CVCBD Quad Elections

This morning we received a posting for this blog (as "Other Voice from Charles Village") from a Benefits District homeowner, Joan Floyd:

"I attended the October 16, 2012 Quad Elections of the CVCBD for the sole purpose of presenting the following statement and question to each candidate:

"If tonight's election results in you being on the Board in 2013, that result can be undone by the Board, which has the power under the by-laws to vote you off the Board and decide for itself who should hold this position.  Do you agree with this by-law, and if so, why should the Board have the power to remove you and choose your replacement?"

There was one candidate for each of the four Quad positions.

The first three candidates, Ms. Coles (Quad 1), Mr. Richardson (Quad 2), and Mr. Herman (Quad 3), stated that they did not agree with the by-law and that the Board should not have this power to remove them.

The Quad 4 candidate, Mr. Jones, accused me of misrepresenting the by-law.  When I read the above statement (for the fourth time) and asked him if he felt it was incorrect, he did not say so.  However, he insisted that the Board did not have the power to remove a member without cause.  

Some attendees familiar with the by-laws spoke up and corrected Mr. Jones, whose final word on the subject was that he would have to read the by-law. 

Surely Mr. Jones read the by-law in 2011, prior to casting his vote in favor of it.  The minutes of the March 8, 2011 Board meeting show that not only was Mr. Jones on the Board at the time and present at the meeting, but that the vote on that day was unanimous to approve the new by-laws and ask the Board of Estimates to authorize them.

The public record shows that Mr. Jones not only agrees with, but also helped to establish, the Board's power to remove and replace an elected Quad representative.

-- Joan Floyd"

The bylaws are available on the CVCBD's website and we quote hereunder from it:

253 Section 8. Removal of a Board Member.
254
255 A Board member may be removed with cause by a vote of 10 of the voting Board members. A
256 Board member may be removed without cause by a vote of two-thirds (2/3) of the voting Board
257 members. Such Board member and the association, organization or officials, if any, that
258 appointed the Board member, shall be given no less than ten days’ notice of the meeting at which
259 his or her removal is to be considered, and shall have the right to appear and speak on his or her
260 behalf.

Certainly, this establishes without a doubt that Board Members of the Charles Village Community Benefits District (the CVCBDMA) simply do not understand their responsibilities and have not read the City Charter and Code, the legislation that established and governs this entity, nor the CVCBDMA's own by-laws and yet they vote on issues that affect this community.  We cannot, as a community, allow this board and/or any future board to remove someone from the board "without cause" as they did years ago when they removed Doug Armstrong from a non-voting seat without cause even before the Board changed the by-laws to allow it.

This 2011 amendment to the by-laws is an abomination since even the only community-elected Board members chosen by their own "quad" people to represent them on the Board of Directors can be removed and replaced by an individual of the Board's own chosing.  This by-law must be removed as soon as possible by the Benefits District's Board.