Minutes - Election Committee

MINUTES OF THE MEETING OF THE

ECIA ELECTION COMMITTEE

HELD ON MARCH 11, 2020

 

  1. Time, Place and Attendees. A meeting of the ECIA Election Committee (“EC”) was held on March 11, 2020 3:00 pm in the ECIA Community Center Conference Room.  The meeting was called to order by Bette Knight at 3:07 pm.  The meeting was recorded. 

Four committee members were present; therefore, a quorum was achieved.  Specifically, Bette Knight, Mary Cassidy, Kathie Graham and Butch Gorsuch were present.  Committee member Jody Price was excused.  Board Liaison Sal Monaco and Staff Representative Rachel Turnbough were also present.  There were no guests present at the meeting.  Board President Nancy Sulzberg briefly attended the meeting via telephone in discussion of item 7b of the amended agenda.

  1. Minutes: Butch Gorsuch reported the Minutes of the February 12, 2020 Meeting were approved 4-0 via email and posted to the website (February 21, 2020).  A motion was made by Kathie Graham and seconded by Mary Cassidy to approve these minutes by voice.  Minutes were approved unanimously by the committee 4-0.
  1. Approval of Agenda: Mary Cassidy requested addition of a new item for discussion under New Business as item 7b titled “Cancellation of March 12th Candidate Forum”.  Additionally, Mary requested this item be discussed upon approval of Agenda.  No other amendments to Agenda were suggested.  Motion by Mary Cassidy to approve agenda as amended.  Motion seconded by Kathie Graham.  Amendment of agenda passed by voice vote 4-0.  The amended agenda was available to the members of the Committee electronically.
  1. Open Forum. This item was addressed within the meeting after discussion of item 7b.  None of the attendees of the meeting requested to discuss any topics under the Open Forum format.
  1. Board Liaison Report. Board Liaison Sal Monaco reported:
  1. Pool scheduled to be open on time. Company “Pool Side” currently doing patching.  Some cosmetic fixes to the pool area will be delayed. 
  2. Board requests everyone signs up for eblasts as it’s a critical way of getting news out. Possible to sign up via website.
  3. New budget calendar approved by Finance Committee. Budget to be available in November instead of December.  Finance committee recommends adoption of first business day of March instead of March 1st as date assessments are due.  Seventy percent of assessments were paid as of March 1st. 
  4. HOAMCO task group has been initiated. ECIA’s current contract is in the last year of a three-year contract.  This task group is currently gathering input data.
  1. Old Business.
  1. Election Checklist 2019-2020 Update – Checklist updated up to and thru item 23
  2. Publicity – All publicity items have been submitted. A few marquee messages are still pending for March 28th.
  3. Candidate Forum/Meet & Greet – Kathie reports all materials required for the Candidate Forums have been found and secured. Additionally, Bette shared with the committee the election materials which will be used by the printer as follows:
    1. i. Quorum Proxy Statements will be printed on light blue paper.
    2. ii. Examples displayed of the security paper to be used if copied.
  • iii. Same size envelope will be used as in previous years.
  1. iv. Staff has already paid some of the USPS permit fees for return postage and is aware of other fees needed to be paid.
  1. New Business.
  1. Create Forum Questions – If a Candidate Forum were to be held, the committee decided to utilize the format of the first Candidate Forum and embellish it with additional questions from a second Candidate Forum format. Committee examined questions previously asked from the 2018 and 2014 Candidate Forums, as well as questions generated by the League of Women Voters in 2019.  The committee narrowed the selection of questions to three choices which have been documented in the document Extra Candidate Forum Questions.docx which has been stored on the OneDrive website under /Election Events/2020.
  2. Cancellation of Candidate Forum – This item was discussed immediately after item 3 (Approval of Agenda). Mary Cassidy reported earlier in the day (March 11th), New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has declared a state emergency and has requested residents of the state not to hold or attend community events.  Governor Grisham specifically mentioned HOA community events.  Ms. Cassidy proposed postponing the March 12th (First) Candidate Forum and move it to the date reserved for the Second Candidate Forum in April.  The Second Candidate Forum has already been deemed unnecessary due to the number of candidates and open director positions.  Butch Gorsuch suggested committee not postpone but cancel the Candidate Forum, as conditions resulting in the declared state of emergency would most likely not be resolved by early April.  Bette Knight stated David Sorkin as a candidate for the Board is an existing director and is not a new entity to the community.  Committee discussed what communication would need to occur to both the community and to the candidate.  Mary Cassidy motioned to cancel the March 12th Candidate Forum and Meet & Greet due to the Covid-19 virus and Governor Grisham’s declaration of an emergency.

Rachel Turnbough created a draft eblast message announcing the cancellation and cause.  This draft was sent electronically to Board President Nancy Sulzberg.  President Sulzberg expressed concern over the wording of the eblast and proposed rewording it after discussion with other Board members.  Committee accepted President Sulzberg’s wording for announcement of the Candidate Forum cancellation.

  1. Adjournment. The meeting was adjourned at 5:05 pm.

The next regularly scheduled monthly meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 8, 2020, 3:00 P.M. in the ECIA Conference Room.

For the ECIA Election Committee

By:  __________/s/____________________    _3/23/2020       

Secretary Butch Gorsuch                            Date