By Finn Myggen, Pine Mountain community
In a ‘special meeting’ April 6 the Pine Mountain Club Property Owners Association Board of Directors approved the 2016-2017 PMCPOA budget.
Director Kemmer was absent and Director Biggerstaff voted ‘no.’ The rest of the board voted ‘aye.’ The budget was adopted and approved.
But PMCPOA’s Bylaw 10.03 requires that adoption of the budget shall be done in the regular board meeting of May 21.
That bylaw also says that before a budget can be adopted, the members “shall” be mailed specific financial information. That includes a financial statement for the current fiscal year, with nine months of budgeted versus actual expenses plus the last quarter’s budgeted vs. projected expenses.
Members must also be provided with the proposed draft budget for the coming fiscal year (2016-2017) prior to the budget being passed.
This did not happen.
Then, in the regular board meeting of April 16 last Saturday, General Manager Rory Worster stated it was necessary to pass the budget on April 6 “to comply with the Davis-Stirling Act Civil Codes 5615 and 5300.”
But let’s take a closer look.
•Civil Code 5300 is a list of the documents the association must provide to the members.
•Civil Code 5615 requires that members be notified 30 to 60 days in advance of an increase in assessments.
That went into effect on January 1, 2013. So it was not a surprise to the manager, and it is not a valid excuse.
Did even one of our directors check a calendar and the codes to confirm what the general manager was saying is true?
Here is a schedule to comply with our own Bylaw 10.03 and also Civil Codes 5300 and 5615.
April 30: Mail the financial report and proposed budget to the members.
May 7: Hold a Saturday members’ budget meeting moderated by the Finance Committee.
May 15: Hold a Sunday members’ budget meeting moderated by the Finance Committee.
May 21: In the regular PMC Board meeting, adopt and approve the budget.
May 25: Mail the approved budget and notice of an assessment increase to the members.
July 1: Assessments are due.
With this schedule the board of directors can still comply with our governing documents and California Civil Code.
Will they choose to comply?
April 6 was a ‘stealth meeting.’ The passing of the budget was in violation of state law and PMCPOA governing bylaws.
What led up to the meeting was also a violation. Members were not given valid legal notice of the board’s intended actions.
The budget meeting is important to the members.
It was held on a date that violates our Bylaw 10.03. Why was it done in a special meeting in the middle of the week?
Scheduling a Wednesday meeting at 5:30 p.m. made it virtually impossible for working members or weekenders to attend. Was that the intent?
•An agenda was posted on the PMCPOA website on April 4 for the April 6 meeting.
•That is two days advance notice. But state law says members must be given four days notice for a board meeting.
•It was not posted online under “Notices and Postings” at pmcpoa.org as you would expect. You had to search through “Board Meeting Documents” section to find it. And once you did, the agenda item was hidden out of sequence, with no resolution. It was buried beneath a formal resolution to fix a leak in the pro shop:
“1. Budget Discussion.”
That is all it said.
•There was no resolution and no indication a vote was to take place about the most important issue of the year for property owners here.
•The website was not updated to indicate an action was to be taken.
•An agenda was posted in the hallway of the association. When first posted it also stated “Budget Discussion” as described above. At some later date, very likely April 4, it was changed to “Discuss and Possible Approval.” If so, the changed agenda did not comply with state law’s 4-day mandate.
•This clubhouse hallway posting for a property owners association where people do not share a common building may also fail to meet state standards for adequate notice.
•The association failed to provide the agenda to the members who have requested to receive agendas by email. The law mandates that those notices must be provided. They were not.
•A mention in the Condor was buried in the chairperson’s comments on page 13. That did not give a time for a meeting and did not reveal a vote to adopt a budget was possible. It was not an agenda notice.
•An email newsletter sent to members on April 5 “What’s Happening” told about Mother’s Day, Sports Night and dinner menus, but had not one word about the special meeting that would take place the next day about the most important issue of the year for members.
•If the board wanted to be transparent they would have asked The Mountain Enterprise to mention the meeting as well. They did not.
The Board of Directors have failed to follow PMCPOA’s bylaws. They also have violated the Davis-Stirling Act by issuing false and misleading agendas with insufficient legal notice.
Surely at least one of the nine board members tried to put the brakes on the idea that you could pass a budget on April 6 without providing the members the information the bylaws say we must receive.
Yet they illegally approved the budget and raised assessments.
In the April 16 meeting this last Saturday, why did directors allow the general manager to state that the association could not comply with California’s Civil Code without violating our bylaws?
This is not a true statement.
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
•The board must retract the vote taken on April 6, then follow the governing Bylaw 10.03.
•Send the members the required financial report and the draft of the 2016-2017 budget for members to review. Then schedule the meetings as PMC is legally required to do.
•If they don’t, the budget may be null and void and the association will not be able to charge the members for the assessments until a legal budget has been passed.
This is part of the April 22, 2016 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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