Dear Bluefields Neighbors, I would like to personally thank the 2014 BHA Officers and Board Members (Peter Beare, Maggie Sidlinger, Glenda Reagan, Carla Cannon, Megan Deardorff, and John Doak) for their countless hours of volunteering and devotion to Bluefields. The teamwork displayed throughout the past year and a half is amazing. We have progress from only having a Vice-President, Treasurer, and 3 of 6 Board member seats filled to having a full slate of Officers and Board Members for the 2015 slate. Thank you to all of you who agreed to serve another year due to lack of volunteers and participation prior to the AGM. Your intentions to serve your neighborhood are very appreciated!
I would like to thank the neighbors who had the concept of Smartgrowth which started out with the intentions of getting the railway line connecting to Bluefields cleaned up. Smartgrowth has done a beautiful job landscaping the common areas on Bluefield Ave. The community outreach has been amazing with JVI offering donations and discounts to assist in the process. Smartgrowth worked with the 2014 BHA Officers and Board in defeating the ATT cell phone tower. During this process we learned how important it is to form good relations with our local councilman, state representatives, and congressmen who worked with us to defeat the cell tower.
Going into 2015, I, along with other BHA Officers and Board Members recruited key residents, mostly with past BHA Board experience, in hopes of keeping Bluefields beautiful and a strong, unified neighborhood voice as Donelson is evolving. Our BHA Annual General Meeting was held on November 18, 2014. Many of you were there, those who were not have asked what happened? The current 2014 BHA Board and Officers had slated nominees with a meeting agenda. At no point, after months of searching and recruiting, did we find anyone interested other than the individuals on the slate. Most of the nominees on the original slate were serving again because of lack of willingness on other residents to volunteer.
In the final voting stage of the annual general meeting a group of residents that had been rallied together by what appears to have been a campaign of arousing neighborhood fear interrupted the final vote to to put forth new nominees with unofficial, hand written, and unverifiable proxies which created general disarray during the final minutes of the meeting. I am sad to say the arousing of neighborhood fear and spreading of misleading information in our neighborhood appeared to have commenced during the Cell Tower Campaign and this behavior continued all the way up to the Annual General Meeting. The 2014 Board and Officers (and evidently previous recent boards) had grown tired of this form of negativity, combativeness and un-neighborly behavior by a select few residents. Bluefields Homeowners Association is an ALL VOLUNTEER organization. Volunteers should be able to have an enjoyable and positive experience when serving their neighbors and making our neighborhood a better place.
Essentially your 2015 BHA Board was nominated by this disruptive group of residents with numerous unofficial proxies. Most (not all) of these individuals had not been active in the neighborhood in quite some time. There were some who paid 2014 dues minutes before the meeting. As a result, the original slate of officers and board members, who were in attendance, removed themselves from the ballot. This resulted in Officers and part of the Board being elected by default (and unfortunately not a full board with at least 2 elected nominees immediately resigning their positions).
As current President, speaking on behalf of the 2014 Board and Officers, no one had any issues with additional nominees being presented in any way, however, the current Board worked many hours over several months to get volunteers for the 2015 slate of officers and Board members. We did not have an overwhelming response to residents willing to volunteer their time to BHA in this aspect. There was ample time to show interest in serving prior to the meeting. We felt it was disrespectful and completely unwarranted, thus leading to the request to remove our names from the ballot. We would like to work with positive and enjoyable associations.
Again, I have enjoyed volunteering for the Bluefields community and will continue to do so via other avenues in 2015. I have met many new faces, made new friends, and wish all our wonderful Bluefield neighbors the very best in 2015.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season.
All the Best,
Tammy Hobbs, BHA President 2013-2014