Board President’s Inaction Threaten Property Values
Serious problems continue to be uncovered with our recent board election; we’re talking about miscounted votes, security measures that weren’t followed, and even a counterfeit ballot. These aren’t minor issues, yet when all this evidence landed on Board President Scott Timmerman’s desk, his response was to leave every single one of these concerns off our upcoming board meeting agenda. By leaving these issues off the upcoming board agenda, there is concern that our community may face avoidable legal risks that could end up costing every homeowner.
Brought to you by Drew McManus, your neighbor in 7908.
Red Flags Being Ignored
Think about this: If you knew someone found evidence of vote counting mistakes and fake ballots in an election you supervised, wouldn’t you want to investigate?
You might imagine most people would. But not our Board President, Scott Timmerman.
Instead, he’s decided these serious issues don’t even deserve a spot on the November 18, 2024 meeting agenda. Here’s the problem: as Board President, Timmerman has a duty to protect our community’s interests.
By choosing to ignore these problems, he’s potentially setting us all up for an expensive lawsuit that could have been easily prevented.
Statistical Improbabilities Emerge
Correction: In the original analysis of the election data, I incorrectly identified Ballot 48 as Ballot 51. This mistake, while inadvertent, does not diminish the validity of broader concerns about election integrity. In fact, this clarification brought to light a new issue discovered by Timmerman: Picker & Associates assigned an incorrect ownership percentage to Ballot 48, resulting in an inflated vote value. As it turns out, the owners of the unit for Ballot 48 ended up being the very same owners as Ballot 51 and therefore does not change the statistical improbability, it merely changes the source issue.
This raises further questions about the accuracy and consistency of Picker & Associates’ overall accuracy and introduces a new need to focus on identifying any other discrepancies recording ownership percentage documentation across all ballots.
When looking into the ballot recording errors, an unsettling detail emerged.
The incorrectly recorded ballot discovered last month belonged to Norman and Lauren Kabir, two homeowners who have been outspoken about their concerns related to Board President Timmerman’s leadership. In fact, Timmerman has specifically named and criticized the Kabirs in several written communications sent to all residents.
What makes this particularly concerning is the probability, out of all the hundreds of ballots cast, that the Kabirs’ ballot was the one mistakenly recorded by Picker & Associates LLC.
The odds are 3.15 in a million.
The statistical unlikelihood of this coincidence raises serious questions about the integrity of our election process.
While I try to avoid geek-speak, it’s important to understand how this figure is calculated. It was generated using documented probability of two independent events:
- One ballot is incorrectly recorded: Assuming a reasonable error rate for the accounting firm, let’s say this probability is 1 in 1000 (0.001).
- The incorrectly recorded ballot belongs to the rival owner: Assuming an equal chance of any ballot being incorrectly recorded, the probability of this specific ballot being chosen is 1 in 317 (approximately 0.00315).
To find the combined probability of both events happening, we multiply the individual probabilities: 0.001 * 0.00315 ≈ 0.00000315
This means the odds are approximately 3.15 in a million.
Sources:
- Human Error. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): NIST publishes research on human factors and ergonomics, including studies on human error in various tasks. Link.
- Data Entry Error Rates. Conexiom: This company provides data quality solutions and has published articles on data entry error rates, highlighting the common challenges and potential solutions. Link 1, Link 2.
Required Election Steps Not Followed
According to the Association’s “Procedures For The Election Of The Board Of Directors,” it says the Election Committee must help owners fix problems with their ballots, like missing signatures, so their votes can be counted.
Two unsigned ballots were thrown out without anyone trying to contact the owners. Both ballots included votes for for candidates Timmerman didn’t endorse.
Based on the information I’ve collected, it’s clear the Election Committee members didn’t intend any harm. What is clear is they weren’t trained properly on how to carry out their responsibilities nor were they informed of options when making decisions that invalidated ballots.
Inviting a Legal Storm
Let’s be clear about what’s at stake here.
These aren’t just minor paperwork mistakes; we’re talking about matters that could suggest broader failures requiring further review and putting our community at risk of:
- Expensive lawsuits.
- Damage to our community’s reputation.
- Difficulty for new buyers to get mortgages.
- Lower property values for all of us.
The Good News
This can still be fixed, here’s what needs to happen:
- Hold a new special election with a new firm to serve as Election Judges (the people who manage and count ballots).
- Tell all owners what went wrong and confirm steps being taken to ensure the integrity of the special election.
- Hire an independent firm to audit what happened and prepare recommendations for hiring a new election management provider.
The Bottom Line
All these problems could have been avoided. The continued lack of action on these issues highlights the urgency for board leadership to address them proactively in order to avoid greater risk of costly legal battles that could hurt everyone’s property values.
As homeowners, we deserve better than leadership that ignores such serious problems.
You CAN Make A Difference
Use this template to email Board President Timmerman. Feel free to modify it to include your own thoughts and concerns.
Be respectful, concise, and clear in articulating the negative impact it has had on you and your fellow homeowners. You are welcome to use the example language as-is, but feel free to personalize the example message before you send.
Curious to learn more about some of these issues? Feel free to get in touch, I’m happy to chat.