Email discussion among Board

The behavior definitely would be against the open meeting laws in Calif., where the homeowners' ability to see & hear the deliberations about agenda items before the Board votes is emphasized. Emails among a quorum of directors about HOA business also is against the law. I'm a director and wholeheartedly embrace the legislation.

Offhand I'd suggest seeing if you can get other HO's to join you at meetings to demand that the Board come into compliance with whatever your state's open meeting statutes are. Put the pressure on!

Also check your HOA's contract with your Mgmt. Co. Our contract includes a phrase that the Prop. Mgr. may not support any behavior by the Board that's illegal or that opposes our governing documents.

Frankly, I'd be seriously concerned about a prez who's too cowardly to discuss the "people's business" in front of them!

Found a good blog entry by a lawyer in VA that talks abou this:

http://www.vahoalaw.com/association-meetings-and-proxies-board-member-emailing.html

Odds are we've violated the this on occasion... its not in an attempt to circumvent the law but rather to try and get things done as we take over the association...

I can understand the points being made... but its hard to reconcile that with reality of trying to start up an HOA after turnover... noew 2-3 months from now I doubt it will be an issue... but for the first 5-6 months....

its just 'WOW this is alot of &#$&

Paul

The article was typical lawyer gibberish for maybe, maybe not. Pay me billable hours to figure it out.

I say as long as Emails are informational, fact finding, etc. and never a motion, vote, vote agreement, etc. then they are fine.

Like the 3 bids example. If Email discussions were held and then in public a motion is made, seconded and discussed then during the discussion all each has to say is I have reviewed the proposals, thought about them, discussed them with many people, done some internet research, etc. and I am leaning toward voting so and so for the following reasons...yaba...yaba.

If you have larceny in your heart, then you will never be able to justify anything you did outside/nor inside the public eye. If your methods were for the greater good of all homeowners, you can easily justify what you did.

Is not open to discovery motions the same as larceny in ones heart? If I have nothing to hide then why fear such motions?

Now I do admit such motions from my wife could scare me.....LOL

Just goes to prove MORE laws and regulations sometimes make more problems than they solve.

When you get together some do nothing politicians who have no first hand knowledge of how a HOA property operates or anyhing in he real world operates for that mater, you get laws like this that certainly hinder the abiliy of Boards in doing their jobs.

Do private corporations have to hold meetings to make decisions and hold discussions? Are all the shareholders entitled to equal information instantly?

What amazes me you have to jump through all these hoops so that the 4 owners would actually attend the monthly meetings won't be left out of the loop. What nonsense.

What other entity would operate under such restricions? You have a meeting once a month bu you can't e-mail informaion or updates among Board members or Board members and their MC. And this is supposed to work how.

You have an abiliy such as e-mail to assist in geting more work done and that tool can't be used.

Now I don't live in Virginia and after reading the lawyer's response through the provided link I'm glad I don't, this raises certain issues that have been brought up already. How about an emergency? Do we have to call for a meeting? And all the owners have to be equally informed?

In between meetings this would certainly limit the communication among Board members thus having things drag on for months or longer rather than days or a few hours.

We are soliciting bids for work on our pool. I met with the contractor he is supposed to submit a proposal but under Va. law we can't share this information or God fobid discuss any issues in the hopes of settling them before the meeting, without violating this law. Maybe.....

Years ago when I was in college I took a few law classes. One of the theories was "letter of the law versus meaning of the law". Suggesting to view a law as absolute and enforcable in every circumstance might miss what the law was intended to accomplish. I would guess this might be such a time.

Do you want back room deals? Of course not. Should the owners have as much information as possible?

But do you want to prevent even discussions or exchanges from taking place under any and all circumstances or in some cases decisons having to be made and that puts those people in violaion of this law?

I just wonder what penalties are likely for those who dare act outside this law? How many Va. Board members are doing hard time?

Not sure how things are around the rest of the country but here we have much more important things to DO. Luckily under NYS law we haven't yet lost the ability to communicate with fellow Board members.

The job of Board member is hard enough without adding nonsense and stupidity to the mix.

Everybody, do note that Natalie has served on her board so is experienced, and states that the current prez doesn't "like to make decisions in front of everyone." What kind of president is that!!?? Would you want to be a HO in in HOA like that? She also sought advice, not our opinions of open meeting acts: how can she encourage the board to be less secretive? Am I the only one who can offer any (however weak) advice?

Natalie & Paul, Tim usually makes very wise observations and also is from VA.

Paul, I'm not experienced with "starting" an HOA. Didn't you already have one in place when HO's took control? What issues is your board confronting that take so much time (again, excuse my ignorance)? Perhaps your board want to consider meeting monthly till you take care of whatever it is.

You could be in compliance with your state laws if the board forms an architectural committee that has the authority to approve requests. It may not, though, be comprised of a majority of directors. We have an ARC of 3 and none are directors. We have clear guidelines and request forms so the ARC makes most of its decisions online.

David, again due to my inexperience, I don't know what the chain to your garage door does, but its repair sounds like an emergency, which means the board is permitted to meet online about it. The results of the meeting would be included in your next regular meeting. (To JonC46, too.) But a majority of our board of 7 never discusses HOA biz prior to a duly noticed, etc. meeting. To go into a meeting with the vote already decided does not let HO's see and hear the deliberative process. We receive our meeting materials about a week before the regular meeting. If you haven't checked it lately, the attorneys at davis-sterling. com have posted some additional info about the new legislation. I imagine it's due to lotsa annoyed boar members! Go to their Main Index -> Meetings.

Jon, to use your pool example: in CA, directors may meet in executive session to discuss and vote on contracts. (Ex. Sess. now requires 2 days notice to HOs even though they may not attend.) The bids would come to us a few days before the meeting from our PM. A director could ask her to get more info from 1 or more contractor to prepare us for the meeting. This request for information that we'd receive prior to the meeting wouldn't violate the open meeting act. There's nothing preventing our P.M. from updating us regularly on, for example, a couple of complex reconstruction projects we have in progress (construction defect settlement).

As noted above, Jon, at least in CA, emergencies can be dealt with online or a an emergency meeting with no notice to the membership. We do not

One reason our board so carefully adheres to the Open Meeting Act is because until the end of '06, there was, indeed, an arbitrary, ignorant Board here that did just about everything in secret. Most of the current board remembers those bad ol' days. And I can guarantee you, Jon, that nothing here "drags on for months."

Carol,
I agree that Tim is a great resource! I always look forward to what he has to say. I most definitely have no problem with emergencies being handled online, but our Board is appearing to use email as a method to avoid the discussions and decisions that should take place at an open meeting with the members of the comunity. They are not at all in a hurry to acomplish things as a year and a half later charters for our committees have yet to be established. We have three committees with appointed chairs that have not had any meetings or direction from the Board. I was promised by the community manager that they would be done by this last meeting but the Board had not approved them yet. I am a go getter and we are moving at a snails pace!! The current management co. was hired in November so I am allowing for the adjustment. I write the community newsletter so that there is least some form of communication for the community regarding the association.

Natalie, when our bad ol' board was in power, and other non-directors wanted to start committees for a variety of reasons, we found some sample charters online (don't recall where) and submitted them to the board for its approval. It worked! They just didn't want to be bothered. It was from this new committee system that new "real" leaders emerge who later served on the board.