QUAIL MEADOW UNDERGROUND

You heard that there was a community website that had gone up and now you’re staring at this page. Welcome to Quail Meadow Underground, the unauthorized community news. “News” may be a little exaggerated but since “bulletin board” lacks gravitas, in this age of hype we’ll go with “community news.”

If you’re asking questions about the Underground, I’ll bet they’re something like, “what is it?” and “why should I care?

What it is, is easy: the Underground consists of articles by Quail Meadow authors that tell a story about what has gone on, what is going on now and what is likely to go on in the future, in Quail Meadow at Ibis, based on fact. There are no agendas and there will be no personal attacks but the community’s leadership – both past and present – will be called out unflinchingly in these pages for their “under performance.” If someone has a human interest story they want to share, or something that’s entertaining, or an interview with or profile of one of our Ibis neighbors, go ahead and contact us with your story idea and we’ll let you know what we think.

Why should you pay attention to a news site about our neighborhood? The simple answer is that the Quail Meadow homeowners association is set up to be self-governing; each Quail Meadow homeowner therefore has a responsibility know what’s really going on in order to exercise, generally speaking, oversight over the board of directors, our elected community caretakers. It’s our neighborhood and we – the 84 Quail Meadow homeowners – are primarily responsible to take care of it. The homeowners’ association board of directors only acts for the community members in a representative capacity. As our fiduciaries they should, and, under law, must, act in and for the Quail Meadow homeowners’ best interests. History shows they often do not and the consequences of poor decisions have matured. The sad fact is that perhaps only one or two members of our current board, and even fewer of previous boards, have any practical knowledge or experience informing the exercise of their fiduciary responsibilities and would be hard-pressed to accurately define their role as a Quail Meadow fiduciary.

The Underground exists for the same basic reason that journalism exists: as the “fourth estate,” to help monitor our elected representatives and hold them accountable. The Underground aspires to serve this function, to be the eyes of the community, monitoring the goings on of our association and its board of directors, as serve as the community’s voice.

The Underground also aspires to hold the community together, especially during the half of the year when we are literally divided geographically. "Out of sight, out of mind,"has been unhealthy for Quail Meadow and the Underground may serve as a way for us to stay engaged.

The Underground will seek to tell its stories fairly, without bias, but that does not mean that the editors do not have a point of view. They do and you will know it. The Underground will not hesitate to expose failures in ethics, conflicts of interest, poor judgment, waste, mismanagement, arrogance, stupidity, hypocrisy, etc., with brutal criticism. The touchstone is that we will not write it unless it is based on facts and we will strive to be fair and balanced in our reporting.

So subscribe and stay tuned. The posts on the site will fall generally into five categories: governance, finances, landscape, community life, architectural review and legal. There’s a calendar that will have the schedule for board meetings and other community events and a contributions “button” through which you can, if you decide that the Underground is making a valuable contribution to the community, make a small donation exclusively to defray the direct expenses of publishing and maintaining this site.