Board of Directors Meeting

Location:  Rosemont Club House and via Zoom. 

Type of meeting:    Regular board meeting              Special meeting               X Emergency meeting    

Quorum established:   Yes

Others present (homeowners, management, guests): Fran Pollard, Susan Reitnauer, Christine Ethington.  The rest of attendees will be added when sign in document is received from Watson. 

Donna Pitts informed all present that an envelope in her possession was delivered by certified mail on Tuesday, October 6 and that this emergency meeting was called to count the ballots received for the removal of Charles Balanis and Kevin Grundman from MRE Association’s Board.  The Board needed to verify that all ballots were in order and make count. 

The verification process included comparing that the signature and address on each ballot be listed as an owner name and physical address in the Alachua County Tax Collector’s information and assuring there was only one vote per house. 

It was explained that Florida Governing Statue 720 requires majority of the total voting interests for the vote to be valid and this overrides Mile Run East’s governing documents which states 2/3 votes requirement.

After Board revised every ballot and count was made, Leslie Rush read the following:

"A petition for removal of Kevin Grundman and Charles Balanis was presented to the board. The board conducted signature verification at the open meeting on October 9, 2026, using the Alachua County Property Appraiser information.  Of 118 total signatures submitted, 118 were verified as current homeowners and none were rejected.  115 owners voted for the removal of Kevin Grundman.  However, Kevin is no longer on the MRE board as he resigned in writing the day of our previous board meeting in September.  Therefore, we focused on the votes received for removal of Charles Balanis.  The total verified signatures for Charles’ removal were 113, which represents 50.2% of voting interests of community.  The required threshold of 50% was met. Therefore, the motion for removal passes and is approved by the board.”   

Board requested if anyone present at meeting would be interested in joining board for remainder of the year.  Nobody present volunteered.

Leslie Rush read the following letter as requested by Charles Balanis:

To: Members of our community

From: Charles Balanis

Tonight, there is a meeting to present a petition with member signatures to remove me, Charley Balanis, Treasurer from the Board. Originally, the petition included Kevin Grundman (President) and myself; however, since Kevin has previously resigned last month, that leaves only me because according to Statue 720, you cannot recall a board member who is no longer on the board.

I have taken the position as Treasurer very seriously and have done my due diligence. I feel that it was my duty to look into our finances as a treasurer should and is required by Florida Statue 720. It has been extremely difficult to obtain financial records which include reconciled checks and invoices from Fran Pollard, our HOA Management Company representative. I’ve been Treasurer for almost 2 years and have not received any reconciled checks since July of this year. Over a period of almost 2 years, I have received only a handful of invoices. Do they even exist? If they do, where are they? Furthermore, there are MANY missing checks. Why??? You can’t reconcile checks that are missing. Where are they??? I have created and completed a spreadsheet for 2025 including all the missing checks and invoices if any of you care to look at it. Currently, I have been working on the 2026 spreadsheet with much difficulty because I’m only receiving 3 reconciled checks per month. There must be more checks written that I’m not receiving. I have been striving for transparency and have not had cooperation from Fran. Furthermore, it is my fiduciary responsibility to report any irregularities as I can be held personally liable for knowingly not doing so as a board member. I wasn’t aware that my position was intended to be “in name only” by this association. I’m not a go along/get along treasurer. I ask questions; for example, why has Fran written at least 5 checks out of our RESERVE Account to one person. Several of those checks were of great value and were supposed to have board approval which can’t be found in past meeting minutes, nor were there any bids. Why can’t I get an answer to all those missing checks and invoices? Why is Fran no longer sending a copy of reconciled checks? There are a lot of questions without answers.

This petition was initiated by a member of our community. The petition listed multiple reasons for removing Kevin, but there was only ONE reason listed for my removal. That ONE reason was that Kevin and I were requesting to be signatories on the Reserve Account and remove Fran due to her writing checks at will from the Reserve Account without board approval. Furthermore, it is customary to have the President and Treasurer as signers on that account. It is not common practice and is greatly discouraged to have the management company representative having sole signature authority. At the recent board meeting, that issue had been resolved and voted upon to have 2 required signatures on reserve account checks with one being Fran Pollard and the other being the President or the Treasurer. This protects our community’s financial interests from mismanagement.

I have a hard time understanding why this petition is moving forward since the only reason given for my removal has since been resolved as stated above. I am aware that a board member can be removed without reason; however, the members’ signatures were obtained for specific reasons which most all involved Kevin, the President at that time, with the exception of ONE that pertained to me (dual check signature requirement) which has since been resolved, as stated above.

I have no regrets knowing that I have done my job to the best of my ability and if you feel that it is in your best interest to remove me, then so be it. Otherwise, you can remove your signature from the petition and I will continue to ask for accountability and transparency.

Summary of homeowner comments (no motions may be made during open forum):

Charles requested to receive a copy of a list of reasons that was handed out to some residents when ballots were distributed to homeowners for the removal of the two board members.  A resident present at meeting said she had a copy at her home that she could share. 

Donna makes motion to adjourn meeting, Georg seconds.  Leslie aligned.    

I certify that these minutes are a true and accurate record of the above-referenced meeting.