The latest sign of change in the Oread neighborhood came Thursday night.

At its most heavily attended meeting in decades, members of the Oread Neighborhood Association made wholesale changes to the association’s board of directors — voting out several longtime owner-occupants and replacing them with a slate of landlords who own property in the neighborhood.

Rose Moore, a Johnson County school teacher, was elected as president, although several members said they knew little of her other than she owned rental property in the neighborhood. One individual who did know Moore said she lived outside Douglas County, but attempts to confirm that weren’t successful. Attempts to reach Moore on Friday were unsuccessful.

Rob Farha, a Lawrence bar owner and landlord in Oread, was elected vice president. Farha said the change in the board’s composition was appropriate given that about 90 percent of all homes in the neighborhood are now rentals.

“We definitely decided to make an effort to get on this board,” Farha said of several landlords. “We just felt like we needed to become more active to protect our investments.”

About 60 people attended the meeting, including a larger-than-usual number of Kansas University students who live in the neighborhood. The group did elect one student, Elise Higgins, to serve on the board.

The voting left at least three owner-occupants — Candice Davis, Carol von Tersch and James Dunn, who had served on the board for more than 10 years — off the board. The meeting also left some with hard feelings.

“What happened last night was an organized effort to hijack this organization,” Davis said. “It was all just about advancing their own economic interests, not about advancing the neighborhood.”

After the meeting, the association’s part-time coordinator resigned her position, several members said.

Others on the board include: Lois Schneider, secretary; James Hicks, treasurer; Marci Francisco; Phil Hemphill; David Holroyd; Katherine Moore; Erik Crawford; Jim Schneider; and Kyle Thompson, who had an automatic seat on the board as its past president.