What follows is the response to the Board’s email that was sent in response to Sarah Wilson’s “prod” regarding board inaction after the 22 May meeting in which dissolution was attempted by the Board. This message was originally sent on 10 July 2025.
Dear Board,
There’s a lot to discuss from your email. I must, however, point out that your email contains serious non-factual accusations. To illustrate, I’ll break down your first point, “lawsuit defense”:
- In speaking of the lawsuits, you refer to “one blocking the repaving of Rainbow Road”. No such lawsuit exists, you know it, and you are highly mischaracterizing that particular suit, which merely seeks “quiet title”, in other words for a judge to settle that SAEPOA owns its property, namely its roads.
- You say you are being sued by “Friends of SAEPOA” and say “nothing friendly about a lawsuit”. You know that this is not correct. I am the one who coined the name “Friends of SAEPOA” simply to give a title to the blog and gatherings that are welcome to all (including YOU!!). I am not a party to any lawsuit, and you know that as well. You are not being sued by “Friends of SAEPOA”, and you know it.
- You say that we tried to stop the legal process altogether. This is, again, a gross misrepresentation. First of all, the “Friends of SAEPOA” took no such action. I am aware that the plaintiffs on the roads lawsuit (not “Friends of SAEPOA”) sought an injunction for two items (1) postponing any dissolution vote until any ongoing litigation is resolved (what I understand is a normal process—an organization can’t dissolve until its affairs are settled), and (2) to require any such votes to be done according to state law. Following the law would have required that you observe the vote process specified in our Articles of Incorporation that you chose to ignore in order to get around the 66 written vote requirement specified therein.
- You mischaracterize the judge’s action, saying that “he did not stop the election”. You don’t state that this is because the judge never ruled nor even heard the case. The judge wasn’t even involved! The request for injunction was removed from the docket because your 22 May vote happened prior to the hearing, and so the injunction was moot.
- I seriously doubt that you spent tens of thousands to hold the vote on 22 May. If you did, shame on you.
- You only briefly mention the “other lawsuit” to stop what you call “IRS violations and other illegal acts” that you have only alleged and never proven. You don’t seem to have any interest in pointing out that this lawsuit was filed by the personal attorney of one of the board members, and that the content of the lawsuit is in disturbing alignment with the arguments the board has used in its attempt to dissolve the Association. (Effectively, this looks like the board is suing itself.)
These are just the misrepresentations by our board in the first bullet of their email!
Frankly, the tone of the Board’s email is unsurprising in that this board is still not reaching out to the membership, holding meetings, providing meaningful updates, forming committees, etc. It’s completely unclear if they seek any resolution to their (self-defined) problems that are the Board’s justification for doing no productive work with the association funds. They continue to spend only on administrative, legal, and insurance expenses. Solutions are available if this board will only meet with, communicate, and in some cases, compromise with your neighbors, something it refuses to do. It’s unclear what the Board has ever wanted other than the destruction of the Association and whatever they thought would follow such action (which the Board still refuses to share with the membership).
Board members: you started with nearly $200K of our money in the coffers. You’re spending it fighting your neighbors instead of helping them, but there is still probably well over $150K. I recommend using it to pay bills such as the runway access fee that you owe, and to do the tasks that you now want us to pay separately for via “Sandia Airpark Volunteers”. I will happily pay my dues to the Association to do its job. I’m not interested in paying another fee to provide excuses to the board to avoid the work it’s supposed to do, and to use our dues money against us.
Your neighbor,
Steve Suddarth
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