At the Board of Trustees meeting last night, Chair Dent began the meeting by making the following statement:
“We’re a Board to represent the ENTIRE community, not special interests; not the dog owners, not the golfers, not the skiers, not the pickleball players, but the ENTIRE community. We all work very hard and listen to the perspectives of all, and yes, we listen to special interest groups, but then we MUST make decisions that will sustain our venues for years to come.
Instead of inciting divisiveness, filing, and sharing alleged ethics violations, asking for resignations and other non-productive community dividing activities, how about a better approach?
How about demonstrating for our youth how adults can listen to and understand the perspectives of others and how compromise is attained for the benefit of the ENTIRE community? The District resources, including staff and available funds, are limited. Choices must be made as how best to utilize those resources for a sustainable future.
I would like to touch on a few of these allegations that are circulating.
First, regarding the alleged ethics violations. Anyone may FILE an ethics complaint. The complaint is confidential, even to the person for which the complaint was filed and they won’t be aware UNTIL the commission determines it is worth investigating. At that point, the Ethics Commission will notify the person there is an investigation underway. That timeline to determine if an investigation is warranted could take several weeks and even months. The ONLY way this complaint is known is because the person who filed it shared the filing publicly.
Again, anyone can FILE a complaint and ONLY after finding an issue is the District informed. It’s unfortunate people publicly shared their filed complaints as if there was a violation. They shared what they FILED, not what was deemed a violation. I personally believe there will be nothing deemed to be in violation of any Statutes and believe I have filed my Financial Disclosure Statements correctly over the last 9 years. This is 3rd time I have addressed this issue in the last 6 years. Regarding the allegations of Trustee Tulloch, I do not see the conflict and if there is an issue I am sure we will hear from Ethics. When conflicts arise Trustees can seek guidance from Ethics on how to handle a situation this could be abstaining from voting, acknowledging but still voting and Ethics Department is very helpful in guiding the right approach in this process. All the Trustees except for Trustee Noble and even our GM had a or multiple ethics complaints filed against them, Trustee Noble just hasn’t been on the Board long enough. To my knowledge, nothing has come from these previous and current complaints filed against this Board or our GM.
Moving on, over the last couple months we have received allegations questioning Trustee Tonking’s residency in Incline Village. I have responded verbally and via email, however, in consultation with our Audit Committee Chair Chris Nolet, I feel like this is another item we should address. Trustee Tonking notified me that the first quarter of this year would be busy for her work schedule, and she would be attending several meetings via Zoom during this time. Trustee Tonking still resides in Incline Village and we are happy to have her attend meetings in person, when she can, just like tonight.
Lastly, Trustee Schmitz referenced budget numbers for golf at the March 8th meeting and again at the April 5th meeting. These numbers can be found on the IVGID website and I have seen no intent by Trustee Schmitz to lie or misrepresent the numbers. When we misspeak, we are happy to correct the record such as Trustee Tulloch did last meeting regarding a quick calculation he did in his head. We have taken a deep dive into Golf financials this year to truly understand where and how we can improve while creating sustainability.
Moving forward, I feel people need to find constructive ways to discuss issues and seek compromise instead of upsetting and dividing our community.
Our board is working with staff and the community to seek out and find compromise. It would be better to have meaningful dialog rather than organized divisiveness. Emails are not a substitute for meaningful dialog and human interaction.
As Board Chair, I am asking for community members to respectfully share their perspective with the Board and understand the Trustees are elected to make difficult decisions, decisions are based on fairness to all and sustainability of our venues in the best interest of the ENTIRE community. Thank you.” Matthew Dent
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