The Election for PVHA Board of Directors
was held at the PVHA Annual Meeting on January 14, 2020
Here are the results:
Total Valid Votes Needed: 1,897
Votes Signed & Validated: 1,864
Valid Votes Short: 33
Votes Unsigned & Invalidated: 221
Total Votes Received: 2,085
Total Members: 5.420 (est.)
The vote to lower the quorum was passed, by 69.7% of those that voted on this issue (50% was needed).
Lowering the Quorum to 35%:
For: 1,229 69.7%
Against: 534 30.3%
Total: 1,763
38.5% of members actually voted. However, the number of valid votes was considered to only be 34.4%, because of 221 ballots that were unsigned. As such the Board declared this an invalid election, and on January 28th re-appointed themselves as they have for the past 11 elections.
By Candidate:
Harbison 1254
Breene 1222
Schott 1209
Brenneman 1087
Fay 1047
Tang 963
About 80 residents came to the PVHA Board Meeting held on January 28th in the Malaga Cove Library. Many members spoke – mostly about their concerns with how the election was conducted. Below is the summary of that meeting sent out today by the PVHA to their mailing list:
In addition to the above announcement from PVHA, there were statements during the meeting by the current Board members that they are considering extending the election in some fashion. For instance, they could count the 20 or so ballots received after the January 13 deadline and also address the issue of the 221 unsigned ballots that have not been counted. No commitment was made, but if some combination yields at least 33 more validated ballots, then the election would become valid under the new 35% quorum threshold, and the top five on the revised count would comprise the new board.
We hope that the new Board acts to regain the trust of the Community by allowing these votes cast but not counted at the February 25th meeting at 4:30pm.
FOR TWO PAGE SUMMARY OF THE ISSUES IN CURRENT 2020 ELECTION -- CLICK HERE
FOR the postcard ROBE mailed to all PVHA members on December 10th, click here.
This election is special for two reasons:
REASON #1: For the first time you will be asked whether you support lowering the quorum from 50% to 35%
WHAT IS DIFFERENT & WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
This will be an important election because the California Superior Court required that PVHA members be asked if they support lowering the quorum from 50% to 35%. If the majority says “no”, then the quorum stays at 50% and probably will not be revisited by the Court in the future. ROBE has been fighting for a lower quorum because a 50% (+1) quorum was achieved only 29% of the time since 1941, and only three times in the last 25 years. There have been no valid elections in the past ten years, and none of the current Board members have been elected. We need to bring democracy to PVHA. In the last three contested elections, the vote count only reached 35% once -- 32.5% in 2016, 29.2% in 2017 and 39.5% in 2018, so even a 35% quorum goal will be a challenge and voter participation is critical. But since a goal of 35% is more attainable than 50%, it is very important to vote “yes” on this question.
Once new members are elected to the board, there is a chance that a future board will advocate for a lower threshold (but it is unclear whether the Court will revisit the issue even with Board advocacy) so this election is very important. The ROBE candidates support lowering the quorum to 25% because that would have meant that the PVHA would have had a valid election 65% of the time since 1941, compared to 56% at 30% quorum level, 51% at 35% and 29% at 50%. Moreover, in the past 20 years, lowering the quorum to 25% would have meant a valid election 100% of the time, compared to 85% at 30% quorum level, 70% at 35% and 15% at 50%.
If a majority of members say “yes” to lowering the quorum to 35%, then the Judge has indicated that 35% will govern the current election (January 2020) as well as all future elections. If the majority says “no”, then the quorum stays at 50% and likely can never be revisited again by the Court.
REASON #2. Progress has been made with two new board members, but more new leadership is needed
WHAT IS DIFFERENT & WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?
Beginning in February 2019, two of ROBE’s past candidates (Dick Fay and Marlene Breene) joined the five-member PVHA Board when the Board replaced current members (Carolbeth Cozen -- subsequent to her Art Jury appointment -- and Phil Frengs -- when he resigned from the Board). This brought significant, fresh perspectives to the Board; however, there were several subsequent decisions where the two new ROBE directors were in the minority (2-3). One of those decisions related to proposed changes to the PVHA View Policy; this resulted in restricting roughly half of PVE homes from bringing tree/view disputes to the PVHA. Unfortunately, the new/more restrictive policy was approved by the Board (with Fay and Breene voting against the new more restrictive policy.) Since then, Marlene Breene has been working diligently on a new more comprehensive policy and we are hopeful that a version of that will replace the current flawed policy; but the outcome is not known. Thus, we have concluded that ROBE must stay active this year to promote additional changes to the composition of the Board.
In July 2019, long-time PVHA Board member Ed Fountain resigned. Ed had approved the original sale of parkland in 2012 as well as the appeal of the CEPC Judgment that ordered the sale reversed, so ROBE views his resignation as a positive development. The resulting four-person Board solicited applications to serve as his replacement and interviewed eight members who applied; Charles Tang was appointed to serve.
For candidates, ROBE’s Steering Committee supports a slate of four candidates (for bios and positioning statements, click here):
Marlene Breene (currently an incumbent)
Dick Fay (currently an incumbent)
John Harbison
Ried Schott