SAEPOA had a long-running argument about the fairness and legality of the automatic counting of “yes” votes to achieve the 2/3 majority requirement for some written votes. Many have felt that this is unfair. In fact, several years ago, the association voted to end the practice (although ironically it used automatic “yes” votes to do so).
Even though the practice has ended, the subject of “yes votes” and their effect on past association votes was the rallying cry for the “Working Group” as Jerry Powers was forming it. The Working Group would insist that proper representation had to be restored and that all prior votes under the rule needed to be reversed, and future votes had to be “fair” (even though the rule had already changed). This was also a rallying cry for elections and probably had an influence on the election of Jerry, Richard and others to the board.
Now, however, we are living with an alternate reality. While Jerry has argued that we needed to restore representation, he is running the airpark as a single leader. Jerry is the only one presiding or substantially speaking in meetings. With Zoom as his venue, he makes liberal use of the “mute” button and ensures that only his point of view is heard. He has a unanimous rubber-stamp approval from the board, and so he dictates changes. In fact, major votes (such as reversing governance for 30 years, or refunding monies from dues increases) are being made by Jerry alone and then rubber-stamped by the board. These should properly be done using the very 2/3 written vote requirement that Jerry raised as his hue and cry!
Even “lesser” items, such as contracts, require membership approval, which would normally require a majority vote of a quorum present in a membership meeting. This includes the contracts for attorneys who claim to represent the entire association, but who were chosen by Jerry and who only interface with Jerry. By all appearances, we are paying for Jerry to hire three lawyers who claim to work for us, but are perhaps working against us, and we are denied the right to say or do anything about it in violation of our rules.
Now, Jerry is pushing the idea of doing away with SAEPOA, essentially killing our ability to organize at all and leaving us to whatever he has planned next. I suspect that he intends to achieve his goals (whether shared or hidden) through control of information (and thus an improperly informed vote by us), or by once again acting via board action to somehow declare the association “illegal” in the same manner that he reversed the last 30 years of governance.
Our entire system is being run through Jerry, even though our governance is set up in the covenants and bylaws to be much more open. If Jerry really believed in the right to vote as he stated to justify his actions, then he would have at least three votes that he appears uninterested in:
- A written, 2/3 required vote to roll back governance 30 years.
- A written, 2/3 required vote to refund dues.
- A quorum/meeting vote to approve hiring the attorneys.
Alas, there seems to be little interest in really allowing the members to vote. In fact, with Jerry’s plans, it is possible that we will never vote again, or perhaps one time in a rigged situation just to kill SAEPOA.
Beware of those who kill democracy to “save” democracy. At the moment it looks like we have a democracy more like the “Democratic” People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea).
This must get fixed. I challenge Jerry to honor our governance and the membership he claims to protect. I also challenge any board member to reach out to me to discuss their independent reasoning and thought.
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