CRC Forum 12-13-14

If you missed the Center Building Committee Open Forum on Saturday it was attended by about 150 people, to many people’s surprise. After some introductory remarks from Committee Chair Dave Philippy, he mentioned that the construction manager would be the same firm as was used with South Cove (Milestone Construction?). Mr. Philippy indicated that they may be considering alternative locations, especially given the uproar from some Greensward residents when they found the building may be practically in their back yard. The Committee is communicating with the Board, with the golf committee, the golf pro, the restaurateur, the F&B committee, other committees, the staff and least of all with community members.  They plan to present the plans to the Board on Jan 16, begin construction in April 2015 and have the opening Memorial Day 2016 having had ONE so-called Forum.

The architect Jonathan Halle then took over the session.  His presentation pointed out that the new building will be built behind the existing building. This will allow the current building to continue to be used so as to keep the restaurant open and not affect the golf season. They want to site the building on the 18^th green destroying the green and its strategically located sand traps etc. This is not sitting well with homeowners whose properties are going to be 100-200 feet closer to the activities than they are now. They are concerned about their property values and their quality of life as well they should be. They may want to talk to the people in South Cove that lost their view of the lake when that building went up. Their property values went down too. Shortening the 18^th hole continues the trend to dummy down the golf course to a less challenging course after we’ve poured $4 million into the course including a previous change to the 18^th – a reduction of the mid fairway sand trap. (Is the committee also in golf course architecture?)

There was a lot of discussion on the size and location of the restaurant and kitchen but there is no restaurant consultant on board. Some people were unhappy with the expansion of the bar and the reduction of the fine dining area. The restaurant is a “clubhouse” restaurant. One resident wanted to know why an electronic survey could not be done to find out what people wanted. After a simple “no” answer, when pressed Dave Philippy said it was because the committee can’t agree with the Board how to phrase the questions(??) Is it because they don’t want to know the answers?

A number of times it was noted that the majority of residents wanted “such and such” and when pressed, based on what?  The “WHAT” turned out to be the majority wants of the committee. In sum, we are losing usable square footage from 77% (erroneously stated as 68% on the Committee’s spreadsheet) to 74% by tearing down the ECA offices and the existing Center (valued at $2 Million) in order to build a new Center that doesn’t really fix the stated shortcomings of the existing buildings and we will add a  $4000 mortgage to each owner for the privilege.

ECA Elimination of Financial Continuity

Portions of a statement presented and submitted to the Eastman Board 12-20-11 by Robert Logan

The recently released Financial Planning and Management Task Force report states in its observations section that operational issues contributed to last year’s operational over-spending of the approved FY2011 Budget by $170K. The observations are incomplete when it comes to identifying the abuse of power by the Board. The process whereby the committee’s report was reviewed with the Board in sessions closed to community members is an inappropriate handling of numerous governance failures to perform. Furthermore, the fact that this committee has not reported its findings to the community in an open community Forum violates one of the Board’s own ethical principles which is “Encourage open, transparent discussion of matters relevant to the well-being of the Eastman community and its members”.

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Nevertheless, the Board rapidly implemented major financial re-structuring as demonstrated in the FY2013 Budget (and all subsequent financial) documents using the FP&M Report as the justification. This reduced full financial visibility and accountability of various cost centers within the community. ………..

 The elimination of financial continuity in Eastman’s Budget and Financial Reports is not warranted based on the FP&M Task Force Report. The Eastman Board did not oversee a proper open community dialog on the changes. I am therefore requesting that the FY2013 Budget and Financial Reports be done consistent with the format and criteria we have used for the past several years. If the Board thinks that the new format is appropriate, it needs to commence a community dialog on those changes and the rationale behind it. Assuming this process gains community buy-in, the changes could be implemented in FY2014.

The denial that government officials can violate a community’s ethical principles is an invitation to do more of the same. Likewise, being soft on conflict of interest interpretation is permission for more offenses.

This community needs an outside objective review by an independent board of certain actions by this Board in the past 18 months. The independent review board must review reasonably stated complaints from citizens versus the governance’s stated ethical principles and code of conduct as to what inappropriate actions may have occurred regardless of whether a policy existed or not. The creation of this board needs to be done by the Council President—as this is the government entity that supposedly is a check and balance for this community. There could be three members on the independent board which could include individuals from any of the following groups-- the Ombuds office at Dartmouth, a member of the Political Science Dept at Dartmouth, a member of the NH Citizens Alliance, Elizabeth Warren, a member of the local clergy who has no connection to Eastman and has served as a member of a similar independent review task force. I look forward to your immediate action on this matter.

Postscript—the Board and the Council Chair rejected my recommendations and continued to destroy the integrity of Eastman’s financial reports. They failed also to publish my recommendation in Board Minutes.

Further details on financial manipulations are contained in ECA Board Request and Why Eastman is being Redefined.

Submitted by Robert Logan who is the CEO of a consulting practice since 1993 which provides expertise on improved business, financial and operational performance as well as leadership.

ECA Board Request

I would like to congratulate the new members of the Board and request that you: 

1.    Be totally open and transparent except where privacy is mandated

a.     Don’t make non-confidential decisions other than at a Board Session; e.g. elimination of certain financial reports/information from the Board Meeting and dilution of financial expectations and information in the Agenda package

2.    If workshops are used for topics that need extensive dialog—please summarize the dialog at the session and make the actual decision at the Board meetings. Documentation for both the workshop and the Board decision should be transparent and informative (and available to all members)

3.    Individual Fairness—As some of you know, IBM is known for valuing and respecting the individual as a corporate core value, Eastman also should have balanced and fair policies to all current and past members of the community. At issue is our policy for residents who are 30 days or more delinquent – who can incur interest charges and suspension of the owners’ rights to use Association Land and the amenities and facilities of the Association.

We ought to treat delinquent Eastman homeowners at least equal to how we treat our vendors, yet last year (FY2011) we forgave the restaurant vendor $26,226 in past due rent. Future rents were suspended or forgiven. The ECA accepted past due utility fees of over $38K as of the end of last Fiscal Year. To my knowledge the vendor is (did) not paying ECA finance charges on his overdue accounts payable even as he makes payments on his delinquent account.

I think that our policy on delinquent assessment payments is aggressive bordering on punitive, for residents who may be experiencing financial difficulties in the worst financial recession since the great depression.

On the other hand, we excessively forgive a vendor who is unable to meet his financial commitment to the community. The Board’s behavior in my experience is discriminatory and inappropriate and does not convey a sense of community for homeowners in financial difficulty.

I made this request to the ECA Board at its September 2011 meeting. Regretfully and wrongfully the ECA Board made the decision in the fall of 2011 to destroy the ECA Financial and Audit report formats which had been in place for this community more than 15 years. The methodical implementation of this destructive decision has occurred over the past three years under the direction of General Manager/CEO Ken Ryder.

Furthermore the decision was made to NOT comply with the Generally Accepted Accounting Practices of publishing the ECA Financial and Audit Reports in both formats:  the old format and the new format when the transition occurred.

At the ECA Board’s December 2011 meeting I filed a formal complaint on these wrongful actions. The key portions of that complaint will be found in our Post “Board Acts to Eliminate Financial Continuity and Information”. As a result of these wrongful acts, today’s Eastman financial reports provide cumulative expenses regardless of where and why the money is expended—be it G&A, recreation, golf, restaurant, security, Center or maintenance.

The result of these secret financial manipulations has concluded in a makeover of the former Eastman Community Association into the Golf Resort Enterprise that we are today as detailed in  Blog Post of 9-30-14  which describes how the Board acted to eliminate financial continuity and knowledge.

 Submitted by Robert Logan who is the CEO of a consulting practice since 1993 which provides expertise on improved business, financial and operational performance as well as leadership.