Recall

Timeline

11/15/22: Pointe South Mountain Board Member Jennifer Brossow made the following motion:

“I make the following motion based on the communication from our management team that over 50% of management labor is spent on tasks to manage court home maintenance. I propose that under a line item of professional fees/ management the court home maintenance budget is 80,772.

“Additionally, I move that in the common area budget, the management fee line be separated between management labor and management fee for common area. I propose the budget of 34,321 for management fee, 80,772 for labor and 21,445 for postage.

“Further, I propose that retroactively 50% of all management labor for 2022 is moved as an expense of the court home fund when labor is broken out. When labor is not broken out, I propose 40% of the entire management fee is retroactively moved as a charge to the court home fund.

“Further, I move that Erin perform a calculation of all labor including management, support staff and related administration to determine the actual time working on projects of court home maintenance including fielding court home maintenance calls, creating project scopes, contact vendors, procuring bids, inspecting properties, preparing court home proposals for board approvals and any additional tasks which are for the sole benefit of the courthomes and to which all common area owners do not benefit. Once the board receives this calculation the board will adjust the budgets to reflect the management companies’ calculations. If it is determined that the courthomes labor is equal to that of a full-time manager, I further propose that the board considers assigning and billing a dedicated court home manager along with any associated support staff expenses to be charged to the Courthome fund.”

MOTION PASSED 4-3 (needs to be verified)

11/19/22: A group of homeowners within the Pointe expressed their belief that the Motion itself was in violation of both PSMRA CC&R’s 6.2, and the permanent Court Injunction (Maricopa County Superior Court Case No. CV2012-017609 filed and dated 3/25/2014).

Because this Motion had the potential to negatively impact one side of the community, a group of Concerned Courthome Owners organized a communications response, from which posters were legally placed within the common areas of the community and an email was sent to a bulk set of email addresses that had been voluntarily provided in 2020 to a committee (now defunct) with no user restrictions.

11/22/22: PSMRA Board President Tyler Larkey emailed the entire community with his own response to the Motion, stating he wanted to clarify and correct what he believed to be misinformation. …Larkey shared the following financials graphic within the body of this communication.

From Tyler Larkey’s letter dated 11/22/22:

12/1/22: During a special PSMRA Open Board of Directors Meeting, the Board rescinded Brossow’s Motion from 11/15/22. Brossow then issued another Motion (below), which reworded language/content from the failed motion dated 11/15/22, and included the term “on advice of counsel,” but provided no documentation or statements to authenticate or substantiate this claim. Note that many owners at the Pointe believe this Motion is also in violation of both PSMRA CC&R’s 6.2, and the permanent Court Injunction (Maricopa County Superior Court Case No. CV2012-017609 filed and dated 3/25/2014).

Brossow’s motion was presented in three parts; each part was a motion with a second, discussion and vote. At the conclusion of this meeting, The Board did not have an unapproved budget for 2023.

Upon Brossow’s prompt to Larkey that the hour was getting late, Larkey began proceedings to adjourn the meeting. Brossow broke Rule of Order and returned to Part 3 of her motion, restating her Motion, which was seconded by Larson. After discussion, motion went to vote:
Yay = Susi Larson, Tyler Larkey, Jennifer Brossow, Lana Chovan Nay = Henry Walker, Eric Wagner—Note: By the time Brossow re-introduced the Motion, Bill Autrey had left the meeting. Motion Ultimately Passed 4:2

12/9/22: Board President Tyler Larkey sent another letter to all residents, noting that a group of Courthome owners had begun the process of recalling him and three other Board members. In this letter, he admonished the Courthome owners for sending unsolicited emails to addresses that belonged to the Association. He did not include the fact that the list was given freely to one of the Committees two years ago.

12/10/22: The Concerned Courthome Owners group invited residents to an informational “open house” at the Monte Way pool. A mix of more than 50 single-family and garden home owners stopped by. Board President Tyler Larkey, along with Board members Susi Larson and Lana Chivon, set up their own table, inviting residents to “Have Wine with the Board.” At this event, the Courthome owners encouraged residents to obtain information from both sides.

12/13/22 – PSMRA Annual Meeting. Bill Autrey and Henry Walker completed their terms. Amy Gamache and Tom Gabrielle were elected.

1/8/23: A Concerned Courthome Owners’ Recall Rally was held at the Euclid pool, informational flyers were distributed and more than 50 residents were in attendance, including current Board Members and single-family and garden home owners, who were engrossed in active discussions about the recall.

1/14/23: The Board of Directors invited the entire community to a BYO/Pot Luck.

1/17/23: Copies of more than 130 signed petitions to recall Tyler Larkey, Susi Larson, Jennifer Brossow and Lana Chovan were hand-delivered to FSR.

Subsequent to receiving, FSR requested the originals, which were sent via certified mail and signed for on 1/30/23.

2/13/23: Susi Larson sent an email to “friends and neighbors,” encouraging them to vote “no” on the upcoming Recall Ballot, and urged the recipients to pass the email along. Her email also included these financials:

According to Larson’s figures above, Common Area management fees in 2020 were $62,620, and in 2021 they were $177,320, an increase of $114,700 in one year.

Notably, the information Tyler Larkey provided in November is in direct conflict with these numbers. According to Larkey’s communication to all residents on 11/22/22, Common Area management fees in 2020 were $61,020, and in 2021 $85,632, an increase of $24,612.

2/14/23: First Service Residential (FSR), the Pointe South Mountain management company, confirmed that the Vote HOA recall ballots were delayed due to “technical difficulties.” Vote HOA was unable to confirm technical issues, and referred all inquiries to FSR.

2/15/23 – All property owners were sent an official “Invitation to Vote” email from the Pointe South Mountain eVoting Administrator. The supporting documents, (Recall Charges), which explain in specifics the charges against each Board member being recalled (and why the Pointe owners signed the recall petitions), was not included in the Vote HOA ballot. As a result, 800+ property owners were asked to vote to remove members of the Board of Directors with no explanation or demonstration of evidence.

Because the Ballots did not include the official charges, the Concerned Courthome Owners emailed the charges to the entire community, stating “The Recall ballot did not include the recall charges for each director, possibly due to the technical issues that delayed the ballot. We want you to have the facts to make informed decisions. The charges are listed below, please review and VOTE!”

2/16/23: PSMRA Board President Tyler Larkey sent a bulk email to the entire community falsely tying an abusive email, harassment and defamation to the Concerned Courthome Owners group.

3/2/23: Recall results:
50.62% of ALL homeowners voted in the election (451 out of 841)
79.47% of Courthome voters Voted YES to Recall and Remove (151 out of 190)
14.69% of SF/GH voters Voted YES to Recall and Remove (36 out of 245)
42.98% of ALL voters Voted YES to recall and Remove (187 out of 435)

Charges

Voting Results

Information about the Recall Results

On March 9, FirstService Residential (FSR) emailed a downloadable file (PSMRA 2023 Recall Vote Results.pdf) to the entire community containing personal information (property ID, first and last name of owner) about each and every voting member — and how they voted.  On March 18, FSR sent a reminder email to the entire community with a link (https://portal.connectresident.com/#/community/documents) to the voting results.  This file (“Recall Ballots – March 2, 2023/VoteTotals2023BoardofDirectorsRemovalMeeting”), which includes the full information of all voters, is currently available to all owners under the “Forms and Documents” tab on the FSR website.

Many owners at the Pointe were under the impression that information about their vote would be held in confidence by the management company and association attorneys, and were outraged at the decision by the Association to openly share this information.  The information posted also included complete information about Board Members’ votes.

Many owners shared the PDF file widely, causing even more angst among owners who felt strongly that their privacy be protected.   To address the growing outrage, Board President Tyler Larkey called an open Board of Directors meeting on March 21, which was rescheduled to March 28, to express his own initial shock at seeing the information, then asked the association attorney (Mark Sahl) to explain that the decision was “within the law” even though another legal opinion obtained by this group stated that the Association’s decision violated PSMRA’s own bylaws.  Larkey, later in the same meeting, admitted that he directed FSR to publish the results. (Please visit FSR’s portal to download an audio version of that meeting when it becomes available.)

Ultimately, FSR redacted only the personal information tied to the actual voting results within the “Records of Recall – March 2^nd, 2023” file, which was reposted March 24, 2023.  However, the document that currently resides on the FSR portal STILL contains the personal information of each and every petitioner, including full signatures that could be copied and used in identity theft/fraud. 

This group believes that, regardless of legal opinion, the Association’s persistence in sharing private information (especially selective information exclusively belonging to those petitioners seeking removal of officers) is irresponsible, reckless, negligent and a failure of leadership.