The following was posted on social Media by Jerry Mote
BEWARE: IF YOU CHOOSE TO SERVE THIS COMMUNITY IN A VOLUNTEER CAPACITY YOU MUST, UNDER THE BOARD’S CURRENT LEADERSHIP, REFRAIN FROM QUESTIONING ANYTHING. DOING SO WILL LIKELY RESULT IN RETALIATION FROM THE BOARD.
During the Property Owner’s Comments portion, of the March 2024 meeting of the LRPOA Board of Directors, I challenged the Board about their trading, with a developer, a lot valued at $55,000 for a lot valued at $5,000, even there was no legal, ethical, or moral reason for doing so. The accuracy of the information that I shared in that Board meeting has not been questioned or challenged. The only challenge has been that I had no right to have the information that I disclosed; information that every property owner, according to our governing documents as well as NC state law, has the right to see. In retaliation for my having revealed this information in an open meeting, the Board, via a letter dated April 15, 2024, removed me from my position on the By-laws and Covenants Committee.
On April 21, 2024 I responded to the Board, refuting all allegations against me, contained in the removal letter, and asking that they reconsider their actions. I have heard nothing from the Board in response. Not even an acknowledgement of having received the email. So, to set the record straight, I am providing you with my email to the Board. It is a long read, but had to be in order to cover all the issues.
I am not posting this seeking comments, discussion, or validation. I just think that everyone deserves all the facts.
To All LRPOA Board Directors:
I submit that, when voting to remove me from the By-laws and Covenants Committee (BLCC), your actions were both hasty and imprudent, with your decision being made based on information that was, in some instances, incomplete and, in other instances, completely inaccurate. I have attached a copy of the letter that was presented to me outlining the alleged basis for my removal. In the following I will outline the facts substantiating the above statement.
1. In your letter to me, you claim: “You have ignored three presidential requests for you to review articles in the By-laws …” Neither I, nor the BLCC, was ever requested to review articles of the By-laws. There were, however, requests to review articles of the Rules & Regulations. Neither I nor the BLCC ever ignored such a request, as outlined below.
a. According to its charter the BLCC is “… responsible for reviewing proposed amendments to the Covenants, By-Laws and Rules & Regulations.” (A copy of this charter is attached for your reference.) This purpose of the BLCC is affirmed in Article XIII of the LRPOA By-laws. It is not the purpose of the BLCC to generate proposed amendments. Its purpose is to “review proposed amendments.” This was pointed out to multiple Board Presidents, multiple times.
b. Without formally changing the BLCC’s charter, the Board cannot ignore that section of the BLCC’s charter that sets forth its purpose, or Article XIII of the By-laws, as one Director recently claimed it could, by writing, in an email, “Referencing the charter you so kindly attached, the board has decided to forgo the first sentence which is our prerogative.”
c. There is no written or online copy of the “current” Rules & Regulations available for review. There are no less, and likely more, than nine (9) amendments to the Rules & Regulations that have been approved by the Board but that have never been provided in an updated version. This means that all written and online versions of the Rules & Regulations to be reviewed are out of date and incomplete, making any meaningful review impossible. This has been pointed out to multiple Board Presidents, multiple times, over a period of many months, in both private discussions and public Board meetings. Recommendations on how to bring the Rules & Regulations into a current state were made, to multiple Board Presidents, on multiple occasions, over a period of months, yet no corrective actions have been taken.
d. Despite the forgoing, the BLCC did begin a review of the Rules & Regulations, completing a review of Article 1 and submitting at least one proposed amendment to the Board for consideration. To the best of my knowledge no action was ever taken on that proposal.
e. Upon further consideration the BLCC, collectively, concluded that subsequent articles in the Rules & Regulations pertained to construction issues and that the BLCC members did not have the necessary knowledge or experience to effectively review those articles. This was reported to the then Board President who subsequently directed the Building Committee to begin their review of the Rules & Regulations. In the Fall of 2022, I attended a Building Committee meeting to establish a line of communication and kick-start the process. I heard nothing further from the Building Committee for several months.
f. In October of 2023, during a discussion with Rhonda Folks (the Board rep on the Building Committee) about an unrelated topic, I happened to ask how the Building Committee was coming along with their review. I was told that they had completed their review of Article 2 and forwarded it in, I believe, May of 2023 and had completed their review of Article 3 and forwarded it in, I believe, August of 2023. At that time neither I nor any other member of the BLCC had received any such review. Rhonda then provided me with the documents prepared by the building committee. This was in October of 2023, approximately 1 year after my meeting with the Building Committee. Rhonda did not know to whom the Building Committee had forwarded their reviews.
g. At its November 2023, and January 2024, meetings the BLCC completed its review of the Building Committee’s recommendations and forwarded the result back to Rhonda Folks for the Building Committee’s review and approval for submission to the Board. As of 20 April 2024, the BLCC has had no communication from the Building Committee concerning those reviews.
2. In your letter to me, you further claim: “Using paperwork that was obtained by you while on the Board of Directors in a Board meeting trying to expose Board members on social media as if they did something improper.” In a discussion with Steve Ragaglia and John Bell, at the time that I was presented with the attached letter, Steve made it clear that this statement referred to my using the LRPOA/1st Choice Homes land purchase contract to blow the whistle on apparent improprieties in the fulfillment of this contract. Improprieties that are unethical at best and, at worst, illegal. In that conversation, with Steve and John, Steve used two arguments as to why my disclosure of the terms of that contract was improper.
a. Steve claimed that the contract is confidential: That argument has no basis in fact. There is no confidentiality clause in that contract. Furthermore, once such a contract has been executed it becomes a part of the POA’s documents and, as such, is available to any POA member by right. This fact is supported by NC law covering such matters. It is disingenuous to imagine that Steve or indeed any Board member ever believed that this contract was confidential since Steve repeatedly violated any such imagined confidentiality by discussing, in detail, the explicit terms and conditions of this contract, multiple times, in multiple open Board meetings.
b. Steve claimed that my having obtained the contract while a member of the Board is somehow improper: Since the contract is not confidential and is available to any POA member, and since I am, and was at the time that I obtained it, a POA member in good standing, I was authorized to have it. My standing as a member of the Board at the time was irrelevant.
c. It is, I believe, very telling that no one has challenged the veracity of the statements that I made. There have only been attempts to obscure the source of the information revealed and the manner in which it was obtained.
d. I encourage you to do your own individual research. Should you choose to do so you will find that everything in the forgoing is true.
In summary, your removal of me from the BLCC is nothing more than a thinly veiled retaliation for blowing the whistle on what appears to be a serious breach of fiduciary responsibility to this community by whomever executed the conveyance of an Association lot to 1st Choice that was not required by the contract. As a reminder, there are federal and state laws prohibiting retaliation against a whistle blower. You have, at your April 25, 2024, Board meeting, an opportunity to correct your error in judgment. I encourage you to do so.
Jerry Mote
Supporting documentation
Loraine Ryan
Investigative Reporter – LakeRoyaleWatch
