Editorials

Editorials

A variety of opinions and ideas are vital to the effective functioning of any decision making body, especially our Association and its Board of Trustees. Currently our Association suffers from a lack of such input. To help rectify this problem, it is now possible for any resident to express their views (resident login required) right here on this WEB page. It is possible to place both signed and anonymous editorials.

Another vital source of comment and opinion in Society Hill is the Concerned Owners e-Newsletter which contains a wealth of detailed information on issues of interest to the community. Check the Concerned Owners page for more information and how to subscribe to their e-Newsletter.

Editorial Policy: Every effort will be made to place editorials exactly as submitted, however the WEB site operator reserves the right to restrict content in violation of editorial guidelines. You may say anything you like, even about specific individuals, but remember your statements will be displayed in a public forum. You must avoid making statements which are defamatory in nature - that is, statements which you know to be false but you say them anyway, with the intention of harm, and which tend to lower an individuals reputation in the community.

Maintaining the Common Element

Sun Sep 25 20:14:50 2005

Here is an article that I submitted a few months ago for the print newsletter that was rejected by the Board. I think it is still relevant, especially as the annual elections are approaching:

Our Association exists for the purpose of maintaining the common element - the roads, plants, lawns, swimming pool, tennis courts, building exteriors, and so forth. The owners elect a 7 member Board of Trustees, which is charged with the responsibility of carrying out this maintenance, either directly or by delegation to a hired property management firm. In concept, this is similar to how we elect local town counsel members, school board members, state legislators, or members of congress to represent us in the maintenance of other higher-level common elements such as the transportation infrastructure, schools, the courts, the national defense, and so forth.

We have a board and we vote on board members every year for good reason - it is an opportunity for the homeowners to provide their feedback on how well the board is maintaining the common element. This is a fundamental feature of any form of democratic rule, and derives from the belief that ultimately the people know what is best for the people. This is in sharp contrast to various forms of autocratic rule in which there is no feedback and one individual is left to decide what is best for the people. Many such autocratic experiments have been attempted over the centuries in other parts of the world, and for the most part have all been miserable failures and often at unimaginable human cost.

As homeowners, with busy lives of our own, the last thing we want to have to worry about is yet another level of "government" with more elections, more issues, more debates, and more incomplete and misleading information. After all, we have a Board of Trustees to take care of things for us and that should be enough - they should know what they are doing and they should do it right. However, we must not forget that the only thing separating democracy from autocracy is that feedback path. Without feedback, or with poor or incomplete feedback, the democratic model deteriorates to an autocratic one. What this means is that some level of involvement is required on behalf of the homeowners. We as homeowners must make some effort to follow the issues, to stay informed, and to participate in the yearly "performance evaluation".

The alternative is to abolish the Board of Trustees, lease or sell the common element to a management company, and cross our fingers that they do a good job. What is their incentive to do a good job? And if they don't, what is our recourse? Would we have any at all? You complain about something 10 times and it doesn't get fixed. How would you as 1 owner in a 545 owner community "fire" them? How would we keep track of what they are doing? What would compel the management company to tell us the truth about issues? About their internal affairs? Or tell us anything at all for that matter? Given the current situation and level of interest in this Association, we are already dangerously close to operating in this mode, and dangerously close to repeating the mistakes of history.

The burden of involvement, however, does not rest solely with the owners. The board shares much of the responsibility for getting the homeowners involved and keeping them involved. This includes encouraging participation by taking homeowner input and suggestions seriously, keeping homeowners informed, providing a forum for homeowners to exchange their views and opinions, providing information to the homeowners, supporting and sponsoring homeowner events, encouraging the various homeowner committees, supporting those committees, and taking their recommendations seriously. Implementing fair, reasonable, and consistent policies, conducting business in the open, presenting the bad news as well as the good, conducting board meetings in a professional manner, projecting a humble attitude, and keeping as many residents as happy as possible.

K. Wine
Lancaster Court