Tech Committee Status
Updated: Sep 7
This morning, the board added to the 8/18 agenda a non-urgent action related to the tech committee. We are providing as much information as we have here so that members can meaningfully comment.
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The tech committee was formed in January 2025 to find opportunities to connect our neighbors and communities with modern tooling. This includes the website, and also maintaining a tech stack, making recommendations to protect member data, and more. This saves time and money while also reducing legal exposure.
The tech committee has asked for board comment on a website prototype, and is awaiting feedback to make adjustments. The board can then use this prototype to either make targeted updates solving access problems identified by the tech committee, or redesign the entire website.
These problems include new members not receiving notice because there is no clear path to sign up for email and members being entirely unaware of their right to appeal compliance fines.
The committee has also recommended a data policy after multiple data breaches this year. They are currently researching structural solutions that will prevent future data breaches.
And the tech committee is hosting a meeting on Thursday to connect with more members and committees, where we can discuss new opportunities and showcase existing solutions. On our mind: committee support and emergency preparedness.
The board, in the meantime, has been auditing the tech committee's legitimacy. In the email chain provided below, members will see that every question is responded to with evidence. We are providing the entire record for completeness, so it cannot be said that anything is taken out of context.
Email (verbatim, stripped) | What's happening |
Fred, 8/15 10:26 PM: "There is some confusion as to whom is on the Tech Committee. Could you let us know who is involved and attending. Thanks." | The board makes a request of the committee chair. |
Elle, 8/16 8:55 AM (to Fred): "Happy to clarify." With member names and an update that we have additional inquiries for the committee. | Direct, complete answer to Fred's actual question. |
Leslie, 8/16 9:27 AM: "I find it very disconcerting that Mike was not replied to. Committees are bound by the board. The reply should have gone to the president, despite differences." | Leslie escalates on an unverified premise (that Elle ignored Mike) that Mike himself disproves 90 min later. No retraction from Leslie in this chain. She apologizes after these emails are read on record at a board meeting. |
Elle, 8/16 9:28 AM: "I'm so sorry, Fred posed the question." | Elle answers directly, apologizes for a miscommunication that wasn't her fault. |
Mike, 8/16 9:39 AM: "So why did you ignore me while responding promptly to Fred? Please provide documentation that the board appointed you, or others to the committee. I have found no such documentation." | Accusatory framing ("ignore") built on the routing error he hasn't yet discovered. Demands documentation. |
Elle, 8/16 9:42 AM: "Mike, I cannot see any email from you... The minutes of 6/26/25... show my confirmation. Since that meeting, the board has demonstrated approval by accepting reports from me each month... the lake committee, for example, is constantly in flux. The same is true for the security committee..." | The Committee Communication Procedures ratified by the board earlier this year require all committees to be open to all members. Meeting attendees are constantly shifting, but current committee minutes do not differentiate between 'member' and 'observer.' |
Mike, 8/16 9:55 AM: "The 6/2025 minutes do not show your confirmation. They simply identify you as chair, which... you assumed without being appointed... Your argument that other committees act differently does not negate the resolution... Evidence of those appointments were not in the minutes, but rather in a summary... published in the January/February newsletter... As Evan would frequently argue, if no record of something was memorialized, it didn't happen." | Disputes the minutes' content directly (factually wrong, per next exchange). Dismisses the parity argument outright rather than engaging it - effectively narrowing the scope of scrutiny to only the tech committee. |
Elle, 8/16 9:57 AM: "I have attached a highlighted screenshot of the minutes from 6/26/25. You also have written reports June through March... Are you requiring every committee to submit to this level of scrutiny? What has the tech committee done to require this attention from the board?" | Produces documentation. Identifies that the tech committee is uniquely scrutinized and asks why directly. |
Mike, 8/16 10:08 AM: "where did you find that screenshot? It is not on our webpage and is not the same as the 6/26/25 minutes posted." | New objection — source of the screenshot — without addressing whether the confirmation shown is accurate. |
Elle, 8/16 10:09 AM: "These are the minutes in the VIS portal. You can log in to verify." | Direct answer, verifiable. |
Mike, 8/16 10:20 AM: "it is clearly marked draft on the document." | New objection — the "draft" label — replaces the source objection, which is dropped. |
Elle, 8/16 10:22 AM: "My understanding is that VIS posts accepted minutes only... This was the set of minutes the board provided for the record, even if they forgot to remove the word 'draft.' But if other committees are not honored with this level of detail, there must be something else going on. What is actually the problem here?" | VIS has stated that they post accepted minutes in our member portal. |
Mike, 8/16 10:45 AM: "I will concede that the email I used to contact you... may not be the correct email address... So, I was incorrect in stating that you failed to respond to my question about tech committee membership. The whole question about which set of minutes is correct bears further investigation... I do not wish to comment further about the committee at this time pending further research." | First concession — the "ignored me" claim was wrong. No apology for the accusation. Immediately reframes to a new open question (minutes reconciliation) rather than closing the loop. |
Mike, 8/16 10:56 AM: "I see now that some of Elle's emails have gone to my gmail account... I don't use this address for board business... Please use my [correct address]." | Confirms another routing error concretely. |
Elle, 8/16 11:00 AM: "I just checked the KenLake.org minutes... they look the same as VIS to me — with the motion for my appointment and the resolution to create the Security committee both passed —" [link] | Produces a second, independent source confirming the appointment. |
Mike, 8/16 11:36 AM: "Apparently you are right... they do appear to be the same and state you were appointed chair... So your appointment is no longer an issue although I don't see where [name] and [name] were appointed... Now we have other recruits joining. The board also is concerned that the committee appears to consist of your hand-picked supporters and more importantly has failed to comply with established notification procedures by not announcing meetings and meeting 'asynchronously'..." | Second concession (appointment "no longer an issue"), same sentence pivots immediately to two new objections (hand-picked, async meetings) without pause. |
Elle, 8/16 11:53 AM: "As the resolution was not officially published, I would have no way of knowing that we were required to behave differently than other committees, whose examples we followed... Would you approve these members at the next board meeting? ... I did not mean to work by email for so long, but to be honest my only updates to the team were 'still no response,' so we were on a break. I do understand the concerns; does the board also carry this concern for the ACC, which also has not posted meetings and confers by email?... Craig says that the finance committee routinely decides things by email. The concern is only fair if it is fairly applied... Is this about the tech committee or is it about me personally?" | Asks the board to approve committee members formally so work can continue. Asked about other committees who connect by email. This includes the ACC, which has board powers, the finance committee, and any committee which has email discussion. Asks if the objections are actually to the committee, or to a person. |
Fred, 8/16 5:45 PM: "I don't believe members were handpicked. NOTICE was given to all residents and often the case that friends and neighbors joined. And technically, it's certain members of the Board have concerns." | Fred pushes back on "hand-picked" directly. |
Mike, 8/16 6:46 PM: "yes, you've said that, and yet amazingly several are the same ones serving on the bylaws committee." | New objection (bylaws/tech overlap) introduced via innuendo ("amazingly") rather than a stated concern. Does not engage the ACC parity question or the "personal" question from 11:53. |
Elle, 8/16 6:52 PM: "What are you accusing me of? [There's only one] overlap between the two." | Elle asks him to name the accusation directly. |
Mike, 8/16 8:05 PM: "He wasn't listed among the four people cited in the newsletter. I'm not accusing you of anything." | Declines to name the accusation. |
Elle, 8/17 8:34 AM: "We started this conversation when Fred relayed the question... We sidebar when I am accused of ignoring Mike's original email, and then we identify that he was sending email to someone else's inbox... Then there was concern over the legitimacy of the committee... We found minutes with a board vote... and verified them in two locations... I asked if there was anything else... We addressed a few other concerns, and I'm trying not to say that the goalposts are shifting but the concerns are expressed sequentially, sometimes without acknowledging that a previous point was addressed; the resolved thread is simply discarded. Ultimately, you do express that you think the overlap of bylaws and tech committee are not a coincidence ('amazingly')... It doubles down on 'hand-picked supporters' and does come across like an accusation... And I think the question I'm left with is, why? All committees are open, why does it matter who is active on the tech committee? What problem are we actually trying to solve?" | Names the pattern explicitly for the first time, to the full cc list. Still no reference back to the unanswered ACC/finance and "personal" questions from 11:53. |
Mike, 8/17 9:10 AM: "I have no further comment at this time." | No engagement with the pattern-naming, the "what problem" question, or the still-outstanding ACC/personal questions. |
Elle, 8/17 10:08 AM: "I'll restate my request for the board to approve the members listed... or state why, specific to the member, the board would reject their participation. If the board has any concerns about the work this committee has produced... I would appreciate the opportunity to bring this to my team and report back." | Converts the standoff into a concrete, answerable procedural ask (approve or state specific objection per member). |
Mike, 8/17 10:13 AM: "Your request is noted. The status of the tech committee will be on tomorrow's agenda." | No direct answer to the approve/reject-by-name request; moves it to a board agenda item instead. |
Elle, 8/17 10:19 AM: "Was that stated in the 14 day notice sent to all members? Or will there be contemporaneous discussion to allow all members to comment meaningfully as required by RCWs?" | Raises an open-meeting/notice compliance question about the agenda item itself. |
The Treasurer has privately apologized for her accusations. The President made a threat, disputing the characterization of this email exchange. If any words shared here do not match the exchange, the President may point that out and we will make the appropriate correction.
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