The Fielding Covenant Committee
This site will be updated soon It will be converted to a Merifield Acres and MALA history site.
We apologize, but no one has been available to make updates. This site will soon be updated to a newer type - but we plan to keep all reference documents available.
Fielding Covenant Committee sends letter to all property owners of record in Merifield Acres urging more participation in MALA
(September 19) The Fielding Covenant Committee sent letters to all property owners in Merifield today. The letter urges greater participation in the governance and activities of our Association, and discusses ways that the voluntary and mandatory area owners might benefit from better cooperation and communication in the future. The letter is available here.
Fielding Covenant Committee achieves a key short-term goal: Proposed bylaw changes are tabled, and voluntary area members will be able to vote in the general election!
(August 22) The first meeting of the recently formed advisory committee was held at 10 AM on Saturday at Martha Day's residence.The MALA board had received its legal opinion but was awaiting clarification of some points before acting upon it. However, it was determined that the traditional (not segregated) ballots will go out to the general membership to vote for board members only. The proposed bylaw changes will not be on the ballot, at least for this year. This means that the plans to deny voluntary area property owners the right to vote on issues and for board members before any bylaws were changed is tabled as well.
During this meeting it was agreed to by all present that the Virginia Property Owners' Association Act does not apply to MALA or to any part of Merifield Acres. This is a very important point of agreement between the Fielding Covenant Committee and MALA.
This does not mean that our struggle to protect voluntary property owners' rights and interests is over. The voluntary owners will need to be more proactive (and visible) in the future, and assert their positions and viewpoints at both board and general meetings.
Our attorneys have verified that MALA is correct in its long-held position that voluntary area lot owners must pay their voluntary assessments in order to be "members in good standing" (and thereby voting members) according to the MALA Articles of Incorporation and its Bylaws. We have won back your right to vote in the upcoming annual MALA meeting, and we heartily recommend that anyone who isn't current in their contributions pay them so that they may vote. It is important that candidates friendly to the voluntary areas are elected. If you include your check with your ballot, or pay the contribution before the general meeting in October, your vote(s) will be counted. Remember, each lot (not person) gets one vote.
In our advisory committee meeting on Saturday, it was mentioned that even if all voluntary members paid the requested assessments in full, this would not come close to solving the road maintenance problem. But it will help in the interim while the Fielding Covenant Committee and MALA try to hash out long term solutions to the problem. Suggestions regarding this are actively solicited. Simply email us at info@1mala4all.org (not .com).
Fielding Covenant Committee member and co-chair Michael Walsh's suggestion to affect a political solution was met with approval by MALA officers at the Saturday meeting. This will differ with the previous attempts to get the County to maintain the roads, all of which were made at the local administrative level. Mike will attempt to go from the "top down," which hopefully will at some point convince someone in authority to make road maintenance happen. However, this was noted to be a very long-term project, which may not come to fruition for years.
Meeting minutes taken by Martha Day should be available soon.
Turnout at MALA Board Meeting a Record; Board Votes Unanimously to Temporarily Table Proposed Bylaw Changes until MALA Obtains a Formal Legal Opinion
(August 11) To be updated soon...Please see the original or updated statement as presented by Hal Norman at the Tuesday night Board of Directors meeting. The statement will be updated and corrected as new information becomes available. All changes will be noted at the bottom of the document. In a related item, the date for the picnic/general membership meeting has been changed (see right sidebar).
The MALA board unanimously decided to table the vote until such time they are able to obtain a legal opinion regarding the legality and necessity of the proposed bylaw changes. It was also decided to move the annual meeting at Oak Park from September 27 to Saturday, October 10 at 1:00 PM.
We would like to sincerely thank those who made the effort to attend the Board meeting Tuesday night, some from hours away. It can be said emphatically that all of you made a real difference, and especially in your active participation.
The Fielding Covenant Committee is working hard to preserve our property rights in the voluntary assessment areas of Merifield Acres...
(Dated August 8 - reflects the historical status as of that date) Certain members of the Board of Directors of the Merifield Acres Landowners’ Association (MALA), including the President, have submitted to the full Board for its consideration bylaw changes that would deprive us of our membership and voting rights in MALA. These proposed changes set up “associate” memberships and “associate” Board positions that will have no say or vote concerning MALA matters – including road, paving, and finance issues. However, we will still be asked to pay our voluntary assessments. The prospect of becoming “orphaned” property owners without a voting association membership raises a number of important issues, both legal and ethical. Furthermore, the Board has not sought any formal legal opinion before proceeding with this very significant change. It is our immediate goal to convince the Board to postpone this action until such counsel can be obtained. This will give everyone involved the chance to look at all the issues, in public, and discuss them openly, and to come up jointly and severally with solutions that are more acceptable to everyone involved. We should insist that all major decisions in the future require full membership notification and requests for comments.
Your presence at the next Board meeting is vital. It will be held August 11, 2009, at 7:00 PM in the Clarksville Town Hall. We must convince the Board to first obtain a legal opinion, which we believe will not support their proposed changes. Should we fail, this issue will then go to the general membership for a vote at the September annual meeting. Please support us in our efforts to bring this issue out into the open for a careful examination and public discussion. For more information about the Board’s plans, we ask that you read the minutes of the June 9 Board meeting at the official MALA website. We wish to thank you for your support in these matters.