January 7, 2024
From: Bill Connolly, President, Seabrook Island Property Owners Association
To: All Seabrook Island Property Owners
During the last month or so, you may have seen or heard about a petition to raise the quorum (minimum number) of property owners necessary for a valid vote under our governing documents, namely our bylaws. We have corresponded at least three times with the petitioners about how to submit a petition that follows our bylaws for a valid vote by our owners on such a change. This correspondence has all occurred since we were first approached with this initiative at the Board meeting on December 11. Our most recent email response is included here.
“Of course we take your submission seriously.
We have already written you twice with our response. In those responses, we have mapped out for you not one, but two, ways in which your submission would properly comport with SIPOA’s Bylaws, and thus become eligible to be considered at or at the same time as the upcoming annual meeting. While the path these Bylaws contemplates may be a bit time consuming to follow, it makes sense. To use your terminology, it is a serious matter to propose an amendment to Bylaws and the procedure as drafted in these Bylaws duly reflects this. In addition to the lack of signatures addressed at length in prior responses, the petition as submitted fails because the vast majority of emails support a Bylaw amendment which is very different from the one which was set forth on the petition: 112 out of 135 emails endorse changing the quorum for a proposed amendment to bylaws or covenants. The amendment contained in the petition which was submitted is to change quorum in general. Even if these 112 emails met the requirements for signature and consistency with the petition submitted, the Bylaws require 125 property owners to sign on to any one petition containing the same proposed amendment to go to a membership vote. The deadline for a valid petition to be voted on at the annual meeting passed on December 19th.
While we cannot give you legal advice, we have already outlined for you how a petition could still qualify for a special meeting conducted simultaneously with the annual meeting, should you so desire. A petition which conforms to the Bylaws will be accepted for referendum -as it should and must.“
SIPOA provided two paths to a legitimate referendum. One of those paths expired on December 19. The second path expired on January 5. The requestors have failed to present a legally constituted petition with enough signatures to initiate a referendum and therefore such a referendum will not appear on the ballot at the annual meeting in February.
William Connolly
President
Seabrook Island Property Owners Association
.bill.connolly@sipoa.org