Yikes, my best friend (maybe my only friend) Ben asked me over coffee, what is it you want, hope to achieve? Damn, he is way too practical. That said, he is/was right to ask. Anyone who has ever set out to accomplish anything should always start by answering the "what" question. The question was prompted by the fact i had asked him to try and plow through several of the threads i had posted lately on TOSC. It was a lot to ask, but we have worked together since we first met while serving on the SCHOA board in 2006. We had bonded on so many levels and agonized on even more. I tell people he is the smartest person i know. My first take as an answer was i wanted us to go back to the first 45 years and how the community was run; with ownership by those buying and living. His answer was right, times have changed, people have changed. The greatest generation was built wholly different from boomers and the next wave, Generation X. I couldn't, wouldn't and didn't argue the point; i had written it myself too many times. All of which forced me to become far more practical. I said we at the very least need to get the board to become accountable to the community. For 15 years they gave it all to management and simply said, "you figure it out." He thought about it and responded, that should be doable." The more we talked, the more we understood, the potential in 2022 was the first time in 15 years when it actually could happen. We did debate a bit if the the exiting gm was solely responsible. He pointed out many of decisions looked more like they came from the attorney. He told him he may be right but over the years the gm kept the attorney a long ways away from the board and the discussions. She just used him as the justification for what she wrote, what she proposed. We continued on with the challenges of some within the existing board. The 5 remaining have a mixture of skills, some very good, some not. The most difficult to overcome will be the fixation that was bred into them regarding the "undivided loyalty" to all things RCSC. As i pointed in another thread, that was created by the exiting gm to insure she get board loyalty. It was never intended to be that way. She was supposed to work for them. Then we chatted about the new GM. Was he going to be his own man, or would he become an extension of the outgoing? We both agreed, it was too early to tell. Until he is out of the shadow of the old, it's all speculation, conjecture, He deserves the chance to show us. Finally, we talked about next steps. A couple of ideas bounced around, but that's a topic for another time.
Some people employ attorneys to ensure what they do is legal. Others employ them to manipulate situations -- eg, lie about quorums and T33. It's typical in the corporate world for various levels to each have separate legal advice. The crime here is that the GM had attorney(s) and (apparently) the Board doesn't? The Board is responsible to the corp; the gm is responsible to the Board. And no one is responsible to the membership that pays all the bills. Yet the GM drove everything.
