Board Members Disregard Bylaws

   The above quote adequately describes the deplorable state of the GLA, created and perpetuated by the current board of directors, excluding director Newby.  Unfortunately, the GLA board has always been mostly composed of individuals who represent institutional interests and not the landowners as a whole.  Label them the power mongers.  The group consists of a minority of perceived leaders who wield power over weaker board members who blindly and obediently follow.  In the past few years, landowners with opposing views and more worldly experiences have served on the board.  They have been motivated to serve to bring a higher standard of association management and inclusiveness to the community.  Label them the competent ones.  When we had more competent representatives on the board there was greater volunteer landowner participation and sense of working together to better the community.  That was a short-lived experiment in success as the competents chose to disconnect from the chaos brought on by the power mongers now in control. 

The power group has always attempted to marginalize any director from the competent group, as well as any landowner who expresses discontent or constructive criticism.  They have a history of succeeding, which results in a situation described in this article from the American Management Association,  "When the Bad Drives Out the Good".  Although this article is written from the perspective of business management, the principles still apply to association management.  The association after all is also a business and should be operated as one.

The environment of managing the GLA has deteriorated to one where competents no longer desire to be part of a dying association, as evidenced by the association's failure to field and retain competent directors or candidates.  There are currently two open seats on the board due to resignations that the board could/should have filled, but due to their ineptness and personality-driven squabbling did not.  See: glastonbury.freeforums.net/board/79/2019-election-committee

When many members of a community no longer desire to be part of it, something needs to change!  Change begins and ends with the association board members, their attitudes to be of service (not dictators), their willingness to represent ALL landowners equally, their duty to uphold the governing documents and law as it is written (not as they want it changed to be), and to give up their adversarial ways.  Let's add incorporating integrity, transparency and accountability - all of which have been lacking for a long time, if not forever.

The best solution to fixing a system as broken as the GLA is to dissolve it and start over from scratch!