Orange Flyer - Who Does It and Why?

I got a number of email responses from my first orange flyer and one of the questions I was asked was "Who are you?" 

Lars and I escaped Atlanta in 2015 and moved to Greenville after exploring a number of smaller towns in the Southeast (can't take the cold elsewhere LOL). My neighbors were so very welcoming and remain a true joy in our lives. I have a degree in journalism and spent my career in a combination of IT and other communications positions. I helped found a customer service help desk training and certification company and wrote and delivered the curriculum nationwide; I founded and ran a software training company for 15 years; and finally, I retired from The Coca-Cola Company as manager of global desktop communication and education. I am passionate about our Earth, our ecosystems, organic gardening and landscaping, educating others of the joys of gardening, and bringing awareness and new directions to our community landscaping strategies. I am a life-long quilter (since I was 4) and fiber artist. You can find my work at these two online sites:

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Chinaberry Grove Textile Art

Another homeowner asked why he had not heard or seen my name as potential candidate for a Board vacancy or for volunteering on one of the many committees.

I was president of the HOA where I lived in Georgia and enjoyed working with neighbors and city and county authorities to ensure the long-term retention of our property values there. I attended an HOA board meeting here not too long after I moved in and felt the "tone" of the meeting was extremely unpleasant, so I chose not to volunteer for anything. A few years later I volunteered for the yard of the month committee and really enjoyed it for a while. Unfortunately, one month I was treated with such disrespect and hostility on the phone by a board representative that I had to say loudly over her harangue that I was hanging up. I immediately notified the president via email that I had to withdraw from the committee for personal reasons. 

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But since I believe that if you talk the talk, you should walk the walk, bumpy as it may be. So to sync up my efforts to do even a tiny bit toward improving our environment, I really want to educate and influence our community leaders to develop a landscaping strategy that will better meet the expected extremes in our climate. Thus, I began going to board meetings. Still unpleasant, still a circus, but I did volunteer to help the landscape committee and the president, in a board meeting, appointed me as a landscape committee member.

I don't know what happened behind closed doors, but when I posted an invitation on the OF Events and Happenings Facebook page inviting the community to come to the landscape committee meeting, Carl Fisher posted that there was no landscape committee and that I was just "heading up a gardening club." There was never a request from the board that I do that and I certainly never requested it.  When I posted an invitation to some gardening workshops at my home, Carl claimed they were HOA events being conducted by the garden club. When I posted an idea to set up an online list of homeowners who own their own businesses as a community resource, Carl posted that the board was already working on that. I have yet to see any report of the project from the board. These posts were later deleted from the page but I have screen captures of them.

Along with two board members who are on the landscape committee now, I began working on documenting all the plants at each entrance with planting, soil, fertilizer, and pruning requirements for each. I believe we should leave a record for future volunteers and board members of everything, not just care and maintenance of common property landscaping. For example, location of the water and other utility meters, location of cutoff valves, irrigation schedules, contract with the property management company so we homeowners can clearly understand their service and responsibilities, contracts for all vendors, terms of each board member including when and for how long they were elected, the process for replacing a board member who resigns, how each board member votes so homeowners can decide for themselves if they agree with their positions and choose to vote for them again, etc. In the minutes of the July 2018 board meeting, it states that "how board members vote would no longer be included in the minutes" Why? I would want my vote on record! I want my position known so if I'm wrong, someone can educate me.  I have discovered that our covenants allow us to access all contracts, invoices, etc. if we request to do so. Transparency is a word tossed around in board meetings but I have seen little, if any, evidence of it.

I volunteered to work on the covenants update committee since I have expertise in communications. I support some changes to the covenants such as reasonable fines for some violations, which I believe would make non-resident property owners more accountable for the upkeep of their properties. The word reasonable is what's important in that last sentence and where my lack of confidence in the majority of current board members causes me to recommend NO COVENANT OR BYLAWS CHANGES NOW. 

Before one covenant committee meeting, I overheard a conversation between the president and a non-board member indicating that the committee would "just not let them [meaning you] know about that and sneak it by" and after an approving vote tell them about it. I assume that they were talking about changing the percent required for a yes vote from 75% to 50% + 1. 

That's not how I operate. I put the facts on the table. I put my opinion for or against an issue on the table. And I accept the decision of the majority. One board member who also volunteered for the covenants committee was labeled a "troublemaker' for doing just that, relying on evidence, abiding by our governing document provisions, and being transparent. There is a pattern in this board to attack, with vigor, anyone who does not agree with what they want. I have no problem being labeled a troublemaker. I have no problem with someone disagreeing with my opinion. I have no problem with losing to a majority vote. However, I do have a problem with lying. 

So, the orange flyers...I will continue to distribute my personal experiences at board meetings until I feel that the board is 100% transparent with their motives and actions and begins to show respect for guests and each other in meetings and when meetings are well-run according to standards rules and procedures. I will continue to share the sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant details of actions taken by the board and begin to record how each board member votes. I will also share what the board does that benefits the community. Volunteering to serve a community is hard work, and good work should be applauded.

I welcome you respectful comments, your ideas to solve problems, you ideas on building a healthy and safe environment for all of us.