CBWRA 2024 Chair Elections – 91% of leaseholders did not (or could not) vote

Another sad day for democracy in the banana republic.

Election (if you can call it that) results below.

Thanks so much to all of those who supported me even if most of you could not vote. These results change nothing at all and indeed just emphasise the issues raised in my manifesto around electoral misconduct,  bullying and the need for a large-scale reform in terms of democracy and accountability in CBWRA.

Regardless of these meaningless ‘election’ results, and despite CBWRA’s attempts to suppress any debate on and off the CBW app those issues have received enormous attention via YouTube, this blog and other social media which is an important achievement.

CBWRA changed the constitution in Sep 2023 so that only paid up members could vote in Chair elections. To the best of my knowledge, they did not mention this at any time  until a few weeks before the 2024 Chair elections were announced (March 2024). (indeed they said at the time that only ‘minor changes’ were being made to the constitution and residents were only given 10 days to look at it ahead of the meeting where it was voted on).

This means that (on 6th April) just 130 leaseholders out of 1150 approx (11%) were eligible to vote in the 2024 Chair Elections. A further 10 paid their fees after that.

Crucially, CBWRA have access to the voting results from 2023 and can see who voted for them and would have the ability to contact those people formally or informally to encourage them to pay their membership and to be eligible to vote. I am not saying that happened but it is a possibility.

CBWRA have also known since at least September that being a paid member would be a requirement to vote.

In contrast I do not have a list of the people who voted for me in 2023 and I had only known about this requirement a few weeks before the election the same as other residents.

So far I can identify at least 20 votes for me which were  lost for one of the reasons below and those are just the ones that I know about:

a) leaseholder did not realise they had to be an RA member to vote

b) they thought they were a paid up RA member

c) they did not wish to pay an additional £20 for extra votes for their other properties (as required by unexplained and last minute rule change)

Even if people realised they needed to pay and were willing to, no payments were accepted after 5th April even though voting did not close until 12th April.

There was a smear campaign on the CBW app, as with last year – a bizarre defamatory post by Keith Fryer, just before voting opened, which was ‘liked’ by members of the so called oversight committee (including Toby Spoerer and Stephen Thompson) – those who are supposed to be (fairly) running the election.

Mr Fryer, who has been the subject of several complaints by residents about his behaviour on the app, also seems to be attacking anyone who makes any critical comment of the committee or indeed anyone who simply asks questions about the electoral process. Mr Fryer has been making posts on the CBW app attacking me and making wild and untrue accusations about me for very long period of time (even though I am not even on the CBW app, which is very cowardly behaviour) and I consider it to be sustained bullying and possibly worse.  In fact his online attacks on me go back several years, even before I helped to reactivate CBWRA in 2021. He was very unhappy that my blog was critical of Rendall and Rittner (of whom he was a great fan until very recently) as far aback as 2020 and after repeated personal attacks from him, and after issuing several warnings, I had to ban him from commenting on the blog.

I wrote to Mr Fryer in September 2023 and asked him to desist from making his repeated vicious attacks on me, on the CBW app.

Mr Fryer seems to have a license from the CBWRA committee to behave in this way and as I mentioned they even openly ‘like’ these posts.

Given the behaviour of the laughably named ‘oversight committee’ in last year’s elections (Thompson allegedly intimidating one candidate who then resigned from the electoral process and making defamatory statements about me on the app throughout the election period) it was probably unlikely that they would be the right people to run an election fairly, Not to mention that I have had to report Mr Thompson to the police twice.  However these are the people who Larisa and Louis decided to put in charge of the election.

In addition we have the fact that I am banned from the CBW app (for pointing out that CBWRA were misadvising residents, up to the end of 2022, that RTM was not possible). Larissa and Louis claimed there is some legal reason why they cannot discuss the closure of my account but are unable to produce any documentation to support this or even to say what the reason. I think it’s pretty clear that the real reason is simply to silence  Someone who has pointed out their massive mistakes and who is offring a much more positive alternative to the culture of fear and silence.

Just for good measure, manifestos were not released until voting opened, the only meeting of candidates and potential voters was half way through voting, Larisa and Louis tried their best to avoid a debate at that meeting (they wanted the candidates to be in separate rooms where they would “mingle’ separately with any residents attending!) and no notes from the meeting were produced by CBWRA. Someone who tried to post my notes from the meeting on the CBW app had their account closed instantly and the post deleted.

Whether Chris Garston, of Garton Jones estate agents interfered in the election in anyway this time as they did in 2023 is unclear. Mister Garston did say to me that he felt he had a professional duty as an estate agent to ‘make a recommendation’. :).

There is no independent (non committee) checking of the voting results.

So this is how Larisa Villar Hauser and Louis Sebastian Kendall and CBWRA committee generally, run elections. This is how they remain as Chairs.

All of the above is verified fact – I cannot see how any of it could be disputed. However, happy to hear from CBWRA if they think otherwise.

All of the above really proves that the issues I raised in my manifesto about bullying, broken governance in CBWRA and unfair elections were spot on. It is clear CBWRA seem determined to double down on their horrendous culture of intolerance and control rather than to change. In doing so they have lost all credibility or legitimacy and the inevitable result is the continued disengagement of most residents. Of course CBWRA will probably be unhappy about that – it means even fewer people taking an interest in what they are doing, fewer checks and balances.

Personally, I find it terrifying that these people will be in charge after RTM goes through.

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Results

Just 103 votes cast in total (less than 10% of leaseholders)

82% (84 votes)  Larisa Villar Hauser / Louis Sebastian Kendall

18% (19 votes) Mike O’Driscoll

As I mentioned above, I can easily identify at least 20 votes which would have come to me but did not due to the electoral manipulations described, and this would more than double my vote. Those are only the ones I know about, where people got in touch to tell me. I am sure there are many more who could not vote for me for these reasons but did not get in touch.

If Larisa and Louis did not stand jointly (as per the constitution) clearly they would each have got a fraction of their total vote (i.e. they pooled their votes).

So as I said at the meeting on 6th April CBWRA’s desperation to keep control at all costs has destroyed any shred of legitimacy they might have.

CBWRA have created an election methodology where 91% of leaseholders did not vote.

If CBWRA genuinely wished to restrict voting to paid up members (for reasons that are not made clear) rather than just to decrease the number of eligible voters then this should have been announced when the change was made to the constitution in September 2023. As they knew at this time that they only had 130 members then there should have been not only an announcement that you need to be paid up to vote bit a massive publicity campaign. But the requirement to be a paid up member in order to vote was not mentioned until a few weeks before the election and even then no great effort was made. The inevitable result is that the vast majority of leaseholders were ineligible to vote and in the end only 9% did so.

84 people out of 1150 leaseholders voted for Larisa and Louis and that only because it was in my view a grotesque parody of an election. The result of these games sadly is that CBWRA and CBW itself becomes a laughing stock and that the massive disengagement of residents continues.

I think CBWRA are OK with that. I am not and no one who cares about this development should be.

Of course you cannot discuss any of these electoral games on the app.. You’ll very likely be leapt upon by Keith, Dorota or other “friends of the committee”. In my view this is ruling by fear on the CBW app and electoral manipulation… This is no basis to go forward on.