Dear Residents,

One aspect of last week's Annual Members' Meeting and Election is very concerning to all of us on the Board -- the process by which Residents voted for Board members did not go as smoothly as we hoped.

Our HOA Bylaws require that each member submit their vote in person or by proxy at the annual Meeting of the Members. The “proxy” (the top portion of the proxy form) allows the Board Secretary, or the person named in the blank line, to submit the vote on behalf of the household during the Meeting. Unfortunately, a number of members returned only the ballot (bottom portion of the form) and did not attend the annual Meeting of the Members. In accordance with best practices and guidance from the Association’s Attorney 40 ballots could not be counted.

A consolation is the 40 uncounted ballots, or 18% of those cast, would not have altered the election results as you can see below. Again, in order for a ballot to be valid, the household would had to have attended the annual Meeting of the Members.

Please note the array of votes cast below:

For reference and further explanation, there were a total of 182 households that submitted valid proxy forms or ballots. If all could have been counted, there would have been 222 households voting. Both the 2020 Board and management worked to create clear instructions but it is apparent that improvements can be made. We apologize! The Board in conjunction with Management will work to improve the process moving forward to ensure this does not happen again! 

Our goal in 2021 is to have public sessions about possible changes to our legal documents which we all must vote on. One thing we will be asking our attorney is “can we eliminate the proxy and just have a ballot”. If this is allowable by Maryland law for a not-for-profit corporation like SV we may want to consider voting “yes” to delete it in all or even some cases like our elections.

This year having a virtual meeting and the count extended if you had attended the meeting made it all the more confusing. Let’s hope that the next time we all vote in 2022 it’s an easier, in person process.

Thank you for your support and patience as we continue to navigate the challenges of 2020.

Sincerely,

The Symphony Village Board