The Montgomery Village Whetstone HOA Covenant Amendment Ballot Results

You had to be in the room! The room... the Montgomery Village Foundation (MVF) offices at 3:00PM on September 16. The long awaited Whetstone Homes Corporation (WHC) amendment ballot count took place fully ten days after the voting deadline of September 6. Why the delay? Well, it took ten days to assemble the WHC ballot counters. Were they reluctant to face the music? So much for commitment!

Yes, you had to be in the room to learn the results of the Whetstone amendment ballot vote. Every proposed amendment failed. Despite the fact that For votes uniformly exceeded Against votes, it was the two-thirds quorum threshold that signaled the landslide defeat.... that, coupled with a 71% turnout.

How close was it?

It wasn’t close at all. Amendments 1, 2, 4, and 5 exceeded the threshold of failure by a factor of 3-6; amendment 3, by a factor of 2-3. These persistent factors ensured that failure of the ballot amendment was evident early in the vote counting process. Needless to say, the WHC Board members were shocked by these results, some in actual disbelief.

What went wrong?

1. There was the failure of the ballot canvassers to turn out the vote. Did canvassers deliver late arrivals? No, there were 127 households that did not submit a ballot. Canvassing directions were promised for the Whetstone web page in the July 22 MV News Whetstone Watch column, but these directions never appeared. If the ballot canvassers had set a goal and delivered 80% ballot returns of 358, the threshold of failure would have widened to 60, enough to meet the quorum for amendment 1, 2, 4, and 5. As it was, the WHC Board does not even know how many ballot canvassers were active. So much for goals and management!

2. The two-thirds quorum threshold (298) and the 71% turnout (315) resulted in a thin threshold of failure (315 - 298 = 17). With 315 acceptable ballots and a quorum requirement of 298 in a community of 447 households, it required only 18 (17 + 1) Against or No Votes to defeat amendments 1, 2, 4, and 5. The amendment 3 quorum requirement is 60% or 269 because it includes finance so the threshold of failure here is 47.

3. It needs to be pointed out that the 17 threshold of failure should actually have been 13. The revised Whetstone Voting Procedure stated, “Ballots must be received by September 6, 2016.” The word “received” was declared by the board during the ballot counting to mean postmarked as opposed to actually being received at the MVF offices on Apple Ridge Road. There were 7 ballots received showing postmarks later than September 6 with three being declared invalid for other reasons. The effect of this improper interpretation was to allow 4 late ballots.

4. The large number of of diverse amendments was both confusing and off putting to many homeowners. The original purpose of the amendment ballot, to defeat the requested adult daycare facility on Breckenridge, was lost sight of in the process.

5. Dithering on the ballot deadline was also a confusing factor. Recall that the original deadline in the amendment ballot package mailed out had been 5:00PM August 29, only to be changed to September 6 a few weeks after ballots had already been sent and more than a hundred ballots had been cast.

6. The coordination of voting deadline, ballot counting, MV News publication schedule, and WHC Board meeting date was lost when the voting deadline and WHC Board meeting dates were changed. The upshot is that instead of learning the results of the ballot amendment vote on September 8, homeowners must wait until the rescheduled September 29 WHC Board meeting.

Where does that leave Whetstone?

The state of community outcomes as a result of the failure of the Whetstone ballot amendments is as follows:

1. The use of a dwelling unit as a business that provides adult day care services is unchanged.
2. The use of a quorum of 50% of eligible voting residences to consider an amendment to the covenants or other community-wide propositions is not allowed.
3. The imposition of an automatic increase of 1% each year of the Whetstone portion of the annual assessment is not allowed.
4. Whetstone Homes Corporation Board of Directors does not possess the power of sole discretion to remove community assets.
5. The existing ban on private pickup trucks remains in effect. Overnight parking of non-commercial pickup trucks on a private driveway is not allowed.

What lessons can be learned?

In terms of lessons learned what can the WHC Board learn from this unfortunate experience, consider the following:

1. Utilize ballot canvassers to better advantage through improved management, instructions, and appropriate effective goal setting.
2. Use straightforward and commonplace language and interpretations in the Whetstone Voting Procedure with respect to the meaning of “receive” to avoid confusion over postmarked versus arrival at MV offices.
3. Achieve a better anticipation of the interactions among quorum, turnout, and expected voter responses on the proposed issues or amendments.
4. Greatly improve the ballot counting process and professional spreadsheet practices so that the actual counts for For, Against, and No Vote are fully completed, verifiably correct, and transparently visible to all before the ballot counting session is adjourned and ballot counters are excused.
5. Correctly establish the ballot submission deadline in the Whetstone Voting Procedures with no ad hoc changes permitted once the ballots are sent out. Assign a version number and date in accordance with good office procedures.
6. Coordinate the voting deadline, MV News publication schedule, WHC Board meeting schedule, and ballot counting date, and the the posting of voting results on the Whetstone web page to eliminate delays and ensure transparency.
7. Specify the 30-day ballot information and worksheet destruction date in terms of ballot deadline date, counting date, WHC Board election results certification date, the date for release and posting of results on the Whetstone web page.

The board is urged to enact these changes.