The Election Cover up

What Was the Board Afraid to Disclose About the Election's Failure?

would that disclosure have threatened the Unity team's election prospects?

At the 14 April emergency board meeting on the voting fiasco, Jack Troia was clearly reticent to discuss, as he described, whose fingers were in the pie that caused the breakdown and ultimately the failure of the election process. As homeowners may recall, there were mistakes in the printing of the ballot itself by incorrectly identifying one of the incumbents who was running for reelection to the board. Then there were failures in properly segregating and including all required supplemental campaign materials that were provided to The Ballot Box. On top of that, there were association omissions, such as the failure to include legally required candidate disclosure statements. Another procedural error included the board's decision to hand out "early voting" ballots when there was no such provision that allowed for that practice. That particular wrong was exacerbated by the board's failure to notify homeowners of that possibility, which turned out not to be a possibility, by giving out ballots only to certain, some allege, preferred homeowners.

Surely, as some observers had expected, Jack would be more forthcoming and explain what had happened at the regular board meeting just a week away on the 22nd. They would be mistaken and disappointed. On the heels of the second board election effort in a month, the regular April board meeting was conspicuous for what did not take place. Nary a word was spoken about what had happened to cause the first election vote to come to an abrupt halt. In response to a question, it was evident that Jack Troia was simply not going to go near that subject to explain what had happened other than to acknowledge that mistakes were made.

Was the board merely attempting to save someone from embarrassment or was there something else going on? After all, there was still an election to conduct and the board did not wish to do something that might alter the outcome of the election against their supposedly favored candidates. At least from the board's perspective, one has to assume that the risk of keeping silent was acceptable insofar as the election’s outcome was concerned compared to the risk of coming forward with the explanation of what had happened to cause the voting failure. For now, at least, we know there is a tightly sealed lid on that ballot fiasco laden jar. Will that election genie securely locked in the jar ever see the light of day?

Jack’s decision not to discuss the details of what had happened apparently had some influence on the rest of the board’s members. Otherwise, how would one explain why they all sat equally mute on this subject? That concerted failure to communicate is but one more glaring example of Unity’s continued service to the community. Perhaps when the Unity laden board decides it’s safe for homeowners to know more, they will remove the lid and release that genie from the ballot fiasco jar. More likely, though, that will not happen.

So whose fingers spoiled the 2010 election pie? While we do not know the magnitude of the problem for sure, there are several provoking possibilities to consider. Interestingly, the list of potential suspects is embarrassingly longer than one might assume.

The Ballot Box contractor, who made initial mistakes that were not picked up by the association.
RMI’s Community Manager, Caren Carrero, for signing off on the ballot material proofs allegedly without checking with anyone.
Jack Troia, where the buck stops, possibly for his failure to ensure that effective controls were in place that would have prevented this from happening.
Roger Cooper, as one of two board liaisons to, and a nonvoting member of, the Election Committee, for reasons similar to those mentioned above.
John Waterhouse, as the other board liaison to, and a nonvoting member of, the Election Committee, for similar reasons noted above.
Mary Bruner, Chair of the Election Committee, for having failed to effectively manage the accuracy of the contents of the materials included in the ballot mailing by The Ballot Box.
The entire Election Committee, consisting of Mary Bruner, Brian Segal, William Way, Barbara Bonak, Nancy Rose, Robert Toth and Sandra Burke, for having failed to establish and implement effective controls that would have prevented this election fiasco.

As one can readily see, there is no one potential suspect, even though we understand that Caren Carrero was willing to take the blame. It is possible that each of the unit owner volunteers mentioned above in their own way could have contributed in some manner to this election failure, for what they did or did not do in the performance of their duty.

What our volunteer leaders have in common is their dismal failure to take any personal responsibility for their actions, unless you feel that failing to take such responsibility somehow aids the cause of the Unity team. While it is abundantly clear that our Unity adherents do not stand for transparency in governance, you may wish to think twice about the implications of blindly casting your vote for members of the Unity team.

Ron Johnson, April 27, 2010