Tag: voting

Annual Meeting 2021

There is a history of low attendance at Rio Crossing Homeowners Association Annual Meetings.

Okay, I get it: meetings in general are boring, and what could be more boring than an HOA meeting, right?

Except this is your association. You belong. You are a member (if you’re an owner of a home in Rio Crossing). You have a right to be there, and a right to vote.

Vote? Vote for what, or whom? There are five of us currently on the Board of Directors. According to our Bylaws, an election is held every year – technically “at the annual meeting”. But keep in mind that our governing documents were written back in 2004, when meeting in person was pretty much the only viable option for most people.

Fast forward to today. Everyone Zooms! Most people don’t want to “get presentable” and drive to a location they know nothing about and meet with people they’ve never seen before. Now you can meet with us via Zoom, see what happens at a board meeting (it can still be pretty boring – but not always!), and get to know those of us that represent you in the overall management of the community.

Details… You Want Details!

Call for Candidates – Responses Due No Later Than September 13 at 8:30am

Want to be on the board? We welcome new volunteers! A Call for Candidates is in the mail and should arrive in your postal mailbox around September 1, and is sent to the owner’s mailing address on record for each lot.

To be included on the ballot, your response to the Call for Candidates needs to be submitted no later than Monday September 13 at 8:30am, and can be submitted via postal mail, email, or fax. Submittal instructions are included with the mailing.

Owners Receive Ballots – Around September 20

The ballots and the official Meeting Notice will be prepped for mailing starting September 13, and normally take about a week to arrive in owner mailboxes, around September 20 or soon thereafter.

Ballots Due In – Date and Time Depend on the Method of Submittal

Here’s where it gets tricky. When your ballot is due depends on how you intend to vote.

If you’re going to physically mail it in via USPS or any other means of physical delivery, it should be received in the PDS office several days before the Annual Meeting. We all know that postal service timing of deliveries has not been very speedy in recent months, so we recommend you send some other means… otherwise, send early!

If you are going to send via Email or Fax per the instructions on the ballot form, your ballot needs to be received no later than noon on the day of the Annual Meeting, to allow time for printing (hardcopies are always generated) and processing.

ARS 33-1812 states that “The association shall provide for votes to be cast in person.” If you wish to cast a ballot in person, bring your completed ballot to the picnic area along Roma between 5pm and 6pm on the day of the Annual Meeting. I will be there along with John Lavin, another community member, to collect any in-person ballots. 6pm is a firm cut-off time, because then the ballots have to be scanned and sent electronically to PDS for counting.

Annual Meeting – Thursday October 28, 2021 at 7pm via Zoom

Last year’s annual meeting was virtual. This year’s will be as well.

Details of the meeting, including the Zoom link, will be sent by our management company via “E-Blast” to anyone registered on the RioCrossing.org web site. Information will also be in the ballot packet you’ll receive around September 20. If you’re not registered on the website or can’t find your ballot form, contact Lisa to get the information.

Annual Meeting and Election Postponed

At its regular board meeting in early July, the board made the decision to postpone the annual member meeting and board election to Thursday, November 5, 2020.

Note: It was originally rescheduled for November 12, 2020, but that’s the day after Veteran’s Day; it was moved forward a week to November 5.

Like most people, we were hopeful and optimistic that the COVID-19 situation would be way better by now. While there is some indication that the situation may be improving, the board indicated an intention to move forward with an online meeting in November.

“But we usually meeting in September — don’t we have to meet every September?” While we’d love to stick with tradition, the association’s bylaws state “An annual meeting of the Members of the Association shall be held at least once each year…”, which is generally understood to mean once during each calendar year.

At the board’s next meeting (scheduled for September), we’ll review and approve an election process and meeting approach being worked on by the president, the community manager, and the association’s attorney.

If you are new to Rio Crossing, the process for the election usually goes something like this:

  1. The management company sends out a “call for candidates”, and anyone wanting to submit their name for the ballot fills out and returns a form.
  2. The management company prepares a ballot and a candidate information handout.
  3. The ballot, candidate information handout, and a postage-paid return envelope are mailed to each owner’s address (mailing addresses may be different than the property addresses for some owners).
  4. Owners submit a ballot (1 ballot per lot owned) per the included instructions via postal mail, email, or fax; alternatively, an owner can chose to attend the meeting in person and cast a ballot there.
  5. During the annual meeting the ballots are tallied and the results announced.

Obviously, if the meeting is online and not in-person, then it’s not possible to “come to the meeting and vote”. Also, there are some alternate methods of voting electronically, but to meet the security and processing requirements of an association’s governing documents and various state statutes, available suitable electronic voting technologies tend to be cost-prohibitive.

We’ll send more information out just after the September board meeting. We will do what we can to facilitate the election process and everyone’s attendance at an online meeting. The last few board meetings have been hosted by PDS using the GoToMeeting online service, and a few homeowners have “attended” the meetings successfully, so we’re confident that this will work well.

Anecdotal information from other HOAs is that online annual meetings have been much better attended than prior in-person meetings. We hope that is the case here in Rio Crossing, and look forward to seeing you online!