Now that the new petition and proxy drive is underway - this time calling for a BINDING vote of the members, it seems appropriate to create a Forum dedicated to that debate. George has asked me to write a narrative of how this NEW petition andNEW election process will work. It got rather lengthy, so I'm going tobreak it up into chapters and post it one piece at a time, both here and as comments to George Roper's blog. [0]
Chapter 1
THE ADVISORY VOTE THE BOARD IS IGNORING
(or, why we’re doing this again)
Last October the committee presented the Board with a petition signed
by 23 percent of the membership calling for an advisory vote on whether
participation in RMA cable TV should become voluntary.
http://www.ranchomurieta.com/node/2506 [1]
The hope was that the Board would respond to the desires of the
membership expressed by that nonbinding referendum. The Inspector of
Elections' count revealed a landslide: 78 percent for optional, 22
percent for keep it as it is. In total 44% of the memberships voted, a
VERY large response rate
78-22 is a blowout. The Board is not responding to that clear
expression of the will of the membership, offering various excuses.
Director Dick Cox is reported as saying to ranchomurieta.com: "I think
it's great that this committee got together and is going to do this and
force this board to do something," Cox said, “there aren't enough votes
on the board to make the cable system optional. This board is not going
to do anything about making this cable optional, in my opinion, so I'm
glad to see you guys are taking the action you're taking. It's too bad
you have to. I think the membership has spoken on this issue.”
806 households - more votes than most directors received when elected -
voted for Freedom of Choice. That's over 1/3 of the total membership.
If those 806 "yes" votes are joined by another 365 like-minded members,
the MEMBERS can set corporate policy and deny the Board the power to
include TV charges in your involuntary dues BY AMENDING the BYLAWS.
In the next post I will lay out how the special meeting and proxy voting processes work. Meanwhile, you can vote via your golden proxy by stopping by the Plaza Foods this week through Sunday May 4th.