April fools? CBWRA committee’s latest and most desperate electoral manipulations. Why are they so scared of a fair and free election?

The CBWRA ‘co-chairs’ (Larisa Villa Hauser and Louis Sebastian Kendall) and so called ‘electoral oversight committee’ (which according to CBWRA march 24 committee meeting notes are Catherine Thome, Toby Spoerer and the former chair Stephen Thompson) will run the Chair elections.

Mr Thompson’s inclusion is a little surprising given that he has, I believe, been the subject of 4 police complaints – and I believe one of these complaints relates to his behaviour to a candidate during the last Chair elections in 2023, and one other complaint against Mr Thompson is still being investigated by the Police. Two of the complaints to the Police were from me, someone who CBWRA are well aware is likely to stand in the Chair elections. None of this, it seems, is a bar to him being on the body which is supposed to be ensuring fair elections :)).

The Chairs and the ‘oversight committee’ have refused to answer questions put to them regarding the process for election of CBWRA Chairs (why manifestos are only available once voting opens, why residents can only meet candidates half way through voting and why one potential candidate is banned from the CBW app and why only paid up members of CBWRA will be allowed to vote unlike previous elections). There has been no meaningful response to my complaint about the conduct of the 2023 Chair elections, and the same ‘oversight committee’ (which appears to perform no oversight) is in place. No one has been sanctioned in any way for the obvious misconduct of the 2023 Chair elections. See my video on this and related issues here.

Today (1st April 2024 ) CBWRA announced that the only meeting between residents and Chair candidates in the 2024 Chair elections (Sat 6th April, 12-1) will be an an opportunity:

”to give undecided RA voters an opportunity to mingle with other RA members and meet the candidates”

The event will not be made available via zoom and as it is unlikely that more 50 residents will attend then 95%+ of residents will not know anything about what occurs at the meeting (just as there are no notes produced from the quarterly meetings with leaseholders). It has been designed to be more of a cocktail party it would seem than a meaningful question and answer session or a debate. So to be clear the only opportunity for residents to interact with chair candidates will be one hour, half way through the voting period, it will not actually be a debate and it will not be made available online. All of this done without resident consultation.

What does this tell you about how desperate the current Chairs are to avoid a proper competitive debate with myself or other candidates?. Certainly they have a lot of difficult questions to answer including what action they have taken in relation to tweets (which are rabidly antisemitic and which also call for military action against the UK) made by someone whose photo, twitter bio and err ‘writing style’ seem to be a 100% match for a committee member .

The last meeting between residents and Chair candidates (in March 2023) was more of a debate format and the co-chairs lack of meaningful ideas and policies was extremely evident. That meeting was not made available online and the recording was ‘lost’. No notes of the meeting were made available to residents. Clearly the chairs believe they will be better at ‘mingling’ than the slightly more challenging and meaningful skills of explaining and justifying their ideas, policies (if any) and performance, and as they are running a joint candidacy (in violation of the constitution) then they will have a built in advantage in terms of numbers.

These feeble and rather desperate manipulations show, to my mind, a terror of a genuine electoral contest, and total contempt for residents in preventing a meaningful debate and a fair electoral process. I ask this question to residents ”Do you think that people who behave in this way should be running a residents association let alone a Right to Manage company controlling a £5 million service charge budget?”. What is the future likely to be under such a regime in terms of consultation, freedom of speech, good governance, transparency and democracy?

Please support me in standing up for what we should take for granted but are being systematically denied by the current Chairs and committee – freedom of speech on the CBW app, fair elections for committee for Chairs and Directors of the Right to Manage company, the opportunity to debate issues so importance to residents and to be consulted on importance decisions.