A Wish Came True !

 I had very few interactions with M. e. l. so I don't have anything against her, personally (other than her annoying habit of calling people "hon").  But, even watching her from afar, I quickly came to the conclusion that she may not be up to the cH allenge. S-bag is really like a sm all city. It requires a manager with a solid professional background, including a minimum of a baccalaureate in business administration and 5 years job experience. That may not be feasible at the current salary level (I believe the manager's position should have an annual salary of between $75,000 and $100,000). It should be noted, however, that a qualified manager would make Stmbg Ixx redundant. Legal and accounting services could be provided on an "as needed" basis.

The new SLR managers name is 'Chap Crish (spelling maybe wrong,sorry), THIS INFO WAS FROM THE FRONT OFFICE.

Our BODs have not made any statements as of March 10th,at 8pm regarding our new Manager.

Thanks for the opportunity to discuss the difference between a supervisor and a manager:
· A supervisor is responsible for accomplishing routine tasks, with the assistance of his/her crew. A manager is responsible for accomplishing a series of broad goals as set by the policy makers (e.g., a City council, or a corporate board of directors). It is up to the manager to figure out and implement the tasks required to accomplish those  goals. In business administration schools, this is referred to as “self specification” . I don't mean to pick on our previous manager but I want to use her as an example of what a manager shouldn't do. A couple of years ago at an informational meeting over the progress of the utility and road work, a question was asked by a member of the audience. The SLohA president turned to the manager to ask what she had done to follow-up on this matter. She responded by saying she had not followed up because "nobody told me to". The SLohA president then said "Well, I'm telling you now!" That should have not been necessary.
· A manager does not punch a time-clock. He/she is expected to spend as much time as is needed in order to accomplish a task. If that means putting in a 70 hour week for certain difficult tasks, so be it. And there is no overtime pay.
· A manager must accept full responsibility for failure to meet a goal, even if his/her crew did not properly follow his/her instructions. “It’s not my fault” is not an acceptable answer. Take a look at coaches/managers for professional sports teams. The coach may be burdened with a bunch of prima donnas who want to play by their own rules. But, in the end, it’s the coach who gets fired for the screw-ups of his players.
· Every manager’s job description includes the sentence “performs other duties, as assigned”. A manager cannot complain that any additional duty assigned to him/her “is not part of my job”.
· A manager is expected to be constantly improving his/her skills by attending continuing education courses, as well as informational seminars on the latest technological developments in his/her field of endeavor. While his/her employer may be paying the cost of those courses, the manager is still expected to keep up with his/her daily duties while he/she is away from the office. During class breaks, I would be calling my subordinates to get status reports on the progress of tasks I had assigned to them during my absence.
· A manager is expected to anticipate future problems and to make contingency plans in case those problems appear. For instance, an airport manager should already have prepared emergency procedures to deal with a natural disaster. The same would be true for a City Manager or an HOA Manager. When a disaster happens, people look to the manager for direction. They don’t want someone running around like a chicken with its head cut off.
· In short, a manager’s job is extremely stressful and requires an individual with a very unique skill-set. That is why a competent manager commands a high level of compensation.

Try dealing with a City Council made up of farmers who are constantly feuding with each other over political turf and petty grievances and an electorate who believe they know more than the City Engineer because they had once installed their own septic system. The S-bag BOD's shortcomings, while regrettable, are nothing new. A skilled manager can negotiate through such minefields. Unfortunately, our previous manager chose a different path.
For everyone's sake, let's hope our new manager can rise to the cH allenge.

I believe you are confusing my posts with someone else's. If you look at my post of March 7th, you will see that I recommended an annual salary at $75,000 to $100,000. However, under my proposal the on-site Manager's responsibilities would be expanded and Staumbaugh's management contract would be terminated. Instead things like legal services and accounting services would be purchased on an "as needed" basis.
I'm in favor of overall management responsibility assigned to one single person. Otherwise it is impossible to evaluate job performance.

Dream Weaver posted:

You are correct; a ruling has not yet been made.  This evaluation will be in the hands of the FL Dept of Economic Opportunity who will receive the revite packages when submitted by SLohA in the future.  It should be an easy call that SLohA is not an HOA--as statutorily defined--and therefore lacks eligibility to revitalize under the HOA statute 720.  SLohA fails to meet one of the three criteria required to revitalize; the deficiency is clearly the lack of declared authority to impose liens against parcels.

Dream Weaver posted:

So thanks DW for your thoughtful comments. Re the Amendments;  these are thoroughly discussed under another board:  HOA Florida Law & Government with 3 separate threads devoted to each Amendment with a Comparison thread.   A thorough reading of these threads, with legal opinion included, should answer some questions (and raise more).

You might also want to read the Over 55+ board since the 1989 Amendment added this provision which was never in the original Declarations.

The Amendments did not include a provision to impose liens; this privilege was self-proclaimed in the corporate documents and does not "run with the land" as do the Covenants.  That is why they are not enforceable against parcels and why SLohA does not meet the statutory criteria of an HOA.

The problems with these Amendments is they have enormous liability potential for the future of S-bag; virtually any action can be legally cH allenged in the future with no end in sight for the legal expenses which will not be covered by insurance--especially now that everyone is "on notice".  The legal implication of these Amendments is related to the revitalization but the problems of HOA standing might pre-empt their ever seeing the light of day and, in any case, an administrative ruling by a state department is not enforceable without a judicial ruling.   In the bigger picture, the revitalization demonstrates just one of the ways these Amendments can and will interfere with the future lawful conduct of SLohA business.

In my opinion, the validity of these Amendments must be settled for the good of the community.  Who wants to live under a continuing threat of legal cH allenge to a Federal law such as the Fair Housing Act by a disgruntled owner wishing to sell their property to an "underage" occupant?   Or a cH allenge by a Buyer and their real estate agent?  Or a member of any "protected" group? This is perhaps the area of greatest liability to the Association and a successful lawsuit could bring SLohA to its financial knees.

The right to appeal was forfeited at mediation to avoid unending litigation; even if a lower court rules that the Amendments are valid, it does not eliminate the potential for future litigation and appeal of that decision.  It just settles the question "for now" relative to concluding my lawsuit and will do what my lawsuit seeks i.e. to clear the title to my property title of invalid and illegal restrictions recorded by SLohA.

Here is how I see the process working. We start off with an annual strategic planning session to which the entire community is invited. The session should take place a couple of months before the BOD begins work on next year's budget. Initially, the audience breaks into sm all groups for the purpose of discussing and voting upon a set of annual objectives (e.g., fixing tennis courts, reduce HOA assessment by 5%, etc). Then each group appoints a spokesperson. Each spokesperson then reads off the results of his/her group session to the "facilitator". When the results of all the group sessions are recorded, ballots are passed out to the entire community for the purpose of voting on priorities. The completed list of priority objectives is then submitted to the BOD for the purpose of fleshing out an annual budget built around those objectives. The proposed budget is then submitted to the community for a vote in accordance with SLohA's by-laws.
The BOD is then held accountable by the community for carrying out the annual objectives. The Manager, in turn, is held accountable for developing and implementing the tasks required to accomplish those objectives. The Manager's annual performance evaluation is then based upon how well he/she did in accomplishing those objectives. The BOD, in turn, is held accountable through the election process.
This process may sound utopian but it is actually practiced by many local governments, NGO's and large corporations. I have personally participated in sessions like these over my professional career. You may have participated in such a process yourself.

Thanks.
My first experience with this process was back in the early 1970’s when I was working for the City of Milwaukee on a number of federally-funded, anti-poverty block Grnt programs. The legislation that created these programs mandated a “citizen participation” component whereby those whom the programs were intended to benefit would have a say in how those federal funds were spent.
Perhaps my most interesting experience, however, was with a strategic planning session called for the purpose of creating state legislation to deal with air pollution. Participants represented the range of "stakeholders" from government officials to major polluters such as utility companies, as well as environmental groups. The breakout groups were required to have at least one member from each of those sectors. What’s more, the recommendations of each breakout group had to be agreed to unanimously by the group's members. Otherwise, the facilitator would not record that group’s recommendations for a vote by the general conclave. Such a requirement meant that stakeholders had to learn to compromise with each other or else face exclusion from the opportunity to influence air pollution legislation .
Food for thought!