Tweet
Ocean Villas II in Nags Head has had an excellent hands-on HOA for many years, but it is on the verge of imploding, over personality conflicts revolving around a fired former manager on one hand, and a drive for power by the current HOA president. Some of those internal problems led the neighboring resort, Ocean Villas (''I'') to pull out of a joint management arrangement in May. Ocean Villas II's members have been using Ocean Villas pool for several years, since a nor'easter took OVII's pool, but when Ocean Villas offered to resume a cash arrangement for pool use that had been in place before joint management, the OVII president did not even call a board meeting to respond. Instead, without asking his board, he had the resort join the YMCA (4 miles away) and offer YMCA pool passes (3 per unit) to members and exchangers. That has not gone over well with their members.
Ocean Villas II has had an excellent treasurer, a former bank vice president, who takes his job seriously and knows the resort budget like the back of his hand, and has served in that capacity for most of the last 15 years. He was the one who caught some discrepancies that led to the firing of the former manager, which got him crosslegged with the HOA president, a strong supporter of that manger. The president ordered that the treasurer's access to the resort's financial records be severly limited. Unable to do his job the treasurer resigned that post earlier this year but remained on the board.
When the issues involving the former manager surfaced, one other board member, the 1st Vice President, got heavily involved, insisting that she had to go. He, too, got on the president's bad list for that stance. The 1st VP is a lawyer and former state legislator, who headed up the resort's hurricane recovery program after Hurricane Isabel, where he did an outstanding job. Ocean Villas II was the first resort with severe damage to reopen, and in spite of being underinsured, the 1st VP's negotiating skills resulted in top notch repairs with no special assessment on members.
Now the president is seeking to purge both of these directors. He has called a special membership meeting for next Saturday to remove them from the board. But that is not all he wants to do. The notice says the meeting will ''vote on whether an Officer or Officers other than the president of the Corporation may be relieved by the President of all responsibilities, priveleges and authority which has been expressly or by implication conferred upon such Officer or Officers''.
OVII has always had a lot of ''general proxies'' to the board. In the last newsletter a month or so ago, they included a general proxy form which they urged members to sign and return, but at that time had not revealed the scheme to remove the two directors. They did not include a proxy form with the notice of the special meeting. They also did not state any reason to remove the two directors.
The president must have already counted noses on the board voting those proxies. There is one other longtime board member who I cannot imagine going along with this scheme, but there are also three newbies on the board who seem to be heavily influenced by the president.
A snap meeting with short notice will likely mean a small turnout, except that furor over the loss of pool privelges MAY bring out more members than they expect.
The fly in the ointment may be poor math. The by-laws require that notice be ''delivered. . . not less than 10 days prior to the meeting''. The faxed copy of the notice I have been sent by a member is dated July 27 for a meeting on August 5. A copy of the envelope it came in was also faxed and it is postmarked July 28. Somebody can't seem to count. That means a likely delay and an opportunity for a counterattack, and the president's own record is what in military terms would be called a target rich environment.
What is ironic on this blunder on notice and meeting dates is that the president spent $5,000 of HOA funds to hire a lawyer to guide him through purging these two directors. The board has not met since that expenditure to approve or disapprove it.
If people don't come to their senses and cool this thing down, I would expect a very stormy annual meeting in October. Blindsiding members this way on the proxies, I would expect for one thing there will be alot of members revoking those general proxies.
Ocean Villas II has had an excellent treasurer, a former bank vice president, who takes his job seriously and knows the resort budget like the back of his hand, and has served in that capacity for most of the last 15 years. He was the one who caught some discrepancies that led to the firing of the former manager, which got him crosslegged with the HOA president, a strong supporter of that manger. The president ordered that the treasurer's access to the resort's financial records be severly limited. Unable to do his job the treasurer resigned that post earlier this year but remained on the board.
When the issues involving the former manager surfaced, one other board member, the 1st Vice President, got heavily involved, insisting that she had to go. He, too, got on the president's bad list for that stance. The 1st VP is a lawyer and former state legislator, who headed up the resort's hurricane recovery program after Hurricane Isabel, where he did an outstanding job. Ocean Villas II was the first resort with severe damage to reopen, and in spite of being underinsured, the 1st VP's negotiating skills resulted in top notch repairs with no special assessment on members.
Now the president is seeking to purge both of these directors. He has called a special membership meeting for next Saturday to remove them from the board. But that is not all he wants to do. The notice says the meeting will ''vote on whether an Officer or Officers other than the president of the Corporation may be relieved by the President of all responsibilities, priveleges and authority which has been expressly or by implication conferred upon such Officer or Officers''.
OVII has always had a lot of ''general proxies'' to the board. In the last newsletter a month or so ago, they included a general proxy form which they urged members to sign and return, but at that time had not revealed the scheme to remove the two directors. They did not include a proxy form with the notice of the special meeting. They also did not state any reason to remove the two directors.
The president must have already counted noses on the board voting those proxies. There is one other longtime board member who I cannot imagine going along with this scheme, but there are also three newbies on the board who seem to be heavily influenced by the president.
A snap meeting with short notice will likely mean a small turnout, except that furor over the loss of pool privelges MAY bring out more members than they expect.
The fly in the ointment may be poor math. The by-laws require that notice be ''delivered. . . not less than 10 days prior to the meeting''. The faxed copy of the notice I have been sent by a member is dated July 27 for a meeting on August 5. A copy of the envelope it came in was also faxed and it is postmarked July 28. Somebody can't seem to count. That means a likely delay and an opportunity for a counterattack, and the president's own record is what in military terms would be called a target rich environment.
What is ironic on this blunder on notice and meeting dates is that the president spent $5,000 of HOA funds to hire a lawyer to guide him through purging these two directors. The board has not met since that expenditure to approve or disapprove it.
If people don't come to their senses and cool this thing down, I would expect a very stormy annual meeting in October. Blindsiding members this way on the proxies, I would expect for one thing there will be alot of members revoking those general proxies.
Comment