At the November 26th board meeting, LHCC directors discussed John Martel’s proposal to hold “board workshop” meetings between some or all of the board members and Lake Holiday property owners with an open, unstructured agenda. Despite direction from GM Ray Sohl that members have a right to record meetings, VP Dave Buermeyer and director Noel O’Brien focused on prohibiting members from recording such meetings.
Ken Murphy commented that he doesn’t like:
the idea of any meetings where the board is fragmented and people are able to take the board on one-on-one and, you know, take statements out of context….
Dave Buermeyer expressed the opinion that a workshop meeting is “not a meeting.” Apparently, he’s never heard of the law of identity. If a meeting is not a meeting, what is it? A pretzel?
Pat Shields opined:
There’s a very small minority out there that wants to say that it’s all done in secret. You guys do all this stuff and we don’t know. We’re open. It’s recorded.
Pat Shields ignored that at the same he preached that meetings are open and recorded, a number of his fellow directors want to block recording of meetings. He seems to take credit for the fact that meetings are recorded, but ignores the fact that they are not recorded as a result of any board initiative or at community expense. Instead, recording meetings is an entirely private effort.
John Martel acknowledged widespread dissatisfaction with the board’s actions in his comment that “on the off chance that somebody might like something that the board does, it would be nice to have a compliment.” How can we connect this to Pat Shields’ view that there is only a “small minority” of disgruntled critics?
Behaving reasonably, Wayne Poyer expressed the view that the recording of meetings is acceptable:
I don’t really see any reason not to have them recorded. I don’t see any of you intimidated by that camera, frankly.
John Martel sheepishly replied: “I am.”
Board members having to face property owners one-on-one. Meetings that aren’t meetings. Nothing is secret but let’s obstruct recording it. Critics are a small minority, but it’s an “off chance” that somebody, anybody, likes something the board does.
Big, scary video cameras. They let others see and listen to what you actually do and say.