Au contraire, "chaskacounterpoint". Au contraire.

For one, I'm unable to see any disagreement we have regarding Ben Franklin.

Where we MAY disagree is that you seem to think it's acceptable to take public pot shots at elected officials hiding behind a screen name. I find it cowardly. We can agree to disagree with this position, but again, I don't see any disagreement on Ben Franklin. Agreed?

Secondly, you state, "If you cannot see that we have a problem in Chaska with a certain group of people controlling everything then we will never be able to have a meaningful discussion." I don't know that I "cannot see that we have a problem", I'm just not sure what I'm seeing is the same thing you THINK you're seeing. You've already given a clear indication what you THINK you see may be totally incorrect. What am I talking about you might ask? In 1/2 of one sentence, you provided FOUR, count`em four, misstatements. That certainly may be a record, "chaskacounterpoint". You deserve a thorough explanation. Here are the FACTS:

1. You stated, "...you were the one who found the loop hole in the Jonathan By-Laws..."

Well "chaskacounterpoint", rest assured, it wasn't me who identified what you call a "loop hole".

2. Secondly, it clearly isn't a loophole. According to Merriam-Webster online, a loophole is "an ambiguity or omission in the text through which the intent of a statute, contract, or obligation may be evaded." This is CLEARLY not the intent of the Associations By-laws. The By-laws read:

ARTICLE V, Section 3. Removal. Any director may be removed from the Board, with or without cause, by a majority vote of the members of the Association voting thereon at a duly called meeting of the Association.

Certainly you will agree "chaskacounterpoint" this is NOT ambiguous, nor an omission. It is concisely stated and most understand it was written into the By-laws intentionally to allow the Association Membership to remove board members who are acting irresponsibly or detrimentally to the well being of the Association. So to call the removal a loophole is very inaccurate!

3. You then stated, "...and came with enough voting residents to throw most of the elected board out." I came to the meeting knowing only one other person absolutely knew I was going to put forth a motion. That was the gentleman who seconded the motion. There were two other individuals I discussed what we were considering, but they didn't know for sure until the motion was made. The last time we spoke there were too many unanswered issues "in-the-air" that needed to be resolved. There were a total of 8 people who I bounced the idea off of in late January 2008. These eight include the three previously mentioned. However, after that discussion, it was left as just an idea that may have no merit. No other conversations with this entire group occurred.

An interesting point of irony is that it was my intent to send a letter to all Jonathan residents inviting them to come to the Annual Meeting to vote on the motion. I was intending to let all the residents know about the motion and explain why it was necessary. However, the board delayed providing me with the address list as long as possible and ultimately provided very little time to get a mailing out to the membership.

You may recall the President providing a sad excuse for the delay saying he even went to the Association's attorney to see if he could provide me with the mailing list because "another owner had requested the list earlier". Please note the attorney stated in a letter to the board back in May 2007 that the address list must be made available. The board eagerly voted to put the letter on the Association's website because as one board member said, it would embarrass me. In fact it proved my point. The board was clueless. They had an answer to the address issue in May 2007, posted it to the website; received another request from another individual in October 2007 and the President took his valuable time to ask the attorney if it was necessary AGAIN in late January 2008. Talk about a waste of Associations money!!! All he had to do was read the May 2007 letter. This is just one example of how incompetent and mean-spirited the clowns were.

So, to be fair to all parties, something that seemed to escape the ousted board, I choose not to tell anyone other than those previously mentioned about the planned motion. As you may know, the PBJ has an extensive email address database. I certainly could have used it to communicate the planned motion to over 300 Jonathan residents, but I decided against it. Some actually do want to be fair.

So "chaskacounterpoint", your premise is incorrect. I did NOT come with "enough voting residents" to remove those wasting the Associations money. However, if just the eight who had some information showed up at the meeting, it still would have passed. As you may know, the Association invited over 3,000 people to the meeting. I invited no one. Only fifty chose to attend. 96% of those attending didn't know the motion was going to be made. With the apt vote's that were present, the vote was not as previously reported by this paper, but was actually 82 for removal and 4 against and two of those four were the ousted board members. Shouldn't they have reclused themselves from the vote? Of course they should have, but it wasn't like them to act responsibly. If they had the vote would have been 82 - 2.

4. You then stated, "...to throw most of the elected board out." Again you are mistaken. Using the word "elected" is questionable at best. Here’s why:

Six board members were removed. One was placed on the board "illegally" or "non-compliantly". He was put on the board as a write-in candidate. The Association's Governing Documents do not permit "write-in" candidates, as all board candidates MUST be nominated. He chose to avoid having his name made public. When this issue was raised at the very next Board Meeting, the President said she'd forward the issue to the Associations attorney, which she did. The attorney came back and said "write-in" candidates are NOT permitted. This board member was sitting on the board illegally. The attorney's response was hidden from other board members and those who knew about the attorney's opinion choose to ignore the opinion they paid to obtain. So I wouldn't agree he was an "elected board member"

One of the removed board Members never ran for a board position. He was appointed to the board to fill a board vacancy. So, I wouldn't call this board member "elected" either.

Three of the other four board members were placed on the board due solely to an incorrect tabulation of apartment votes. Several on the board knew the tabulation was incorrect at the time and two current board members clearly know how this occurred. Talk about corruption! You may not be aware but in January 2008 I asked the Chairperson of the Election Committee (or Nominating Committee), the one who established the election rules (and gave them to the Women's League of Voter's to make the elections look legitimate in 2006 and 2007) if 100 homeowners voted in the election, how many votes would the apartment owners have allocated. His response was 300. He was corrected by another board member who said, 297. I was criticized for raising the question. "Chaskacounterpoint" you may be surprised to know that the answer is 98. So, when one person who is hell-bent on destroying the Association wins by 7 votes, and which he received all of the apartment owner votes, it's difficult to accept that he was "elected". Certainly a civic-minded person like you would agree. This "new math" was also used to get the other two board members on the board. Again, "elected" is a stretch.

That leaves one board member that was duly and appropriately removed, who MAY have been appropriately elected. But we'll never know for sure because an employee of the Association revealed that one of the removed board members shredded some, if not all, the ballots. I wonder why he would have shredded the ballots if the board members were appropriately elected and the apartment votes correctly tabulated. Again, I'm willing to bet a civic-minded person like yourself would be outraged, "chaskacounterpoint".

I do appreciate your opening the door to some of these issues so I could provide clarity to some of the rumors circulating in the community. These are usually circulated by those with just a nugget of information and often choose to include their own opinions and state them as facts.

So, provided the above information, you may understand why I'm a little skeptical as to your assertions about city officials. You provided some information as if it was factual and as demonstrated, it is not.

If people's rights are being violated, or if corruption exists, I'm all for effectuating change. But I encourage you to make sure your "facts" are accurate and burn the hood. It's much more respectful.

Respectfully, from a man of few words,

Mike Sibley