I found out a couple of days ago that I won an election to the 11-1 Neighborhood Board. The news came to me courtesy of the MidWeek newspaper that shows up weekly in bulk at our condo. There was a list of winners and there I was. Later I checked the Neighborhood Commission website and sure enough I won by a landslide. If you consider a dozen votes a landslide but in Neighborhood Board elections that is sometimes a hefty margin.

I had not expected to win and did absolutely nothing in terms of a campaign other than mentioning my candidacy to some neighbors. No campaign contribution issues here; there was no campaign. While I’d like to claim the win was due to my devilishly handsome campaign photo and shrewd position statement, I actually attribute my victory to the failure of a few other candidates to include any information about themselves on the NB election website. Yes, I admit  it. I barely won against some other guys who did not show up.

I have not heard anything from the Neighborhood Commission. My Board position starts on July 1 and I imagine someone from the NB Commission will fire off an email and tell me what happens next. If I don’t hear something next week I’ll give them a call and ask. In the meantime I decided to take an online course on parliamentary procedure.  I also downloaded to my Kindle a copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Robert’s Rules of Order” since that title seemed even more personalized than the “Roberts Rules For Dummies” that was also available. There’s a lot of material on the Neighborhood Commission website about the authorizing documents for the Boards, the underlying legislation and the duties, obligations and expectations of Board members so I’m trudging through that. too.

I have also downloaded from the NB website a bunch of the minutes of previous meetings to immerse myself in the types of topics under discussion and to try and divine how the discussions have gone.

I’m not completely a NB virgin. I’ve attended some of the Ala Moana-Kakaako NB meetings in the past and way back when I used to attend the Koolaupoko and Koolauloa Neighborhood Board meetings as a representative for my employer at the time, Kualoa Ranch. So I have some familiarity with the way these things work but I admit I’ve got much to learn.

Lots of reading to do this month.