Telecom Update from 10/4 Delegate’s Meeting

Let’s talk about some takeaways from yesterday’s Delegates Assembly Meeting, specifically – 

Line-Item Veto, Meeting Procedure and Order of Business, The Right to Speak and Proper Decorum and Respect for Members. There was also the takeaway of the authority of the delegates to approve a company to negotiate future bulk telecom agreements, but I’ll speak to that in my next post.

LINE ITEM VETO

Well, the Delegates Assembly has come and gone and as expected, I wasn’t able to bring up the motion to table the line item that covers the Breezeline contract for sixty days. Another delegate made a motion before me requesting that the AMR line item of the budget be tabled. The UCO president, Fausto Fabbro, told the delegate that she could not table the line item. She could only veto the line item or pass it, that tabling the item was not allowed. For me to make a similar motion would’ve been a moot point. 

So, the next step is to research the bylaws to determine if what he said is actually true or not. I read the bylaws previously and did not see any mention of the word table or tabling in the UCO bylaws. I will reserve comment until I do the research and report back to you.

As a result, the budget was passed in its entirety, including the $3.8 million fee to be paid to Breezeline. All is not lost, however, in that the $3.8 million will still be part of the negotiations of any new contract by Breezeline or any other telecom company, should Breezeline wish to make a new proposal.

DELEGATES APPROVAL AUTHORITY
More importantly, is the statement made by the UCO president that the delegates have no authority to approve or disapprove a contract to a negotiating firm to negotiate any future bulk telecom agreements! When I asked for clarification on that, the UCO president stated, “that’s why you elected us, to negotiate contracts on your behalf.” By the way, you can watch his comments and the entirety of the Delegates Assembly meeting on YouTube.
This flies in the face of the whole purpose of UCO being in existence. If what he is saying is true, then why do we even have a Delegates Assembly to approve any contracts? I have a lot to say about this topic that I will discuss in my next post.

PROPER DECORUM AND RESPECT FOR MEMBERS
One other noteworthy item that you will notice on the video replay of the Delegates Assembly is the high degree of disrespect that the UCO president continues to display towards delegates and guests who are entitled to speak, whether it is in the form of a question or a statement. His lack of respect is not limited to just the Delegates Assembly, but to any meetings that he attends, which are on full display at any of the committee meetings on YouTube. On several occasions I went to the microphone and requested that he be respectful of the speakers and allow them to ask the question or make their point without interruption. My requests went unheeded. This also applied to local County guest speakers as well.

RIGHT TO SPEAK
The right to speak uninterrupted, is guaranteed under the following rules:

1. The UCO bylaws, as stated in Section K, “RIGHT TO SPEAK”, which states, “All members shall have the right to speak at all meetings of the Delegate Assembly with reference to all items included on the agenda prior to vote on such items by the assembly. The assembly is authorized to adopt reasonable rules, as amended from time to time, governing the frequency, duration and other manner of Member statements. EACH MEMBER SHALL BE ENTITLED TO A REASONABLE PERIOD OF TIME, AS DETERMINED BY DELEGATE ASSEMBLY RULES, BUT NEVER LESS THAN THREE (3) MINUTES, UNINTERRUPTED, IN WHICH TO STATE HIS OR HER VIEWS ON THE MATTER BEING DISCUSSED.” This applies to any speaker including the delegates who speak regarding an agenda item that may be up for a vote, or while making a motion during “New Business”, and/or anyone speaking during the “Good of the Order”, and,

2. The United States Supreme Court, case law, 1964 case, New York Times versus Sullivan, where the justices wrote, “This nation is founded on the profound national commitment to the principles that debate on public issues shall be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”

In the case of 2. above, as the Delegates Assembly is the second lowest form of government, with an Association board meeting being the lowest, the powers given by Florida Statute 617 to the UCO president and his staff cannot supersede the United States Constitution, even in the case of rhetorical hyperbole.
All of this basically means that anyone who is able to speak while addressing an item or issue, whether it is a delegate addressing an item to be voted on, or any other person who speaks during “Good of the Order”, has the right to speak, uninterrupted, regardless of the opinion of those with or opposed to theirs, for minimum of three minutes, again, on interrupted, per the UCO bylaws. It is their right to critique the impropriety or rule breaking of those who are on the stage. They do not have to be nice to those being addressed, nobody before or behind them has to be nice to those on the stage, and they have a right to speak for the whole three minutes without interruption. That, my friends and fellow citizens, is the law. In one particular case of a school board in Pennsylvania, the attorney for the school board refused to allow three gentlemen to speak for their allotted time, uninterrupted, because they disagreed with school board policy and he disagreed with their interpretation that policy. They sued and won a $300,000 legal settlement. The school board attorney was fired and several of the school board commissioners were replaced or reassigned – simply because they would not allow members of the community their legal right to speak.

I’m sure that some of you have heard of the “Supremacy Clause”, which simply means that no law or rule takes precedence over the Constitution of the United States. That applies to anyone and everyone from the president of the United States down to the lowliest board member on a condo board, or in this case, the staff and officers of the UCO board.

MEETING PROCEDURE AND ORDER OF BUSINESS

While we are on the subject of rule breaking, I might also point out that the UCO president also tried to bypass the rules of the UCO bylaws in attempting to adjourn the meeting without going through the “New Business” and “Good of the Order” portions of the agenda, which are required for every Delegates Assembly meeting. The “New Business” portion of the meeting is where delegates can get up and make motions that are not on the agenda, which makes this portion of the meeting very important. The “Good of the Order” section allows delegates, board members and owners the opportunity to express their opinions, ideas, suggestions and criticisms. Needless to say, this is also an extremely important portion of the meeting. Neither of these should be seemingly brushed off as if they were of no importance at all, just to save a few minutes. It was only because a delegate went up to the microphone before he could ask for a second to adjourn the meeting that stated that she wished to speak for the “Good of the Order”.  The UCO president stated that the reason he tried to end the meeting early was because he wanted to close the meeting on time. On time? Where does it indicate in the bylaws that the meeting time must not exceed 1.5 hours? I believe the rationale was that the buses would leave attendees stranded. We pay millions of dollars for the bus service. Surely you can require the bus drivers to remain until the meeting has adjourned, can you not? Please explain that to me Mr. President. Maybe I’m missing something here.

2020 Amendment UCO Bylaws, Section I., MEETING PROCEDURE AND ORDER OF BUSINESS, states, “The order of business at all meetings shall be as prescribed in the agenda prepared by the officers of UCO and submitted to the Delegates. Items not included on the agenda may not be discussed or voted upon at the meeting unless brought up under New Business with a motion made and seconded. The agenda shall include a period of “Good of the Order” for all those in attendance to informally ask questions or present information of general interest to Members and residents.”
By disallowing the “New Business” portion of the meeting, I was prevented from making a motion “TO MAKE THE DELEGATES BE THE APPROVAL AUTHORITY WHEN A DECISION IS MADE TO HIRE A THIRD-PARTY TO NEGOTIATE ANY FUTURE BULK TELECOMMUNICATIONS AGREEMENTS.” Motions that are not already included on the agenda can only be made during the New Business portion of the Delegates Assembly Meeting. By not allowing the delegates to have the option to pass this motion, UCO can again hire a consultant (the same consultant that was used on the current contract) at a cost of well over $200,000, who, I might add, does not have the legal authority to review the document themselves, requiring an additional $30,000 to $50,000 just to have the agreement reviewed by an attorney. I have a lot to say on this topic and will discuss it on a separate post.

Last, but not least, I encourage every delegate who is available to attend the next Broadband Committee meeting on October 9 at 12 PM noon, to actively attend the meeting to hear the discussions between Breezeline representatives and the UCO staff regarding how Breezeline is dealing with the current problems of maintaining quality service to our residents and any discussions of proposals to be made by them. We need to let UCO know that we are paying very close attention to this issue.

That’s my take, but not taken lightly…

Of course, I encourage your comments and concerns at the bottom of this post to let the residents of Century Village know your feelings on the subject and on my thoughts as well. If I’m wrong about anything stated above, please let me know and I will correct the record.