Is YCC #42 ungovernable? 
“Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore,
is education.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt

This question may once again be brought as an application to the courts. It could be just a question of when.

A split in the board
The directors appointed Shah Jahan Khan president so after the election he proceeded to make decisions on his own without resolutions passed at board meetings giving him the necessary authority to act.

He harassed and fired employees, terminated contracts and hired contractors.

Finally, in February 2013 the other four directors removed Khan from the president's position and elected Ataul Haq Malick in his place.

Shah Jahan Khan did not take this well. He took to the Internet with a flood of e-mails accusing the other directors of everything from dishonesty to incompetence and threated revenge during the election campaign in the upcoming AGM.

Aside from warning the owners that his four fellow directors were looking out for their own interests and not the corporation's, and giving largely unsubstantiated accusations backing up those claims, nothing positive came come out of this.

More boorish behaviour
At the 02 March 2013 special owners meeting, Khan showed up over an hour and a half late and took his seat at the head table.

He then took the floor and in a lengthly speech denounced the other four directors for being slumlords that are renting out over-crowded units. He further claimed that he was the one who negotiated the far cheaper natural gas prices and he publicly questioned the performance and credibility of the other directors.

The owner-activists
The condo's owner-activists were urging the board to take action. They want the fees dropped—they all seem to agree on that.

They were also united in being extremely suspicious of the board's ethics and motivations. Finally, most of them—but not all—agree that they do not want to come under the power of another administrator.

But that seems to be all they agree on as they then splinter into smaller groups or even as individuals demanding that the board:

1.	Improve security.
2.	Repair the potholes in the driveways
3.	Eliminate the overcrowding by enforcing the declaration.
4.	Fire all the union employees and replace them with lower-cost contractors.
5.	Have owners volunteer to do a lot of the smaller jobs that need to be done. Some want the corporation to hire owners to do as much of the work as possible.
6.	Create various committees to manage different things under the direction of the board.
7.	Form a finance committee that will review all the contracts and cheques issued to insure there is no theft or fraud.
8.	Improve the finances so that potential buyers can apply for CMHC insured mortgages.
9.	Change the newly-hired property management company.
10.	Clean the buildings.
11.	Repair the alleged financial mess that they felt that the administrator left the corporation to deal with.

A few of the owners quarrel and hurl insults at each other by e-mail and there by divided themselves into even smaller and smaller groups.

Instead of finding common ground and a limited and practical vision that they can all agree to, they weakened themselves.

A man on a white horse


Some owners hungered for a champion to come to the fore who has the skills, knowledge, honesty, charisma and strength to clean up the whole mess. I think that is how the owners saw Mark Cianfarani, the property manager who works next door at YCC #60.

Yet, if a white knight appears, will the owners hobble their champion with committees of political commissars questioning and criticizing almost every decision he makes? Most likely.


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