Post by Admin on Apr 13, 2017 20:38:33 GMT -7
GLA Election Committee Proposal for Annual Elections
The Election Committee by a 4 to 2 vote recently approved a proposal regarding landowners paying late assessments at the Annual Meeting. The passed proposal was brought to the GLA Board on April 10, 2017 and was accepted by a 6 yes and 5 no vote. The measure passed and will soon be in the newsletter. What is the Election Committee proposal? The essence of the proposal is in the first line:
"Have a cut-off date of 10-31-2017 to receive payments for all delinquent accounts in order to be eligible to vote".
The key word is "delinquent".
The Covenants, Section 11.03 state that the annual assessment "shall be paid annually on or before January 31 or quarterly in four equal increments on or before January 31, April 30, July 31 and October 31". Covenant Section 11.06 states that "if any assessment is not paid by midnight on the date when due, then such assessment shall become delinquent". So it should be clear that if a landowner withholds payment until the Annual Meeting, which is always held after October 31, then they will be attempting to bring a delinquent account current. This is where accounting starts to get complicated and other problems can arise.
Two examples follow:
1) If a landowner is simply paying their last quarterly payment for 2017 then the Covenants allow a 30 day grace period and NO interest or penalties are charged. That is easy to account for. Whatever the balance is on their October statement is the exact amount they owe. However they are still delinquent if paying after October 31 and other problems can occur if they are allowed to vote.
2) Accounting gets more complicated when the landowner owes for several quarters or even years. In that case the amount on their October statement is incorrect if they pay after October 31. That is because interest must be calculated to the meeting date. The GLA accounting system is only set up to calculate interest on a monthly basis. Therefore landowners who have not paid their 3rd quarter 2017 or earlier assessments are past due. Thus they are not in good standing and not eligible to vote at the Annual Meeting.
Several issues arise when the GLA Board accepts payments on election day which can allow delinquent landowners to become current and qualify them to vote.
The Forum hopes our explanation is clear. You may download the Election Committee Proposal here. We expect the proposal will be fine tuned before it gets into the newsletter. When we receive an updated copy we will post it here. If you have questions or comments please ask them below.
The Election Committee Proposal corrects many errors that the GLA Board has made in the past and brings Election practices up to what the Covenants and Bylaws require.
"Have a cut-off date of 10-31-2017 to receive payments for all delinquent accounts in order to be eligible to vote".
The key word is "delinquent".
The Covenants, Section 11.03 state that the annual assessment "shall be paid annually on or before January 31 or quarterly in four equal increments on or before January 31, April 30, July 31 and October 31". Covenant Section 11.06 states that "if any assessment is not paid by midnight on the date when due, then such assessment shall become delinquent". So it should be clear that if a landowner withholds payment until the Annual Meeting, which is always held after October 31, then they will be attempting to bring a delinquent account current. This is where accounting starts to get complicated and other problems can arise.
Two examples follow:
1) If a landowner is simply paying their last quarterly payment for 2017 then the Covenants allow a 30 day grace period and NO interest or penalties are charged. That is easy to account for. Whatever the balance is on their October statement is the exact amount they owe. However they are still delinquent if paying after October 31 and other problems can occur if they are allowed to vote.
2) Accounting gets more complicated when the landowner owes for several quarters or even years. In that case the amount on their October statement is incorrect if they pay after October 31. That is because interest must be calculated to the meeting date. The GLA accounting system is only set up to calculate interest on a monthly basis. Therefore landowners who have not paid their 3rd quarter 2017 or earlier assessments are past due. Thus they are not in good standing and not eligible to vote at the Annual Meeting.
Several issues arise when the GLA Board accepts payments on election day which can allow delinquent landowners to become current and qualify them to vote.
- An extra manpower burden is placed on a volunteer network. Charges must be verified, payments accepted and recorded.
- A bedrock principle of democracy; Equality Before The Law is violated. Landowners who owe interest and penalties are allowed to skip November interest when paying on election day because interest is only calculated monthly by the GLA. Out of town landowners who owe interest and mail in their payments must have it postmarked by October 31 per the Covenants. They are NOT allowed to skip November interest. Even if their payment arrives before the Annual meeting they will NOT be allowed to vote if the postmark is after October 31 because they will be in violation of Covenant 11.06. By accepting payments from walk in landowners on Election day, the law, our Covenants, is not being applied equally to all landowners.
- Having a cut off date of October 31 for accepting payments protects the integrity of the election process. It allows enough time before the election for landowner checks to be deposited and cleared. Since ballots are now secret they cannot be recalled if a landowner's payment is rejected by their bank.
The Forum hopes our explanation is clear. You may download the Election Committee Proposal here. We expect the proposal will be fine tuned before it gets into the newsletter. When we receive an updated copy we will post it here. If you have questions or comments please ask them below.
The Election Committee Proposal corrects many errors that the GLA Board has made in the past and brings Election practices up to what the Covenants and Bylaws require.