The Fairfield Glade Community Club Board of Directors has rejected an appeal by a Glade Sun correspondent for a copy of minutes of a 2020 board executive session involving the approval of the Laurelwood development.
Board President Greg Jones said the board believed that General Manager Bill Ward’s original decision to deny the request was correct. Ward had noted that minutes of executive sessions are confidential.
In the appeal, correspondent Keith Robinson said “compelling” and “intense” news interest in the community should warrant disclosure of the minutes. He pointed out that they involve the community club’s covenants and restrictions, which are now under the membership’s scrutiny because of a proposed amendment to them.
Jones informed Robinson the board “did not see anything new in your request for an appeal that would require us to revisit” Ward’s decision.
Robinson filed his initial request to learn details of what transpired at the meeting, which was closed to the general membership.
The board that was in place in September 2020 permitted builder Isaac Zuercher at that meeting to develop 14 lots in the Laurelwood area across from Dorchester Golf Club even though the current board said that board lacked authority to do so.
The board at the time was advised three months earlier that it could not approve the development without a change in the C&Rs, which assign the declarant as the “sole judge” in determining when and where there is development in Fairfield Glade. A change in the C&Rs would require a vote by the general membership.
The C&Rs have become a major issue in the community because of a proposed amendment, unrelated to the Laurelwood matter, that would allow the declarant to directly bill property owners for his costs in building roads and installing water lines for developments. Voting on that proposal is underway.