The second manager in two years has just resigned from Pine Mountain Club’s Property Owners Association.

Board Chair Jack Throckmorton said in an interview Monday, May 5, "We do not have to buy out [Dan Rainey’s] contract….Our lawyer drew up a resignation letter and he signed it…."

Rainey had a three-year contract and began working with the community in May of 2007. No reason was given for the resignation. Calls to Rainey’s home for his comment yielded a family member who said he did not wish to comment.

In the local post office there was talk of questionable emails having been circulated to PMCPOA employees, but the resignation also comes shortly after the association’s budget and assessment process was completed in Rainey’s absence.

He submitted a draft budget in March that would have required an almost 20 percent assessment increase. While members were told Rainey was out of state caring for his sick mother, the board approved a budget in April that calls for a $3 cut in assessments for next year.

Throckmorton said the board has decided to wait to replace the manager until after the June election, when three new board members will be seated. He also said he hoped the search this time might concentrate on hiring a younger, "less expensive manager who will work hard and has something to prove."

During 2005, PMCPOA board chair Mary Hanson and vice-chair Sigrid Insull-Lucking proposed boosting the manager’s pay from around $80,000 to well over $120,000 per year—plus a lush bonus and benefits—with a five year contract, on the theory that "this will give stability." They hired a manager who made contributions in some areas but left the accounting and books in disarray. Then the IRS made an appointment to come in for an audit.

PMCPOA Board Treasurer Rachel Unell, as a volunteer, helped bring the association books back into order and helped train the new staff bookkeeper how to issue the necessary monthly financial statements.

Concern was voiced at the Budget and Finance Committee meeting in April about whether fiscal controls would be maintained so that the newly organized system is monitored and kept in place.

Throckmorton repeated that the experiment of "paying more seems to bring community resentment problems" and said "the best resumes were very high paid, but if they want that great big money they have to have high performance. That hasn’t been working out."

"This will have no impact on our community," Throckmorton concluded. " The board of directors, employees and volunteers keep things going."

This is part of the May 09, 2008 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.

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