetings are to be conducted, and that business is one of the first things taken care of before any regular business, such as homeowner questions, is conducted. So they had to approve the meeting minutes, and then they state that those minutes are incorrect?

 

It sounds like the SWHOA is like a secret club for the Board nowadays and they won't share ANYthing with anyone nowadays and if anyone challenges them, they will sic the HOA lawyers on you AT your (or everyone's) expense. We all lose with this in mind. We residents are powerless, so to speak. Let's put it this way, the current Board, as long as they control it and sit on it, will make all the rules they see fit and they do not have to consult the membership nor do they have to ask for our approval. Its not a true democratic system here. Its sad to see them changing to a closed non-democratic system. Really is.

 

When the [only?] candidate for a SWHOA BoD seat asserts to 'work with the board and the community towards a quick and positive result' and turns around and, in the next breath, publicly accuses the current board --- the same board he plans on joining --- of a criminal act based on an unsubstantiated assertion - well, that speaks for itself.

Also, still no real plan of attack or costs noted anywhere, just a promise that there will be a plan 'when the time comes' and a hint towards an 'advisory panel' that assumes that there are 3-4 attorneys in SW willing and able to participate in this fun (paid or volunteer, i wonder). Then theres a whole bunch of 'look how bad the board f****d up now' whether true or not.

History has a funny way of repeating itself at the most unfortunate times, like when it counts.

Vote carefully and wisely...

 

I attended about 9 meetings in the last year. Not once did they read the prior months minutes before adopting them. And yes, they are required to read the minutes before adopting them according to their bylaws.