We did find an archive of the April 2003 newsletter that mentions the desire of the board to vote on proposed changes to the bylaws to amend the quorum requirement at the annual meeting.

In the June 2003 newsletter that covered the meeting and vote results, it stated that not enough ballots were received to pass the change, so it was tabled until September. Unfortunately, we could not find any other reference to this issue in the newsletters after this.

In any case, since no change was ever filed with the VI government in a timely manner, we cannot use that past vote. Therefore, the existing bylaws are still valid and now that the board is aware of this fact, we cannot legally accept the last election due to the quorum issue. We have been told that because the board was under the impression that the quorum was being met for past elections, those were duly accepted. Board member Tom Aitken, who’s an attorney, has concurred with this.

We tried to explain the issue with the election and lack of a quorum in the newsletter, which Tom provided. Keep in mind that there is a difference with being elected to the board (via election) and the appointment by the board of the various positions (such as President, etc.). In fact, the by-laws state that not all positions need to even be held by board members.

To give you an idea of the issue we are facing, we currently have 1096 units. A standard quorum per the current bylaws requires 549 unit votes. In the last election, we received around 330 unit votes, well short of the quorum. Its interesting to note that a little over 150 owners voted out of the over 900 we have in the hotel, so less than 20% participation.

It is of paramount importance that all owners submit ballots for the vote that is now taking place to update the bylaws. We are currently tracking all ballots coming in and will be following-up with all those that have not sent one in. The deadline we gave is the end of September, but this can be extended to try to get enough votes to pass the change. Once we have the bylaws changed, the board can then determine whether it makes sense to hold a special election at that time or wait until the next annual meeting. The quorum requirement for the bylaws change is greater at 66.7% of the total units or 731 unit votes.