Last spring, Judy Kontos won election to the Shelter Bay Community’s board of directors on a platform of increasing transparency and ushering in reform as part of the nine-member governing panel.

This time around, Kontos didn’t fare well when Shelter Bay residents marked their ballots.

Kontos was recalled on a 343-149 vote last Wednesday when in-person and mail-in ballots were tallied.

Kontos, whose career background is in finance with extensive experience as a mortgage broker, was sanctioned and suspended from the board in February pending the April 12 community membership recall vote based on four code of conduct complaints filed against her last fall.

Kontos has vigorously denied allegations of improper conduct affirmed by an appointed community ethics committee which probed the matter and issued its findings earlier this year.

The recall vote results were announced at a special community membership meeting that reconvened on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., five hours after the election closed. Shelter Bay policy does not allow media access to community meetings.

The Teller’s Report listed 492 votes cast, representing 58 per cent turnout of total eligible voters – community members in good standing, not owing fees. Only 16 in person votes were cast.

Shelter Bay Board Secretary Monte Hicks said in an updated Teller’s Report Thursday that 22 ballots were dropped into the election box at the front office Wednesday morning. No details were provided on the source of those ballots. The teller's report lists both 492 total votes and 470 total members voting.

Kontos challenging recall

Monday night Kontos was prepared to challenge her recall, saying there are “a have a bunch of irregularities of how the thing was handled.” She will call for an election audit. “If they decline I will see them over in Superior Court,” she said. She went into great detail describing a flawed and irregular process she said did not adhere to the bylaws, rules or impartiality.

Her criticisms start with not keeping to the 10-day period from her suspension in February to this vote. Each election, Kontos maintains, requires a unique color code ink for tracking, electronic voting and a neutral, hired third-party elections processing company. Instead there were yellow ballots mailed but white ballots cast in person. The blue security envelope went inside the white mailing envelope which residents signed. She said her ballot watchers saw white ballots being removed from blue envelopes. This was not confirmed independently.

“It was so confusing it was an Alice in Wonderland” process, she said, not proscribed by the community’s rules.

Recalled April 12, Kontos delivered separate petitions for the recall of the five executive committee board members April 13.