Gleneagle’s owners removed all five directors of their civic association on September 15 and elected the five challengers who had campaigned for the recall. Five days on, neither the association nor the group that won has published an account of the result, and no certified tally has been released. The question this newspaper asked three times before the vote — how many votes it takes to remove a director — now has an answer, given by both sides: a majority of those present. Here is the reasoning behind it, and what remains open.
Every member of the Gleneagle Civic Association board was voted out at a special meeting at Antelope Trails Elementary School on Tuesday, September 15, and the five candidates put forward by U.N.I.T.E. Gleneagle were elected in their place and took office immediately.
Removed were Mark Connell, the president; Glenn Leimbach, the vice president; Steve Kouri, the treasurer; Ray Micklewright, the secretary; and Jeff McLemore, who chaired the architectural review committee. Elected were Kevin Baker, Michelle Bowles, Carolyn Deaderick, Mike Rosas and Jeane Turner — the same five names the association had pre-printed as candidates on its own proxy form.
The account of the meeting is David Futey’s, reported for Our Community News, which remains the only published account by anyone who was in the room. The Independent was not at the meeting. Futey reports that a quorum was declared, that more than 270 votes were cast in person and by proxy, and that Debra Oppenheimer of Altitude Community Law P.C. moderated both votes.
The threshold question, answered
The association’s notice of August 27 said a director could be removed by a majority of the votes present. Article IV, Section 6 of its bylaws says a director may be removed “by a vote of a majority of the Members.” On 704 lots the first is roughly 137 and the second is 353, and on Tuesday’s turnout the two readings do not give the same result. The board never answered the question before the vote. It has now been answered afterward, by the people on both sides of it.
Micklewright, the outgoing secretary, told The Independent the association’s counsel had analyzed the bylaws and the Colorado nonprofit statute and concluded that “a majority of those present is what is required to recall the board.” U.N.I.T.E. said the same, and added that the outgoing board consulted two attorneys, both of whom rested on the final sentence of the same Article IV, Section 6: “Action under this paragraph can only be taken at a meeting where there is a quorum present.” On that reading, the quorum requirement is what constrains the meeting, and the threshold is a majority of the votes cast within it.
The stronger leg of the argument is statutory, and it checks out. The Gleneagle Civic Association is registered with the Colorado Secretary of State as a nonprofit corporation, incorporated in January 1995 and in good standing, so the Colorado Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act governs its corporate affairs. Section 7-128-108 of that act provides that a director may be removed only if the number of votes cast to remove the director would be sufficient to elect that director at a meeting to elect directors. Article IV, paragraph 4 of the bylaws sets election by plurality: “The persons receiving the largest number of votes shall be elected.” Read together, the votes needed to remove a director track the votes that would have seated one, which is a number well short of a majority of all 704 members.
| Provision | What it says | On 704 lots |
|---|---|---|
| Quorum Notice of Aug. 27; bylaws Art. II |
20 percent of the total votes, in person or by proxy | 141 — met |
| Removal, as applied Notice of Aug. 27 |
A majority of the votes present and entitled to vote | About 137 on a turnout near 272 — met |
| Removal, as written Bylaws Art. IV, Sec. 6 |
“A vote of a majority of the Members,” at a meeting with a quorum present | 353 on the first clause — not met |
| The statute counsel relied on C.R.S. 7-128-108 |
Removal requires votes that would have been “sufficient to elect” the director; the bylaws elect by plurality | Tracks the election standard, not a majority of all members |
There is a reading that cuts the other way, and it is worth stating rather than leaving implied. Article II of the bylaws sets the general rule that matters are decided by a majority of the votes validly cast — but only “unless otherwise specifically provided” elsewhere in the bylaws. Article IV, Section 6 is such a provision, and on the competing reading its two requirements are separate: a quorum to hold the meeting, and a majority of the members to carry the removal. That reading gives the phrase “a majority of the Members” work to do that it otherwise does not have. It is a reading, not a finding, and no one has taken it to a court. This newspaper does not assert that Tuesday’s vote was or was not validly carried; that is a question for lawyers, and two of them have already answered it the other way.
No certified tally, and no announcement
What the association has not produced is the count. Five days after the meeting, no certified tally has been published. The figures in circulation cluster closely and none is official: Our Community News reports “over 270”; U.N.I.T.E. told The Independent its understanding was 273 total votes, with each director voted on separately rather than as a block and each removed by a margin of about 20.
Micklewright could not confirm any of it. He left the meeting, he said, shortly after hearing the general assertion that the first vote had carried, and referred The Independent to the association’s counsel or to the new board for the certified count. Oppenheimer has not replied to written questions. The association’s published address, [email protected], returned an automated acknowledgment for the third time in sixteen days.
Nor has either side told owners what happened. The association’s website carries no notice of the meeting or its outcome; its news page has not been updated since 2022. U.N.I.T.E.’s website still announces that the recall meeting “will occur at 6 PM on Tuesday September 15th,” still urges owners to attend, and still carries a live link to its proxy form, six days after the proxy deadline passed. U.N.I.T.E. said the new directors are still organizing and want to tell homeowners before making a public statement, and that the association’s contact address is unchanged while the connections behind it are worked out.
The staggered terms are not fixed either. Futey reported that Oppenheimer told the incoming board it would need to set three two-year terms and two one-year terms, and that how this interacts with the annual election due later this year was left open. U.N.I.T.E. said there was “a little miscommunication by the lawyer regarding the terms” and that the new directors are working to resolve it. The bylaws place the annual meeting in October; recent practice has held it in November.
What the new board inherits
The five incoming directors take on an association whose operating account stood at $9,517.05 in July, down from $57,491.08 a year earlier, with two certificates of deposit outstanding — $73,000 maturing on November 16 and $61,000 the following April. They inherit an unresolved discrepancy in the board’s own records of the 2025 declaration vote, where two accounts of the same 416 ballots differ by thirteen votes. They inherit an association that communicates with its members by email rather than on its website, and a website that publishes two versions of the bylaws.
They also inherit the covenants the outgoing board tried to replace. The rewrite failed at the ballot in 2025, the court petition that followed was denied in June, and the existing declaration stands. Nothing about Tuesday’s vote changes that document. What changed is who administers it.
Sources & further reading
The account of the meeting: Entire GCA Board Recalled and Replaced in Special Election, by David Futey, Our Community News, September 17, 2026. Everything in this article about what happened in the room is drawn from that report.
The Independent’s earlier coverage: Gleneagle Votes September 15 on Recalling Its Entire Board · the covenant rewrite, the court petition, the association’s finances and the threshold question · Gleneagle’s Proxy Form Names a Director Facing Removal · the proxy documents, the conflict disclosure, and the email address that rejected owners’ proxies.
Documents and records: Bylaws as amended March 18, 2025, and the notice of special meeting dated August 27, 2026, at gleneaglehoa.org · C.R.S. 7-128-108, removal of directors, Colorado Revised Nonprofit Corporation Act · the association’s registration record, Colorado Secretary of State ID 19951007537.
Methodology
The Independent did not attend the September 15 meeting. The outcome of both votes, the turnout figure, the declaration of a quorum, the moderator’s identity and her instructions to the incoming board all come from David Futey’s report for Our Community News and are credited to it.
Written questions went on September 17 to the association, to U.N.I.T.E. Gleneagle, to Ray Micklewright, and to Debra Oppenheimer at the address her firm publishes. Micklewright and U.N.I.T.E. replied on September 17 and 18 and are quoted here. U.N.I.T.E. stated that the new board had deferred to it on these questions and that its answers were not an official response from the board; they are reported on that basis, and the tally it gave is described as its understanding rather than as a certified figure. Oppenheimer did not reply. The association’s address returned an automated acknowledgment, as it did to messages sent on September 2 and September 13.
The quorum, removal and election provisions were read from the bylaws as amended March 18, 2025, which the association publishes and which state that they replace the bylaws dated July 5, 2018; the superseded 2018 text remains on a separate page of the same website, and the two are identical on these provisions. The text of C.R.S. 7-128-108 was checked against the published statute rather than taken from either party’s characterization of it. The association’s status as a Colorado nonprofit corporation in good standing was confirmed from the Secretary of State’s business registry on September 20; no filing has been made with that office since December 2025, and Colorado does not require nonprofit corporations to register their directors, so the change of board leaves no trace there. The figure of 704 lots is the association’s own.
This article does not assert that the removal vote was or was not validly carried. It sets out the provisions, the statute, the reasoning the association’s counsel gave, and the competing reading. If a certified tally is released and it changes the account above, this article will carry a correction rather than a silent edit.
