Many in the community will be very interested to learn what happens to the approximately 1,250 lots that give Wyndham heavy influence in Fairfield Glade Community Club Board of Directors elections.
Some candidates have decried the system that gives such a large voting bloc to one entity, arguing that they could not win without the support of Wyndham.
As the argument goes, because relatively few property owners vote, Wyndham “controls” the elections, with candidates who get Wyndham’s votes gaining an almost insurmountable advantage over the others.
Under community club election rules, property owners, including Wyndham, get one vote for each lot they own. There are other voting blocs but none nearly so large as Wyndham’s. The timeshare associations have the second-most with 387 votes.
No one knows for sure how Wyndham casts its ballots, but the candidates for all open seats typically win by many hundreds of votes, even by more than a thousand.
Last year, as an example, six candidates ran in one race for two open seats. Property owners could cast the number of votes to which they were entitled and could select two candidates. That means a property owner with one vote could choose two candidates, with each candidate getting one vote.
Wyndham had 1,296 votes to cast. The two winners – Mary K. Jacobsen and Monica Hysell – outgained the third-place finisher by more than 1,400 and 1,300 votes, respectively.
So what could happen with the Wyndham lots?
Wyndham could hold onto them, as it said it would do in a message to the board of directors. It could sell them to one buyer, thereby having the effect of transferring the entire bloc of votes. Or it could sell the lots to multiple buyers, which would reduce the vote bloc or eliminate it entirely depending on the number of buyers.
Fairfield Glade’s declarant, Tom Anderson, has an agreement with Wyndham that gives him the option to buy the lots. He told the Glade Sun to what extent he exercises that right will depend on the outcome of the vote on the proposed amendment to the community club’s covenants and restrictions.
The proposal would authorize Anderson, as the community club’s developer, to directly bill property owners of undeveloped lots south of Peavine Rd. for his costs of building roads and installing water lines for construction of homes.
Voting by property owners is scheduled to begin Aug. 11.