No what I mean is no one cares about them personally

Public servants are necessarily expendable. Sounds like all these people kinda suck in their public capacities. Because waves hands around

C'mon man…. This is just dumb.

If the CA President were abusing her power as CA President to give shady deals to businesses at the expense of CA, the board would have unanimously fired her as soon as they found out, sued her for damages, and possibly referred her for criminal investigation. They wouldn’t spend months debating the issue, give a “performance improvement plan” to the president, and finally negotiate a resignation that prevented them from explaining what happened.

If you're going to invent conspiracy theories, please make them a little more coherent.

I appreciate the feedback. I feel strongly about the issue, hence the strong and unsubtle language. Maybe if you knew everything I knew about the situation, you’d feel just as strongly. Regardless, I encourage you to tune in to the follow up pieces to see if you think my level of outrage is justified.

None of the things I’ve posted come from any sort of confidential information, and is instead all available upon request through the MD HOA Act.

You say no one cares about Lakey or the CA Board. Perhaps you don’t, but many do care about this conflict a lot. And it’s hard to determine who’s doing a good job if the public has only been exposed to a one-sided, false and manipulated narrative

I did have a few folks read after I wrote, and suggest edits, many of which were incorporated. But let’s face it: it’s a 22 page piece, so even an editor can only do so much to change the original tone. I do appreciate the feedback, though

I’d like you to entertain the idea that you may be well intentioned, perhaps even 100% right, but the style and form of your writing exemplifies the lawyer adage of “when you have the facts, pounds the facts. When you have the law, pound the law, if neither, pound the table”

It’s quite unsubtle, paints people in extremes, and leans heavily on manipulating the emotions of your readers. Like just rhetorically. I am not even accusing you of doing this on purpose or meanly.

Nearly no one here particularly cares about Boyd or the CA board except for “are they doing their jobs transparently?” We already know one entity hasn’t (doesn’t matter which). You are just demonstrating the other didn’t too.

Assuming you are doing this in good faith, hire an editor. Make sure you aren’t being used to get around confidentiality rules others are held to.

Trust that if the facts are on your side, that a dispassionate accounting is sufficient.

Why do you care Hiruy? You don't even live in Columbia. Does Jake even live in Columbia?

Jake was at my door about a week ago and we talked. He was going around backing a group and issue which he wasn't even informed on.

There's no big "Rouse Project 2.0" conspiracy. It's people who actually care about their community and are tired of the BoD members in power which ARE ACTUALLY costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of which Jake mentioned in his article.

No, it’s verifiably true that if the terms of the previous lease were kept, it would have resulted in over $1 million in additional revenue for the CA. Whether that is justified or not is speculation, I suppose, but until I’m given a convincing justification (which we have not been given), I’m led to believe this was a sweetheart deal.

All you’re doing is speculating then?

This is the usual conspiracy theorist, culture war propaganda from the hard right in Howard County.

Not saying Lakey Boyd was perfect, I'm sure she had some flaws and was not blameless in her conflicts with the board. But this is not an objective treatment of that situation.

Yeah. Boyd could be satan incarnate but this NY Post quality tabloid prose doesn’t fly in HoCo/Columbia.

?

Not sure, but that doesn’t address the question of how was this huge monthly rent rate decrease arrived at? What was Lakey Boyd’s methodology of reaching these low rates? Was a fair market evaluation appraisal conducted, as it should have? You may be right that perhaps a rent reduction was justified to find a new tenant. But what she have been justified in renting it out at $1/month at that point? There needs to be a reasonable formula/methodology of arriving at these numbers, rather than choosing them arbitrarily, which would be a betrayal of her fiduciary duties to CA residents. I’m not sure the details of how this rate was calculated, and until we know, all we can do is speculate. But without knowing more, this did not seem even close to up to snuff.

The all caps “EXPOSED” begs to differ

Ok, what I read is all these dummies need to get new jobs, and we need a new set of dummies who amend the bylaws so that a CA President can’t act unilaterally.

Cut to the chase already. Did anyone else want to rent this space for more? Who specifically?

Great question, and I address that point towards the end of this piece:

“Defenders of former CA President Boyd may argue that the terms of the December 2021 lease contract awarded to the new Howard Hughes Corporation tenant (The Collective 13) was signed during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the lower monthly rent rate and no annual inflation adjustments were justified due to “pandemic hardship”.

It is true that many businesses were struggling financially during the pandemic and that the previous tenant did not renew their lease potentially because they were unable to afford the monthly rent rates they were being charged under their contract established in 2013.

In a case such as this one, would a rent reduction for a future tenant be justified?

Let’s address that question with a few other questions:

How many Howard Hughes Corporation residential tenants were either evicted or did not renew their leases during COVID due to financial hardship?

Did the future tenants who moved in after the prior tenants were forced out due to hardship also receive a 50%+ decrease in monthly rent?

It is highly doubtful that this occurred. Even if the extremely low rental rates in this 2021 CA contract were set using COVID hardship as justification, the contract spans 2021 to 2027 and could even be extended through 2032, well after the effects of COVID are no longer a significant justification for hardship.

Beyond that, even if a rent reduction was justified, how was this drastic of a reduction calculated? Why was inflation adjustment not included? Answers to these questions are exactly the kind that the CA Board of Directors and the public deserve. These types of contracts and leases should be getting appraised for fair market value, rather than picking some arbitrarily low number.

It was incumbent upon Lakey Boyd as CA President to fulfill her fiduciary duty to CA residents and prove that a valid methodology was used to establish these seemingly low monthly rent rates as the true market value for the CA-owned open space that she leased out to a tenant of the private developer Howard Hughes Corporation. Otherwise, the CA would be at risk of violating IRS Rev. Rul. 72-102, potentially putting the CA’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4) non-profit service corporation in serious jeopardy.”

If you are still skeptical and not convinced yet, then be on the lookout for Part 3!

Steven Keller did not write this post, I did, he merely allowed it to be posted on his blog. Could you please point to what is inaccurate/obscured in this blog post?

I am currently the Vice Chair of a grassroots progressive organization dedicated to getting money out of politics, called Our Revolution HoCo. Until last September, I was President of the Progressive Democrats of Howard County. The only agenda I have is to support accountable and transparent local government, and to shine a light on corporate influence and money in politics. Which is exactly what was going on with Lakey Boyd

I encourage you to read with an open mind before jumping to any reactionary conclusions.

Steven Keller, who runs HoCo Watchdogs, has a narrative to push. What he says is of little value, as it generally obscures truth.

OP, do you have any insight on potential renters that may have been competing against Howard Hughes for these outdoor spaces? How can I, as a layperson CA resident, be sure this was a sweetheart deal vs. a market reaction? Thank you for posting this.

Yep! That will all be exposed in Part 4 of the blog! Let’s just hope it’s not too late to get the truth out there, and CA residents will see through the lies before the elections in April!

Great point, and I do address that point at the end of the piece, quoted below. Nonetheless, I understand being skeptical, and am confident you will be convinced after reading the next parts of the blog, which will be published in the next few weeks. Then, you’ll see that this is not just about this one contract (a bad contract which may have cost the CA $1 million+ in potential revenue), and it is not “making a mountain out of a mole hill”. Also, the Board was not able to discuss those things publicly, because it is a personnel matter subject to employee-employer confidentiality. This was knowingly and cynically taken advantage of by Lakey and her Allies to push a false narrative and smear campaign that they knew the CA Board was unable to counter publicly, which is why the CA Board was having so many closed meetings this past year

“Defenders of former CA President Boyd may argue that the terms of the December 2021 lease contract awarded to the new Howard Hughes Corporation tenant (The Collective 13) was signed during the COVID-19 pandemic and that the lower monthly rent rate and no annual inflation adjustments were justified due to “pandemic hardship”.

It is true that many businesses were struggling financially during the pandemic and that the previous tenant did not renew their lease potentially because they were unable to afford the monthly rent rates they were being charged under their contract established in 2013.

In a case such as this one, would a rent reduction for a future tenant be justified?

Let’s address that question with a few other questions:

How many Howard Hughes Corporation residential tenants were either evicted or did not renew their leases during COVID due to financial hardship?

Did the future tenants who moved in after the prior tenants were forced out due to hardship also receive a 50%+ decrease in monthly rent?

It is highly doubtful that this occurred. Even if the extremely low rental rates in this 2021 CA contract were set using COVID hardship as justification, the contract spans 2021 to 2027 and could even be extended through 2032, well after the effects of COVID are no longer a significant justification for hardship.

Beyond that, even if a rent reduction was justified, how was this drastic of a reduction calculated? Why was inflation adjustment not included? Answers to these questions are exactly the kind that the CA Board of Directors and the public deserve. These types of contracts and leases should be getting appraised for fair market value, rather than picking some arbitrarily low number.

It was incumbent upon Lakey Boyd as CA President to fulfill her fiduciary duty to CA residents and prove that a valid methodology was used to establish these seemingly low monthly rent rates as the true market value for the CA-owned open space that she leased out to a tenant of the private developer Howard Hughes Corporation. Otherwise, the CA would be at risk of violating IRS Rev. Rul. 72-102, potentially putting the CA’s tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(4) non-profit service corporation in serious jeopardy.”

I don't feel like this gives enough recent data about the commercial real estate market for restaurants for me to have a strong opinion about whether that lease was a bad idea or not. The space had been vacant for a while now, too, so I'm not sure how much demand there even was. Plus, if there were concerns over her financial decisions, why could that not be brought up by the board publicly? I'm not saying I wholeheartedly support her, but this seems to be trying really hard to make a mountain over what could potentially just be a molehill.

Good to hear another side to this story. Many of the biggest proponents of Boyd had almost comical conflicts of interest.

😂

Caller ID is not reliable. It is easy to spoof.

There used to be web sites that would do it for free, but all the ones I can find right now require logins and subscriptions.

Dang -- your vetting requirements are so tough.