In accordance with my request, and as approved by the President of the Association, the General Manager arranged for and conducted a conference call this morning which included the Association Attorney hired to audit the Election, General Manager Richard Ramirez, and myself.
The attorney shared that he had been contacted late last week regarding the question of whether a spouse or other family member of a Homeowner could legally nominate someone for election to the Rockpointe Homeowners Association Board of Directors. He stated that his research indicated as follows:
Only Homeowners may make such a nomination, and
An individual must be on the Title to the RHOA property to be considered a Homeowner.
He stated that he had verbally informed an Association Officer of this position, and was in the process of providing a letter opinion. When asked how much he knew about the balance of the events surrounding the December 9th meeting, he indicated that none of them had been discussed with him.
I explained the details of the outcome of the Election and the relative ranking of the final vote. I also told him that although I was not in the main meeting room at the time the nominations were made, it was my understanding from several Homeowners that multiple individuals (Homeowners) were prepared to nominate the candidate being challenged. I pointed out that the Ballot vote clearly documents the individual had all of the support from the floor necessary for a valid nomination to have been made. I suggested that it was unfortunate that the nomination which was accepted and documented in the Association Minutes was the nomination which came from an individual known to be unqualified.
I pointed out that despite the clear admonition issued by the Association President that only Homeowners could place a name in nomination, the nominating individual (who has actually served on the Board in the past) has stated that he did so based upon successfully nominating other individuals in prior years.
The attorney thanked me for providing the additional information on how the election was conducted and stated that he would have further discussions with the Board regarding concerns they should consider before declaring the results of the Election. He opined that pending further consideration, it appears the Board has three options, as follows:
1. Declare the Nomination of the Candidate placing fourth in the Election as invalid and accept the sixth place candidate as the fifth new Board Member.
2. Determine that the Nomination procedure used during the meeting was defective and accept the Nomination of the fourth place Candidate as valid making him the fifth new Board Member.
3. Determine that the Nomination procedure used during the meeting was defective and call an additional election to fill the remaining open seat on the Board. A variation to this last option was to call an additional election as a run-off between some sub-set of the remaining candidates.
I believe that I have now fulfilled my duty to the Association as Chief Teller. The final decision on the outcome of the Election is in the hands of the current Board. As I have stated before, I believe that option #2 above is the 'best' solution, but the decision is not mine.