President Sol Chooljian opened the January 27 board meeting by stating that shareholder questions will be “taken under advisement” and not answered in real time. In practice, this has meant most will never be answered.
At the October 28, 2021 meeting, Chooljian imposed a 3-minute limit on each shareholder’s public comments. He said the board is too busy to allow more time. He also ruled that one shareholder could not cede time to another. So, is time really the issue? The board meets for about two hours about ten times per year.
These are extensions of Crestview’s policy, frequently stated by Chooljian and by Crestview’s lawyer since about March 2021, that Crestview will not give to shareholders any document that is not required to be given by the bylaws or the California Corporations Code. However, it is currently ignoring a shareholder request for a complete list of shareholders, to which shareholders are entitled by statute. Also as previously reported, Crestview violates the Mutual Water Company Open Meeting Act at every board meeting.
Chooljian had decreed at the November 10, 2020 shareholders’ meeting that no director was permitted to make his/her contact information available to shareholders without a unanimous decision by the board. He said the board would reconsider that policy, but it never did. At the January 27, 2022 board meeting, Chooljian walked that back. He said he does not intend to limit director contacts with shareholders outside of meetings and that “we want shareholder input.” Shareholders should reach out to Chooljian and other directors on a policy matter and find out how much shareholder input they really do want. Emails from the Editor have gone unanswered. (Operational matters should continue to go to staff at crestviewwater@live.com.)
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