Board Minutes
In April 2010 a Survey Ballot of the Silver Springs Community received a 100% vote from the property owners in the affirmative on Item 5 - “I vote all Boards’ Minutes and Budgets are the property of the property owners, are to be posted promptly, and exhibit fiduciary duty and transparency of all issues.”
Silver Springs
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Silver Springs
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[Comments by webmaster within Minutes posted are shown in brackets.]
Silver Springs Single Family Homeowners Association Board Minutes are the property of the Association Members. In this manner the Board is held accountable for its actions. The Association Members hold the right of free access, perusal, and use of these documents and chose to do so at the Member website at www.silverspringscommunity.com.
Dates followed by “Notes” are provided until the webmaster receives the Minutes from the board.
All above Minutes were approved by the respective boards under which they were written.
Utah State Code:
16-6a-704. Notice of meeting.
(1) A nonprofit corporation shall give to each member entitled to vote at the meeting notice consistent with its bylaws of meetings of members in a fair and reasonable manner.
(2) Any notice that conforms to the requirements of Subsection (3) is fair and reasonable, but other means of giving notice may also be fair and reasonable when all the circumstances are considered.
(3) Notice is fair and reasonable if:
(a) the nonprofit corporation notifies its members of the place, date, and time of each annual, regular, and special meeting of members:
(i) no fewer than ten days before the meeting;
7-7-10. Meetings of mutual association members — Voting — Notice.
(1) (a) An annual meeting of the members of each mutual association shall be held at the time and place fixed in the bylaws of the association.
(b) Special meetings may be called as provided in the bylaws.
(2) (a) The members entitled to vote at any meeting of the members shall be those who are members of record at the end of the calendar month next preceding the date of the meeting of members, except those who have ceased to be members.
(b) The number of votes that a member is entitled to cast shall be determined in accordance with the books on the date determinative of entitlement to vote.
(3) In the determination of all questions requiring action by the members, each member shall be entitled to cast:
(a) one vote; and
(b) any additional vote that the member may cast under the bylaws of the association.
(4) (a) (i) Subject to Subsection (4)(a)(ii), at any meeting of the members, voting may be:
(A) in person; or
(B) by proxy.
(ii) Notwithstanding Subsection (4)(a)(i), a proxy is not eligible to be voted at any meeting unless the proxy has been filed with the secretary of the association, for verification, at least five days before the date of the meeting.
(b) Every proxy shall:
(i) be in writing;
(ii) be signed by the member or the member’s duly authorized attorney in fact; and
(iii) continue in force from year to year:
(A) when filed with the secretary;
(B) if so specified in the proxy; and
(C) until:
(I) revoked by a writing duly delivered to the secretary; or
(II) superseded by subsequent proxies.
(5) (a) At an annual meeting or at any special meeting of the members, any number of members present in person or by proxy eligible to be voted constitutes a quorum.
(b) A majority of all votes cast at any meeting of members shall determine any question unless this chapter specifically provides otherwise.
(6) (a) No notice of annual meetings of members need be given to members.
(b) Subject to Subsection (6)(c), notice of each special meeting of members shall:
(i) state:
(A) the purpose for which the meeting is called;
(B) the place of the meeting; and
(C) the time when the meeting shall convene; and
(ii) (A) be published:
(I) once a week for two consecutive calendar weeks (in each instance, on any day of the week) before the date on which the special meeting shall convene; and
(II) in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the home office of the association is located; and
(B) be posted in a conspicuous place in all offices of the association during the 30 days immediately preceding the date on which the special meeting convenes.
(c) No notice need be given of a meeting if all the members entitled to vote, vote in favor of an action at the meeting of the members.
Amended by Chapter 327, 2003 General Session
Beginning on Monday, August 3, 2009, webmaster requested from SSSF board members notice of the date, time, and place of the August SSSF board meeting. The emails gave a run around but no meeting information. A message was forwarded from Bill Gunter instructing the board members to forward all these requests to him and not to reply to the sender. Looks like our board is on a pretty short leash, they comply to Gunter’s instructions, show no independence, and notice of meetings is not posted. No transparency here.
From Matthew Lindon on November 3, 2010- in reference to the SSSFHOA October 12, 2010 Annual Meeting:”My deal stands with the homeowners, I’ll do the water forever if I don’t have to serve on the board. That is a thankless task. Keep them [the HOA board] honest…Matt”
WHERE DO YOU STAND?
What is it that drives interested and informed property owners crazy with migraines of rage? To begin with, during 2008 through 2010 particularly, the HOA boards held the position of ignoring all oversight and requests from member owners that the board act according to the prescribed and voted on HOA Bylaws. To any person or group with any pride, being ignored is often worse than out-and-out hate; it’s much more of an insult that you’re not even worth being noticed. Or worse, that you deserve to be left out of the neighborhood conversation even if you were elected by an overwhelming majority of the property owners.
That is just the insult. Then there’s the injury itself. The entrenched usurping board members disdain and ignore us, property owners, because they feel– and they are not wrong — that it is within our power to do so much better and so much more than they are willing to do. The surrounding injured and disenfranchised property owners have done very little to rectify this neighborhood situation because upon reaching their anonymous comfort level, they seem to feel it is easier to write a 200% increase check for $462 that they had no part in establishing and for which they will receive little or no benefit. The check is easier to write than it is to take action to protect their rights or their voice against rules and actions made without their participation. The Master HOA is a lake owner organization of elected and non-elected participants who run the HOA without adherence to established charter rules. The decisions they make in our small and large pond neighborhood has a ripple effect that wrongly affects us all, our property rights, our equality, and our wallets. Allowing the Master HOA board to purloin our money for lake expenses and their attorney’s fees for amenities we have been restricted from using is negligent, and impinges on all our rights. This abdication handcuffs our ability to share equally that which is purported to be “Common Area Amenities.”
People are funny about warnings and precautions. Oversight takes work and time. Warnings can be imposing and require action –”who needs that hassle?” People are too self absorbed and distracted to properly discriminate between danger likely to strike and red herrings. The brave Argentinean author Jacobo Timerman once said, “It is very easy to hate a Nazi, a guardian in a Gulag. But the real danger is not them. It is the “decent” people who compromise with complacency and evil.” Eric Hoffer said, “The mystery of our time is the inability of “decent” people to get angry.” Have we so banally accepted sadness and anonymity as much safer havens?
There is a problem with involvement and free speech in our neighborhood. We’ve given away so many of our rights voluntarily to avoid being bullied, and through the enforced appropriateness of “political correctness”, that when a usurper says, “ignore her or him, watch what you say, don’t listen to facts or quotes from our legal documents”, you think, “So what?! Heck, watching our step, staying out of the fray, that’s what life in the suburbs is like anyway, if you want to stay popular at the neighbor cocktail party, if you want to be safe and neutral, then don’t learn the facts, don’t take a stand.”
We need to begin the fight on a local level for what are our basic rights because people who get in trouble or are ostracized for what they say aren’t necessarily wrong. Athenians made Socrates drink the hemlock, but not because his warnings were mistaken; it was because he was right, and they hated him for it. The problem in this Silver Springs Community is not too much speaking out, it’s too little speaking out. We need raw honesty and transparent process. So far only a handful have shown the gumption to make their concerns openly known. Where do you stand?
“Citizen Blows Whistle on Trails Board -Controversial Rec. Board member says oversight needed“ The Park Record April 13, 2011
