(March 30, 2017) Ocean Pines Association Director Slobodan Trendic leapt out of his chair on Saturday after a 3-2 vote effectively killed a proposed amendment on election reforms that would allow ballots to be counted during an open session and announced immediately after.
“This is absolute nonsense,” Trendic said at the time.
The vote came after more than 40 minutes of debate that included comments from Elections Committee Chairman Steve Tuttle and Bylaws and Resolutions Committee Chairman Marty Clarke. Both supported the amendment.
“You only get one choice and you just made it. Right now, we are back to zero, we have nothing,” Vice President Dave Stevens said.
Stevens and Trendic supported the measure, while President Tom Herrick and directors Pat Supik and Cheryl Jacobs voted not to accept the first reading of the amendment to Resolution M-06.
Trendic was still fuming about the vote on Monday. Frustration, he said, was an understatement.
“I just felt the way my colleagues voted was absolute nonsense, which is what I said. I was totally blown away by the vote,” he said. “This resolution change is a reflection of what the community asked. What we think individually, at this point in time, is irrelevant. We need to serve the community and respect the community’s will.”
He argued the specific contents of the amendment could have been altered before the board voted to authorize any changes during a second reading. The first reading, he said, was somewhat symbolic.
According to article 3a. in the Ocean Pines Book of Resolutions (B-01), “Revisions to the proposed Resolution may be made at the first meeting at which it is considered, or at any subsequent meeting, but the proposed Resolution cannot be adopted at the first meeting at which it is considered.”
“Vote in favor of the first reading and continue to work on the changes,” Trendic said. “They clearly did not understand – or perhaps chose not to understand. Jim Trumel, a member of the bylaws and resolutions committee and a former lawyer, clarified this subject. We were only voting to accept a first reading so that the content of the resolution changes can be under review.
“Three board members chose not to listen and voted based on their opinions as opposed to voting in favor of the first reading,” Trendic continued. “It’s very disappointing.”
He said he asked for an electronic vote in advance, because two of the seven directors could not attend the meeting on Saturday. Herrick, however, would not allow it.
“To cast an electronic vote, it has to be unanimous agreement [to hold the vote],” Trendic said. “I believe directors Brett Hill and Doug Parks would have voted in favor of the first reading.”
Trendic is the liaison to the elections committee and said he would wait for that group to act before he decided what to do next.
“At this point, I’m basically in a wait-and-see mode – but this is not over yet,” he said. “I would encourage people in the community to put in calls and emails to the board expressing their opinions on the subject.”
Tuttle, on Monday, also said he was unsure of his next move. He said he emailed the elections committee ahead of its next scheduled meeting, April 21, asking for feedback.
“At this point, we’re pressing forward with preparing for the election. We may end up doing so under the old rules of M-06,” he said.
All the directors appeared to favor counting votes in public, but they split on whether the results could or should be announced before the annual meeting, as has been the practice for decades. Whether that was a deal breaker in any election reform was a matter for the committee to discuss, Tuttle said.
“I just don’t think they really havid reasons for not announcing the votes at the conclusion of the counting,” he said. “I don’t know. We may have to compromise.”
He said the committee had gone through two legal assessments – at the board’s request – and had two meetings with the bylaws and resolutions committee. Members of the committee also spoke during two board work sessions.
“We’ve done everything they asked for and then some. We’ve put a lot of time on it, frankly,” he said. “I was definitely disappointed and frustrated. I don’t know what else we could’ve said to try to convince them this would be a good way to go, for the whole association. I feel like we’ve given it our best shot and the board is going to have to decide what they want to do.”
Jacobs, for her part, said she still believed the association had the right to count votes during a closed session. But, she recognized there was no small amount of controversy and community outcry after the election last year.
“I said afterwards I was adamant we were not going to go through that again, and I would personally introduce an amendment to have the counting done in an open forum if that was required,” she said. “I didn’t have to do that, initially, because the elections committee took that on. However, they went beyond that.”
She said she backed the open ballot count and new language that imposed strict word limits on candidate statements in association literature.
“But the notion of announcing the results immediately after the counting is something I’m opposed to; we have a legal opinion that says it’s not right, and the majority of the board was not in agreement,” she said. “We made that pretty clear in our work session, but the election committee was pretty hell-bent that’s what it ought to be and that’s what they came back with.
“And so, it’s dead as far as the elections committee is concerned,” Jacobs added.
After the meeting, she said she emailed Clarke and asked him to add an amendment to the agenda of the next bylaws and resolutions committee. Jacobs is the liaison to that group.
“We’re going to take it up as a committee or I’m going to personally do it, because it’s going to come back, it’s going to reflect all of the hard work that the committee did – because we appreciate that – but it’s not going to include announcing the results after the counting has finished,” Jacobs said.
“It’s going to come back for a first reading and it’s going to be done in time. The next election is going to be done in the open, so there will be no more of this nonsense that we had last year. I feel pretty strongly about that,” she added.