Dear Fellow Members As many know, I filed a member right to vote lawsuit after the RCSC board announced it would not allow members to vote on member made motions to amend the bylaws at the 2025 annual meeting. I did not file the lawsuit before the announcement. I withdrew the lawsuit because the board, as they had the legal right to do, stalled responding to the suit until after the membership meeting was over and 1,700+ members were denied the right to vote. During the annual meeting Mr. Foster declared without a doubt “we” will recover all costs from the Plaintiff. During the May 2025 Board meeting Steve Collins called the lawsuit I filed “frivolous” and asked for an explanation of why the Board did not go after me for the added fees. Mr. Foster gratuitously responded with how I caused one of three insurers to drop D&O coverage for RCSC. Mr. Collins also inappropriately asked one candidate for an open board slot why she did not stop Fast from filing the lawsuit. I will not respond to a board who abuse their position to assassinate a member’s character. The suit was well founded, narrowly focused and filed in good faith. I took every step I personally could have to avoid or resolve the matter. I did not hire a lawyer or ask to be reimbursed for any costs. The court accepted my good faith withdrawal of the lawsuit and properly recognized that the suit was not frivolous, and no costs were awarded to either party. I filed the lawsuit because the board had refused to recognize it had changed the bylaws to grant the members the absolute right to make and vote on bylaw amendments regardless of what the board wanted at the September 28, 2023 board meeting. (Please see video) I was on the Board at that time. In explaining the motion, Jim Rough stated: “If a bunch of members come up and want to change something the board has done or wants to do something the board does not want to do, they have the right to do it whether we like it or not”. When I voted for the change, I trusted the members would be informed and engaged on important issues (like the proposed library closure) and the Board could make its position known on any bylaw amendment motion made by the members that it thought was not good for the members. It is disheartening that the Board, who is supposed to represent the members, chooses to viciously and relentlessly attack any member who seeks to disagree or assert their rights when they feel the Board has acted improperly. The canned legal mumbo jumbo that Mr. Foster recited at the 2025 annual meeting as to why a vote was being prohibited by the Board was unintelligible, even to someone like me with 42 years of legal experience. His statement that the Board would recover all fees incurred in the suit was completely unfounded, constituted providing legal advice without a license and in my opinion was solely intended to intimidate all those in the audience. Later, he gave a nonsensical answer to why he didn’t recover any fees. Some may argue that the Board is what it is because members choose not to get involved. Based on my experience of being viscously attacked by board members, can you reasonably expect anyone will want to be involved as long as it is the cheapest game in town?
And I wonder whatever happened to those 14 motions to amend the bylaws that were not presented to the Membership at the Annual Membership Meeting? I don't really think it's fair to allow the bylaw "working committee" to decide whether or not they should be included in the revised bylaws. It was, after all, a meeting of the Members and the Members are the ones who should decide, via debate and vote, as to whether or not they wanted to accept those amendments....Why? Because now, the only opportunity the Members have to discuss those motions, whether or not they are even addressed in the revised bylaws, will be at the Town Hall meetings. And assuming the Members have an opinion, it will only be an opinion of one or two Members, and not the consensus of the 1,767 Member votes that were represented at the Annual Membership meeting. And so it gets worse... So it's going to end up allowing only the Board to decide because the Members have now lost their ability to vote on the amendments, and that vote will now ultimately be decided at a Board meeting of 9 members rather than 1,767 Members. That, in my opinion is unacceptable BS, and it down right SUCKS!.
Been saying this for years. Maybe a bumper sticker? Something like: Sun City - The rat race is over, the rats won.
