NEXT Amendment for Interest Rate Change in Cov 11.06

Administrator's Note: Debbie Blais sent the below open letter to the GLA Board and granted the Forum permission to publish it. The Covenant change vote failed to get enough YES votes to pass. 171 YES votes were required and only 91 YES votes were cast. Of the 91 YES votes, at least 10% were invalid because they came from landowner(s) who were not "in good standing" as required by the covenants. A recount has been requested.


GLA Board of Directors,


Since the Aug 27th vote to change Covenant 11.06 failed, I have heard a lot of talk regarding What to Do Next? Including abandoning the Association altogether if we are unable to get the votes required to change the Covenants to be in compliance with MT state law!

I think it’s very important for the GLA Board to understand and realize that many, if not all, of the 53 “No” Votes (shown on the GLA website and in screenshot below) would have been “Yes” votes with 2 changes to the Cov 11.06 Amendment put for vote on Aug 27, 2016:

1. Change the language from “12 % or the highest interest rate allowed by MT state law” to “the highest interest rate allowed by MT state law”.
2. Remove the “retroactive” nature of the Amendment and it’s specification in the Amendment.

Those “No” votes were not against changing the Covenant to the highest rate allowed by MT state law. Those “No” votes were against the retroactive and 12% add ons the Board chose to include in the Amendment.

The Board Listens meeting on June 26th presented a proposal to the GLA Board that states: “The interest rate should be the highest rate allowed by Montana law. This should be sent to all landowners for a vote.” This recommendation was verbally presented to the GLA Board in the July 2016 Board Meeting by Dennis Riley. Later, in the same meeting, the GLA Board chose to add the clause for 12%, against the landowner’s recommendation made just days earlier. Meeting minutes: www.glamontana.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Special-MtgMins-Board-Listens-II-06-25-2016.pdf

The retroactive nature of the Amendment put to vote was disliked because it favors those landowners with large Past Due balances who have a long history of refusing to pay GLA Assessments. Many landowners want the Amendment to simply apply from the time of passage forward.

The GLA Board would do well to make these 2 simple changes to greatly improve the possibility of passing any future Amendment for Interest Rate change to Cov 11.06. That, together with accurately determining the number of membership interests in Good Standing at the time of the vote, quite likely would result in the required 51% approval to pass the Amendment.

(I understand from Charlene and Regina, in the GLA Election Committee Meeting on 9/28, that there were 23 membership interests thought to be in Good Standing at the time of the Aug 27 vote that were not. Realizing that would have brought the number of “Yes” votes required for passage down from 171 to 160. The number of 150 participating membership interests is very close to the 160 required to pass the Amendment on Aug 27, 2016. – IF the aspects of the Amendment landowners objected to are removed.)

Debbie Blais, SG 39-D