Saturday, June 19, 2021

Board Meeting Comments...

Conference call failure...

Meeting started with 6 of us on the call. It started out well, but soon went bad.  The problem seemed to be that someone of the six, did not mute their phone. This caused a background   noise that was disruptive. Some fool had a barking dog on there. The number of members on line varied between 6 and 8.  As of 10:15 am the problem was still not corrected and all you could hear was silence other than some clicking sounds.  This was yet another failure.

36 comments:

Cori Harms said...

Tracy said they will just call me when time for candidate Q&A session. Oh well! No back up plan huh?

George Miller said...

Would you please fix this when you get elected? Someone needs to do something besides make lame excuses for one failure after another.

Anonymous said...

Do they know how to use a phone?

Cori Harms said...

They could have jumped up to a zoom or webex. That is depriving members access to an important meeting. Easy to say, I am not in their shoes.

Anonymous said...

We are spending so much money on computer technology and systems. Why are they making so many excuses?

Steve Cox said...

Cori.... You right on the mark. There's no excuse. They've spent thousands of dollars on Tech support and instruction. They don't want the content of these last 2 meetings to be preserved, or widely seen. You have my vote - you recognize what's going on. Sorry you were cut out Cori.

Williams, Minich, and Olds are bad news. DeLeest is as well. a busy body and behind the intrusive enforcement plans. She must be kept off of the Board, and Williams as well. Mark has his good points and might be better able to be himself with a less bully-some group.

Ronda F said...

Another perfect example of members rights slowly being taken away.

JoAnne said...

I can’t believe there weren’t better arrangements made for recording or broadcasting this important meeting the candidates! Does no one know about zoom? We’re already on Webex, why wasn’t it used? These arrangements and very limited room at the office, hardly qualifies this as an open meeting for members.

Anonymous said...

This is such a turn off. Now we can see why members do not bother to participate. What's the use? Why vote? There is nothing open about this board and that's the way they want to keep it. We have been stung so many times, we have come to expect it from every candidate. Being nice and reasonable will not win an election where the stats quo will resort to down and dirty. Sorry, but that's the way it is. You have to fight back, down and dirty like they do. Speak up and expose them for what they are. You need to get mad as hell. Ronda is the only one showing any grit among all of you. You got one last chance, and that is at the annual meeting. Let um have it and say it the way it is. That will be your last chance to pick up enough votes to put you over the top. Most out of towners will have voted.

Dale said...

Well...wasn't that a super fun meeting?

JoAnne said...

Boy that’s for sure! Too bad it wasn’t broadcast so mire members could see all the fun😂

Anonymous said...

People use Zoom all over the world for meetings, school, everything else. It's designed to be pretty much an idiot proof. This organization can't figure out how to handle one meeting. With full IT support. This is not an accident.

This organization, by design, communicates worse with their constituents than any nonprofit organization I've ever been around. That alone should get them booted.

Anonymous said...

By the way where was our IT Specialist? Honest to god Zoom is simple to use! And we already have Webex! What’s up with that and how much have we spent for nothing? As I remember it, part of those $10,000 funds for COVID relief was to improve our computer system!
What a joke and it’s not funny! We need an itemized account of how that money was spent!

Anonymous said...

I was surprised and dismayed regarding one of the larger expenditures of the HOA. There was again No Deputy report. There is little to no oversight and that is unacceptable. There was question raised about the 4th of July and if deputy will be on duty - board has no idea. How do we honestly know a “extra” deputy is actually putting in 40 hours a week in Surfside as contract states?? The board is not serving its members in this situation by not monitoring a 500k contract and holding them accountable.

Anonymous said...

While I can agree that the OFFICE, not the board, should have things set up better, as George pointed out one of the main issues was some idiot who doesn't care about the proper protocols for listening online.

To Cox.

To single out deLest as being the only person behind the enforcement plans is factually incorrect. When you add to that your childish name calling it highlights your bias towards her more than likely stemming from her standing up and calling you out on your B.S. when she "accosted" you in the past. Also, if you are going to continue with the insults you should put the effort in to spell someone's name correctly. It's the respectful thing to do, which I guess is why you don't.

Btw, you praise Mark, Just a reminder, he was for those lighting covenants that you spent many hours and days complaining about, deLest was not. In fact she was one of the Trustees pushing to have it put forth to the membership. But of course your bias conveniently overlooks that.

Anonymous said...

Folks the correct spelling is “de Leest”!

Ronda F said...

Tracy has a boss, which is good old Gary. Put the blame on Gary for this fiasco. I heard Transparency and communication today more than you can imagine. Gary failed every member today and denied them the proper communication to hear an important meeting. Get with the program Gary and get zoom or webex going,, what were you afraid of Gary? Maybe you really don't want members to hear from new candidates, maybe you are hiding something? Who knows, but sure made yourself look bad! Gary is part of this good ol boys club and needs to go.
A question presented today: Do you feel our members voice and members rights are being stripped away?
Hell yes and today was a prime example!

Anonymous said...

Why can't we have open to members meetings going on now? With vaccines, spacing and masking? There is no reason why we can't.

JoAnne said...

Because there is not enough room since they built the compliance officers room in that room. It’s quite ridiculous to even try and have open meetings there any more. They need to get a bigger venue snd also put it out on the internet so more can participate

Steve Cox said...

Here we go with the deLeest defense league. You read entirely too much between the lines. I didn't say Annette is THE ONLY B.member that is pushing the big enforcement gig. She's one of a few and I have no use for their intrusive nonsense.

She has been a prime mover in the tree onslaught, initially promoted a lighting covenant change telling people what fixtures they could have, and bragged to me that she wrote the agenda for a new Neat'n Tidy covenant. Just what we really DON'T need.

She may mean well, but in a righteous sort of way. I know how to spell their name. Lots of errors occur on telephone keyboards. Oh well, can't catch 'em all

I don't know how Mark Scott has voted on everything. I don't know him, but have talked with him a couple of times. Annette too.

lost hope said...

This HOA in surfside gives me a headache and waste good money for nothing!

Cori Harms said...

Hopefully, we do better next time.

Ronda F said...

You should go on the members only Facebook page and read comments. If it's not Tracy's fault or Gary's fault for the fiasco yesterday, then explain yourselves. Our members deserve an answer as to why this was not run live or on webex. I dont want to hear because we don't have unlimited storage either. Communication and Transparency are heavily lacking!

Anonymous said...

I did go there. The Business Manager, Tracy, has a real attitude problem. She lacks the basic skills needed in interaction with members. She has become more a part of the problem rather than solutions. She needs to resign or be replaced. Just one of many changes needed to bring our collective community back together once again.

Ronda F said...

Ric was down right rude to Joanne, that is not acceptable! Thank goodness his term is up next year. 4 positions, 4 votes. Stop taking members rights away

Icegoalie said...

855 - she probably won't last long. The position is more of a sacrificial lamb for the board than it is a serious employment opportunity.

Anonymous said...

80,000 a year for what?

Anonymous said...

I retired from an agency who used V-tel and teleconferencing daily. If there was a large attendance video/call, the subject matter expert was on standby to remedy the issue if problems occurred. The meeting was halted until it could be resolved and alternative measures were on standby if the original plan failed.
A couple people in the office were responsible for learning and practicing the products used before the large attendance calls. It would behoove the HOA BOT to implement a similar process to assure a foolproof meeting with a back up plan.
Information sharing and transparency IS paramount with the current homeowner's population. The climate has changed and participation is likely to remain lively and active.

Anonymous said...

Instructions to participants on what to do and NOT to do should be provided also. A 'shout out' to the offender during the conference call to MUTE their darned phone can be done as well. The software used should have an option to boot the offending caller or mute them otherwise it is useless to everyone.

A business manager really needs to have some of these skills on their resume. It would benefit everyone to provide this education to the staff as part of the IT budget.

JoAnne said...

What a concept! And Deb Blagg was shut down trying to improve the computer system and establish electronic voting! You will note in the committee listing that the Technology Committee was eliminated in 2018!
In this age of technology there is really no excuse for every board meeting to be available on the internet!
Who knows maybe there would be more member participation?

JoAnne said...

Not to be!

Ronda F said...

Take our IT person off the payroll if this is the best we have. Another waste of member funds!

Steve Cox said...

I was noticing that the very Bylaw we want to revise to require a member vote (of approval/disapproval), states that the Architectural Committee is to be tasked with covenant enforcement. Not the Bus. Office, not a hired compliance officer,...

And the Bylaws can only be changed by a vote of the members -not the Board !

Anonymous said...

Well Peggy Olds is on the wrong comittee. She needs to go away

Anonymous said...

Laura used to do compliance. Now we are paying yet another staff member. Tracy could be doing more for what we pay her. Waste waste waste

Steve Cox said...

Intensifying the Tree enforcement increased the individual compliance issues by at least a couple of hundred percent. The burden spurred hiring a designated "compliance officer" and more of a burden for the manager.

This is a wasteful way to go. And the community documents need to be consistant with practices.