A lawsuit filed two weeks ago by the president of the South Beach Property Owners Association, embroiled since July in what has become a bitter dispute over control of its nine-member board of directors, has put the organization’s future in jeopardy.
Board member John J. Burns, one of the defendants named in the suit, said more than 75 percent of the SBPOA’s membership might leave the organization if the conflict can’t be resolved without going to court.
“It’s kind of ridiculous that a lawsuit was filed,” Burns said. “It seems to me that members of a board of directors should be able to work out an agreement, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
SBPOA President George Lamborn, in a March 13 statement released two days after his lawsuit was filed in circuit court in Indian River County, said he was taking the “unprecedented measure” to prevent the “illegal takeover” of the association by a “group of dissident directors who are acting at the behest and with the active collaboration of a public official.”
Though he is not named in the lawsuit, the public official is County Commissioner Bob Solari, who represents the south island on the Board of County Commissioners and who is reported to have met with the dissident directors after clashing with Lamborn’s faction over short-term rental regulation.
Named as defendants in the suit were Steve Merselis, David De Wahl, Victor Cooper and Robert DeWaters – each of whom Lamborn claims were illegitimately nominated and elected to the SBPOA board last year – as well as current directors George Bryant, Frank Spitzmiller and Thomas Browne.
Burns said the defendants have retained legal counsel but would prefer to meet with Lamborn and negotiate an agreement palatable to both sides. He said their attorney is working to arrange such a meeting.
If they can’t resolve the matter out of court, however, Burns said his faction is “prepared to withdraw from the association” – a move that would almost certainly destroy the SBPOA, which represents quality-of-life concerns and economic interests of homeowners and residents who live in the unincorporated area of Indian River County’s barrier island from the Vero Beach city limits to the St. Lucie County line.
Three of the defendants represent The Moorings, Sandpointe East and West, and Seagrove East homeowner’s associations, which Burns said comprise “nearly 80 percent” of the SBPOA’s membership.
Lamborn could not be reached for comment, but SBPOA Treasurer Carter Taylor wasn’t at all shaken by the threat.
“George Lamborn really has been behind making the association more active in local issues, such as short-term rentals, high-speed trains and the electric and water utilities,” Taylor said. “If those homeowner’s associations want to withdraw and form their own organization, I don’t know who’s going to do all the work.
“We’re the ones that get things done,” he added.”Unfortunately, because of this dispute, which is all about control, we’ve been functionally incapacitated for nine months.”
Paul Berg, Lamborn’s Vero Beach attorney, said his client is not seeking monetary damages. As stated in his lawsuit, Lamborn is asking the court first to determine the legal status of Merselis, De Wahl, Cooper and DeWaters regarding board membership, then issue a permanent injunction to prevent them from acting on behalf of the board.
Both Burns and Bryant said any media coverage generated by the lawsuit would polarize the parties and make their differences more difficult to overcome.
“Anything I would say now,” Bryant said, “would only make things worse.”
The suit contends Lamborn and the SBPOA, founded in 1992, will “suffer irreparable harm” if the four allegedly illegitimate directors are permitted to continue to “hold themselves out as duly elected members of the board and take actions on behalf of the association.”
He asserts in his lawsuit that he sent letters to Merselis, De Wahl, Cooper and DeWaters, demanding they “cease and desist” from conducting themselves as board members, only for them to refuse or fail to respond.
Their refusal to comply, the suit states, has “placed the legal status of the association in question,” which Berg said prompted Lamborn to take them to court.
“He did what he believed he needed to do,” Berg said, adding that the defendants have 20 days from the time they were served with the suit to respond.
The lawsuit stems from the SBPOA’s Annual General Meeting in March 2015, when Merselis, De Wahl, Cooper and DeWaters were nominated and elected to the board.
Lamborn claims none of the four was eligible for nomination or election – and should not have been permitted to even attend the meeting – because they hadn’t fully paid their annual dues and, thus, weren’t members “in good standing.”
Taylor, who assumed the role of treasurer three months before the vote was taken, confirmed that the four men had not fully paid their dues at the time. That they fully paid their dues later “does not cure the defect,” the suit states.
“You’d think the members of the nominating committee would’ve checked, but they didn’t,” Taylor said. “I guess they assumed the dues had been paid.”
Lamborn contends in his suit that the four allegedly illegitimate directors joined with Burns, Bryant, Spitzmiller and Browne “in an effort to undermine the authority” of the president and a majority of the board.
The suit alleges Burns, Bryant, Spitzmiller and Browne scheduled a competing “special meeting” of the board for 4 p.m. Feb. 26 at a private home in Sandpointe East, immediately after Lamborn gave notice for a “special meeting” at the same time on the same day at the Women’s Club of Vero Beach.
Lamborn claims the four allegedly illegitimate directors may have attended the meeting “to try to usurp power over the association away from its president and legitimate board members.”
In fact, Taylor said Burns claimed for several months to be the SBPOA’s president. However, when asked last weekend if he was the association’s president, he replied, “No, I’m a board member.”
Asked if Lamborn was still the president, Burns said, “That’s questionable.”