Meanwhile, how's our Republican mayor doing?

Aug. 16: Cape Canaveral spilled 24,508 gallons of raw sewage when a power outage knocked out a generator and backup generator failed to start, due to a blown fuse in the battery. DEP assessed a penalty of $3,750 for the violation.

Link.

Powdery mildew

We have powdery mildew (a perennial Florida problem) on the shrubs in front ot the B building. It has killed two shrubs already and infected several others. It spreads incredibly fast, taking only 72 hours to complete one life cycle.

I informed the board yesterday, but received no acknowlegement. They can ignore me. The fungus doesn't care.

A couple of bushes just outside the B building south stairwell have been killed by powdery mildew. The bushes need to be removed and the others sprayed with a suitable fungicide. The fungus will spread if left untreated.

Update: they yanked out the dead bushes yesterday afternoon (September 22). They didn't remove the dead leaves that carry and spread the spores.

Parliamentary procedure 101

The President of the Board seems to be under the impression the 'meeting' on Friday night accomplished something. It did not.

Stipulating that it was an actual and valid Special Meeting of the unit owners (and I also reject that, but that's for later), there were exactly (0) votes taken, and nothing was passed.

The President of the Board misunderstands what a proxy is. A proxy is not a vote. Repeat that! A proxy is not a vote.

A proxy is a request to the Secretary to cast votes on the absent owner's behalf. If you doubt this, you can look it up in Robert's Rules and in a dozen different manuals on parliamentary procedure. Heck, it even says this on the proxy forms the Board mailed out.

Stipulating the Secretary had been given by 62 owners valid proxies to cast a vote on five motions on their behalf, those motions were never brought to the floor, and no vote was taken on any of them. I was there, and recorded the meeting. Even if it were not standard parliamentary procedure, Florida Statute explicitly states, as does our Declaraction of Condominium, that unit owners present at the meeting must be given the opportunity to vote in person. We were not given that opportunity. No votes were held at the meeting.

Correct procedure would have been to bring each motion successively before the floor, discuss and possibly amend the motion, and then vote on each, the Secretary casting the vote of the proxies after we had taken a vote of the assembled owners present in person. But the Secretary did not cast those votes, because there was no opportunity given to do so.

I'd be upset, if I were the sender of the proxy, to say nothing of those at the meeting who participated in the counting of proxies. I think the Board may have the impression that because we conduct Board elections by written ballot, we can hold votes on items before Special Meetings that way. Alas, it isn't so.

I've informed the Clerk of Brevand County Circuit Court of these and other issues, in case the Board stubbornly tries to file the Amendments to the Declaration of Condominium that we never voted on.

Harassment by the condo board at last night's meeting

A 1 minute 40 second discussion on how the Board violates its own rules. Jim Underwood's insults begin at 1:40; Gloria Sommers' refusal to do anything about them, followed by her threat to exclude me for the meeting for complaining, follows.