MESSAGE FROM YOUR BOARD – Addressing concerns on Facebook Page

June 1st, 2025

Second, your board of directors had an immediate resignation of four members, three of which were officers, of the board simultaneously. This does create a bit of turmoil to reorganize. This is not a forum to make excuses, just being transparent on the current situation that your board is working through. The remaining board members followed the bylaws and proper procedures to appoint willing homeowners to the vacant board officer roles to complete the terms.

With that being said, at the May 3rd meeting, the homeowners decided that June 21st would be a special election meeting due to an invalid ballot being sent out. This ballot was deemed invalid due to a candidate’s name removed by the board without due process and the number of positions for election was incorrect.

The new ballots had to be mailed by May 20th to reach homeowners. At this time, with the exception of the treasurer’s record, there was still no peaceful transfer of records from the previous officers of the board. Therefore, your remaining board members had to use what means they had available to get ballots out to homeowners for the special election. The board at that time had no means to validate the members wanting to run for the board and without making assumptions or judgements based on a bio received of someone’s homeowner status, your board did the right thing and kept all potential candidates on the ballot.

Access to the Google Drive account was attained on May 21st at 9:22 pm. This is where the electronic homeowners records are kept with current status and information for all homeowners. If you are not familiar with Google Drive accounts, when there is multi factor authentication set on the account, you cannot gain access without the code from the owner’s phone. The Google Drive account was set up for these authentication codes to go to one personal phone and one personal email. Security is great but it can also make it difficult to coordinate schedules and timing of these codes for access:-) This has been mitigated going forward by utilizing the Lakewood email account as the recovery to the new Google Drive account.

Yes – this is the short answer. The ballot is still valid.

The difference between the two ballots is that the one from the May 3rd Annual Meeting was disqualified as a legit ballot due to a candidate’s name being removed from the ballot without due process and the number of vacant positions available for election were incorrect. The current ballot that has been mailed is qualified since all candidates that are running for the board were listed. The board can notify homeowners of the error with a public announcement via email, website announcements or any other means to let homeowners know that there is a candidate on the ballot that does not qualify to run for the board, after the candidate has been notified personally as a matter of courtesy. Errors such as this are not addressed specifically in the bylaws so proper due process is being used to notify homeowners.

Now that the board has access to homeowner records – future elections will not have this issue and this potential for error has been mitigated.

The most common practice is that votes for a candidate who has been officially disqualified are simply not counted and are considered void. This is the same as ballots that come in the mail with illegible votes, ripped or unable to read, or with blank spaces of no votes. This can also occur when a candidate decides to drop out from their running for the board after ballots have been mailed. This is why it is important to have an Election Committee for a fair and transparent vote count and validation.

First, your board would like to THANK YOU for your continued patience and understanding as we try to gather up records and access to electronic records.

1. Gate Key Cards – as of May 31st, your board has access to the gate key card software and has successfully learned how to use and manage key cards for homeowners – whew! This is an important one!
2. A meeting was held on May 10th to appoint Vickie F. as your new treasurer. She has received the association laptop and is currently bringing herself up to speed on our finances:-) (minutes are posted on our website)
3. A meeting was held on May 21st, where Barb B. was appointed as your new secretary. (Minutes have not been posted yet as they have not been approved by the board for posting)
4. May 21st, access was granted to the new secretary to the electronic records stored in the Google Drive account. A new drive account was created for Lakewood POA Board and new security recovery measures put in place.
5. Privacy – your new board respects the privacy of all homeowners. We will look at what happened with Board Meeting Minutes from March that have been mentioned on Facebook. Homeowner complaints on other homeowners to the board should and will be held in confidence. Board Minutes in respect to rules are not to have confidential information disclosed. Your board’s responsibility is to focus on the Common Area of the Association and respect homeownership and privacy. Minutes and meetings will be held accordingly. When your board has a moment to address those board meeting minutes, we will correspond as such.
6. Officers of your board were meeting yesterday, May 31st at 2 pm,  as information was spreading on Facebook – this was our first chance to get together in person since we have reorganized. Unfortunately, information was posted on Facebook prior to your board even being able to reach out to the candidate regarding the disqualification from running for the board. This is why we ask for questions from homeowners to come to the email account.
7. Open Items – previous and new board members are still working on connecting to peacefully transfer the remaining paper records. This is always tough with competing schedules and folks living in different cities. There is no central repository of paper records at this time.
   1. Minutes from the May 3rd meeting – the new secretary will ask the previous secretary to carry out the responsibility of the office to produce the minutes of the Annual meeting.
   2. Please watch for the official announcement regarding the error on the ballot and the candidate that is not qualified to run for the board for the upcoming election.

We hope this message clears up the concerns posted on Facebook. We ask that homeowners please direct questions to the talktous@lakewoodpoa.org email as to not confuse homeowners. Facebook is a platform to share fun news, fun photos of our great community, events in the area, advice on businesses to use, etc.

Again, your Board of Directors thanks you for your continued patience and we look forward to transparency, clear communication and most importantly FUN as the summer kicks off!!!!!

Respectfully,

Your Lakewood POA Board of Directors