Anonymous Irve (and his POA) Should Be Investigated and Expelled

Irve Denenberg has allegedly engaged in conduct that tends “to injure the good name of the organization, disturb its well-being, or hamper it in its work“. The remedy, per Robert’s Rules of Order is to create an impartial and independent committee to perform fact-finding for the Board, which will then use the Policy for Enforcement to determine whether action is necessary to prevent such behavior in the future, up to and including expulsion from the association.

This may also require a review of our Bylaws to judge whether or not the definition of “good standing” should be amended to include an explicit reference to the conduct described above in RONR, as well as “a requirement that the member’s privileges of membership have not been suspended as a result of breaking association rules or violating the governing documents”.

On November 11, 2019, just a day before our Annual HOA Meeting, I received an anonymous letter by USPS First Class Mail. It had no return address, and was signed “Poudre Overlook Associates (POA)” without a name or signature. I can say, without any doubt or reservation, Irve Denenberg is the author of this letter.

In the letter, Irve quotes a vague plurality of persons he calls “Roberts Rules professionals”. He puts in quotation marks 4 sentences in the middle of the paragraph, which was odd – how does a group of professionals create a quote?

My first thought was that he lifted a quote from a website that addresses the topic of how to correctly follow Robert’s Rules of Order. But, he also infers that these “professionals” have also reviewed “our voting at the Special Meeting”. This is different than plain old voting at A special meeting. He deliberately uses language inferring that a review of our meeting has occurred by a group of professionals – and then quoted the group’s statement on the matter.

Certainly, google should be able to find something about this. What I didn’t expect was a Googlewhack (when a search returns a single solitary search result, which is highly improbable for any search).

What I did was search for the first sentence in Irve’s used quotation. I searched for “voting on one person at a time is not the proper method of filling multiple identical positions” (with the quotation marks for an exact match). It returned a result for a message board.

Upon clicking the link, sure enough, there’s a thread begun by . . . Irve Denenberg, using his full name. The date also caught my attention – September 24, 2019. This was within the week that Irve had sent this letter to the Board:

It’s noted that Irve is complaining about the process used at the 8/27/19 Special Meeting (see video here) to elect 5 new board members, including the process for choosing the number of board members.

It appears that Irve, in a desperate attempt to find anyone who agrees with him who has the appearance of being an expert or authority, went to a message board, created an account, and then gave a recounting of events that was a bit light on relevant facts, most likely to elicit a quote that he could then use at the meeting at his house on 9/26/19, in which several of our current Board Directors were verbally abused, according to members of our current Board.

What was clear was that Irve copied, word for word, a paragraph written by Josh Martin. Who is Josh Martin?

Well, according to his Facebook Profile (which shows his face the same as the forum profile), he’s an Associate Product Manager at Xcel Energy in Minneapolis, MN. And, he also notes he’s a “Parliamentarian at Parliamentarian”, again on his Facebook Profile. And, on the website, forumflash.com, he’s posted 13,802 times as of this morning. So, let’s just say he’s prolific within the bounds of this site.

The question is whether or not Irve’s suggestion that he’s a “Robert’s Rules professional” is an appropriate attribution. And, I’m going to surprise you and say yes, in fact, he appears to be. Because, I signed up for an account on the same website, and engaged him. He was polite, responsive, and cited his sources for information which could be verified. Like a professional would. As did the other respondents on the the thread, begun by Irve.

The problem for Irve (actually, problems, plural) is that Josh, and the others posting on the website are NOT actually supportive of Irve’s theories about proper procedure in parliamentary elections. In fact, Irve simply cherry-picked a single quotation that was semi-supportive, and ignored the rest. Irve has a history of doing this, and it’s central to the argument for expulsion from the HOA, whether temporary or permanent.

Irve has displayed a pattern of manipulating “experts” in the past by deliberately mischaracterizing or giving a false narrative in order to control and elicit a response that is supportive of his theories and arguments. This is central to my original Report of a Violation on 5/15/19. Irve and Walker went to the HOA Attorney, and misrepresented the advice given by the attorney. We found out later that the attorney was never informed of the actual purpose of the visit, as desired by the Board, so the advice given wasn’t relevant to that purpose. But, then Irve and Walker fraudulently attributed advice from that HOA attorney to the Board to manipulate the Board into reversing a prior decision. This is now a clear and documented pattern of behavior.

So, it is easy to see what Irve did, once I googled the quoted sentence, and found the message board where Irve started a thread on the dead horse issue of how many board members our community decided to elect on 8/27/19. The document below is a PDF of the message board thread, with some significant portions highlighted, including the word-for-word quoting of 4 sentences by Josh Martin into Irve’s “anonymous” letter.

What’s almost comical is that the first response to Irve’s post is almost a literal word-for-word citation of the exact same RONR (Short for Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised Edition) language Matt Clark gave to Irve when he first demanded the Board add 4 seats to the Board – in spite of the community’s 44-20 vote to have exactly 5 board members. I’ve communicated with Mr. George Mervosh (who is a registered parliamentarian), and he’s clearly refuting Irve’s claims.

The next person to respond to Irve is Mr. Atul Kapur, hailing from Canada. Mr. Kapur asks a relevant question about the prior size of the board. Irve responds with a misleading answer – 9. The board that was removed had 5 members, not 9. But, Irve is deliberately misleading Mr. Kapur, but then posts again (without Mr. Kapur responding) to add a very important admission of fact: “We the members have NEVER voted or any motion ever made to discuss or limit this number.”

What’s interesting about this quote is that in the verbally abusive sessions with current Board members, Irve and Walker, and various members of their Niner/POA group have asserted (strongly) that the general membership of Poudre Overlook HOA HAVE officially voted to have 9 members. Here, Irve is admitting what the rest of us to know as the truth – until 8/27/19, the general membership has never once voted for the number of board members. The history of how we moved from 3 members to 5 on 2/1/7, and then from 5 to 9 on 11/12/17 is a longer story to be told elsewhere, but the crux is that there was simply a declaration that it was allowed, and then we jumped into filling director seats with a vote – in both instances.

Although Colorado statutes allow both the board and general membership to have a vote to change the number of directors, our Bylaws removed the language giving the Board this power. In our HOA, ONLY the general membership can change the number of board of directors. And, this was done legitimately, with an actual majority (not just a majority of the quorum) on 8/27/19, which defeats arguments that those absent did not have an opportunity to participate. But, for good measure, that argument is also defeated by the “professionals” who are responding to Irve on that thread. Both Mr. Mervosh and Mr. Martin say explicitly that the members voting on the number of board members was proper and valid – which is the main argument Irve is making for the community to revisit the issue at the annual meeting on 11/12/19.

Mr. Martin clearly stated to Irve in the exact post that Irve lifted a quote for his anonymous letter, Mr. Martin directly contradicts Irve’s theory and assertion of wrongdoing by the current POHOA Board.

“Assuming that removing the board members in this manner was proper to begin with, I do not think there was anything wrong with this action. Indeed based on the facts presented, I think it was absolutely necessary to take this action. It seems to me that this is an incidental motion arising in connection with the election. If the bylaws merely say that there are between 1 and 9 board members, then some action must be taken to determine precisely how many board members there shall be.

This might be more complicated if the assembly had previously made a decision regarding the size of the board, but since we are told that “We the members have NEVER voted or any motion ever made to discuss or limit this number,” then it seems absolutely necessary to make a determination regarding this matter. Without such a determination, it is not known how many board members to elect. It seems to me the board is absolutely correct that, if members now wish to increase the size of the board, the proper course of action is for the membership to adopt a motion to this effect.”

Josh Martin, 9/24/19

Irve deliberately omitted the complete quotations of his “professionals”, and cherry picked the least important paragraph in the response because, it appears, it’s the one time Mr. Martin said the board didn’t do something proper.

But, upon finding this to be a thread that had no follow-ups since 9/24/19, I engaged Mr. Margin via the same thread, and upon giving him a more robust accounting of the history of our board decisions on the matter, Mr. Martin has generously spent time to help us, as a community find and understand RONR more comprehensively as it relates to the issues Irve is raising.

Anyone can both read and participate in the thread here: https://robertsrules.forumflash.com/topic/34388-special-meeting/?tab=comments#comment-205088

I have reached out to Irve and Walker, who are known to be the group organizers of the Niners, which appears to have renamed itself “Poudre Overlook Advocates (POA)” per the anonymous letter. Now, Buck Hammond, who has distanced himself from the group, yet advocates the same position (that the board should not be 5 members), clearly knows that the manner in which Irve and Walker are pressuring the board, along with anonymously “educating” the community, is inappropriate. Yet, he has yet to issue a single critical word – in fact, he pretends he has no idea about what they are doing.

I’ve given all three the opportunity to respond in writing, including to post an editorial article on this website. None of them are responsive at all to questions, and none have owned up to the alleged abuses.

This, in turn, leads to the question about whether or not any of this rises to the occasion of using CRS 7-128-109 to bar participation from Irve, Walker, or any of the other members or associates of Poudre Overlook Associates (POA) or it’s parallel universe nicknamed group, The Niners. According to Mason at Robinson & Henry, a lawfirm specializing in HOA law, we could absolutely present this evidence to a judge and use Paragraph (2) of the statute to bar them from participating. But, this would create cost-prohibitive legal expenses, making it unlikely unless their behavior continues to a point where it is no longer tolerable.

So, I asked Mr. Josh Martin whether or not RONR would afford us the same power granted to a judge via RONR. His response was positive:

“RONR gives a society the right to discipline its own members, up to and including expulsion, for behavior “tending to injure the good name of the organization, disturb its well-being, or hamper it in its work.” There is a lengthy process to follow, discussed in Ch. XX of RONR. If your bylaws or applicable law have their own rules on this subject (which seems to be the case), those rules take precedence.”

Digging deeper, it would appear that what Mr. Martin is referring to is this:

“In voluntary societies, ROBERT’S RULES OF ORDER NEWLY REVISED, states on page 644, that members can be disciplined for conduct outside a meeting or work in the organization that tends “to injure the good name of the organization, disturb its well-being, or hamper it in its work”.

https://www.parli.com/newsletter/the-impeachment-process-in-organizations

Josh also opined about the process of expulsion through RONR.

If the rules in RONR are controlling, this is skipping a few steps. Under the formal disciplinary procedures in RONR, an individual member would need to make a motion for an investigative committee (leaving out specifics as much as possible). The club would determine whether there is merit in even appointing an investigative committee. Assuming the club finds that there is, the investigative committee, upon the conclusion of its investigation, would make a recommendation to the club on whether to prefer charges, and if so, regarding the scheduling of a trial. The club would ultimately determine whether to prefer charges and when to schedule the trial. At the trial itself, the club would then find whether the member is to be found guilty of the charges and, if so, what penalty (if any) should be applied. See RONR, 11th ed., pgs. 654-669 for more information.

I believe the time has come for Poudre Overlook HOA to create an investigative committee. I am sure this may appear controversial, but now that I am not the only victim of their abuse, we all share a common condition: Each of us now has a recurring unwelcome memory that continues to cause us emotional and/or traumatic distress. If you have only met Jekyll, and haven’t met Hyde, then it’s likely that you are reading all of this with a bit of concern that it’s biased. But ask anyone who’s been on the receiving end of Irve and Walker’s gaslighting, and the condition is nearly universal.

Enough is enough. I intend to make such a motion at tonight’s annual meeting.