Election Committee meeting, Monday, Oct. 23rd, 2017

The meeting opened slightly after 7 pm. One Co-Chair, Charlene Murphy, was present and ran the meeting. The other Co-Chair, Kevin Newby, was out of town. Two other board members, Leo Keeler and Mark Seaver, were present. Landowner Committee members, Claudette Dirkers, Tim Brockett, Andrea Sedlak, Linda Ulrich, and Dorothy Keeler were present. Val O’Connell called in by phone. (With the present conditions of the restraining order against Val and Daniel O’Connell, Val could only listen by phone. She is unable to physically attend meetings or verbally participate. The hearing to establish a permanent restraining order is scheduled for November 8th.) Four other landowners participated.

There appeared to be more questions than answers at this meeting. Co-Chair Charlene Murphy opened the meeting with a big surprise: the annual November Election Meeting had been delayed. The board rescheduled the meeting for Saturday, December 2, 2017. When one of many confused attendees asked if this was a simply board decision or one backed by legal advice, Murphy assured those in attendance that the board was acting on recent legal counsel.

Murphy then attempted to explain that the election meeting delay was caused by the need to send a new election packet to the South Glastonbury voters. And that was because one of the SG board nominees, Kathleen Rakela, was discovered to not be in good standing with the GLA covenants as of the filing deadline (Sept 13, 2017). She had violated the covenants by failing to disclose the fact that she had a new subdivision about a year earlier. Murphy first explained that although Rakela is presently in good standing, it did not change the fact that at the time of the filing deadline she was not, and thus her name couldn’t appear on the official ballot. Murphy continued with her “explanation” for considerable time. The more she explained the more confused some of the attendees became.

As the committee moved forward to edit and update training material for the volunteers who will assist with the now rescheduled annual election, the meeting was suddenly punctuated by the arrival of two landowners. One was Kathleen Rakela, who had just been the center of initial meeting discussion. The other was Claire Parker, a SG candidate. Neither have been known to attend Election Committee meetings, or nary a GLA meeting whatsoever. Neither spoke to anyone as they entered, not even to Charlene Murphy, who welcomed them. (Both sat throughout the meeting with no participation, and left as soon as the meeting ended.)

Despite the disruption, participants focused on moving the meeting forward. The tension was palpable.

One of the more significant changes in the voting practices affects members who own multiples parcels. In the past, if a person owned three parcels and had paid his assessments on only one of his parcels, he was given one ballot with which to cast his vote. With the change, a member must now have paid all assessments on all parcels in full before he is allowed to vote at all. The change reflects what the covenants actually require, and will effectively end a long-standing practice that violated the covenants.

Other updates to the voting procedures were more clerical and tedious in detail. No decision was made on the suggestion to double the number of vote counters from 4 to 8 as a means to expedite the process. In the past, two NG members counted the SG votes and vice versa. The counting of the votes characteristically took two hours or more, leaving many of the attendees going home before the results were announced.

The next Election Committee meeting will be Monday, November 13, 2017 and, if needed, another one is scheduled for Monday, November 20, 2017.

The meeting ended about 9 pm with many attendees lingering to chat. The consensus was that there were far more questions than answers and that there is more going on behind the scenes than landowners are privy to. We should be concerned.

GLFPC NOTE. For example, one of the many concerns brought up after the meeting ended is if there are other board candidates not in good standing. It is known, for example, that two censured board members, namely Charlotte Mizzi and Paul Ranttallo, are seeking re-election in North Glastonbury. The board’s censure of them expressed severe disapproval for their part in the trespassing of and damage to a NG member’s property. And while trespass is a civil matter, the fact that Mizzi and Ranttallo violated their fiduciary responsibilities raises the question of their being in “good standing” to seek another board term.

The GLFPC encourages subscribers to encourage fellow landowners to sign up for our “emailings.” The easiest way to add your name to our subscriber list is to email or phone Donna Lash-Andersen (donna.lash@gmail.com or 406-224-1690). Your information will remain private.

Glastonbury Landowners For Positive Change