Open Meetings Act - Michigan

from the section you supplied, no, the law does not cover the board meetings of privately run/owned businesses, like your HOA.

It applies to governmental bodies, agencies, etc. only.

Tim,

No they are single family homes.

valerie

As Secretary of an 88-home HOA I am very interested in this topic.

A new trustee was elected at the Annual Meeting in June, and the board of trustees elected the new trustee as President a few weeks later. (Our HOA seems unusual in that the officers (President, Treasurer, and Secretary) are elected from among the trustees. The membership does not elect the officers directly.)

The new President has been running our HOA on his own, pretty much like a bully. He has antagonized one member so much that the President has threatened to obtain a PPO against the member. I could describe further how our HOA board is rapidly turning into a train wreck.

The new President called his first board meeting in late June. As the board was meeting in the new President's open garage, a couple members were walking up the driveway to attend the meeting. The President met the members outside the garage and explained to them that this was a private meeting.

There is a board meeting scheduled for next week. As I was going over the agenda with the new President I mentioned that I would send out an e-mail to members to let them know the date of the next board meeting. The President got quite angry and said that the meeting would not be open to members. He reasoned that "I should be able to call my team together any time I want and not have a bunch of people show up." Several members have asked me to let them know when the next board meeting is, but the President specifically admonished me and instructed me not to notify members

Our HOA maintains liability insurance and D & O insurance. Over the years our insurance agent has recommended several ways to minimize the risk to members as well as risk of legal action by members. For example, the Treasurer should make the financial records available at any time to members, we should respond to inquires as soon as possible, we should require watercraft owners to maintain liability insurance on their boats, and we should hold open meetings whenever possible. The agent acknowledges that there are valid reasons for the board to meet in private, like discussing the price to offer for a piece of property or a personnel matter.

My understanding is that our HOA is obliged to follow the Open Meetings Act because the HOA is a public body. The HOA is a public body because it is a "municipal corporation".

Thank you for any guidance you can give.

Crystal

Your HOA is not a municipal corporation. Those are cities, counties, etc., not private HOA's. The Michigan open meeting act covers governmental bodies, not private.

However, where you need to look is in your own HOA By-laws (most likely). There is typically wording in the by-laws on how to run an org, and frequently, the meeting rules are spelled out in that. Sometimes these are in the charter doc, or in the rules/regs/CC&R's, but usually by-laws.

Look them up, find out how the HOA says it is to do business, show it to the president, and make him understand that typically, meetings of the boards of an HOA are open and visible to members in good standing of the HOA.

Crystal, great research. Wow.
That's a small piece of law that has big ramifications for Summer Resort Owners who incorporated that way.

You gotta go with the law, and if your HOA was formed under that statute, then the Michigan Open Meeting laws apply.

And technically, so do FOIA rules, apparently.