Don Polonis has opinions. Some may consider them divisive. So on June 2, Polonis did what anyone with a controversial opinion might do: He posted his thoughts on the internet.
“Imagine that!” Polonis wrote in a public Facebook group. “Satan fuc*ed up when he stole Noah’s covenant to create LGBTQ+ pride flag.”
Alongside his thoughts, he shared an image with a rainbow background that read, “DID YOU KNOW? The official rainbow—the Lord’s creation—has 7 colors while the official LGBT flag only uses 6? In the scriptures, 7 represents, completion and perfection, while 6 represents falling short, imitation, and Satan. The LGBT flag skips indigo (blue color). Indigo is a color of royalty, and of spiritual knowledge and wisdom, often connecting heaven and earth. The LGBT ultimately do not want to be connected to God.”
“God Creates,” the post said. “Satan Imitates.”
Polonis’ post soon spread beyond Facebook, and was circulated among residents of Lake Monticello, a vacation-turned-bedroom community 30 minutes southeast of Charlottesville in Fluvanna County. Jennifer Richardson was one of many residents who were appalled at what they’d read—Polonis, after all, is an elected member of Lake Monticello’s Owners Association Board of Directors.
“A mutual friend who lives in the Lake … sent an email to everybody with the screenshot of [him] sharing that meme about how the LGBTQIA+ community stole the rainbow from God and they’re Satanic and everything,” says Richardson. “Some of us decided to write the entire board and say, ‘Hey, this is offensive, this is unacceptable.’ … I was not one of them, [but] my really good friend Kelsey was.”
Kelsey Cowger issued a complaint to the board over the post. In response, Polonis posted a screenshot of her email to a public, right-wing social media group with the caption, “The hatred that goes with pride knows no bounds. Satan at work!!!”
The post also contained Cowger’s name, address, and contact information.
“I have a pretty thick skin about these things. I think of myself as decently unshockable, but we also have a 2-year-old,” says Cowger. “We were nervous … that our house would be vandalized. We had to go away for a couple days, we were worried about that. We were worried that we would get mail or that people would drive by and say threatening things. I’m very grateful to say that none of that happened.”
Despite his public claims otherwise, Cowger says Polonis has not apologized to her for doxxing her, and refused to remove the post. “We initially asked him to take it down, he refused. The board asked him to take it down, he refused again,” she says. “The community where he posted it went from being a public group to a private group, and the moderators of that group have said that they went in and proactively took it down … although there’s no way for me to verify it because it’s a private group.”
For his part, Polonis continues to assert that he has apologized for posting Cowger’s information. “When I posted that letter unedited I was merely citing an example of how Satan works to intimidate those who oppose his activity. I apologized for listing the authors,” he says. “I didn’t know people these days are allowed to write secret letters calling for the resignation of an elected representative. I grew up with the words of President John F. Kennedy who in 1961 said ‘The very word ‘secrecy’ is repugnant in a free and open society.’”
But Polonis’ doxxing of Cowger was the final straw for the Lake Monticello Owners Association board and many in the community. The board censured Polonis, while residents began kick-starting attempts to remove him as a director. According to the censure, Polonis has repeatedly violated the board’s social media policy and previously received numerous warnings for conduct.
Ousting Polonis won’t be easy. While the LMOA policy states that a director can be removed by a board vote, Polonis is protected by Virginia corporate law, which classifies homeowner associations as non-stock corporations. As a result, more than 50 percent of all Lake Monticello homeowners—2,301 people—must vote to remove Polonis through a special election.
Since its founding in the 1960s, Lake Monticello has rapidly expanded. As of 2020, more than 10,000 people live in the traditionally conservative gated community. While there has historically been a large number of retirees, the demographics of the neighborhood have shifted significantly in recent years.
Lake Monticello has never had 2,000 people vote in an LMOA election, let alone 2,301. But that daunting figure hasn’t stopped Cowger from leading a campaign to recall Polonis.
From yard signs to postcards to fliers, Cowger and her group, Polonis Must Go!, are taking the Lake Monticello community by storm. “It’s been a really big group effort,” she says. “Lots of people who don’t get involved in politics and kind of moved out here to golf and to just be retired were just like, ‘Well I don’t normally do this, but I’d love to put fliers in cubbies.’”
Both Jennifer Richardson and her husband Jonathan have been involved in the recall campaign.
“There are so many people, like more people than I imagined lived at the lake, that are coming out and stuffing cubbies and writing postcards and wanting to participate in this,” says Jennifer. For his part, Jonathan is coordinating the yard sign distribution.
Beyond volunteering, there has been a tremendous amount of fundraising for the recall effort, with almost $7,000 raised in two weeks.
“We had a pool party fundraiser about a week after this all happened just to raise money for signs and things, and we had close to 200 people come on very little notice,” says Cowger. “It can be extremely motivating for people when it’s something that really feels sort of close to their backyard, it feels like they’ve got very specific stakes in.”
Despite calls for his resignation and the ongoing recall effort, Polonis continues to stand by his statements. “The newspapers and social media are abuzz these days because I, a Christian, expressed the opinion that the Pride movement has been influenced by Satan. I believe that this is true. My comments referred to the Pride Flag, a symbol not an individual,” he says.
Beyond defending the post that originally got him in hot water, the director views the movement to remove him as demonic. “I believe Satan was responsible for the vitriolic response letter to that initial post,” says Polonis. “The action by the LMOA Board to initiate a separate expensive recall election based on a petition that most likely includes many non-members is a further infringement on my Constitutional First Amendment rights.”
While the recall election is impacting operations for the LMOA, the cost is not burdensome, according to Communications Director Marieke Henry. “There’s a lot involved in holding a special election. … It does affect us, it affects our schedules, and it affects us financially, but not significantly,” she says. “It is very clear that it is important to our members that it’s held.”
With voting starting on August 7 and running until September 5 (results will be announced September 12), Cowger remains cautiously optimistic about the outcome. “There’s a lot of people who don’t have a problem, necessarily, with the kind of stuff that Director Polonis was initially posting,” she says. “But, they worry about their property values, and they worry about the privacy aspects, they worry about the idea that you could have a director acting in a basically unregulated way, without any mechanism to remove them. So we’ve got a weird coalition.”
If Polonis is successfully removed, “board members will [likely] appoint someone to take his place until the official elections occur next year in June,” says Henry. However, if the recall is unsuccessful the LMOA Board of Directors will need to find a way to function with Polonis on the board for the remainder of his term.
Regardless of the outcome, Cowger and her coalition are hopeful about the future of Lake Monticello. “Even if we don’t successfully remove him from the board, we now have a rather large organized group of people who aren’t going to suddenly disappear after the vote,” says Jonathon Richardson.
For Jennifer Richardson, the recall effort has reinvigorated her love of her neighborhood. “Up until this point, we were considering trying to move back to Charlottesville and move back to Albemarle, because Fluvanna as a whole can be kind of right leaning and dismissive of people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community and just not accommodating anyway,” she says. “But after this experience, and meeting so many more people than I thought existed in this community that are just accepting. I really want to stay now. … Even if Polonis does stay another three years, there’s three more seats on the board that open up next year, and younger and more progressive people are going to take those seats. And it’s just going to continue in that direction. Whether he likes it or not.”