A Howard County judge rejected a motion by the three ousted members of the Columbia Association’s board of directors seeking to be reinstated ahead of Thursday night’s meeting.
The three former board members filed the motion for a temporary restraining order late Wednesday. Howard County Circuit Judge Stephanie Picard Porter denied the motion Thursday morning.
In a closed session last month, the board of the Columbia Association, the homeowners association overseeing the unincorporated town of Columbia, voted to remove Reg Avery of Long Reach, Karin Emery of Oakland Mills and Eric Greenberg of River Hill for what the association’s ethics panel determined were violations of the board’s code of conduct.
Avery, Emery and Greenberg issued a statement calling their removal retribution for an ethics complaint they filed against the board chair and another board member. The ethics panel rejected that earlier complaint.
For three weeks the three have declined to comment further, but they filed for the temporary restraining order against the Columbia Association, saying that to “prevent further irreparable harm” the three must be added back to the board. The motion also alleges that other board members violated association bylaws and its charter in removing them.
Attorneys with McAllister, DeTar, Showalter & Walker LLC representing the three did not respond immediately to a request for comment Thursday.
Porter denied the motion because it “does not comply with MD Rule 15-504,” according to court documents.
Case law for MD Rule 15-504 states that a temporary restraining order can be granted if it “clearly appears from specific facts shown by affidavit or other statement under oath that immediate, substantial, and irreparable harm will result to the party seeking the order before a full adversary hearing can be held on the propriety of a preliminary or final injunction.”
On April 24, the day after the three were removed from the board, the Columbia Association released an 82-page report detailing the trio’s alleged misconduct and seven months of board infighting. The ethics panel, made up of three attorneys independent of the association, hired the law firm of Liff, Walsh & Simmons to investigate.
The three former members filed an ethics complaint last fall accusing board Chair Collin Sullivan of Town Center and board member Bill Santos of Wilde Lake of improperly disclosing confidential information discussed in closed session — namely Greenberg’s ratings of the association’s president and CEO, Shawn MacInnes — but the association’s ethics panel found no violations.
An internal memo that Sullivan sent in September to his colleagues and the association’s leadership revealed Greenberg had given MacInnes several “zero” ratings during a spring evaluation. The ratings were meant to be confidential; however, the ethics panel determined Greenberg’s views were widely known.
Sullivan responded in January by filing a complaint accusing the three of weaponizing the ethics process.
In an April 9 memo, the ethics panel wrote that Greenberg, Emery and Avery acted in bad faith when they lodged the ethics complaint against Sullivan and Santos. The panel also said the trio’s lack of cooperation with the law firm investigating Sullivan’s complaint was “deeply troubling and shows a total disregard of their obligations as CA Board Members.”
If the investigation had only discovered a bad-faith complaint, the ethics panel wrote, it might have recommended censure or reprimand, additional ethics training and possibly a fine. Instead, it recommended removal.
The trio’s motion for a restraining order alleges that, because they were removed in a closed session and only five of nine members present voted, the action violates the association’s charter, bylaws and the Maryland Homeowners Association Act.
The association’s rules governing the ethics panel say that only disinterested members of the association board can vote on a recommendation to remove a board member and that it must be approved by two-thirds of those disinterested members.
The “interested” board members — Greenberg, Emery and Avery, as well as the chair, Sullivan — did not vote.
Sullivan previously said the disinterested members voted unanimously to implement the recommendation of the ethics panel, with one member absent.
The board is scheduled to meet Thursday evening, when a new chair and vice chair will be elected.
Opponents of the trio’s removal from the board plan to hold a protest at the meeting.
This story has been updated.
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