Nov 22 Bingo Violation ?

"This is a flagrant violation and the $ donation to your corporation for infrastructure improvements--not a charity--and not a direct cost of the game--is another instance. 

Does SLR need yet another hard lesson about the rules of conducting bingo games?  What is wrong with your board to permit such a thing?"

Here is the text from Advisory Question/Opinion.

Question:  6. Is there an exception to s. 849.0931(8), F.S. (1992 Supp.), which provides that each person involved in the conduct of any bingo game must be a resident of the county where the organization is located and a bona fide member of the organization sponsoring the game, which permits a nonmember of the organization to conduct bingo where all the members of the organization are physically or mentally unable to conduct the games?

Advisory Opinion AGO 92-91

I would think that in the best interest of the entire SLR community the  Board of Directors should call an emergency special meeting and unanimously vote to not only suspend the Manager but also Bingo until it can be proven that no Regulations/Laws have been broken.  

Management  flagrantly violating written and published rules and regulations is NOT part of her contract .

Management Company Inc. should also be advised that this may well be their last contract in SLR as well .

Ignorance is no excuse of the Law . Saying that they just didn't know isn't going to fly .

I can only imagine how fast this gross misdeed will spread throughout the Community and  damn well it should .

So, isn't ANYONE going to call the Sheriff and have this pathetic excuse of a manager arrested for breaking the law; many of us know this isn't the only violation of the law she's committed!

Or, is it just O.K. with everyone that she's called the sheriff to get 3 residents arrested for NO reason, yet when she breaks the law, nothing happens?

That's what's going on in here; so it must be ok for her to continually break the law and get away with it.

A board member--our secretary is the Bingo Committee Chairperson--so, wouldn't you think that this person would have a handle on what they can/cannot do w/respect to running the bingo game in here?
I believe we need this person to step down.

Is the tail really wagging the dog in our Park? How did this situation get to this point. We do have By-Laws to recall BODs, and request a special meeting for open discussion. What is the procedure to make that happen?

RE: Special Meetings of BOD--here is the section from Bylaws/Article IV Members Meetings



Section 3. Notice of time and place of any meetings of the members sH all be mailed by the management of the corporation to each voting member of record at least thirty (30) days, but not more than sixty (60) days, prior to the date of the meeting.


The Florida Statute 720.306 is more liberal ie "only 10%" membership is required to call for a Special Meeting, but the statute defers to the governing documents:

(3) SPECIAL MEETINGS.—Special meetings must be held when called by the board of directors or, unless a different percentage is stated in the governing documents, by at least 10 percent of the total voting interests of the association. Business conducted at a special meeting is limited to the purposes described in the notice of the meeting.


This "description of purpose" is required by FS720:

(4) CONTENT OF NOTICE.—Unless law or the governing documents require otherwise, notice of an annual meeting need not include a description of the purpose or purposes for which the meeting is called. Notice of a special meeting must include a description of the purpose or purposes for which the meeting is called.

Logistically, one would have to have a Petition, with the purpose of the Special Meeting defined, signed by at least 158 voting owners (20% of owners). That Petition would have be hand-delivered or sent Certified Mail to the Board President. The Board would have to schedule a meeting and MAIL all owners with 30 days notice of the meeting date and give a specific purpose for the meeting. (The notice can be posted "in addition to" the mailing--not instead of.) The stated purpose is the only matter which can be discussed at the meeting.

If the Board does not want to address the issue, it simply needs to hold the meeting, reschedule the meeting and then adjourn it. It must reschedule the meeting for a specific date and time before adjourning it. I see nowhere in the statute where the BOD is prohibited from serial adjournments and thus, it can lawfully avoid discussing the issue indefinately. (However, this particular concern might be governed by FS617 which governs the conduct of the corporation and I did not look that up.)

In my opinion, this is not a fruitful way to go. The Board must be recalled and replaced-- OR-- the election must be cH allenged. Our current illegal elections block owners from reconstituting a Board quorum.

An election that is cH allenged with the state of Florida is subject to mandatory arbitration and is not difficult or expensive. The prevailing party gets their costs reimbursed.

In my non-legal opinion, a successfully-cH allenged election would require SLohA to hold a new election in strict adherence to the lawful provisions of our Bylaws (not the ones that past BOD's have messed with and eliminated or changed to suit their purpose or convenience). My guess is that the cH allenge would still not re-form the Board unless Florida decided to nullify any existing illegal 3 year terms still held by sitting directors. Can't even guess about that! (In my world, Florida would throw the book at SLohA for multiple and continuing violations and "clean house".)

So many thoughts running through my head as I read all this.

FIRST and foremost, a complaint must be made!! Having IT call SLR Bingo is ILLEGAL. Sadly I was not there to witness this or else I would have filed a complaint, not only to the State office but also Polk County Sheriff's office.

I shouldn't be, but this shocked me when I heard it. Management's agenda is to run SLR out of money, run the clubs out of money so there no funds left, then mgmt. can raise our dues. And when we have nothing left and SLR goes under, Mgmt will scoop in and buy SLR. Bingo sounds like this is part of the plan now. The mgr called bingo (and I heard she will be calling again tonight) so it could be disbanded for illegal practices....and then where do you think the Bingo monies will go to??? Right now I'm going to guess there is between $2-4,000 in that fund (if not more).

Depending on how one feels about IT & BOD, 299 of those witnesses can say "I don't recall" As for paperwork and logged info - there isn't such a thing. Just have to keep financial records due to this being a community bingo and not played in public nor advertised to the public.

PROOF is a photo or recording and that is easy peasy with those new smart phones!!