On might naively believe that getting some answers from our Association would not be too difficult a task. After all we are members of the Association and members, even standing committee members, should be entitled to getting the facts or answers to their questions. But getting answers is a lot more complicated than one might imagine. In suggesting that the task might be more complicated, though, unfairly suggests that your efforts might eventually bear some fruit—that you will be successful in getting answers to your questions. It’s a mistake to assume that just because you are a member you are entitled to know.

While it is clear that in most instances you will not be denied the information you seek, there may be occasions in which you will be frustrated in your attempts to get an answer or explanation to your inquiry. While we are thankful that our new board members have promised us improved communications, it remains to be seen what that promise will mean in practice.  

To illustrate the type of problems that some of us have faced in the past, I will relate to you two not so gripping tales of failed attempt at seeking answers. The first is from my personal experience on seeking certain information concerning our recent board election. The second comes from failed efforts of our Finance Committee to secure certain information from the controller of our DW management company.

 

The Election Committee Under Attack

 

            A short while ago, I unfairly suggested that the Election Committee was responsible for the forum debate questioning process that led to the EC’s asking then candidate Lyndall Ruiz what amounted to a politically charged, intricately crafted, and quite inappropriate question relating to the Trumpets indebtedness issue. While I was willing to accept the blame for my mistake in being unfamiliar with the new process that the EC had adopted on this occasion, there were just to many unanswered questions that had led to the asking of a question that was essentially designed to slander Lyndall and sandbag her candidacy. This, I concluded, had all the appearances of not being a mere accident.

I was informed by the Chairman of the EC and by Joe Barbato, the EC’s consigliere, that the EC had no knowledge of the questions to be asked the candidates at the debate forum. As I was advised, the questions were directly submitted by our members to the Administration Office (Terry DaSilva) and were processed and placed in sealed envelops outside of the knowledge of the EC. In this manner, and except for proscribing the procedure to be followed, the EC can correctly claim that they had nothing to do with what had occurred on the forum debate floor since no one on the EC was privy to the questions being asked. But as to what had actually occurred and went on behind the closed doors of the Admin. office insofar as the handling of the member-prepared questions, I was assured the EC was not involved.

But just how were those questions actually received and handled? The presumption, of course, is that those questions were received and handled just as I was advised, with the EC totally out of the picture. What could be more simple? And while the EC’s explanation may be true insofar as the intended process was concerned, perhaps things did not quite work out the way the EC had intended. After all, with the EC out of the picture, there was no way of really knowing what when on with the processing of those questions. And besides, the EC could advise me and others only on how things were supposed to work. They could not tell me what had actually taken place since, by their own admission, they were not part of that particular process.

So, I thought, let’s clear the matter up and go directly to the source, Terry DaSilva. She would know what happened. And, Terry, as most of us know, is open, responsive, and eager to get one the information they are seeking. So I made that inquiry—a written attempt to make an appointment to discuss just what had taken place. But there was no answer, at least initially. After repeated efforts and a one-on-one, I was told that she could not talk with me about this matter. She very politely referred me to, guess who, the Chairman of the EC. Although I tried to explain that the EC was telling me they had nothing to do with the actual handling of the resident questions prior to their being sealed in envelops, Terry said that she was unable to answer any questions I might have on this matter. The answers, as she reiterated, would have to come from the Chairman of the EC.

If you are beginning to think that this as a catch-22 encounter, essentially an impossible predicament I had been placed in, you are correct. Put another way:

“A” has first-hand knowledge of everything that actually occurred

  with the member questions prior to sealing them in the envelops.

 

“B” alleges that members of the EC know nothing about what “A” knows,

 only what the EC told “A” to do.

 

“A” tells “C” to inquire of “B” on questions concerning what “A” knows.

 

However, since “B”, by definition, had no knowledge of what “A” actually

knows, “C” is left to ponder his inability to obtain any answers to his

questions from “A,” who knows all but is prevented from talking, or from “B,”

who knows nothing about what “A” is prevented from divulging.

 

The Finance Committee is Seeking Answers 

Patience and Persistence Fails to Yield Results

            In the distant past, members of the FC would make inquiries of the controller, who sits in on FC meetings, and answers would generally be forthcoming. At least that was the impression I had. Then something strange happened. Sometime last year, members of the FC had what appeared to be routine questions of the controller and they did not involve the sensitive Trumpets indebtedness issue. In this instance, the questions were of the type that were best answered by a written response, as requested by the FC. The FC, while patient and persistent, waited and waited. Meeting after meeting, the issue of the status of the forthcoming controller’s response would come up. But in the end, as best as I can recall, there would be no written response to the FC.  

So What’s Going On?

Regaining Control or the Arrogance of Power

            These two examples appear to have something in common.  Communications, or in our examples, the absence of communications between management company employees and members of the community, or in the case of the FC, members of the standing committee. While I believe I know the answer, it’s easy to miss the mark. Others in the community may have more specific information on this topic and are welcome to contribute their thoughts. 

Sometime last year, the Board decided that certain communications with management company employees had to flow through the Board, thereby precluding management company employees, or more likely certain employees, from responding to member inquiries. While it seemed as if the then Board no longer tolerated the free flow of information, the problems encountered by the FC were indeed puzzling to those audience members looking in from the outside. With the Association now headed by the former Chairman of the FC, perhaps the FC will be in a better position to secure the information they deem necessary to perform their mission.

The "closed-door" situation I had encountered surrounding the workings of the EC is more mysterious and  troubling since they, more than any other committee, should be fostering confidence, and not suspicion, in the procedures they follow.

Ron Johnson

June 19, 2005