TLPOA is finally have an election for the Board. The power group (yes. the same three that brought you community politics, discord, and chaos) wants to make sure you DON’T vote but instead give them your vote as a Proxy.
They will tell you that they have done a fine job, are better at this than you, and a vitally concerned about your welfare. They will pressure you to give them your vote. They a politicians and what they lack in character they make up for in patronizing you.
The truth is more like that they have floundered around in indecision without a plan, have shown no leadership, are doing a worse job than you would ever do, and don’t really give a damn about you,
After all, it is all about them.
It is their need to have authority, power, and public acclaim. Their need to be recognized, that is part of their lives that is missing, they need to be somebody, that drives the whole thing.
It is easy to be a big fish if you find a small enough pond – and TLOPA with only about 200 members is such a pond.
My advice is to learn about what is going on and VOTE FOR YOUR SELF! Even if you are not sure, do it yourself.
Why take this advice from someone as noisy me?
Simple, as citizen you owe it to your community and yourself not to be stooge of some who says nice things to you. You need to be an honest full unique human being, and you can’t to that by giving away you vote.
Tag: TLPOA Board
WTF?
An email to me from Duane Dobson, Provocateur General for Rick Thompson, King of the Board of the Travis Landing Property Owners Association (HOA) and Friends
“Ho Barry The so called “survey” was done without Board approval with the ” results” on our web site. The Board has effectively cut off any critical discussion of the electric gate on Discussions@TLPOA . The Nominating Committee has exceeded their authority. If Jamie were President I would object. D”
Next posting will be the evolution of the assentation of Richard Thompson to his Kingship – Why it happened – How it works – Why you must genuflect or be socialy skewered in Travis Landing.
Chaos in TLPOA Land – three lawyers are at it..
We have been in a lull, no meetings for the long hot summer, everyone out of town, now they are all back, with a vengeance. The pot is boiling.
Your Beloved King has been feeling neglected so he decided to spark it all up and has been sending Emails about how great he is and about women in the community he is blaming everything on. He has sent the same to a female homeowner. At least 4 women in our community are in his spotlight now. Not many men, but lots of women.
What I can tell you is that since we became a politically based community I have seen some of the worst hubris come out in many our highest leaders. I would like to believe that it is just our HOA but my investigations of other such groups tells me this is common.
Tune in, more later when this starts to unravel and the security blanket lifts….
Control Freak run amuck, a Hoarder in disguise?
Maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel with this new Board, and then maybe not.
Over the last 3 years a control freak has been working hard to gain power over us all. This is not to say that this work has not been beneficial to us, but like a pernicious socialism, the price we pay for our snuggly little nest is we slowly have to begin to serve the master.Our community has four assets, they are our Park, our treasury, our freedom of choice, and our participatory democracy. All four are run by now by the King of TLPOA. He has worked hard and diligently to gain this power, a slow trail of little lies, what the Chinese call a death of a thousand small cuts, what we call perniciousness.
Whether it is by the King or his Stooges, this all reminds us of actions of a hoarder. Mayo clinic says
“Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items.”
Does hoarding run in families?
Can we reverse this?
Can the New Board return the power and responsibility back to the community where it started?
Is time for this to end so we can close this website?
I hope so. We shall see.
Fooled again by Proxies
I am saddened to again see our democracy plagued and failing. Two issues hit home.
First, our new President is like the last one – failed to win through achieving the popular vote but winning on the back of the King’s Proxy power.
Like Greg before (who won by two votes) Brooks won by a single vote. Now you can bet your whatever that none of the King’s proxies went to Jamie so they all went to Brooks as they did for Greg in the past. That means 20 to 30 votes from one political party made the difference. Another way of saying this is that 20 to 30 more people voted for Jamie than Brooks – the Friends and the King made up the shortfall with proxies.
I would like to point out that the King won his Board Seat by only one vote when Greg was elected, same count issue to bypass our democracy.
Second disappointment comes in two parts. First in an effort to get rid of a motion by Cindy Wyatt, Greg tried to pull a fast one and suddenly change us from a homeowner vote to a voice vote, which he did and his front row peanut-gallery of supporters out yelled everyone else. Just as he tried to pass his judgment the crowd of homeowners figured it out and stopped the scam (it is all in the recording for you to listen to). A regulation vote was taken, the entire board voted against it but the motion was passed by a 40 to 30 vote. The most emotional board members demanded a recount, we did it with the same result.
What was most sad with all this, was it showed the world how out of touch with the community the Board really is. They live in private isolation and don’t want to hear from you. Now we have a President who again is highly influenced and in debt to the King and Friends and not the people.
As the Who said, ‘Hope we don’t get fooled again”. But we did.
What’s with the Proxy verification?
How come the Board can’t get around to verifying the proxies from the Special Meeting?
The President told us at the last Board Meeting he was delayed and waiting on a invoice from Dr Steed, an acknowledged vote proctor.
Dr Steed tells us that he has received no correspondence about the counting from the President and didn’t know what the President was talking about.
Were we publicly lied to?
We know several property owners that received no ballots, was this selectively intentional?
Could it be that ballots with their names on them are now in the count?
Could it be that one of the signed Proxies is from a man who died before the ballots were sent out?
Could it be that the King got too greedy for Poxies and has now gone beyond bad ethics to the outright illegal act of voter fraud?
Proxy
A Proxy is defined as the “authority or power to act for another”. Obtaining and voting a proxy is not illegal or unethical and is a well viewed and reviewed democratic procedure.
The conditions and issues that make it relevant to our HOA revolves around the questionable act of soliciting proxies for political purpose.
In the 2016 Annual Election of the TLPOA Board our community was introduced to the political use of Proxy voting.
A political party was created by Dick Thompson for the purpose of gaining control over the Travis Landing Property Owners Association. The political party offered a complete list of party recommended persons running for positions on the Board of Directors. The party acted as a single entity organized to solicitate votes both personally and remotely using tactical deployed groups of party individuals under a common leadership with a common goal.
This was a classic political organized solicitation supported by propaganda, use of rumors and mud slinging, and misdirection while fostering cronyism, favoritism, and rewards for followers. Essentially it became the Party versus the People. Although of highly questionable ethical nature and on the edge, it was and is not illegal.
It is the American Way of Politics.
The reaction you see amongst your neighbors to this is the reaction to the transition from a custodial view of the HOA to the Political view of the HOA.
As the Party was successful in its actions in 2016 there is no reason to change its tactics. The problems with the Special Meeting Election are a replay of the political power issues of the 2016 election.
Everything takes time and slowly the community is becoming sensitive to the politicalization of its democracy.
But the Party is alive, kicking, and still wants to rule. That is why it exists.
Deja vu – The Park Gate and How We Got Here.
We are now being pushed to install an electric gate for the Park. An interesting way to get control over the King’s backyard. He tells us he will have the power to bar anyone from using it electrically if he decides. So not only will your picture be taken while you access the park but then you will be monitored and moderated too.
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What is most interesting is how all this came about – that is the problems with the Friends, the Proxies, the Board, all come from an electric gate for the Park proposal from years past.
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In the old days we used to have meetings, even held annual meetings, in folks homes. We had to move to the Water District (neutral grounds) when one of the home owners became so vial that no one wanted him in their home.
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At an annual meeting in the then President Zbasnik’s house, Dick Thompson offered up a plan for an electric gate that had been floated in the community. He did a nice presentation and as an engineer he did the details.
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It was voted down; not a popular idea.
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Dick took it personally and thus fired up the rage smoldering in him, all that you see today is the revenge for that vote.
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And again we are being pushed for an electric gate.
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This time your agreement is not needed.
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Why? Simple.
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A year and a half ago Dick’s #1 Stooge, the president, set in motion the resignation of 5 Board members over his belief that the rules covering his office let him do anything in the name of the community.
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Now he does the King’s bidding and the King wants to avoid the potential embarrassment of a second failure to get the votes for the gate. So all he has to do is direct the president to sign off on it and it’s done. Once the work on the gate is contracted, then between the King and the Friends they can pressure the rest of the Board members to go along because of the obligations of the signed contracts to do the work.
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Thus you will get an electric gate regardless of what you want.
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This has a second advantage for the King.
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This will take your mind off the Proxy issue that will affect the next election in May.
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Simple math here if you understand the variables.
An open letter to the Board of TLPOA
There has long been a shadow cast on the Board over the question of legitimacy. The rise of the Friends and associates, the introduction of the use of Proxies, the rise of the political party, all are disturbing in such a small community.
Each of the last three voting based events, that is the last two Annual Meetings and the Special Meeting, have seen the use of political processes around the matter of voting.
I think it is time to question this. Let me offer this as it is now before us.
The Board did not trust the Special Meeting Petition signatures and insisted on checking each of the write-in signatures. This was an appropriate action. As such each signature was verified by a call to the signee. Further this process was made clear to all the who was engaged and what they did. It was a transparent process.
We just had a vote of the community that was driven by Proxies.
Would not it be appropriate that we make this process transparent.
We should do the same for the Proxies, that is report on who collected who’s Proxy. We further should do as done with Petition,
that is test the veracity of the signatures on the Proxies in the same manor.
By any definition the Proxies themself now become “best evidence” in a matter of serious consideration with possible legal ramifications. The Proxies need to be consequently treated as such, legal evidence.
Thank you
Barry Thornton
More hot stuff from the Board
At this last Board Meeting The Friend’s Power grew through the appointment of founding Friend John Blanton to the Board by the Board; he now represents you. Did anyone ask you? Was that your intent?
The question of the Proxies used in the recent Bylaws meeting and election brought up asking was there a record kept of who collected what proxies and voted them?
The King turned red and began a verbal attack on the questioner about a matter that had nothing to do with Proxies or Voting.
Suppressed rage shocking all present – and the President did an immediate end-of-meeting action. The King blew a gasket and all his people needed to rally around him. Very volatile people we have running this show.
The trick Dick used to dodge the Proxies question is called a Tu Ou Coque Retort. It is frequently used by Communist regimes and was a favored tool of Marx. Immature humans use it a lot to in an effort to get the spotlight off them.
It involves:
1 – Distraction – Deflect the subject away from the question by accusing them of something else, change the subject and point a finger of guilt.
2 – Domination – Aggressive attack, be loud, bully, and take control.
3 – Distortion – Make it so emotional that no one really knows what is going on anymore; it just becomes yelling with no rational thoughts. The loudest now has control of the day.
Blew the meeting apart, no chance of getting a rational answer to the question. A great dodge Your Highness, very successful although expensive in terms of political capital – you had to reveal the inner you for a few seconds and it was as usual, ugly. So much for Arab Anger Management courses, eh?
I see three things that will probably happen –
1 – The Board will get more recalcitrant. Time for them to circle the wagons while going on the attack.
2 – Look for an outright assault on the Architectural Committee (AC). The New Friend Board Member along with Thompson, Dobson et al. will go after the AC as the tool for enforcing their wills on the community per the By Laws that didn’t change and the Deed Restrictions that might change.
3 – Look for a major spring cleaning in the Park and redefinition of the areas of use along a more Friend’s vision. The Board needs a rally point to regain control and prestige – from Roman times Public Works hve been used to distract and unite things, so why should not the Board do the same.
Final note – I had wanted to stop this blog because I feel that it has been successful in some of its original intent of behavior modification.
But these clowns just keep handing me the best possible material to write about, and no, they have not changed. The rage, fury, and hubris have not abated, just changed tone to be less obvious, and the slow creep of complicity is bonding them like glue.
A final thought from Edward Abbey -“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
Is there such a thing as ‘Neighborhood Patriotism’?