Columbia Association has no timeline to fill 3 seats of ousted board members

Four months after the Columbia Association’s board of directors removed three of its members, there’s little hope of a quick resolution to the ensuing dispute that’s left several villages unrepresented.

The three members, kicked off the board in April, were accused of weaponizing the association’s ethics policy and not cooperating with an outside investigation. A fourth member left the board in May for personal reasons.

So when will the empty seats be filled? That’s up to each of the 10 villages that make up Columbia, home to more than 100,000 residents. However, there’s no deadline and there are no accountability measures in place to ensure the empty village seats are filled in a timely fashion.

It will likely be months before the case sees resolution, leaving the three villages unrepresented on the board.

Although Columbia’s population makes it Maryland’s second-largest city after Baltimore, it’s unincorporated. Instead of a government, Columbia is overseen by an outsize homeowners association as envisioned by pioneering real estate developer James Rouse when he designed the planned community in the 1960s. The association’s board of directors, made up of one member from each of the villages, oversees a $91 million budget, which pays for Columbia’s amenities such as pools, paths and community programming.

The board, though, has been notorious for infighting.

The latest spat blew into the open April 23, when the association’s board voted in closed session to oust 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 code of conduct.

The trio sued the association, seeking a temporary restraining order to be reinstated, but were denied.

Asked what happens if a board seat is empty for too long and whether the board can mandate the election of a new village representative, Julie Miller, a spokesperson for the Columbia Association, said in a statement: “The scenario you describe does not appear to be addressed by the charter or bylaws.”

Columbia residents vote in their village elections for board members and a single member of the Columbia Council. Turnout is typically abysmal, despite the stakes for residents who pay a 68-cent annual charge on every $100 of state-assessed property value to fund the association.

Those voted to the Columbia Council then vote themselves onto the association’s board of directors.

The villages that lost representation with the ousting of the three board members are in no hurry to replace them.

Jonathan Edelson, chair of the Oakland Mills Community Association, said in a statement the village “considers Karin Emery our duly elected representative to the Columbia Council … therefore, we have no timeline nor plans to fill a seat we don’t consider vacant.”

Edelson said it’s up to each village’s governing documents to determine the election process to the Columbia Council.

The Long Reach village board chair declined to comment. The River Village board chair did not respond to a request for comment. However, in separate letters to association leadership or the Howard County Circuit Court judge hearing the case, both board chairs wrote there are no reasons to remove Avery or Greenberg from the Columbia Council.

Another village took action promptly when its council representative resigned this year.

Wesley Fuhrman resigned as Kings Contrivance’s representative in May, and the village association put a call out in July to fill the rest of his term, which ends April 30. That same month, the Kings Contrivance village board selected Ted Bauer to become its Columbia Council representative. The village is waiting for the association’s board to meet to accept Bauer.

The next association board meeting is a town hall Sept. 24. The next regular meeting is scheduled for Oct. 22.

Fuhrman said in a statement that juggling being on the board with personal and work commitments “grew to be prohibitive.”

Tensions among the association’s board members reached a boiling point last September when board Chair Collin Sullivan of Town Center sent an internal memo to fellow board members and the association’s leadership that revealed Greenberg had given Columbia Association President and CEO Shawn MacInnes several zero ratings during a spring evaluation. The ratings were meant to be kept confidential.

In response, Avery, Emery and Greenberg filed a complaint accusing Sullivan and Bill Santos, Wilde Lake’s representative, of improperly sharing confidential information with MacInnes. An outside law firm hired by the ethics panel investigated and found no violations. It determined Greenberg’s views were widely known.

At the time of the 2025 spring evaluation, Santos was board chair and Sullivan was vice chair.

The ethics panel then determined that Avery, Emery and Greenberg had acted in bad faith when they lodged the ethics complaint against Sullivan and Santos. Two weeks later, on April 23, the three were removed from the board.

On April 24, the Columbia Association released an 82-page report detailing the trio’s alleged misconduct and unwillingness to cooperate with the investigation. It also detailed seven months of board infighting.

Avery, Emery and Greenberg did not respond to a request for comment.

The three removed members are represented by the Annapolis law firm McAllister, DeTar, Showalter & Walker. Reached by phone, one of their attorney’s declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.

A settlement conference is tentatively scheduled for May 21. A court trial could take place in September 2027.