For anyone that still harbors the quaint illusion that GIL
elections are fair, honest and accurate, prepare yourself. The
Blog recently obtained a folder that contained the ballots from the
February 13, 2003 Annual Homeowners’ Meeting, at which homeowners voted on
whether or not to amend the By-Laws to include, among other things, a 25%
rental cap.
But an audit of the vote count reveals a startling discovery
- the amendment actually failed. (Continued...)
Who was responsible for tallying the ballots and announcing the results? You guessed it, Stuart Sutherland himself.
Who was responsible for tallying the ballots and announcing the results? You guessed it, Stuart Sutherland himself.
Just how many votes are needed to amend the By-Laws,
anyway? The answer to that question is
74, according to Stuart Sutherland, who fielded that exact same question at the
January 4, 2010 Resident Forum and Board Meeting:
“Board member Stuart Sutherland
provided an overview of the Association’s current rental cap provision and the
measures that would be needed to alter this or any other provision of the
Association’s declarations and amendments:
• The number of votes needed to
effect an amendment to any provision of our declarations is 2/3 of all units.
This means that it would take 74 votes to alter the current rental cap in any
way. For any proposed amendment, the declarations also specify a series of
procedural steps involving notice to, and participation of, unit owners.”1
When the Blog began
investigating the 2003 vote for, among other issues, the 2003 amendment to our
By-Laws to impose a rental cap, we noticed something curious.
The vote occurred on the 11th of
February, 2003. However, Stuart
Sutherland did not disclose the official results until the 14th –
fully three days later. Why the extended lag in reporting the
results?
A closer inspection of the hand-written
tally sheet produced by Stuart Sutherland raised even more questions. Take a close look at the tally sheet (link included, above) – you will notice that the tick marks used to mark down
votes in sets of five continue uniformly and neatly except for the tick marks for the last five votes. Not only does the pen that was used for
those tick marks change, that same changed
pen is then used to scrawl the date notation at the top of the tally sheet ’14
Feb 03’ – the date the official vote tally was announced and that was three days after the vote took place. Sure, it could
be that Stuart dutifully tallied the
entire stack of votes in front of him on the first pass except for the last five votes, and that
he returned to the task two or three days later to count those last five votes - but
that seemed to us, highly unlikely. It certainly raises the possibility that those five votes were added after the conclusion of voting at the meeting.
So we decided to investigate further. And, upon further inspection of the sign-in sheets used at the meeting (links included, above), we noticed something Stuart
himself probably failed to notice. The
sign-in sheets were used to determine if a quorum has been attained for the
meeting to commence – as they are used for such purposes at all homeowner meetings. Notice
that in the lower right hand corner are two numbers – one indicating how many
people signed in by proxy (note the ‘P’ next to the number) and how many
homeowners signed in via their signature. Now, count the number of people that ‘signed in’
yourself and compare that to the number noted in the lower right hand
corner – guess what you will discover?
You guessed it, there are somehow five more proxies and people than were evidenced by the count that was conducted at the meeting - all of whom are noted as present
by ‘proxy’ in the same ink that was used to finalize the vote tally three days
after the election. And, as you may
have already guessed, no proxies can be
found for those 'new votes' among the other proxy forms bundled together with the ballots. The five votes-come-lately
pushed the number in favor of the amendment to ‘77’, according to Stuart’s
tally. But without them, the votes in favor would total 72 – two votes short
of passage. And a proxy is required for a valid ballot if the homeowner isn't present at a meeting to vote on their own behalf.
But reliance on these facts alone isn't the only metric by which the vote failed. One could always do it the old fashioned way and apply the rules that govern the voting
process. And on that score, the
amendment failed by an even greater margin, because numerous votes were counted
that ran afoul of the balloting requirements by one or more of the following: lack of proxy and no owner presence evidenced by the sign-in sheet (7 instances); the person who voted was not the owner of the unit at the time of the election (2 instances); proxy included by not signed (1 instance). If you subtract the votes that were counted that did not meet the requirements as set forth in the By-Laws, you actually end up with only 67 votes in favor
of the amendment – far short of the number needed to pass.
Now, the Blog is
not suggesting that at this late date we abandon what is now more of a long-standing tradition, rather than an actual amendment to the By-Laws, of having a 25% rental cap - although one could certainly understand those that
feel we ought to. What should happen as a result of this
bungled election and the cloud of illegitimacy that it casts over not only the
rental cap vote, but, really, every election result since, is a broad-based acknowledgement that our election procedures are in desperate need of rehabilitation. No more should the Sutherlands or their supporters
du jour be permitted to handle and
tally ballots. And given the cozy
relationship that now exists between CMA and the Sutherlands following seven
years of their service to them, the same should go for CMA.
The
Blog will be blogging on several options that now exist for conducting
elections that didn’t exist back in 2003, thanks to advancements in
technology. It is possible to have truly anonymous balloting and also have the ability for an individual
voter to verify their vote among the total in the final tally. Election technologies have come a long way,
and we should take advantage of the more reliable and impartial processes
inherent in them. Without a change in
the way we conduct elections, our community will continue to suffer as a result
of the growing division that naturally arises as a consequence of tainted
elections and the widely acknowledged reality that those currently in power have proven they have no intention of graciously allowing the many capable homeowners among us to serve on the Board without their strict supervision and control - an unfortunate fact that necessarily means they have - and will have - a vested outcome in every election.
Perhaps the Sutherlands could profit by recalling the instructions we were all given when we were young children and greatly in need of valuable life skills advice - don't be selfish, learn to share with others and, most importantly, don't cheat.
the Blog
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SOURCES CITED
1Minutes of
the Glen Iris Board of Directors meeting held January 4, 2010 that can be found
on the Glen Iris Intranet: http://intranet.glenirislofts.com
Stewart Sutherland is a sleazebag with no regard for the law, due process, propriety, fairness, or the residents of Glen Iris! How do I start a petition to have him AND his shady co-conspirator Kit dragged from their lair, tarred, feathered, and chased from the grounds by whatever hounds we can find that wouldn't be repelled by their stench? And further, doesn't vote tampering constitute some sort of breach of professional ethics the Georgia Bar would want to know about, or has he already been disbarred?
ReplyDeleteI agree with the Blogger that the vote count looks shady and altered after the fact. I hope the homeowners that are still here look at the sign in sheets and verify that they were - or were not - present at that meeting. Shame on you Stuart, you should know better...no matter HOW BADLY you and your wife wanted the vote to succeed.
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