Last night the Inverness Forest Association held its Annual Meeting for 2012. It was a lively affair with spirited discussions on many topics. Perhaps 40-50 people attended including the board, the vote counters, and the IFA's lawyer David Gardner. In addition, many people cast their votes by proxy. A total of 109 votes (attendees and proxies) were cast on the question about the amendment to our by-laws.
I'll cover only the highlights in this post. The minutes will be more detailed. I'll post them, as usual, on the IFA website and here on Inverness Forest Today when they become available.
Voting
Six board members were elected: three that were on the ballot and three that were nominated from the floor. James Ulrich, Evan Foster, and Rita Carvajal were re-elected to seats on the board. The three new board members are: Cybel Wigle, Glenna Bernard, and David Kelly. This brings the board membership to its authorized level of nine members. All nine board members deserve our thanks and appreciation for tackling the hard work and spending the many hours it takes to run our community.
The proposed amendment to our by-laws allowing a smaller authorized board size (5, 7, or 9 members to be set annually) than the current authorized size of nine member was the subject of the previous four posts on this blog: two posts supporting the amendment and two posts opposing the amendment. The spirited debate on the amendment continued at the annual meeting with several speakers on each side of the issue expressing their opinions. The amendment was not approved: 47 votes in favor of the amendment and 62 opposed to it.
Management Company
The board announced that TMGA, the management company we've had since the spring, has quit. Their last day will be October 31, 2012, but they will be available to help with the transition to a new management company. The board was not satisfied with TMGA's performance and were considering terminating our agreement with them at the end of the year.
Treasurer Evan Foster said that during the bidding process for selecting a management company, TMGA produced a very good proposal and was also the lowest bidder ($20,000 per year) of the four companies who bid. The board felt that once the contract with TMGA began, the level of support promised in the proposal did not materialize.
Evan said that since the board reviewed the various bids so recently, they are in a position to select a replacement for TMGA. Evan pointed out that it is likely to cost somewhat more ($35,000) to hire a management company capable of performing up to the standards the board believes is needed for our community. The board is exploring various options to fund this expense.
Just as in our national elections, social media played an increasing role in providing information to residents during the annual meeting and the weeks leading up to it. This Inverness Forest Today blog hosted discussions on the proposed amendment to our by-laws. The previous four posts on IFT explored both sides of this amendment. One post was by a board member, two by former board members, and one by the lawyer for IFA, David Gardner. Many of the people attending the Annual Meeting said that they had read the blog posts and that this helped them understand the issues involved.
I talked to many people during the weeks leading up to the Annual Meeting and was encouraged by the level of understanding of the issues displayed by residents who had read the blog posts. A knowledgeable community is better able to make good decisions than one that doesn't understand the issues up for a vote.
One person attending the meeting, John Wigle, achieved a first for IFA. Within a few minutes after the voting was complete, John "live-blogged" the election results from the floor of the meeting to the Inverness Forest Facebook group, thus informing community residents belonging to the group of the election returns in almost real time.
Letters of Enforcement for non-Architectural Violations
Several homeowners were upset to receive a letter in recent weeks from TMGA asking them to to perform certain landscaping maintenance (cut their grass, trim specific bushes, etc.). Former board member Elise Vernick raised the issue of the validity of such letters. The IFA lawyer, David Gardner, said his review of our governing documents did not show any basis for such letters to be issued. He said that architectural violations are covered by our governing documents and have to be enforced, but there is no justification for these letters to homeowners concerning non-architectural issues since there are no standards set forth. Furthermore, Mr. Gardner pointed out that should a board decide in the future to enforce non-architectural standards, they would have to undertake a massive campaign to keep from incurring liability since we are not a condo, but rather own our own homes. Furthermore, he pointed out that there are State and County laws governing such issues and generally such enforcement should be left to those governments which have both the resources and authority to enforce those regulations. So it appears that if you received one of these TMGA letters you can safely ignore it
Pepco
Finally, Board President Sharlene Shugarman noted that Pepco has been busy lately trimming trees on Seven Locks Rd. that might fall on power lines. Sharlene hoped that this work might make it less likely that we will lose power because of a storm, like the one that is now approaching the mid-Atlantic states.
Harvey
