GVR closes meeting to reporter, spectator

Green Valley Recreation board members and bylaw committee members held a closed-door session Monday afternoon, asking two non participants to leave before the meeting started.

An open-door board study session was scheduled for Tuesday, and the board plans an open directors meeting next Tuesday, Nov. 28

And if GVR officials don’t have enough to worry about member Gerard Laub is trying to recruit disgruntled members to speak out against dues that pay for activities they can no longer participate in.

He and his wife are 90, and he said they also have “friends who can’t use the facilities but still get the bills.”

Asked to leave Monday’s meeting were former board member Joe Roth and Green Valley News reporter Jim Lamb. There was no motion or vote to expel the two.

Roth had a 217-word statement he wanted to read, but bylaws committee chairperson Marge Garneau said no.

Garneau was presiding officer as Monday’s meeting started, although GVR president Altie Metcalf was present.

The closed-door meeting reportedly was to discuss a proposed Code of Conduct for members. In one place the proposed plan would let the board penalize an elected director who publicly objects to the board’s plans and actions.

GVR’s lawyer Wendy Ehrlich, sitting at Garneau’s left, said GVR as a nonprofit organization “does not require open meetings.”

Roth’s statement said the board’s action was systematic of its “culture of indifference” that the “board can do whatever it wants. Member input is not welcomed, even though the board gives appropriate lip service to it.”

In his statement, Roth said GVR revenue, “can arguably be called public revenue, as a homeowner has no choice to pay the fee due to the deed restriction. No opting out is allowed. If it is public revenue, then the GVR board must act under the Arizona Revised States that regulate open-meeting laws.”

He added that open meetings “allow GVR members to hear and be involved in discussions regarding their company.”

He said the board needs to become “totally transparent.”

On the issue of not paying dues because he doesn’t use GVR facilities any longer, Laub ran an advertisement in Sunday’s Green Valley News directing people with similar complaints to the law office of Susan Siwek, 829-7778.

In the ad, he asked, “How long are you willing and able to afford the ever-expanding and increasing recreational facilities of GVR?”

Tuesday morning, Siwek said she’s had lots of queries about the advertisement, by phone and by letter.

She said she’d distill the comments then decide what action to take.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749