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.
TLPOA Board Members, elected and appointed
TLPOA Board has seen quite a few resignations in the past few years.
Looking at our current TLPOA make-up raises questions of legitimacy.
Current 2020 Board of Directors
President: Brooks Rice, 2018 – Resigned
* Dick Miner was appointed by board in January 2020, was voting member (2018: Brooks Rice -resigned). Term expires in 2020.It is highly unusual that the board did not appoint the elected Vice-President to fill this position.
Vice-President – Rona Thornton, 2018
Treasurer – 2019 – Joe Mancuso, Resigned
* Rick Thompson – appointed by board to voting member July 2019, appointed to parks chair at the same meeting, appointed to treasurer in February 2010. Term expires in 2021. Rick was not elected by the community members, but is now on the executive as both Treasurer and Parks Chair.
Secretary – Margie New, 2019
Voting Members
Jeff Bennett, 2018
* Rex Bull, 2018, appointed by board July 2019 over candidate from annual meeting
Greg di Donato, 2018
* Larry Marques, 2018, appointed Feb 2020
Maggie McLening, 2019
Byron Tapley, 2018
Summary:
- 1 of 4 executive position is appointed (unelected), another position (President) was appointed above elected Vice-President from Voting Member
- 2 of 6 voting members are appointed (unelected).
- Seven (7) of the terms have expired, both appointed voting members, two executive members (including the appointed president).
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.
Trying to plug the holes
Your TLPOA Board has become a typical HOA, hiding behind a wall of obfuscation – hiding the truth so they can go off on there own claiming the do it to you, when it really is about them. This is a profound act of moral corruption. Ben Franklin said “to see a man’s character, don’t give him money, give him some power”, this is so true with our Board (and if you look at the web about other HOA’s you will see becoming SOP in this country). Retired folks seeking the importance they never had in there worker-bee life.
Joe Mancuso’s public resignation was a brilliant solution to this matter. It was the only way to get to you. Rick Thompson’s take over of the Board a few years ago through the power of the proxy allowed Greg , Maggie, and Margie to orchestrate a sold block on information flow from the Board in which only Thompson approved propaganda could get out.
Joe found a way through that dike that Rick and his Tech Committee team could not block. And boy are they mad.
Congratulations Joe for having the fortitude, strength, and moral conviction to try to let you to see the there is stench in this Board of narcissism that will you gag.
TLPOA Board Meeting 11/19/2019 – Trip Report
Guest Reporter: Kris Thompson
Yesterday (Tuesday Nov 19, 2019), I attended the monthly TLPOA meeting at WCID#17. Here are some random notes of interest. This is not a source of authority, just some notes for neighbours.
Water Service in Big Park
TLPOA will be getting a water service from WCID#17. This will be installed; meter outside gate, hose bib (and TLPOA shutoff presumably) inside gate.
Cost of this service is approx $25 minimum / month (+over usage) if we commit to this with WCID#17. There will be $0 installation fee. Cost over 15 years is $4.5K (against > $350K in association fees in those same 15 years). Cost per year is $1.5 dollar per TLPOA property. Seems money VERY well spent and an excellent service to bring to the park at a very minimum impact our annual budget (<1.5%).
Email Guidelines and Policies
The TLPOA Tech Committee presented some minor changes to the Email Use Policy/Guidelines. The intent of these policy changes is to make it clear that the email lists are not to be used for endless complaints (aka Platform for Complaints) or personal diatribe, and/or harmful content.
The goal of these changes is to allow the Tech committee or TLPOA Board to temporarily “block” individuals who cannot maintain a positive/constructive demeanor on our discussions@ emial list.
Language was insert to attempt to block Harmful content. It is not the intent of the Tech commit or TLPOA Bpard to block “all” Compaints from discussions. Rather, discussions is there as a platform for discussions.
An alternate recommendation is to create a distinct email list called “complaints@” and make the board@ a member, with open membership for any community member. Open/transparent communications are encouraged and the intent of these email lists.
Email policy / guidelines of inter-personal decency will STILL APPLY and Moderation of our TLPOA lists MAY occur at the DISCRETION OF THE TECH COMMITTEE with appeal to the TLPOA board for abuse of Moderation privileges.
It is important to note that membership and the right to post to the TLPOA email lists are not a Right of the property owners (with the exception of Business@). It is a privilege that can be revoked. All efforts will be made to encourage alternate opinions and perspectives, just don’t be mean or a bully (aka Troll).
Fire Safety in the Park and Habitat Removal
Rick Thompson presented the Park Committee report. There was quite some discussion of all the fire safety advise that has been received from the fire safety experts who our community has been visiting with.
Fire Safety is being used as justification for more pruning of habitat and trees in the Big Park. I question the value of this action. We have very little fuel in the park and few ignition sources (almost zero power lines). There is almost no undergrowth and our trees in the main part of the park have been well trimmed in recent years. As a matter of fact, our park was called out as a potential Hudson Bend “safety meeting location” in the event our neighborhood were blocked from exit.
My request would be that the Park Committee present a much more precise report of what they plan to do as far as future pruning jobs in the park. What are the requirements, how have they been vetted, what projects are being under taken by whom and when? Preservation of nature in our park is a top priority of many of our community members. Let’s make sure these are actual fire risks.
With the old website, we would document each of our pruning projects. This would be an Excellent use of our new webite.
CapCoG – Emergency Communications Network – Regional Notification System (RNS)
Meeting participants handed out a flyer on how to join with CapCoG.org (Capital Area Council of Governments) Emergency Communications Network’s Regional Notification System (RNS).
Please visit the CapCoG website and sign up: https://warncentraltexas.org/
Park Gate and Keys
Existing keys are 7 years old and there are legitimate concerns about authorized access into the park (presumably using lost or stolen keys?). Our keys are Medeco “high security” keys (makes them difficult to copy).
During the October 2019 TLPOA Board Meeting, a decision was made to re-key the gates. During the November 2019 TLPOA Board Meeting, a decision was made to yes, go ahead and re-key as soon as possible. Start with 200 keys.
Automation of the big park gate
Some new (and existing) neighbors are asking that we revisit opportunity to have an automated park gate. Fact are, numerous people like the manual gate process we have today for good reasons. However, many others would prefer an automated gate for MANY other great reasons.
Amenities and capital allocation is a difficult business with TLPOA (and presumably other home owner associations), as there is some belief that any given item needs a “majority” to have desire for it. Rather, there is a good strong budget of > $20K year (on a wee per lot cost of $125/year). Amenities should be looked upon as a collection of features that meet the needs of most by addressing the desires of a many smaller interests. This is an effective manner to properly distribute association fees to the meet the wants of a larger majority of neighbours.
An “ad-hoc” survey was created and sent to TLPOA to gauge interest in the automation of the park gate, and further solicit offers of donations to the project. This survey went out in a slanted fashion and did not use proper methods to assure single answers (supposedly).
Regardless of the scientific nature of the survey, there was PLENTY of enthusiasm for further feasibility planning for an automated park gate.
The TLPOA board acknowledged that any park gate automation project would require neighborhood approval and not be installed until well into next year. As such, we should continue with the re-key of TLPOA park gates at this time.
The President has Resigned – Who will rise?
TLPOA President has resigned for personal reasons (apparently as of Jan 1 2020). There is some discussion of what should happen to the post of President. Do the TLPOA By-laws that state “vacancies to be appointed by board” or such, or use “Vice-President fulfills President roles if absent”.
Obviously it is the intent of the neighborhood (and framers of the TLPOA By-laws and pretty much any other deliberative body), that the Vice President will fill in.
If the TLPOA board takes action to appoint a different person to President (other than Vice President), their actions should be fully explained.
Has an announcement been made to “business@” and “notices@” that the President has resigned (with date)? Don’t forget, please ask them to respond to “discussions@” or the Forums at TLPOA.org
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.
Silence Ended
I have remained silent for the last few months in an effort to give our new Chairman a change to show his stuff as leader of a community and in cleaning up our Board issues.
He won his seat by one vote after receiving the Kings proxies.
Now I see the reality. The Chairman has intentionally misrepresented himself three times (where I come from we would call these lies) in my presence so he has exhausted his welcome in my mind.
But you will love him – he is warm, innocent acting, apparently full of love and compassion, will tell you exactly what you want to hear, and as such evokes the old adage about lawyers lying when their lips move or fingers hit the keyboard.
Finally he is devoutly committed to the protection of the King above all else.
There are now four men on the Board committed to the goals of the King, two women that have been resistant to the forces of darkness, and the remainder of the Board is ignorant. They didn’t know what was going on until they joined the board and now want the easy way out because they didn’t sign up for this.
So here we sit, all the assets, that is our $50,000 bank account and our Park, directly controlled by the King with no checks or balances and the support or acquiescence of the board. He has freedom to do what he wants to whom he wants, ignoring the pending law suit that has been brought, and confident of his success and the support of his stooges.
Does this remind you of anything on the national level?
Is this a reflection of our society as a whole? No surprises, YOU WILL ACCEPT IT, or else.
After all, now it’s just politics.
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.