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By MELODY JAMESON
mj@observernews.net
Kings Point – One way or another, a determined changing of the guard is taking shape here this week.
As the 15-day window opened for residents to present themselves as candidates for five federation board seats, at least one recall movement was gaining ground, focused on unseating a sixth director whose seat is not up for grabs.
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| Clifford Seder,
subject of recall. |
The proposed changes to basic governance in this condominium community of some 9,000 residents is growing out of a rising resistance fueled by a long list of complaints including how their escalating monthly fees are being spent, perceived abuses of power and alleged attempts to ignore or divert attention from their questions.
Five director slots on the nine-member federation board are opening up in the forthcoming election cycle. The District I and II seats, now occupied by Betty Krajewski and Richard Fabiano respectively, are open to all comers as both have served two terms and are prohibited by the organization’s by-laws from seeking another at this time. The District VII, VIII and IX slots, now filled by Pat Boussie, Richard Singer and Ray Glover respectively, are open to contenders including the three current directors who are not term-limited but have not yet indicated whether they plan to run for re-election. The terms of the four remaining directors expire in 2011.
Candidacy applications were scheduled to be available this week through Sterling Management, with deadline for their completion and return set for the close of business on Friday, November 20. The one-unit, one-vote election will take place in each of the five districts beginning in January, 2010. The newly constituted board is seated officially on April 1.
Meanwhile, the recall movement to unseat current federation president Clifford A. Seder is to kick into overdrive with a signature petition campaign on November 13 if the board president has not resigned voluntarily by that date, Carol Ramsey told The Observer early this week. Ramsey and Jim Green, active members of the resistance titled Kings Point Residents for Effective Leadership (KPREL) are co-organizers of the recall effort.
In accordance with federation by-laws, the petition drive will take place within the federation’s District III, a 610-unit section of Kings Point involving 19 condo associations which Seder most recently was elected to represent a year ago, Ramsey said. Ten percent of the unit owners can establish the recall of their representative. Seder, who was a board director several times prior to his current term, now is nearing the half-way point in the two-year span ending in 2011.
Citing provisions of Article V which provide for a director’s recall “with or without cause,” the petition statement asserts that Seder “has consistently abused his power as Director and President of the Federation.”
As the recall petition awaited circulation through the district, a call for Seder’s voluntary resignation was being prepared for a Tuesday session (November 3) of district III association officers where the federation president was expected to be present. Frank Yanacek, a district resident, said he planned to attend the meeting to suggest formally and publicly that Seder take the opportunity to resign without setting in motion the official recall to remove him from office.
Yanacek said he planned to point out that Seder “…spent some of our already excessive monthly dues by authorizing – without consulting the full board – an attorney to write a letter threatening expensive lawsuits against any resident who dared to ask questions about our community’s business,…characterized as “meddling.” Additionally, Yanacek said he wanted to make clear that Seder has violated the governing by-laws by authorizing other expenditures without the approval of the full board and therefore has “…divided and seriously threatened the viability of this community.”
If Seder resists the suggestion, presented “In the interest of restoring civility to this community,” Yanacek said the signature petitions could be made available at the end of the meeting.
The recall concept was aired publicly on October 22 when a town hall meeting was conducted by KPREL and an estimated 350 to 400 residents heard, watched, then applauded loudly a power point presentation outlining the growing problems facing the community. Richard Singer, a current federation director and former president, as well as his wife, Lois Singer, whose accounting background has been applied at times to analyzing the sketchy financial information given residents about use of their money, supported the presentation with explanatory comment.
Issues ranged from monies not accounted for to conflicts of interest in practice to interference bordering on reversed “meddling” to a runaway federation board “executive committee” making decisions without full board approvals to potential consolidation of the various management functions and employment of professionals trained in city management.
Dealing with a key financial matter, Richard Singer emphasized the need for a “reserve study” by a competent, impartial third party to determine the amount of and rate of accumulation that should be applied in connection with the reserve monies being stockpiled for repair and maintenance of the community’s elaborate amenities. The sitting director asserted that a “ reserve analysis” related to the accumulating reserve monies by Frank Surface and his company, Community Resource Services (CRS), well may represent a “conflict of interest” because it is Surface and CRS who loaned the funds for purchase of the amenities and still controls them through his on-site management, KPM. “It is WE, not CRS, and not Frank Surface…that decides on the Reserve Schedule” according to the KPM Management Agreement, he said. ***image 2***
The Recreation Facilities Executive Committee (RFEC), however, continues to try to increase the reserves funded by residents to $1.2 million, up from the $848,000 pooled by “over budgeting” the last two years, Singer noted. He asked, rhetorically, why the reserve must be accumulated all at once.
The director also zeroed in on the $258,000 paid by residents annually to Surface as a management fee; monies not used to support KPM’s work. Such an amount would more than compensate a professional city manager, he added, getting a strong positive audience response to the notion of replacing the management functions of KPM, CRS and Sterling with another form.
Given better money management, Singer has contended, residents’ monthly fees could be reduced.
Singers, who have been targeted by federation attorneys and lawyers for Surface with letters threatening legal action for their “meddling” questions, also underscored recent “meddling” by Brian May, the Sterling Management onsite executive, who interfered with plans for a guest speaker at the town hall session. Singers had invited Ed Thomas, current president of the national Community Associations Institute, to speak at the town hall meeting from his perspective. In an email to CAI a few days before the meeting, May characterized the session as “…a political rally he must not promote” and required that Thomas get Seder’s permission to speak within the community. Thomas visited the area but did not speak at the session.
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| Lois Singer
KPREL
Co-Founder |
Lois Singer, who has decried repeatedly the failure of leaders to provide a general ledger record which would track the flow of monies into and out of the federation accounts, noted that more questions than answers characterize numerous federation financial transactions. As examples, she wondered aloud what are the true revenues from the new Serenity Spa and where are they going, and why $1,000 microphones were purchased when $100 mikes could have been acquired to serve the purpose, and why was a $200,000-plus Product Cost Adjustment for the landscaping firm Valley Crest not brought to the full board and how some $5,000 worth of recent legal bills could be paid without board approvals.
A DVD showing of the town hall session now is slated for November 10 in the Borini Theater of the north clubhouse, Ramsey said, and other showings can be arranged by contacting her or Green.
© 2009 Melody Jameson
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Nigel H. Farquhar IV
05 Nov 2009, 06:55
Bovine Scatology
Skot Scatology
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