The Green Door

mysterious and troubling unknowns about POA Board elections

The upcoming election for POA Board has me thinking of YOUR HIT PARADE, a radio (1935 – 1953) and television (1950 – 1959) music program sponsored by American Tobacco’s Lucky Strikes cigarettes. During its 24 year run, the show had 19 orchestra leaders and 52 singers or groups. Its stars included Snooky Lanson, Alan Copeland, Johnny Desmond, Frank Sinatra and my personal favorite Gisele MacKenzie – what a voice! Every Saturday evening the program offered the most popular and best-selling songs of the week. Must see TV at its best. The format evolved to feature a countdown with fanfares leading to the top three finalists with the number one song for the finale.

THE GREEN DOOR (Words and Music by Bob Davie and Marvin Moore, Copyright 1956 by Alley Music Corporation and Trio Music Company) was one of those songs. Ask Alexa or Siri to play it for you. Cute little song – ear worm material if there ever was one. Local lore has it that the real green door led to the backroom of a beer hall on the University of Missouri campus, Columbia, Mo. (Full disclosure, I am a proud MU ALUM. - M. I. Z!)

I was put in mind of THE GREEN DOOR while doing some research into the mechanics HHP POA uses to run its annual Board of Directors Elections  I have come to share the vocalist’s lament:

“Don’t know what they are doing but they laugh a lot behind the green door… Wish they’d let me in, so I could find out what’s behind the green door.”

During my research I developed some questions and sent them, as requested by a POA Board official, to the board at board@hhppoa.org. After a hic-up a high board official responded with some good, quality information to a number of the questions. But a few of the more important (to me) questions went unaddressed. After a short delay I responded to that high official reiterating my request. No response.

To be clear, the answers to the remaining questions require no additional POA research at all. The board and administrative leadership need that information to run POA financial and election operations. They already have that information. No confidentiality issues, either.

“Wonder just what’s going on in there.”

If you are interested, here are the questions:

1.     The POA governing documents say each owner of a residential lot with a dwelling unit is entitled to two (2) votes. Period! Hard Stop! The POA election process, however, is that each owner of a residential lot with a dwelling unit only gets one ballot (usually “vote for 3 candidates” to fill expiring terms), which, when submitted gets counted as two votes (6 candidate votes). Why is one ballot counted twice? Why are owners of a residential lot with a dwelling unit not provided the opportunity to submit two individual ballots? What is the basis for the POA’s practice of counting one ballot twice?

2.     Who is the chair of the election committee? Who are the members of the election committee?

3.     There are four types of POA members: Type “A”, Type “B”, Type “C” and Type “D”. Types “B” and “D” have no members and no votes. Type “A” has two categories of members – owners of Residential lots with Dwelling Units (4,230 ballots counted twice, 25,380 potential “choose three” candidate votes) and owners of undeveloped Residential lots (82 members, 246 potential candidate votes). Type “C” has 6 categories of members – 4 golf courses, Skull Creek Marina and Driftwood. Each category has its own unique number of votes which is determined by individual annual assessments. There are a total of 408 ballots  (1224 potential candidate votes) for Type “C” members. How many of the 408 ballots are allocated to individual Type “C” members? The general manager has indicated that the golf courses have little interest in HHP activities and give their proxies to someone that does. A reliable source told me POA by-laws do not permit voting by proxy. What’s the real story with this substantial number of votes allocated to Type “C” members in POA Board elections?

4.     Can the results of the annual election be reported out in more detail than just “WEIGHTED VOTES”? For instance, total ballots, total votes by each category by candidate?

The candidate receiving the highest number of votes in the 2024 Board election received 3,619 votes – the top three candidates (the election winners) received a total of 9,855 votes. If all of the 1,224 “Type C” votes were cast by or directed by POA management, the election committee or the sitting board to these three candidates the “Type C” votes would represent almost 12.5% of their total, and the “Type C” share of 408 votes for any single candidate could have been the difference between the third place (elected) and fourth place (not elected) candidates.

In other words, if these votes were cast and counted that means the votes allocated for entities that have “little interest in HHP activities,” but directed or influenced or actually cast-by-proxy by someone “on the inside,” may have swung the election in one candidate’s favor. If that is the case, I find that disturbing. Neither our management nor any element of our governance (Board Executive Committee?) should have control of or direct influence on a “slush fund” of POA Board election votes. I wish we could answer these questions for POA members (you and me) — I did ask, but on these particular issues detailed above the Board has ignored my question.

So, if you want the answer these important election questions and are asking…..

 “Green Door, what’s the secret you’re keeping?

contact the POA at board@hhppoa.org and ask. If you discover the answers, consider letting me know. I am curious. As always, we’re waiting for your thoughts at hhp360team@gmail.com

Don Flora