DAVE BARROW'S EMAIL REGARDING HIS PLAN TO GET RID OF ME:
The following is exactly what was stated in the
document.
Nothing has been added or deleted and is presented here just as it
is on the email and attached document.
It’s typed in
blue.
The email was from David Barrow and sent to Directors Samuel
Griffin, Matt Landry and Rose Mary Smith.
The Subject is NCCIA Political Action Plans and the
attachment is NCCIA political plans.doc.
The email reads:
Rose Mary, Matt, Sam:
Attached are my ‘chess moves’.
Look them over carefully to see what I’ve missed.
Let’s talk soon.
Here are Instant Meeting details that can facilitate
telephone conference.
Can I suggest we go for 4:00 pm TOMORROW (Sunday).
Alternative is 11:00 AM on Monday?
Please reply to say which.
Thanks…. Dave
The following is the attached document NCCIA political plans.doc:
Control the Board Plan Blue
·
Hold new elections to replace officers at either special meeting
(short notice ok) or regular meeting.
The four of us are a quorum.
We need Dawn and MTG as witnesses.
Meeting to be called by two Directors, (Sam and Matt call the
meeting and lead the proceedings, being entirely open about the purpose? )
·
Sam, Matt or Rose
Mary be President
·
Dave stay
Treasurer…. If Rose Mary is Pres, I can be Sec-Treas if needed.
·
Strip McGarr of
Committee Leadership.
·
No further Board meetings (we’ve had our four so we can say we are
done).
Instead we have Committee Meetings, have PMG present; whatever is
needed to transact business WITHOUT Mary.
Got to think through what to do if Mary insists on being on
one of the Committees.
·
Appoint Dave to
head the Nominating Committee for elections (all the rest of you are Lame Ducks).
·
Matt to carefully
edit the Blue pages to eliminate Mary’s voice there.
·
Plan Blue is a Special Meeting of the BOD.
It can be held at any time without notice.
It would be best to hold something like this at a secure
location to keep the uninvited from attending.
It would be great, in fact, for the minutes of the meeting to
be written ahead of time so we can rehearse what we do/say.
·
We can also invoke Plan Blue at any time during a regular meeting,
on signal if we get mad at Mark.
We simply need a signal.
We simply have to have it written up in advance…. Who makes
the motion, second, etc.
Of all things, its simply a matter of “I’d like to nominate
XXXX to be our president”….. Second from another…. Discussion?
Call the question, and it’s over”… That fast!
Control the Board Plan Magenta
Give Mark a set of firm expectations:
·
Strip McGarr of Committee Responsibility.
Assign ACC to George: DR to Rose Mary.
·
We all refuse to attend any further meetings or special meetings
(Mark, Len and Mary cannot then have a quorum to conduct
official business).
·
Appoint Dave to
head the Nominating Committee for next year’s elections and to manage the election
process.
·
Cancel future board meetings (we’ve had our four).
(an interim option I will consider is to appoint Dave to
facilitate all future meetings of the Committees…….. Which gives me control over the
agenda and can allow Mark to continue to act as President in breaking tie votes…. I would
insist all motions be written and submitted in advance so that Board members have time to
consider them; items coming up ‘in the moment’ would in most circumstances be tabled for
future consideration…. We’d ask that the motion be written up by the mover, checked by the
seconder, then turned over to the Secretary.
It is critical that in all circumstances we refrain from
moving or seconding anything we haven’t agreed in advance.
In general we vote no to everything unless it is for tabling.
·
Notify PGM that
McGarr (others not cooperating) are to be ignored, dealt with through regular mail copies
of correspondence to all officers.
·
If Mark refused
Plan Magenta, he’s given an opportunity to resign as President, or we go to Plan Blue.
·
Matt to carefully
edit the Blue pages to eliminate Mary’s voice there.
Removal of Director Plan Red
·
Prior to this, we must actively campaign and educate friends.
It will likely require help from a PR firm.
·
Mary, (or Len, or
Mark) are given an opportunity to resign Board position.
·
Assuming Mary
will not go, a Special Meeting of the Membership is called.
·
PMG notifies all
members in good standing, 11 days prior, of a meeting to be held for purposes of removing
Mary McGarr as director.
·
If needed to restaff the officer positions, Mary, Len Mark are
notified of Special Board meeting to be held prior to Special Meeting of the Membership.
( all four of us have to show in order to have a quorum…
having Dawn and MTG are also important.
In this case we have to be ready to enact Plan Blue.
Plan Green is “Scorched Earth”
We vote as a block to make an immediate refund
check to be sent by mail to all owners of record, then resign.
It would be ‘nice’ to have the amount backed up by a Reserve
Study and audit; but I am confident that such action ( more that $200 per home ) is
fiduciarily sound, and will mandate better management than Mary et al are capable of.
What would probably happen is that the Association would go
bankrupt, a new management co and Board would be brought in.
There is also a chance that things might work out ok and not
be so bad (really, it helps me to think this because it can allow me to be objective in
making choices).
This would play out over a few more months; could be enacted
anytime, for example, if Mark tried to replace George with another kook.
Elections/Proxy Process Plan Orange
Step one is get an aligned person to replace George.
Nominating Committee brings forward acceptable candidates, on whom the
board votes.
Need ironclad proxy that makes ‘Recommendations of the Board’ crystal
clear.
·
Names and lot
number, signature tracking, etc.
Can we tie a maintenance fee refund to our
preferred candidates?
(probably not but we can make it clear that a refund is the first
order of business for the new Board in November, and we are counting on the members to
elect people who will be knowledgeable of the background and process?)
Consequences
Count on a smear campaign.
Count on a legal challenge.
Count on another big elections meeting.
Play a victim role.
Do not accept interviews; do no write the editor, or draft
articles for the paper.
Let her invective show itself for what it is.
Consider hiring a PR firm (yes).
Instead of Board Meetings, hold “Awareness and Dialogue Sessions,
focused on educating, and then going into Q&A’.
If we have to go to Plan Blue to impeach Mark, we
must consider what to do with all of them since they’ll be disenfranchised and perhaps
untrustworthy.
We might consider offering Treasury to Len in return for his
cooperation.
Mark might resign and/or sue.
Seems to me like we start with Plan Magenta, testing Mark to see if he
will
a)
Appoint Dave to lead the nominating committee
b)
Remove Mary’s leadership of DR.
If Mark agrees, we demand action by email
immediately.
If Mark balks, we go to Plan Blue?
If Mark agrees and acts, we follow through with
the additional requirements of Plan Magenta
(Dave facilitates further board meetings, if any).
Before embarking plan Magenta, this whole approach needs to be
coordinated with MTG and Dawn….. If Malhiot balks, and we choose to go to Plan Blue, we
have to be ready to call a special meeting ASAP (we can do this without notice, and we can
even write the minutes beforehand which I strongly recommend; we can hold the meeting at
my office after hours in fact, relying on security there to keep out the uninvited).
END OF DOCUMENT
It gives one a sick feeling to realize Mr. Barrow was willing to
bankrupt the association just to gain control of the board and the future funds.
All of this was precipitated by the fact that Mary
McGarr had discovered that the board was operating with contracts that were not valid,
that did not have proper legal content, that had expired, and that the landscaper might
have been giving kickbacks to one of the board members and had a license to apply
chemicals that was a forged document—(altering a state legal document is a felony).
Mary also wrote letters to the editors exposing all of these
matters and at the same time Senator John Carona, the Dallas senator who has passed all
sorts of legislation allowing his own company, Principal Management Group (who was
Nottingham’s management company at the time) was trying to get even MORE legislation
passed which would allow for the foreclosure of homes for non-payment of deed restriction
violation legal fees and association dues.
Principal Management Group is notorious for sending out
multiple notices of deed restriction violations (that homeowners never approved but that
Senator Carona had managed to implement anyway).
If Mary had prevailed in this matter, with the ensuing
publicity, Senator Carona’s efforts in the legislative session might have failed.
That was what this was all about!
For those
of you who don’t know the “players” in these scenarios;
Dawn is
the person at Principle Management Group that handled the Nottingham Country account.
MTG is
Michael T. Gainer, the association attorney.
Sam is
Samuel Griffin, a board member up until November 2003, and an HOA attorney himself who
secured other association accounts with referrals by PMG.
Matt is
Matt Landry, a board member up until November 2003, and a licensed real estate agent who
made a large profit when he purchased and re-sold one of the two homes foreclosed by
NCCIA. He was never a homeowner in Nottingham Country.
His WIFE owned his house, so he was ineligible to vote on
NCCIA matters or hold a position on the HOA board!
Rose Mary
is Rose Mary Smith, a newly elected director in November 2002, and later stripped of all
NCCIA duties in September 2004 and censored by the board for speaking against Mr. Barrow
and current board members.
McGarr or
Mary is
Mary McGarr, the board member who was removed at a recall meeting in May 2003.
The board members who moved to recall her were David Barrow,
Sam Griffin, Matt Landry, Rose Mary Smith, and Linda Rountree who just became a board
member in May 2003 to replace George Kochel.
George is
George Kochel, a board member re-elected in November 2002 and removed in January 2003
because he was declared ineligible to be a board member because he was not a legal owner
in Nottingham Country. His wife owned the house where he lived.
Mark or
Malhiot is
Mark Malhiot, re-elected to the board in November 2002 and voted president in December
2002 and 2003.
Len is Len
Messina, voted in as a director in November 2002, and later resigned in February 2005.
His last act as a board member was to submit Mary McGarr’s
name as his replacement.
(Of note is the fact that another NCCIA Board
member, who had capitulated to this crowd before he resigned, Rob David,
was also not the owner of his home.
His home was owned by his father, and he lived in it, and so
he too was ineligible to be a member of the Board of the NCCIA.)
The Board didn’t like Mary pointing out inconvenient matters like
ineligibility to serve on the Board!
Below is a
breakdown of the things carried out according to the “plans”.
Plan Blue:
this plan was to remove Mark Malhiot as president if he gave
the four board members (David Barrow, Sam Griffin, Matt Landry and Rose Mary Smith) any
problems about stripping Mary McGarr of her responsibilities and/or removing her from the
board.
This plan was not carried out because Mr. Malhiot did not prevent
the four from implementing Plan Magenta, which was to ultimately remove Director McGarr.
Plan Magenta:
this plan was to strip Mary McGarr of her responsibilities,
keep her in the dark about board activities and make her appear self-serving and power
hungry.
Thus paving the way for plan “Red”, which was to have her recalled.
Action:
Give Mark a set of firm expectations
Result:
Unknown.
Action:
Strip McGarr of Committee Responsibility.
Assign ACC to George: DR to Rose Mary.
Result:
carried out at the April 2003 board meeting, voting were
Barrow, Griffin, Landry and Smith to remove McGarr of the architectural control committee
and deed restriction committee duties and to give those committees to George Kochel and
Rose Mary Smith respectively.
Only 4 votes were needed at this meeting because there were
still only 7 directors.
It was only at this meeting that the board decided to appoint Linda
Rountree to replace George Kochel.
Action:
We all refuse to attend any further meetings or special meetings
(Mark, Len and Mary cannot then have a quorum to conduct
official business).
Result: Originally the board was to vote at the
March 2003 [sic] on the replacement for George Kochel.
This didn’t happen because directors Barrow, Griffin, Landry
and Smith said they could not attend the board meeting at the last minute.
This was not unusual for Director Griffin but it was for the
other directors.
Directors Malhiot, McGarr and Messina did attend but the three of
them were not
enough to form a quorum and hold a meeting.
Also in attendance were the members who had submitted their
application to fill Mr. Kochel’s vacancy.
Linda Rountree was not an applicant as yet.
Action:
Appoint Dave to head the Nominating Committee for next year’s elections and to manage the
election process.
Result: Director Barrow was appointed as the chairman of the nominating
committee at a later board meeting.
Action:
Cancel future board meetings (we’ve had our four).
(an interim option I will consider is to appoint Dave to
facilitate all future meetings of the Committees…….. Which gives me control over the
agenda and can allow Mark to continue to act as President in breaking tie votes…. I would
insist all motions be written and submitted in advance so that Board members have time to
consider them; items coming up ‘in the moment’ would in most circumstances be tabled for
future consideration…. We’d ask that the motion be written up by the mover, checked by the
seconder, then turned over to the Secretary.
It is critical that in all circumstances we refrain from
moving or seconding anything we haven’t agreed in advance.
In general we vote no to everything unless it is for tabling.
Action:
Notify PGM that McGarr (others not cooperating)
are to be ignored, dealt with through regular mail copies of correspondence to all
officers.
Result: This was done.
I remember in March and April of 2003 that several times when
I spoke with Director McGarr she made the comment that she was not receiving the usual
things from PMG anymore and her requests for things were being disregarded.
I had no reason to not believe her, but neither of us had a
clue as to the carefully planned conspiracy that was taking place.
Action:
If Mark refused Plan Magenta, he’s given an
opportunity to resign as President, or we go to Plan Blue.
Result:
All I can say here is that this might explain why Director
Malhiot seemed to do a turnabout since the November 2002 annual meeting where he was very
vocal about his concern as to the direction the board was headed.
He wanted to fix the things that were wrong with the board
and do things more for the homeowners instead of against the homeowners.
I remember he even spoke about refunding the service fee
because the association had an enormous amount of reserve cash and CD’s.
Of course this wasn’t done, but in addition, Director Malhiot
began more and more to take the same side as Directors Barrow, Griffin, Landry and Smith.
Even when Director Malhiot was shown this document recently,
he didn’t seem overly upset.
Action:
Matt to carefully edit the Blue pages to
eliminate Mary’s voice there.
Result:
This was done.
Director McGarr was not allowed to speak even on her own
behalf or to the board for quite some time before the May 2003 meeting when she was
recalled.
In fact, she was not allowed to speak much even at that meeting.
She only had a few short minutes to defend herself against
the claims the other board members brought against her.
The meeting didn’t consist of discussing issues.
It wasn’t conducted with any professionalism like the
presidential debates we all watched recently.
There was another email I read at the same time I read this
email.
It said something to the effect that Dave Barrow had instructed PMG
to ignore anything Director McGarr told them to do that had to do with the deed
restriction violations.
This was when she still had this responsibility.
PMG and especially Dawn were not doing the things she was
told to do by Director McGarr.
I’ve seen emails from Mrs. McGarr’s files that instruct Dawn
over and over again to send a particular letter or letters regarding violations she
herself saw, and Dawn never sent the letters.
(The emails of Mrs. McGarr had the names and address marked
out so I wouldn’t know who they referred to.)
Still other emails from Dave Barrow instruct Rose Mary Smith
to not send any deed restriction violations for a while after she took over these duties
in April of 2003, because he wanted Mary McGarr to get the blame for it.
Action:
Removal of Director Plan Red
Result: This was done. Mary McGarr was recalled at a special meeting in May 2003. Prior to that meeting five board members (David Barrow, Sam Griffin, Matt Landry, Rose Mary Smith, and Linda Rountree) wrote and mailed a lengthy letter to all the homeowners in Nottingham Country. This letter contained many inaccuracies, twisted truths and out-and-out lies. Unfortunately, Director McGarr didn’t have the funds to rebut this letter by mailing one of her own. I’ve asked Mrs. McGarr several times to write a rebuttal and I would publish it on the website. [?]
Action:
Seems to me like we start with Plan Magenta,
testing Mark to see if he will
a)
Appoint Dave to lead the nominating committee
b)
Remove Mary’s leadership of DR.
Result:
This was done.
It was important that Mr. Barrow be in charge of the
nominating committee because he wanted to prevent what happened at the 2002 annual meeting
when so many members attended and were nominated from the floor and then elected.
This is the way it should work, not the controlled “if you
meet my qualifications” attitude that now exists.
David Barrow is also the one that influenced the election in
2003 by writing biased comments about two of the candidates.
Mr. Barrow wanted control of the nominating committee long
before anyone else was even thinking about the next election.
Notice that they simply ignored Len Mesina in all of these matters even
though he was a duly elected board member.
As a result of this information being disclosed
and made public, David Barrow resigned in disgrace at the November 2004 Board meeting,
held just days before the November 2004 Annual Membership meeting.
Neither Mr. Barrow in his resignation speech nor his wife in
her letter she read to the Board at the beginning of the meeting, contained any denial
that Mr. Barrow wrote this document and carried it out. They were both just angry that he
had gotten caught!
Not only did the Association lose an honest board
member (in Mary McGarr) whose concerns truly were the homeowners', and one of its hardest
working directors, it also spent $8,400 to hold this recall meeting.
Mr. Barrow and his cohorts should be forced to repay this
expense to the members/homeowners of NCCIA along with a public apology to Mrs. McGarr for
these actions.
(And that never happened either!)