Checking Candidates

I used to live in a subdivision where the homeowners association was very active. The officers of the organization usually conduct weekly social gatherings and monthly meetings. I’m usually quite busy even during the weekends, so I often beg off from such activities.

The only time that I’ve participated in a homeowners meeting was when some of my neighbors started to accuse some of the officers of spending association funds for personal needs. The officers vehemently denied the claims but agreed to step down to make way for a snap election.

I suspected that village politics played a role in the accusations since the complainants already had a ready-made line up of their favored candidates. I was just a silent observer, but I was determined to exercise my right to vote. However, I didn’t know much about them since I rarely mingle with them during gatherings.

I didn’t ask some of my neighbors regarding the character and qualifications of the candidates since I know that they’ll be injecting gossip material to the information that they’ll be giving me. What I did though, was to conduct a background check on each of them. I didn’t hire anybody. I just went through some of the databases available online. It really helped a lot... especially in sorting out the gossip from the facts.