We spotted this poor coke machine in the parking lot after it had been removed from the island. I did some sleuthing, and found out that it’s not cost effective to keep it on the island. It’s a sound financial decision, but my kids will be sad not to have the excuse to ride their bikes over to the gameroom. It also means that contractors and lot-owners without homes won’t have any sort of vending machine at all, so remember to invite those folks in for a drink now and then! 
As frequent user of the Coke machine, especially when I didn’t have a home on the island, I’m sad to see it go.
How much can it really cost to run the machine?
Or is it more the case that whoever maintains the machine just doesn’t want to do it any more.
The Board should revisit this decision.
I maintained the Coke machine and will confirm your suspicion that nobody wants to do that job. That doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be done if it’s cost-effective and meets a desired community end.
It seems fair that you should be able to request that justification for removing the machine (i.e. the numbers) be recorded into meeting minutes of the board. Ideally, justification already exists in an internal monitoring report.
I question whether you really want your board micro-managing the operation at the level of a vending machine. The board should hold the CEO accountable for decisions made at the operational level. A summary of those decisions should occur in a regular schedule of monitoring reports to the board.
Two cents from a young executive!
JEL
For more on this topic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_Governance
All good points JEL.
I think it is within the Board’s scope to decide whether or not a service is offered and based on what budget. The operational details should be left to management.
If management isn’t doing a good job with the operation, then that’s a separate discussion. Let’s assume management was doing a good job.
I’ll bet they could find someone to subcontract the Coke machine operation to.
Reggie