Colleton Skeptic

 I was quite perplexed as to why the Board would open itself to ridicule for establishing an unelected "Kommittee of Karens" to deal out justice and discipline: But then I looked at the calendar and noticed that we're coming up on April Fools' Day. Drafting and enforcing rules to protect the Club from scofflaws is a key function of the Board. Surely it's a hoax to suggest that unelected busybodies should fill this important role. In any event, I certainly hope so. The Board can surely do better than just establishing a "Grievance Committee"--how about a group with some pizzaz? Here are some suggestions : "Coven of Karens" "Clash of Karens" "Covey of Karens" "Shrewdness of Karens" (probably my favorite!) "Colony of Karens" "Caravan of Karens" "Clowder of Karens" "Quiver of Karens" "Cackle of Karens" "Unkindness of Karens" "Crash of Karens" "Z...

The second vote on the amenities is in progress and will close on Monday. I'm not in the business of telling anyone how to vote--each Owner needs to become informed and make his or her own decision. But I am in the business of providing facts that will help people become informed--and this Blog is a source of information that hasn't been filtered through rose-colored glasses. In a nutshell, here's the Board's marketing strategy for the amenities: Given that the Board is well aware of the current tally of this vote and the absence of advocacy in the Club's member blasts, I assume that the Board is highly confident that it has enough votes to approve the 34% cost overrun on the amenities project. But I want to go on the record with my concerns.  I'll make a wild prediction that this isn't the last you'll hear about the amenities--the Board has been clear about the $21 million "sticker price" of the "guaranteed maximum price" contract, b...

In the last two Owner votes, 182 Owners voted to put Marcie Flynn on the Board, 123 Owners voted to put Al Rattacasa on the Board, and 151 Owners voted against the Board's initial amenities proposal (which has since been shown to have misrepresented both the timing and cost of the amenities additions). Despite the Board's spin that there is a "small group of disgruntled Owners," that "small group" constitutes of over 20 percent of the Owners. Given that only about 75 percent of the Owners typically vote, about 30 percent of the Owners who vote oppose many of the Board's more egregious initiatives.  Like the past two votes, about 120 Owners opposed the Board's most recent power grabs of establishing a "code of conduct" to apply to future  Board members (but of course not to themselves) and to deny access to key corporate documents to most Board members, and supported a proposal to require open meetings of the Board. There are two ways to loo...

 Here are a couple of truisms about the amenities votes: They're extraordinarily boring But they're very important The Board is trying to hijack power from the Owners and is up to its usual procedural shenanigans in doing so: First, the process. The Board has made it quite easy to vote for their bad ideas and against the two Owner proposals (which by the way are a right of the Owners). Moreover, it's likely (if not certain) that the Board has kept their thumb on the scale by receiving reports of how many people have voted and the current tally for each proposal. And of course, this information is limited to the cool kids. The bottom line is that you need to vote "DO NOT APPROVE SLATE" on Ballot Item #2 and then individually vote on each item. You can click once and vote for the Board's bad ideas, but if you disagree you need to vote on each proposal individually. I wonder why they didn't also give the option to vote against the Board's recommendations?...

Well, after the first amenities presentations, it's clear that: A meme's worth a thousand words, so here are a couple of memes: The decision the Board wants the Owners to think is their only option: The decision that many--probably most--Owners actually want to make: The Board's caught between a rock and a hard place. The Board likes to pretend that the decision of doing the entire amenities project at once is "settled." But they refuse to give the Owners the choice of doing the projects one-at-a-time. Here's their problem: if "everyone" wants to do the projects all at once, wouldn't everyone vote to do them all at once if they had a choice between everything at once and one-at-a-time? The answer is obvious to everyone who isn't on the Board. Frankly, the Board's public position that if the "raid the capital fund and do everything at once" proposal is voted down they'll do nothing this year is gaslighting--pure and simple. I...

This has been quite an eventful week. Eight days ago, the Board issued a long and convoluted ballot intended to further empower the Board by amending the governance documents. A week ago the Board disclosed that the J-Lot seawall lot owners had filed suit against the Club (i.e., us) for millions of dollars in alleged damages. Four days ago the Board issued a missive trying to convince the Owners that the amendments to the governance documents were no big deal. Nothing to see here, folks--move along! And yesterday, the Board announced that the so-called "guaranteed maximum price" for the amenities would be $21 million--an increase of 42 percent from the original forecast of $14.8 million (please recall that the $16.5 million price tag included a contingency of $1.7 million to cover any cost overruns that may "unexpectedly" occur). Few details have been provided, but don't worry--the cost overruns will simply be paid out of the capital fund, no further assessments...