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Video: Board Meeting 10-1-2008

The OPA Board of Directors met this morning at 8 AM. The meeting opened in public, there was a call for public comments (none), and then President Dave Stevens asked for a motion to move to closed session to discuss a legal matter. There was a long pause and Bill Zawacki finally made the motion. Then there was another pause and finally Stevens seconded the motion. It was clear no one was anxious to make the motion or second it.

Then there was discussion of the motion to close. Marty Clarke said, "I don't think there is anything that could be said that scares me being on the front page of the paper, so I would vote against closing the meeting."

Bill Rakow then suggested the board could at least tell association members the topic of the closed discussion. There was little or no objection and the topic was announced as the overpayment of SPN. The legal issue is what, if anything, the board should do about the apparent overpayment of SPN by about  $70,000 for work never done on the failed Community Center project.

The vote to close the meeting was 4-3. Rakow, Clarke and Purcell voted against closing the meeting, while Stevens, Zawacki, Unger and McLaughlin voted to close the meeting.

Interestingly, Zawacki, as treasurer at the time, apparently authorized or signed the checks to SPN while both Unger and Zawacki signed an OPA letter telling lot owners OPA was "out of pocket" some $900,000, including the SPN overpayment. Many believe the number was exaggerated on purpose to scare association members into voting YES on the second Community Center referendum. The tactic failed. Now these two board members may be part of a majority that votes in a closed board session to kill the SPN overpayment issue and not pursue a refund.