Gary Baum decides to Appoint an existing Board Member to a 2nd term instead following Election Process.
Full text from Gary below.
Board of Director Announcement
For many of you who are not aware, we have recently had a Board Director submit his resignation. In our governing documents, you are not allowed to be a Board Director if all of your Haig Point properties are listed for sale. One of our Directors, Mark McKniff owns two properties here at Haig Point, a lot that he has had listed for sale for some time and his home, which he has just recently decided to list for sale. Once he did this, he had 30 days to resign from the Board, which he officially did on December 5th.
Once Mark resigned it then became the Board’s responsibility to fill the Board position for the remaining two years of Mark’s term. The Haig Point governing documents gives the Board full discretion in how and with whom they fill it. In prior situations the Board has used different philosophies to fill the position, usually driven by the various circumstances at that time. The situation this time is a little bit unique because it is occurring at the same time that three of the seven Board positions are turning over in this year’s election process that we are currently in the middle of.
After some deliberation, the remaining Board Directors have unanimously agreed to have Mike Hackman fill the remaining two years of Mark’s term. Mike is the one current Board member whose term was ending in January, but still had a second term availability. This decision was driven by the Board’s desire not to have four new directors, or a majority of the board, turnover all at once. This would not be in the Club’s best interest and is the reason all Boards have staggered terms. This allows the Board to maintain a greater level of continuity between the current and the new Board, especially when so many long-term initiatives and strategies are currently in process.
Another factor that influenced the Board’s decision is that Mike is the only Board member who does not live and work here. It would have been possible, depending on the outcome of the current election, that the new Board was only made up of members who live at Haig Point. That is very problematic for decision making processes considering the majority of Haig Point’s members do not live here. Mike’s advocacy for the non-resident members has been extremely important in keeping the Board focused on all of the Haig Point membership, not just those who live here. Mike currently lives and works in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Some members have suggested just having the fourth-place candidate in the current election fill the opening. Besides the fact that this would cause the negative impact of having the majority of the board to turnover at the same time as discussed above, but this would also not be fair to those members who submitted their Board application to the nominating committee but were not ranked in the top three.
One last thing, please cast your vote in the Board of Directors election. The ideal outcome of any Haig Point vote is 100% membership participation.
Gary Baum
Loosing power is a sad motive for depriving excellence. You are witnessing part of the problem, not a solution. People need to speak up and vote accordingly for change.