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: voting
Resistance is Futile
On Saturday the TLPOA had its big annual meeting and it was a great show. We were to be taught a lesson for not supporting the political side of the community, but it didn’t quite work out as planned. We were not assimilated, not this time anyway.
Rick Thompson organized his people for a major attack on the community. Carefully managed, his minions were well prepared and briefed from meeting the night before. This was to be a follow up of the April meeting as an attack on those who wanted to update the By-Laws and clean up the growth of TLPOA proxy voting manipulation. Rick had to stop this effort or they couldn’t deliver the BIG SURPRISE and teach us the lesson we must learn.
Why all this effort on the By-Laws? Simple – election reform would stop his plans. There is desperation in the need to retain power. He and his side-kick Greg as well as minions personally pitched home owners by phone and visits to get “NO” votes for the By-Laws reform and give their proxy vote to his political party members.
THE SURPRISE – Was that after not running for the open election, Rick chose the invisible door and ran a completely secret scheme to be Treasurer again. A Secret Write-in supported in secret by his minions and proxies (too bad this included the Chairman). He is desperate to control the money but the real purpose was to teach us that he commands the voting here in Travis Landing.
If he won, then it would be clear to all that he doesn’t need to go through the standard voting process anymore. He believes he has enough followers and proxies that he and he alone can choose who is on the Board of Directors and thus what the community does. He no longer needs to be a member of the Board to run the Board. In the end, the voting majority on the Board owes their jobs to Rick’s Proxies.
Total anonymity with no accountability and total power – how perfect can you get? What kind of a mind needs that?
The real eye-opener is the poor Chairman/President who sacrificed his integrity to protect Rick in last year’s lawyer issues.
On Saturday hopefully even this naive young man began to realize that he has no real power on the Board, he can be out-voted now, even removed by the will of Richard Thompson.
And now we sit back and watch this madness proceed. I wonder who the new appointees will be? I have more on this coming, stay tuned.
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.
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.
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’?