2018 January BOD Meeting

Re:  Suspension of Voting Rights due to Delinquency

This action is based on 720.305:


Note a couple things:  the Board must vote to suspend at a noticed board meeting AND they must notify the suspended owner by mail or hand delivery so that the owner can choose to make the account current if they wish to pursue the reinstatement of their voting rights.  Though not required to do so, the BOD should announce the revised membership number.  Note that Owners MUST keep their address up to date so that notice of delinquencies can be made!  In addition to suspension of voting rights, Owners can lose some rights to use common properties for 90-day+ delinquencies.

The suspended accounts will be REMOVED from the total # of voting parcels.  At this time, the # of voting parcels is less than 790.  Two (2) parcels do not have voting rights due to the fact they are drainage parcels and part of the common property and one parcel next to this office is being used for storage and has no voting right.  Right off the bat, that brings voting parcels to 787.  There are also two parcels that are in default of county taxes and assessments and SLohA has a tax certificate on one of them.  However, neither of them have voting rights and must also be removed from the total which now is a minimum of 785. 

So....if, for example, the Board suspends an additional 10 parcels from voting at the meeting, that changes BOTH the quorum requirements and the voting "entire membership" number.  Specifically, the quorum would be based on 775 parcels  (785 minus 10 delinquent) and thus, the quorum of 30% would be needed to have a meeting to "do business".  Also, if 75%, 66% or  50% affirmative voting thresholds are required to pass a ballot proposal, the "entire membership" would be 775. 

ALL ballot proposals require votes of "entire membership" either at 50% (R & R and Budget), 66% (Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation), or 75% (Covenant amendments).

With regard to "Designated Parcels", nothing has changed but SLohA is presumably reinforcing to parcel owners that, when multiple names are on a parcel deed, ONE of them must be named as the designated voting member.  Sometimes, this is done by an association providing a Voting Certificate and turning it into the BOD Secretary at the time a parcel changes ownership or at any time the owners wish to re-designate the voter.  I think this process has been sloppy in the past and not received the attention that it should.  It is very important that the parcel owner understands and designates ONE of the owners as the valid voting entity in order to avoid an "invalid ballot" disqualified for this reason.  There have been way WAY too many disqualified ballots in the past and SLohA has not taken steps to inform the members why disqualifications have occurred.  An unknown number of these disqualified ballots have have undoubtedly resulted from a non-designated voting submission. 

It is unknown whether the unusually high # of mutilated ballots in past elections have indeed, been, invalid ballots submitted by undesignated voters.  One cannot image that seniors are partially destroying their ballots before inserting them into double envelopes and placing in the ballot box and, IMO "mutilated ballots" is a misnomer.   It is my opinion that the Election Committee should make a special effort to identify the nature of the uncounted/disqualified ("mutilated") ballots and endeavor to take effective action to avoid the problem in future elections.  (Electronic balloting would eliminate most election problems and drastically reduce printing, administrative and mailing costs.)

If you are unsure WHO your Parcel Designated Voter is, or just wish to confirm what you believe to be true, contact the Office!