Disruptive Board members

I think it's a forrest for the trees situation...Stop focusing on the distractions and concentrate on the business at hand. People are NOT blind unless they choose NOT to see. It is pretty obvious your ex lawncare guy is going to be disgruntle. I am sure others see that too. The other guy people will see them for what they are. So why keep concerning yourself over them? Your NOT protecting anybody. Everyone owns a rope...You can hang yourself with it or play tug of war...I'd choose letting those who want to hang to do it to themselves...

I fired our lawncare guy. He was given a chance to bid on the job. He was a bit disgruntle about it for awhile. The members were unhappy with him and pleased we replaced him. However, still had to hear it once and awhile his complaints about the "New" guy. Just listen, nod, and walk away...People understood the situation and this was just a venting situation. Nothing to focus on.

David gives good advice, Rich. If the 4 of you conduct yourselves properly and treat all with respect at meetings, you may be able to neutralize the disrupters. You 4 also can keep the two out of officers positions. Do you have a property mgr. who can help?

But, it's not clear to me: Do they disrupt meetings? Do the nasty emails just go to the board? Or are these two spreading rumors throughout your HOA?

Btw, there have been many threads about the wisdom of hiring homeowners as contractors for the HOA. Rich's experience shows how very badly such an arrangement can turn out!

All the responses so far have been great and I agree with all of them. I continue to try to maintain a professional point of view and listen to all perspectives of our board members. My hope is over time this venomous environment will diminish and these two individuals will take a more respectful approach. Unfortunately for me we have two older board members who have been on the board for as much as a decade and neither likes confrontation so they keep their opinions to themselves and neither speaks up during these attacks. Then we have the president who is trying hard but is overwhelmed by the negative comments mostly directed in a personal way at her and then there is me. I can feel that these attacks are personal in nature and nothing seems to deter them. I am kind of a process and procedures (SOP) person having to do this in the military for over 30 years. I can be direct, harsh and to the point and my wife who advises me on this states that is not the right approach to take with these two individuals. So I continue to march on biting my tongue and trying to insert reason in a storm of personal attacks, innuendos and bullying. I was asked by my wife if I wanted to be President of the board and my answer was no. My reasoning is simple. I am direct, respectful and apply the rules with a common sense approach and this board would not accept that at this point. I have instituted a code of conduct letter, code of ethics, and a process for a Beautification award and write the newsletter for the community. We instituted park benches, aerators for the health of our lakes and reviewed the bidding of our contracts and actually saved our community tens of thousands of dollars. Additionally we sat down and actually wrote a budget, rather than have our manager throw numbers on a sheet of paper in the past, and came up with class one project. All within my first 12 months. And quite frankly I believe if you stay on a board for almost a decade or even as long as I have been, you become infected and numb and nothing gets done. So new blood in my opinion is always required on these boards but our community has a hands-off approach attitude and I may have already overstayed my welcome. But to see how much we accomplished last year and now going into our 5th month this year where nothing has been accomplished is exasperating. But the responses are correct and I do appreciate them.