Elections have consequences. There is a new sheriff in town. Unconditional surrender. Take no prisoners. The fat lady's song is over.

Pick your cliche.  Or come up with a new one with regard to our new OPA corporate officers. The Organization Meeting to elect officers on the evening of August 25th left no doubt that it was 100% out with the old leadership and 100% in with the new. Control of OPA did a 180. Colette Horn and Frank Daly, OPA's former president and vice-president, are out as officers after being a major force within a majority of directors controlling OPA in recent years.

Doug Parks, serving perhaps his seventh year as an OPA director, was resurrected from oblivion and again made OPA president, thanks to votes from Rick Farr, Stuart Lakernick, and Monica Rakowski.

In fact, these four nominated each other for every corporate officer position. No nominations were made for any position other than from this new four-member group now running OPA.  Farr was elected vice president; Lakernick secretary; and Rakowski treasurer

If that was not enough to convince Horn and Daly their time in control was at an abrupt and immediate end, the discussion of scheduling board meetings was the coup de grâce when Lakernick suggested fixing all regular board meetings on the third or fourth Saturday of the month at 9 am.

Backtracking to the meeting's public comments, former board member Amy Peck made an impassioned plea for the board to keep board meetings on Wednesday afternoons around lunchtime. Peck was effusive in her praise of Colette Horn's recent data presentation about how Wednesdays produce the most participants. Of course, any data resulting from analyzing whether 20 or 50 people show up for a board meeting out of a potential pool of more than 10,000 is useless.

Historically, as Lakernick correctly observed, OPA held regular board meetings on Saturday mornings. During that period it was not unusual to see 100 association members at meetings. Regular Saturday meetings ended around 2004. Lakernick's proposal for Saturday meetings is undoubtedly a worthwhile proposal to try for the coming year. It is something this commentator has suggested trying for years.

During board discussion, Parks made it clear he supported Lakernick's suggestion for Saturday meetings. Steve Jacobs suggested alternating between Saturday and Wednesday meetings. Horn tried in vain to promote Wednesday meetings. It was obvious Horn and Jacobs were wasting their time. Parks finally asked for a motion for Saturday meetings. Farr obliged. The motion was seconded and passed with Parks, Farr, Lakernick, and Rakowski voting YES.

A humorous aside happened after the vote for the third Saturday meetings. Parks started to read off the actual dates. September 17th was the first. Lakernick, the director who proposed the motion, said something like - whoops, I can't make that date, causing some laughter in the room and a touch of sarcasm from Horn. Parks agreed to make September 24th the date, and thereafter all meetings are scheduled for the third Saturday of each month at 9 am. Location for meetings is still unresolved.

The transition to a new board majority is complete. There is indeed a new sheriff in town. Association members should judge this new board majority on what they do going forward. Financially, they have a tough act to follow.