Three Meadows Phase III By-Laws Updates Proposed
The 2022 Board of Directors has been largely focused on updating the By-Laws which govern our Three Meadows Phase III HOA. Their primary concern seems to be restricting how members are permitted to vote in up-coming elections. The current President (Robert Nicholls) openly states that this is in order to make it more difficult to remove them from office. There are several other areas they seek to address as well which are less contentious. Although the Board has long been considered to consist of 5 elected positions, the 2021 Board sought to change this number to 3. Confusion exists in the current governing documents which don’t clearly state the makeup of our elected HOA Board, and the proposed changes are also meant to correct this.
A By-Laws Review Committee was established, and a number of changes were proposed to the initial draft. Unfortunately, the Board chose to follow the direction of current President Robert Nicholls, and ignore feedback from our community members. The final draft presented by Robert eliminates the recommended provisions to allow voting by mail-in ballot (as customary in our community). This final draft also includes clear misstatements or other areas which cause additional confusion. One example is that while the number of members is clearly stated to be 5, only 4 members are named (President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer). The additional member has customarily been considered to be Member-at-Large in previous Boards.
Other sections proposed in this “final draft” may cause more confusion than needed. One such item is that the roles defined for the members are out of touch with our community. While the President has only the responsibility to preside over meetings, and the Vice-President to do so in his absence, the other positions are assigned duties which are not true in our HOA. The duties stated to be the responsibility of the Secretary and Treasurer have been (and are currently) performed by our Community Association Manager (CAM). Also, previous Board Presidents have accepted the responsibility to be the primary point of contact for homeowner issues and affairs related to our CAM, along with several other responsibilities. Specifically eliminating virtually all responsibilities from the President and Vice-President position (and adding incorrect responsibilities to Treasurer and Secretary positions) is simply incomprehensible.
If our community is going to replace an existing governing document, we should ensure it at least starts out as a valid document. Ignoring the feedback from our members who have no vested interest in the process other than to see if it respects reality and the rights of all 93 members of our HOA is reckless and a waste of effort. If the intent was to respect our members’ rights and clarify our HOA process, the current version fails miserably.
The original draft (along with recommended changes highlighted and notes included) is provided below. Suggested additions are in blue, areas of concern are highlighted in yellow, and text suggested to be removed also have strikethrough. You can download the PDF at the link below the image, or by opening the pop-out at top right side. Take note that the “final draft” presented by Robert not only still limits proxies, but he now wants to permit only 1 proxy be held on behalf of members who might not be able to attend. There were no provisions made to vote by mail in ballot, and virtually all of the recommended changes were dismissed off-handedly.
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