My decision not to attend "special meeting" to postpone election

After careful consideration, I have decided not to attend tonight’s (Jan. 13) special meeting to discuss postponing the Jan. 27 Board of Directors meeting.

As you know, this evening was supposed to be dedicated to Candidates Night, and I believe my attending would only dignify the decision to cancel and/or postpone the candidate forum in favor of this soapbox for Board members. The candidates are the ones who should be sitting on the dais tonight addressing unit owners, not me. And since the Board majority seems intent on turning the proceedings into a sort of trial to blame me for their desire to postpone the election, I think my presence there would only contribute to the circus atmosphere. The owners don’t need to hear from me or other Board members who are not up for reelection, and I don't think such an exchange would serve any useful purpose. The owners want to hear from the candidates, especially the non-incumbent candidates who are being unfairly denied the opportunity to address them on a night that had been set aside for them to present their platforms, especially since it is universally acknowledged that none of the three non-incumbent candidates had anything to do with the so-called “Nancy Schuette affair” that this meeting is reportedly being called to discuss.

I have received some emails from owners who were offended by what they called the aggressive tone of my recent emails/blog posts. Allow me to put them in context: For the last year, and especially the last few weeks, I have been the target of relentless, baseless, innuendo-filled attacks on my character and motivations regarding my efforts to control spending and reduce the common charges on unit owners. These attacks have come in the form of blast emails from an individual whom the majority of Board members have been perfectly content to use as their personal attack dog, constantly feeding him information or disinformation they think he can use in his attacks, which typically consist of outlandish questions about allegedly unethical or illegal acts I have supposedly committed, which are difficult to challenge in court as libel because they are deliberately phrased as questions, not statements. My last couple of emails were my attempt to give them a taste of their own medicine. To the extent that owners missed this subtle point and were offended by the tone of my remarks, I apologize. To clarify, I have no evidence that any Board member threatened Ms. Schuette, but neither do they have any evidence that I had prior knowledge of her withdrawal or that I improperly “manipulated” the election by endorsing her. But of course that didn't stop them from leveling these inflammatory charges.

One final word about this:  I believe Ms. Schuette was used as a political football by both sides in this affair and she deserves an apology, regardless of her confusing actions. I hope Board member Frances Mesirow and others who improperly disseminated her private email correspondence for the entire community to see will join me in apologizing to her for the unwelcome attention. And I hope cooler heads will prevail the next time someone considers violating an owner’s privacy for personal political gain. On a side note, I also believe this incident is another example of why we should reject the proposed camera surveillance system. After such blatant disregard for privacy driven by a “win at all cost” mentality, does anyone trust Board members not to abuse their power to spy on potential opponents if we foolishly give them such a tool?

Let’s hope Board members do the right thing tonight (Jan. 13) and allow International Village to go back to discussing the real issues that owners care about. A good start would be to reschedule Candidates Night and allow the election to proceed as planned.