Post by chris on Nov 29, 2015 10:02:18 GMT -7
The GLA Board will be electing officers for the coming year at the December 7 meeting scheduled for Emigrant Hall. I sent the board an open letter calling for an entirely new slate of officers with my reasons as follows. If you agree, please write and send your own letters to the board and be prepared to speak your mind during the landowner input period:
An Open Letter to the GLA Board of Directors
November 28, 2015
Albert Einstein wisely noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I am hopeful, with the newly elected (and appointed) directors joining the GLA board that there will be new thought processes brought to address the GLA’s problems. Already we see positive changes occurring through the contributions of Kevin Newby and Charlene Murphy, whom I thank for their willingness to serve the landowners best interests. I hope other board members will follow their example.
I cannot continue to support a system that is collective in nature and operates from the top down instead of from the people up. The past boards’ autocratic hierarchy has not followed due process. Rather, it has manipulated and interpreted the governing documents to strengthen its positions and power, it has paid some directors for services rendered to the association without full disclosure, it has operated to obfuscate by making it difficult if not impossible to obtain documents, it has refused to develop comprehensive planning for maintaining our roads, it has refused to follow its own conduct of meeting policy resulting in an excuse to avoid having live monthly board meetings with landowner participation, and has spent too much time and money making everything that challenges them about hiring attorneys and filing or threatening lawsuits.
To date the board leadership has exhibited a warped sense of what it is and whom it represents, taking the stance that “the people elected us to do a job as we see fit,” and an attitude of superiority as witnessed under the concept of the divine right of kings, thus creating an “us versus them” atmosphere. As others have pointed out, the board is not the association, but consists of elected representatives of the landowners who make up the association. Therefore, we deserve and require directors who are responsive to and representative of the landowners, not independent autocrats or representatives of any special interest group.
As I see it, to initiate true change, we must start with a change in the leadership, the officers, of the GLA board. The current slate has been defensive, paranoid, secretive, unresponsive, inaccessible, and ineffective. One long-standing officer has already resigned. The others need to step down as well.
It is up to the remaining board members to step up and lead our association in a positive direction, and bring the order and harmony so often spoken of to our community. Are you up to performing the duties that the landowners expect you to fulfill?
If a director does not have the experience and/or qualifications to fill a position he/she should not accept the position. If directors feel that certain non-director landowners may be better qualified to fill the positions of Secretary and Treasurer, please consider asking them to serve. Dorothy Keeler has already volunteered for the Secretary position and is well qualified. I am certain that additional qualified landowners could fill the Treasurer position as well. Dennis Riley and Regina Wunsch come to mind, and Dennis is now a director.
We are at a crucial turning point with the GLA, and in our country as a whole. There is much broken and much to repair, inasmuch as is possible in a deteriorating economy. The GLA leadership must lead, must plan properly and efficiently, and put our association on a path of recovery and sound business and management practices. It cannot continue to operate as it has in the past.
I am hopeful that the new board will bring the changes that are sorely needed during the December 7 board meeting by electing a new slate of officers and establishing a new paradigm of cooperation and true service to the landowners.
I am requesting that the board include time in the meeting agenda for me and any other landowners who may want to speak to this issue to do so before the board moves into the officer elections process.
Sincerely,
Chris Williams, NG
An Open Letter to the GLA Board of Directors
November 28, 2015
Albert Einstein wisely noted, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
I am hopeful, with the newly elected (and appointed) directors joining the GLA board that there will be new thought processes brought to address the GLA’s problems. Already we see positive changes occurring through the contributions of Kevin Newby and Charlene Murphy, whom I thank for their willingness to serve the landowners best interests. I hope other board members will follow their example.
I cannot continue to support a system that is collective in nature and operates from the top down instead of from the people up. The past boards’ autocratic hierarchy has not followed due process. Rather, it has manipulated and interpreted the governing documents to strengthen its positions and power, it has paid some directors for services rendered to the association without full disclosure, it has operated to obfuscate by making it difficult if not impossible to obtain documents, it has refused to develop comprehensive planning for maintaining our roads, it has refused to follow its own conduct of meeting policy resulting in an excuse to avoid having live monthly board meetings with landowner participation, and has spent too much time and money making everything that challenges them about hiring attorneys and filing or threatening lawsuits.
To date the board leadership has exhibited a warped sense of what it is and whom it represents, taking the stance that “the people elected us to do a job as we see fit,” and an attitude of superiority as witnessed under the concept of the divine right of kings, thus creating an “us versus them” atmosphere. As others have pointed out, the board is not the association, but consists of elected representatives of the landowners who make up the association. Therefore, we deserve and require directors who are responsive to and representative of the landowners, not independent autocrats or representatives of any special interest group.
As I see it, to initiate true change, we must start with a change in the leadership, the officers, of the GLA board. The current slate has been defensive, paranoid, secretive, unresponsive, inaccessible, and ineffective. One long-standing officer has already resigned. The others need to step down as well.
It is up to the remaining board members to step up and lead our association in a positive direction, and bring the order and harmony so often spoken of to our community. Are you up to performing the duties that the landowners expect you to fulfill?
If a director does not have the experience and/or qualifications to fill a position he/she should not accept the position. If directors feel that certain non-director landowners may be better qualified to fill the positions of Secretary and Treasurer, please consider asking them to serve. Dorothy Keeler has already volunteered for the Secretary position and is well qualified. I am certain that additional qualified landowners could fill the Treasurer position as well. Dennis Riley and Regina Wunsch come to mind, and Dennis is now a director.
We are at a crucial turning point with the GLA, and in our country as a whole. There is much broken and much to repair, inasmuch as is possible in a deteriorating economy. The GLA leadership must lead, must plan properly and efficiently, and put our association on a path of recovery and sound business and management practices. It cannot continue to operate as it has in the past.
I am hopeful that the new board will bring the changes that are sorely needed during the December 7 board meeting by electing a new slate of officers and establishing a new paradigm of cooperation and true service to the landowners.
I am requesting that the board include time in the meeting agenda for me and any other landowners who may want to speak to this issue to do so before the board moves into the officer elections process.
Sincerely,
Chris Williams, NG