I have received information on the upcoming election. As I understand Nomination forms will be going out shortly and Oasis will be collecting those and printing up ballots with the nominees on them, of course there will be a write in space as well. Oasis will then be collecting the ballots and Carly is looking into the school counting them for us. But we will not have a answer for at least a week, because school has not started yet. OK your thinking about a current Board member, who is up for re-election, who works at the school, to get the school or even other workers at the school to count the votes. WOW
At the last meeting I made a suggestion that we use "The League of Women Voters" to collect and validate the ballots. I have contacted this group and was told MANY HOA's have been using there service for just these types of elections. Having this type of third party to collect, validate and tally the ballots would seem to me most fair and proper way for this important election. I was also told the most this would cost is $1.00 per ballot. Even if ever single home returned the ballot this would be a total of $1400.00. This includes the over 100 homes that Providence still holds votes upon. I feel this is a small amount of money to have a fair and just election.
As many of you know I have voiced my opinion on Oasis and our current President and Vice-President. I do not feel comfortable AT ALL with Oasis having their hands on any returned ballots and certainly do NOT want a co-worker from a current Board Member or a 5th or 6th grader counting ballots for such an important election.
For those of you not in attendance to the meeting, I also asked how we could have something placed on the upcoming ballot. What I wanted was a vote by the people if they would like to retain our current management company “Oasis” or to evoke our right by contract to give “Oasis” a 30 day notice. This was immediately dismissed. We were told that the board looks into everything and is more informed and they are to make the decisions. So the only way we can change our management company is to win one of 7 seats on the HOA Board, hope that enough people on the board feel the same as you do and then call for a vote. Yup that sounds like representing your community to me.
Oasis, according to Law and our By-Laws is suppose to have and maintain a "entitled list of members"(http://www.azleg.state.az.us/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/ars/10/03720.htm&Title=10&DocType=ARS), which contains which home owners are entitle to vote at our elections. By law Oasis is suppose have this list available to any member at the meetings and let a member copy this list on demand. I have asked for this list and once again was told I would not be receiving this list. This list is to be used for our election of officers; I do not believe Oasis has maintained this list. Every month Oasis gets paid the full amount owed to them in accordance to our contract with them, however the service we are getting has become worse and worse.
By now some of you might be thinking “this guy, all he does is complain”. Well I do come with solutions.
My solutions are the following:
- 1. Have Oasis send out the nomination forms and collect them so that the ballots can be created and mailed out, SOON.
- 2. Have the ballots sent to a 3rd party for validating and tallying.
- 3. Have the ballots contain a vote on whether to keep Oasis or not.
Oasis has done some good, however I think any management company would have done as much.
At the last meeting, two items I can remember should have been looked at more closely by Oasis before the meeting.
Sand in the tot-lots. If Oasis was truly trying to help us get back on our feet, not only would the bids for the sand been presented but also the alternative idea of having the community come together to provide the manual labor and a estimate of the cost of the tiller and sand.
Sun Screen in the play area. We were never told how big this tear was, only that we had options of a patch, replacement of the panel or replacement of the whole screen. It was finally decided to just leave it alone.
Both of these had bids ranges from, if I remember right, $6,000 to $8,000 each.
Am I all alone on seeing these problems with our management company and board members and wanting a change?
