ECA Council Member's Creative Allegations

 “…I certainly think it is my business, and our business…”

Richard Karash (long time ECA Council Member, Special Place Chair, Eastman listserv moderator and spouse of ECA board member Karla Karash--Eastman is a private community)

Mr. Karash, I am not aware of any write-in campaign for myself or any other candidate for Village District of Eastman (VDE) Commissioner.  American democracy enables the American voter to freely vote for whomever he or she wishes privately in the voting booth.

In the Public Municipality of the Village District of Eastman, no voter is accountable to Rick Karash or anyone else who attempts to bully them. In fact these kind of activities are a violation of a citizen’s voting rights.

You have created statements on the private Eastman list serve, that you control, citing unidentified individuals, which as best I can tell are simply figments of your imagination.

What is it that you fear: Open Transparent, Accountable Governance or is it Democracy?

Geri Logan

Dissolve Eastman Governance

Under New Hampshire State Law, Chapter 292 Corporations can be dissolved. Eastman is a Chapter 292 Corporation.

Chapter 292 Section 292:9 states as follows:

292:9 Procedure. -

" I. Any such corporation or 1/4 of the members thereof, may apply by petition to the Superior Court,.......for a decree of dissolution, or for such other relief as may be just; and the court, after due notice to all parties interested and a hearing, may decree that the corporation be dissolved subject to such limitations and conditions as justice may require. ...."

1/4 of the 1452 Eastman members is 362 members. That is about the same number of ECA members who signed the first petition request.

ECA governance members will tell you that all Eastman assets will go to the town of Grantham and/or to the other two towns. This is just noise and one possible outcome, ONLY if our Board uses our assessment payments to argue that Eastman ought not to be a public entity. However if a new public municipality, i.e. Eastman, were to exist prior to the court filing with the current Eastman boundaries then one might anticipate that a reasonable judge will turn all assets over to that entity. In fact, there is a precedent—ECA members in the early 1980’s created the VDE—a public municipality. The Developer’s “Water Division” assets and liabilities were transferred to this new public municipality.

ECA governance, led by the Board has continually misrepresented facts and poorly managed this community.  Numerous Eastman Free Press articles have covered these failures including “Eastman Ownership Assessment Shackles” (Read More) “Ryder’s Failure to Perform III” (Read More), and “Eastman Board Rejects Due Diligence” (Read More). Their listserv agents (incl. 2 moderators) have harassed and bullied the freedom of speech rights of individual members and made every effort to marginalize members who do not conform to their edicts. Intimidator is too kind a word for these governance members and vigilantes who attack Eastman members who want fair representation, openness, transparency, accountability and direct vote. (See “Banned from the Eastman Listserv” Read More) It is time to end the oppressive authoritarian governance that has brought Eastman to be the least ethical entity in the state of New Hampshire. The Council is nothing more than a meaningless legislative body, which competes with North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly as the least influential legislative body in the world. Read More

We recognize that many Eastman members who would like to see a governance transformation, live in fear, uncertainty and doubt brought upon this community by its Board and Council leadership and their fervent allies who desire inexpensive golf and a luxury clubhouse " to improve their golf experience" and they would like the majority of Eastman members to pay for this $4.5 million boondoggle. They want to be sure that members have no direct vote on the $4,000 mortgage that this Council action puts on each of their homes.

It is time to issue an order for that governance to Cease-And-Desist through a petition with at least 362 members signing. Eastman members need to heed Franklin Delano Roosevelt's statement "the only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance......"

“Member ignorance and the spread of misinformation empowers those in power.”

Submitted by Bob 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.

Does Eastman Need a Council?

What does the Council do?

For the past decade the primary accomplishments of the Council have been:

•                Approved spending $4.5 M on a New Center with:

                  --No architectural plan

                  --No due diligence on what the current building status is or what spending is required

                  --No RFQ/RFP defining the building cost of whatever a committee (consisting of almost entirely golfers) decides it wants

•                Approved the Universal Amenity Fee 2011

•                Approved spending $4.5 M on South Cove 2008

•                Diluted its financial authority and scope of responsibility, such as in Paragraph 8.6 which is documented here:

•                Abdicated responsibility for the Golf Committee and Golf Oversight.

o   Continues to ignore golf costs and the golf financial drain on community including a 25% reduction in golf membership fees.

•       Abdicated financial responsibility for Restaurant and Center.

•       Abdicated financial responsibility by eliminating quarterly financial report from Finance and Budget Committee Chair.

o   Neglected its financial oversight of the community’s financial performance by ignoring the FY 2014 Audit Report failure to even conform to GAAP.

What are the Council MEMBERS’ Current Responsibilities?

1.    Change the community's Declarations and Covenants:

•       The most recent example of this resulted in the Amenity Fee. This could have been accomplished simply by the Board indicating they needed a 4% incremental operational spending increase to cover its excess spending.

Instead, the community got a complicated fee structure reducing golf membership fees by 25% as well as other golf fees, and increasing costs for others who do not actively use the amenities. This is clearly an issue that should have been decided by all community members.

2.    Approve a proposed capital expenditure pursuant to Article VIII 8.6(a) of the Declarations (See below)

3.    Consider a proposal to borrow money for any purpose pursuant to Article VII Section 7.7(g) of the Declarations (See below)

THAT’S IT FOLKS

Some things the Council does not do:

•                It has no authority on setting the budget.

•                Outside of approving phraseology, it has no operational financial authority or responsibility. Its capital authority is minimal.

•                It does not oversee or review the activities of any Committees.

•                Since in most cases, Council reps can vote any way they want, they only represent themselves.

•                Few members demonstrate any concern regarding the content of Financial Statements.

What the Council Members Prohibit by their existence:

•       Consistently has failed to allow Direct Vote to become an open transparent dialogue amongst community members and to enable a Council vote authorizing Direct Vote on major financial expenses.

•       It prevents the ECA members from representing themselves as to what the community spends on what and why, as well as what checks and balances are provided for ECA members’ rights.

Furthermore, the Council blocks financial accountability and visibility as to what and how ECA funds are being expended. Its existence prohibits an open transparent participation in the financial decision process on the part of members. Members are simply to pay the bills and much like any group whose basis is authoritarian leadership, accept what they are told without question. Failure to do independent due diligence yields all power and knowledge control to the authoritarian leaders.

If the Council were eliminated today, would you notice? To answer this question, Eastmanites need to consider what is the added value of having a Council to each of us and to the community as a whole? Some questions that concerned residents might ask themselves are:

1.    Is the Council simply an obstacle to empowering Eastman residents to vote directly on how their community is operated and how their money is spent?

2.    Is the Council just a huge waste of time, which buffers the Board from having direct accountability to the residents?

The cost of having the Council involves not just meeting time but all the employee direct costs associated with it--the costs of more than 20 committees, endless reports and an overwhelming bureaucratic complex. But how would the community run without it? Pretty much as it does now is the answer. The only difference would be that the Board would no longer be able to hide behind the Council and their Committees. The community would instead hold them directly accountable and perhaps the community members might decide that the repetitive failure to comply with GAAP financial reporting requirements and meaningless, unverified financial statements distributed by the General Manager is unacceptable.

Further, the refusal of the General Manager to provide specific Center financial history, as documented here would not be tolerated by his employer. No elected official would be allowed to call for a capital funding vote without being required to provide a detailed Renovation Cost List in priority order of required renovations. Here is a Capital Improvement example:

·      A detailed Center Renovation Cost List in priority order of required renovations categorized as follows:

a.     Must do: 0-12 months / Dollars per major item  

b.    Need to do: 0-12 months/ Dollars per major item

c.     Want to do: 0-12 months/ Dollars per major item 

d.    A similar list created for 12 to 60 months 

See Post http://eastmanblog.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-shell-game-renovate-center.html

Voting power in the Council is discriminatory based on the Special Place you live in. Those on the golf course have 17 representatives as do those in West Cove, which represents 41% of the Council voting power. The other 14 Special Places have the remaining 59% of the voting power scattered about in fragments with 5 Special places having 5 (five) representatives each and the remaining crumbs of representation dabbled about.

Is the ECA Council a sham to ECA members?

Article 7.7

(g) borrow money by the issuance of secured or unsecured notes…. and (iii) in any other circumstances with the approval of two-thirds of the members of the Council present and voting (Revised 09/12/09). (Added 7/11/98).

Article 8.6 The following provisions shall govern the use of monies collected by assessments …..:

Capital expenditures (with the exception of existing infrastructure [e.g. roads, drainage, bridges, etc.], equipment and vehicles, all of which the Board is authorized to expend and which capital expenditures are not subject to the limitations set forth herein and below), which exceed the above 2% limitation but are 25% or less of the budgeted revenues from the combined Operating and Capital Assessments, shall require approval by a majority of the Council members present and voting and a majority of the Board (Revised 09/12/09).

Contributed by Bob 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.