As the comic writer
Dave Barry used to say “I am not making this up”. Within the last ten years the
ECA Board Powers, in particular those of the Board President, have been
expanded regularly by the Board with no formal notification or approval by the
community. The Eastman Board of Directors has granted to the ECA Board
President, currently Maynard Goldman, the following dictatorial powers in the
Board Bylaws:
(f). ".......
Additionally, the President shall be the official spokesperson for the Board
........"
(g) "the President
shall from time to time inform the Board
of the establishment of any Standing, Ad Hoc or Advisory Committee that the President
deems necessary and shall advise the Board as to the membership of said Committees
and their powers and duties."
Given “Item g” above, there
is no difference in the powers of Mr. Goldman and those of a dictator with a “puppet”
Council and Board. The Board President has used these powers to assemble a Committee
of his agenda supporters that in private (non-public) meetings created
"Enterprise" Financial Statements as he (and his Board) empowered himself
to do. Another of Mr. Goldman’s major accomplishments, using his self-granted powers,
has been creating a Financial Statement declaring golf “profitable” while at
the same time, membership is going down. Here is how he did it:
He has had the
financial reports of the community re-worked transferring almost $150,000 worth
of what formally were golf course expenses to other expense categories such as
G&A. These expenses include what General Manager Ken Ryder has decided to call
“employee overhead” and includes costs such as: golf payroll taxes, golf
employee retirement costs, health-insurance costs, Workmen’s Compensation,
unemployment taxes etc. The process of creating misleading golf financial
reports begins in FY2012 and culminates in FY2014.
Whether this was why we
changed auditors this year I cannot be sure, however it does appear to be part
of the scheme to mislead ECA members as to what golf really costs. The
magnitude of the golf cost shift can be seen by looking at the Audit for FY
2012 which shows:
·
Golf Course expenses of
$777,389----now lowered to $629,876
·
General and Admin of $944,170----now
increased to $1,137,672
The Budget of FY2014 goes
on further to show all the expense numbers from the 2012 Audited Report re-stated under 2012 Actual including
the above changes.
In collaboration
(collusion?) with the former Council Chair the Golf Committee reporting
relationship was changed from the Council to the Board AND its members given
DIRECT VOTE as to golf committee members.
Mr. Goldman's rhetoric
and power is above any ECA owner or ECA
governance entity. When you have empowered yourself to speak for the Board to
the community, you can say whatever you want, subject to no other authority
within the community. He can change the financials in private without public
explanation and comparative views (old vs. new).
Consider Mr. Goldman's
actions in assembling the VDE Commissioners so they willingly violated the
Right to Know Law of the State of New Hampshire at their Feb 7, 2012 meeting.
Mr. Goldman brought together the following attendees:
·
ESC Board
Representative Brad Moses
·
Eastman Community
Association (ECA): General Manager Ken Ryder
·
Assistant General
Manager Brian Harding (also manager of ESC)
·
Board President Maynard
Goldman
·
Golf course
Superintendent Mike Gornnert (a curious
participant given that the ECA General Manager has stated that the golf course no
longer needs the effluent from the sewer system)
Power like Mr. Goldman
has is given to a ruler by:
·
A Community who
erroneously trust governance members and fail to inspect and verify that trust
·
A Community who
emotionally relinquish their capacity to think independently based on proper
due diligence
·
Members who gain
financially by lowering their own costs of ownership
·
A compliant community
Our governance is a
quagmire of complexities meant to keep Eastman members ill informed and/or
ignorant.
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