I get all the political stuff and real or imagined sour grapes. But I haven’t seen a single story or detailed questions from any reporters regarding the underlying question of due diligence. It just gets ignored or passed over or not answered. Anybody wonder why? The Board controls the flow of information and could have and still can put this all to bed by just addressing the issue. Hell send out a one page e-blast, take control.

Let me list seven simple areas that if addressed in narrative form by the board would prove due diligence was done and truly identify any continued opposition as sour grapes.

1. How many references did you check and what were the results? Obviously, some will be good and some bad but what were the overall results? If you didn’t check references why not?

2. How many courses did you visit that they manage to see how they operate, if they meet budget, properly maintain the course, how members feel they are treated, etc.? It’s not that they are far away in fact Mark Mattingly of LU said in the Gazette, “Our regional presence in nearby Annapolis, Md. made this a natural fit for our company.”

3. Did they accept the fact we have life-time members and did they provide a time frame and targets in membership levels? Is it three years, five years, one year to reach the magic number? What is the goal?

4. Did they accept the budget or provide a budget? Obviously not since watching the budget meeting we went from an absolutely unrealistic $14K loss provided by Casper/the GM, to a $50K loss to a $114K loss back to a $100K loss which I think was approved and at the same time apparently they told us a $70K loss was reasonable but they might cut maintenance by $200K. Who knows?

5. Did we provide them a draft contract or review a draft agreement from them? In other words are we ready to enter a contract - just dotting i’s and crossing t’s - or are we just starting negotiations without an understanding and agreement of general terms and conditions and what we can or can’t live with?

6. Do they report directly to the Board or to the GM? Some board members say to the GM but obviously LU doesn’t have that understanding. Again from the Gazette,

Mattingly said the company was informed of the board’s decision on Feb. 20, and confirmed the company “would be accountable to the homeowners within Ocean Pines by way of the board of directors.”

Casper had previously reported to the board through the general manager.

7. Given we are in prime booking season, what is the transition plan and what steps are they implementing to start bookings early so that the association does not lose because we have a lame duck operator? Before we went from in-house to Casper so we had control up until the switch.

There was a whole lot of angst and defensive responses and “who are you to question me” in Board’s reaction and frankly, that is a normal reaction. But this has been allowed to fester, by the board, because they simply have not addressed the issue head on. Answer the questions, tell the story and move on.

Of course that might take all the fun out of this process!

Ted