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Post by Poor Richard on Feb 14, 2023 10:48:34 GMT -7
Dissolution Lawsuit Updates - February 14, 2023 The Dissolution lawsuit is slowly progressing through the 6th District Court in Park County. January 10, 2023, was the deadline set by Judge Gilbert that allowed "members in good standing" to file a brief regarding the Glastonbury Landowners Association (GLA) 2022 Election and court-ordered Status Report.
Download a copy of the September 6, 2022, Status Report here.
Download a copy of Judge Gilbert's October 19th, 2022 Court Order here.
At the bottom of the 2022 GLA Election ballot was a simple, opinion poll question asking landowners if they preferred to split the GLA or keep it as is. The question did not contain specific legal language as to what parts of the GLA Governing Documents needed changing or what those changes would be. Thus it was not a legally binding question concerning possible changes to the Bylaws or Covenants. However, the Status Report treated the ballot question of separation as if it was a change to the GLA governing documents. A long discussion about majority vote counts needed to change the Bylaws and/or Covenants was included in the report:
The signatories, GLA President and dissolution litigant John McAlister and the court-appointed Pedente Lite Attorney Swandal asked Judge Gilbert to address the "ambiguity". The passage in the Status Report quoted above, set the stage for further debate. John McAlister appears to have written the Status Report. He often uses "I" to refer to himself. He uses the third person "Judge Swandal" when talking about the other signatory, Retired Judge and current attorney, Nels Swandal.
John McAlister's words only allow two interpretations of the separation ballot question. But as President of the GLA and litigant for separation he must have remembered the Mediation Meeting and subsequent board meeting on October 6, 2021. The Resolution McAlister read aloud and voted for at that meeting, stated that Covenant changes would not be needed to divide the existing GLA into two separate "successor entities".
Judge Gilbert's order stated that the 2022 Election should be conducted in keeping with the "Covenants and Bylaws of the GLA". But the elections violated that statement from the beginning. There is no provision in the Bylaws for mail only Annual Elections. Nor are there provisions for opinion questions on Annual Election ballots.
All landowners were allowed to make a decision regarding separation. Even landowners not in good standing were given a choice. They could solve their "not in good standing" status by bringing themselves in conformance with the Covenants. Usually, that meant paying all past-due assessments. Many paid in full and were able to cast ballots in the 2022 election. Everyone that voted had a chance to vote for or against separation. Landowners that did not vote made a choice to remain distant from the issue. Thus the question of whether to separate or not could reasonably be considered an accurate barometer of public opinion for Glastonbury landowners. The "ambiguity" noted in the Status Report was addressed by Leo and Dorothy Keeler in a brief they filed with the court on January 6, 2023. They framed their arguments with the idea that the ballot question was designed to change GLA Bylaws and/or the Covenants. Keeler argues that the separation vote only applies to administrative power and does not change any land use. Land use is guided by the Covenants. The Bylaws control administrative power and thus a simple majority of all who voted was sufficient for separation to occur. Keeler urged the court to approve the separation of the current GLA into two distinct legal bodies; one for North Glastonbury and one for South Glastonbury.
Download Leo and Dorothy Keeler's Brief here.
Charlotte Mizzi also filed a brief and argued that the GLA should stay "as is". We will cover that brief in our next installment.
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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2023 14:21:59 GMT -7
Dissolution Lawsuit Updates - February 15, 2023 The 2022 GLA Annual Election ballot stated:
As we noted above this was NOT a question about changing the GLA Bylaws or Covenants. To accomplish that goal specific before and after legal language would need to be included. That confused a few Forum readers who believed the Status Report argument that centered around Covenant and Bylaw changes.
We returned to a Forum article titled "GLA Board Meeting Synopsis - October 6th, 2021 "Secret" Agreement to Destroy Glastonbury is Revealed". That story detailed how the GLA Board voted to accept the results of a court-ordered Mediation Hearing that resulted in a written Memorandum of Understanding. The board adopted a Resolution that incorporated the Memorandum of Understanding drafted at the October 4, 2021 mediation meeting.
Only Directors Claudette Dirkers and Tim Brockett voted against the Resolution. Brockett argued that a full landowner vote should take place since the Covenants would need to be changed. That would entail neighborhood meetings and extensive community involvement because 50%+1 of all members in good standing would need to vote yes to change the Covenants. Brockett was first elected in 2006 to the GLA. As Vice President he worked on the Master Plan in 2006 and 2007, which was the last time the Covenants were amended.
Download the GLA Board Approved Resolution here.
The GLA approved 2021 Resolution was the blueprint for dividing the current GLA into two "successor entities named GLA-North and GLA-South". The Covenants 10.03 state:
The Resolution deals with Covenant and Bylaw changes needed by saying in section d iii:
The above means that Covenant and Bylaw changes would not need to take place until AFTER the GLA was legally separated. The 2021 GLA board agreed to TRANSFER all rights, powers and responsibilities to two new successor organizations if the landowners and court approved. The 2022 ballot question simply asked for landowners to approve or not, the Resolution that the GLA approved on October 6, 2021. A simple majority of landowners approved. 126 votes were for separation and 103 wished to keep the GLA intact.
Lund Files a Brief for Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee On January 9, 2023, Hertha Lund and Christopher Scoones of Lund Law in Bozeman filed a Response To Status Report Brief on behalf of the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee. Lund and Scoones argued that both the GLA Bylaws and Covenants must be changed for the GLA to split. They noted that although the voting threshold was met for Bylaw changes, not enough landowners voted yes to change the Covenants.
They did not seem to consider that the ballot question was designed to gauge public opinion for the Resolution the GLA adopted on October 6, 2021. Their exhaustive arguments for keeping the GLA intact all revolve around seeing the ballot question as a legally binding question to amend GLA Bylaws and Covenants. Also, Lund and Scoones did not specify in an appendix, who or what the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee was.
Briefs must be shared with all parties to the case before they are filed.
Download Lund's Response To Status Report Brief here.
Our next installment will cover the response to Lund Law's above brief.
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Post by Admin on Feb 16, 2023 12:23:30 GMT -7
Dissolution Lawsuit Updates - February 16, 2023 Attorney Ryan Jackson Files a Brief on January 11, 2023 The official GLA attorney, Ryan Jackson, hired to defend the GLA against the Dissolution Crew filed a Brief Regarding Status Report on January 11, 2023. In the short brief Jackson writes I "hereby adopt the positions, arguments, and legal analysis propounded by the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee as Respondent’s own and incorporates the same by reference". Attorney Jackson is in complete agreement with Lund Law and views the ballot separation question as one to change GLA governing documents.
Download Attorney Jackson's Brief Regarding the Status Report here. Attorney Nicholas Lofing Targets Lund and Jackson on January 13, 2023 Two days later Dissolution attorney Lofing filed a Motion to Strike Lund's brief for the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee. Lofing argued that "the filing is improper, as this Court’s order allows filings by 'landowners in good standing' only. Further, the anonymous, unincorporated, unauthorized 'committee' is not a legally recognizable party to a lawsuit, and it is not a real party in interest, impermissible under Montana Rule of Civil Procedure 17".
Download Lofing's Motion To Strike here..
Lofing followed his Motion to Strike with a Brief in Support. That brief contained detailed legal arguments that support his above Motion to Strike.
Download Lofing's Brief in Support here. Lund Law Firm Swiftly Responds Lund Law acted swiftly and on January 13, 2023, filed the first Declaration of Charlotte Mizzi. The Declaration certifies in a sworn affidavit that Charlotte Mizzi owns land in Glastonbury and is in "good standing". Mizzi wrote, "Valerie O’Connell, myself and others have organized the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee". Mizzi then provided a list of people that she and Val sent a petition to and "communicated with." The list is called Exhibit A and follows the Lund filing.
We analyzed Mizzi's list of landowners and compared the names to Park County land records. Many of the names on Mizzi's list were duplicates. A few did not own property in Glastonbury. Several more sold their property and one passed away. Next, we compared her list to the GLA Past Due Assessment list and discovered that many more landowners were not in good standing.
Forum readers may remember that a group called "Glastonbury Landowners Committee" wrote, printed, and mailed fraudulent letters to landowners in an attempt to influence the 2020 Annual Elections. In 2022 the same group resurfaced with a fraudulent website posing as the official GLA website. The fake website even had a button that accepted GLA Assessment payments. Across the Home page they wrote in barely readable type "THS IS NOT THE OFFICIAL GLA WEBSITE AND THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE GLASTONBURY LANDOWNERS COMMITTEE". (Emphasis added.) The Forum wrote an article about the fake website. We also posted a screenshot of the above disclaimer. A few weeks later we received a postcard from a group called "Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee" that promoted the fake website. Read the article and see pictures of the postcard here. Check out the fine print in the lower left-hand corner on the front of the postcard.
Unlike the GLA which must remain neutral in regard to annual elections, the fake GLA website heavily promoted specific 2022 candidates. Mailings included website-posted arguments promoting selected candidates and positions. Almost all of the fraudulent website candidates were elected in the 2022 Annual Election. It is unknown how many landowners believed that the GLA was legitimately asking them to vote for specific candidates.
Download Lund's first Declaration of Charlotte Mizzi here.
On January 20, 2023, Lund Law responded to Lofing's January 13 Motion to Strike. Lund included a second, cleaned up, Declaration of Charlotte Mizzi. The inaccurate list of 80 landowners was deleted. So was Mizzi's admission that "Valerie O’Connell, myself and others have organized the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee". Val O'Connell was previously deemed to be a Vexatious litigant by the court for filing multiple nuisance lawsuits.
Lund's second Declaration of Charlotte Mizzi certifies that Mizzi owns land in Glastonbury, is in good standing, and is thus able to be represented by Lund.
Download Lund Law's second Declaration of Charlotte Mizzi and their Response to Lofing's Motion to Strike.
Director Charlotte Mizzi was a key player and an adroit politician in the Dissolution lawsuit saga. Before the Mediation Meeting on October 4, 2021 Mizzi opposed splitting the GLA. But something happened at the Mediation Meeting that caused her to sign the resulting Memorandum of Understanding.
In August of 2021 Mizzi was fired as GLA Board Secretary. The Draft Minutes of the August 23, 2021 Board meeting provide the details here.
Mizzi hotly disputed her firing and refused to accept Claudette Dirkers, who was duly elected to replace her, as the new secretary. At the Mediation Meeting a curious phrase was added to the Memorandum of Understanding. Section 7 states: "the issues of who hold separate offices will be held in abeyance". This only applied to Mizzi because the same agreement made John McAlister the new GLA president. That phrase allowed Mizzi to claim that she was still the GLA Board secretary. The addition of the officer's phrase, which served no other purpose, may have swayed Mizzi to support the Memorandum. The Memorandum became part of the October 6, 2021 GLA Board Resolution. Mizzi voted for the Resolution which was the blueprint for separating the GLA.
On October 28, 2021 a group that Mizzi organized sent letters to Glastonbury landowners. The letter asked readers to sign a petition to prevent the dissolution or splitting of the GLA into two separate organizations. The petitions were delivered to the court in late 2021. Charlotte Mizzi was against the separation, then voted for the separation, and then sent out petitions urging landowners NOT to support the separation!
The latest court filings show that Mizzi teamed up with Val O'Connell and is still opposed to the separation of the GLA.
In our next installment we will cover the latest filing from attorney Nicholas Lofing who represents the Dissolution Crew.
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Post by Admin on Feb 17, 2023 9:44:04 GMT -7
Dissolution Lawsuit Updates - February 17, 2023 Attorney Nicholas Lofing Files a Reply Brief On February 1, 2023, Nicholas Lofing on behalf of the Dissolution litigants filed a Reply Brief in support of the Motion to Strike Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee's Response to the Status Report. Lofing argued that Mizzi's first "Declaration provides only that Valerie O’Connell, Ms. Mizzi, and others organized the Committee and communicated with people on an attached list". Lofing acknowledges that there are issues with many of the names on the list as well.
Lofing writes "The Mizzi First Declaration does not indicate the people listed are (1) members/landowners in the GLA, (2) in good standing with the GLA, (3) “members” of
the “Committee”, or even that they (4) currently endorse the First Declaration, endorse the “Committee” court filing(s), and/or support maintaining a single GLA". Finally, he correctly states "that Ms. Valerie O’Connell is an adjudicated nuisance litigant and not permitted to participate in court proceedings without judicial oversight". Mizzi's second declaration still does not address the 80 or people mentioned in the Glastonbury Concerned Landowners Committee's Response to the Status Report.
In his conclusion, Lofing states:
In the above quote, attorney Lofing renews his call to strike Lund's Response to the Status Report brief. He also asks that the court approve the GLA separation. Lofing notes that the "Court has appointed a Custodian Pendente Lite and oversaw a court-ordered special election, with the majority of landowners electing separation". Lofing acknowledges that separation does NOT affect the GLA Covenants since Covenant 10.03 was previously used to transfer all Rights, Powers, and Responsibilities to two successor entities; GLA-North and GLA-South in October of 2021. He reasons that since the "majority of landowners" voted for separation they approve of the Resolution adopted by the GLA Board on October 6, 2021. He reminds the court that the tasks required by the court have been completed. Then he urges the court to rule on the separation.
Download Lofing's February 1, 2023, Reply Brief here.
Judge Gilbert has not ruled on the fate of the GLA yet. As this case progresses we will continue to bring you updates. Forum Note: The above multi-part article required the better part of a week to research and write. We carefully studied over 150 pages of court documents and previous articles. Links to relevant primary sources are included in the above article. Reading them will further your knowledge and afford you a deeper understanding. We hope you find the article informative and useful in understanding the GLA and how it affects you and your property.
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Post by Poor Richard on Feb 27, 2023 9:10:51 GMT -7
February 27, 2023 Dissolution Case Updates The Forum spoke with Molly Bradberry, Clerk of the Park County District Court on February 27, 2023. No additional filings have been recorded in February regarding the Dissolution case. The Forum expects to see a ruling issued by Judge Gilbert on this case sometime in the spring. We will keep you posted as the Dissolution case slowly moves forward. |
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