Marriott Newport Coast Villas - Board of Directors Election Ballot - Request your Vote [MERGED]

[Norcal5]

Perhaps not a law, but there is a clear statement in the charter for at least one of our home resorts which says
“The candidates and Committee members may not be employees, or relatives of employees, of affiliates of Marriott....”

Do you have access to NCV charter?

 

[bazzap]

Do you have access to NCV charter?

I only have access to the charter for my “home” resort unfortunately, but I am sure someone here must have access to the one for NCV?

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

Geert; I recognize that you are 5 minutes and 2 miles away, and an owner there for 20 years (and not a Marriott Employee) but what else can you discuss about yourself such as your education background, work background, work experience, etc. ?

Telling all the NCV owners as much as you can about yourself is in your best interest.





.

A short bio is included in the 500-word candidate statement that was mailed to all Newport Coast owners together with the ballots.

But, since you asked, I have a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. After graduation, I started my career in industry as an integrated circuit design engineer and gradually moved into engineering management. I hold several US patents and have multiple publications in prestigious refereed journals and conferences. To date, the circuits that I have personally designed or have contributed to have generated well in excess of $1 Billion in revenue, with substantial profit margin. You can find them in your hard drives, laptops, cloud servers, cellphones, smart watches and even in medical applications such as ultrasound. I currently am the site director of the Irvine office of a Silicon Valley based multinational integrated circuit manufacturer with more than $2 Billion in annual revenue. I have served my professional engineering society as a volunteer on their board of directors and also as vice-president for conferences, which at the time put me in charge of a $1M+ annual operating budget for this non-profit. Feel free to Google my name or to look for me on LinkedIn. I do not have direct property management experience, if that is what you are after. However, I was my company's contact with the landlord, realtor, architect and general contractor to select a site and for the substantial tenant improvements before we moved into our current office. As a manager and investor I know how to interpret financial statements. As stated before, I am very cost conscious, and as a rule require multiple bids.

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

do we send the Ballot page in, the Limited Proxy page(s) or both?

IMPORTANT

I confirmed with Marriott Newport Coast's executive assistant that all of the proxies and ballots must be filled out for the votes to be counted. If the packet is sent in incomplete, your votes will not be counted.

 

[Norcal5]

Thank you!

 

[Norcal5]

I noticed in the ballot that by designating John Albert as our proxy holder gives him authority of “power of substitution” so must mean that if we don’t attend the meeting ourselves, or know someone who is, that our votes won’t go to the person we are voting for? That seems like it shouldn’t be.

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

I had to make an urgent trip to Europe and do not have the ballot with me so I cannot reread it myself. I sent an email to the executive assistant asking for clarification. I will post when I get an answer.

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

I have not received a reply from the admin and had already sent my ballots in. If you have not mailed your ballots in yet and are not comfortable to assign a proxy to the board chairman, you can list my name. I plan to be at the November 12 meeting.

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

Just a friendly reminder for anyone who is able to attend, the annual Newport Coast board meeting is tomorrow November 12 starting at 4pm at the Newport Beach Marriott Resort and Spa (by Fashion Island, and not at the actual resort). Good luck to all independent candidates standing for election. Hopefully we get at least one non-Marriott employee on the board this year. Hope to see some of you at the meeting tomorrow.

 

[Norcal5]

Thank you Geert! Good luck to you and any other independent candidate!

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

Just a friendly reminder for anyone who is able to attend, the annual Newport Coast board meeting is tomorrow November 12 starting at 4pm at the Newport Beach Marriott Resort and Spa (by Fashion Island, and not at the actual resort). Good luck to all independent candidates standing for election. Hopefully we get at least one non-Marriott employee on the board this year. Hope to see some of you at the meeting tomorrow.

Thank you very much for your support. Let's keep fingers crossed. I will provide an update after tomorrow' s board meeting.

 

[GDV@Marriott_NCV]

Today's board meeting lasted less than 45 minutes, and a good chunk of time was spent introducing Marriott resort employees in attendance (I am sure they were a larger number than actual owners) and a raffle for small prizes such as $50 gift certificates, spa treatments, movie tickets, and the grand prize a week through II (no, even though there were a lot of prizes compared to the small number of eligible owners present, I did not win anything). Prior to the start of the meeting I met the resort manager, an owner who when I told him I was running said that he had given me half of his share of votes and also the other Orange County based independent owner Jeannie Hagedorn. The meeting covered two short presentations prior to the raffle and announcement of election results. The resort manager presented recent improvement and maintenance projects. The director of finances for the resort talked about the maintenance fee. The fee will increase by 3.9% in 2020 from $1320.46 to $1372.39, and was billed as one of the lowest percentage increases in years. Most of it was blamed on California's minimum wage going up to $15 and the tight labor market with record low unemployment. The actual breakdown of the 3.9% increase is: 1.41% for reserves, 0.87% for insurance, 0.51% for labor (mostly housekeeping), 0.45% for wages (excluding housekeeping), 0.27% for outsourced laundry, and 0.4% for all other (yes, these add up to 3.9%). Then they were finally ready to announce the election results. There are three different associations, so three separate elections and announcements (one apparently has 3-year terms, the others 2-year terms). To keep the suspense, the names of the 3 people elected were read in different order, but nevertheless they were the same 3 individuals each time. It is no surprise that Don Baarman and Bill Whelihan, both Marriott employees, were elected. The third victorious candidate was William Humphries from Savannah, Georgia (who was not present). Looking at his candidate profile, he appears to be a non-Marriott owner, already on the board at Canyon Villas, and seems to be very heavily invested in Marriott weeks and points. Maybe there is a requirement to have at least one outside director. The board chairman congratulated the winners and welcomed the new member William Humphries. There was no mention about vote numbers, nor ranking of the candidates that did (not) make it. I was not surprised, nor did I have any illusions going into the election and meeting. I did not ask for further vote details, maybe I should have but I did not want to be contentious or a sore loser, and with a Marriott employee certifying the election results what really is the point? The meeting ended after a short Q&A. What I learned there is that the Marriott trust owns 27% of the Newport Coast property (most of the last phase 9 went directly into the trust and destination points program, the other 3% comes from foreclosures over time - currently owner delinquencies are less than 0.5% though), which perfectly explains the voting results. Interestingly, it takes only 15% of the ballots to be returned to have a voting quorum.
Anyway, this was a good experience for me and I appreciate everyone's support here. I will certainly let you know if I decide to run again next year.

 

[pedro47]

To the OP, sorry you lost maybe next time.

 

[samara64]

Greet, Thanks for trying and putting the time into it.

 

[SeaDoc]

I've tried repeatedly at a variety of my owned properties, all to no avail... I found it to be a lesson in futility... but gave it a go with no regrets...