By-Law Commiittee

It's wonderful that you have so many volunteers! And that you're working well together!

In most HOA's, committees serve at the pleasure of the board, which approves their formation and also can disband them. The board also usually has the authority to replace committee chairs. So it seems you're in a bind. If you value your board member chairman, you want him to continue in that capacity.

Generally, the board president is an ex officio member of all committees so has the right to attend. It seems to me that the rest of the committee should try to work with him; you're the ones with the votes, which'll become recommendations to the Board. You outnumber him, but perhaps need to appease him.

Don't lose sight of your overall goal.

Let the president attend the meeting or start your own unofficial committee. It sounds like it would be better if you all quit and started meeting on your own, this way no one could tell you what to do. Then present the list of recommendations to the board.

Let's just say the President has:
1. kept residents off the board by creating fees and saying that
their assessments are not paid up
2. Used Glencannon money when his neighbors took him to the magistrate
regarding his property
3. Took the books when they fired the secretary and recreated the accounts
4. Had his wife "fill in" while we didn't have a secretary (meanwhile she knows
nothing about bookkeeping). The association paid her over $5,000.
5. And the list goes on and on
Where is everyone when this is going on, most of the residents do not want to get involved.

So no, I am not telling myself a story that may not be true. This man has done so
many things that are wrong and it just continues. He will try to make sure the
by-laws benefit him.

Unfortunately the rest of the board (with the exception of two members) are friends of
the President. That is why this is happening. They keep other residents off so they can
keep their friends on. A few of us tried to get on a vacancy that has been available for
4 months but they vote against us (they are trying to find another one of their friends to
fill this vacancy.) Our by-laws state that the vacancy is to be filled at the next monthly
board meeting but it also states the remaining members of the board will vote for this person
to fill the vacancy. So you can see there is no way to get on the board as long as they have
the majority.

They have us engaged in a lawsuit with our township and school district. We
have a pond and they feel they should be helping us take care of it but we do own the pond.
So far we have spent over $100,000 with no end in sight. I will be surprised if we don't lose
everything over this! (And no, I don't drink before, during, or after meetings.)

How many directors are supposed to be on the Board, Cheryl? (You say there's one vacancy.) You wrote, "They [other directors] keep other residents off so they can
keep their friends on." How are they able to do this at an annual election? When is your next election?

How is the president able to "create" fees? These should be established in your governing documents somewhere. The Prez may not just arbitrarily make them (fees) up.

It sounds like the 7-member bylaws committee would be a good core for a boarder movement by homeowners to either recall the current board or some directors on it OR mount a slate of candidates to run in the next annual election.

You might proceed as a committee to revise the bylaws with the prez in attendance. AND you same 7 or 6 (if you don't want to include the existing director) with your spouses or a few others meet independently of the board to start planning a major change in your board composition.

Meantime, what kind of bylaw(s) do you imagine your prez could make to benefit him? What might be an example? As you know, your bylaws must not conflict with your CC&Rs or certain PA statutes. In fact, your committee should, in my opinion, consult with an HOA attorney about revisions.

Our board here just approved revised bylaws. Short of them stating that the prez has complete authority over all aspects of our HOA, which the Board never would have approved, I can't think of anything specific that could only benefit the pres.

Almost all of our revisions related to changes in CA statute changes. We also got rid of the "developer language." Sure, as another poster noted, we (the Board) could have just continued with our old ones and reviewed civil code a lot, but it's much cleaner for homeowners to read now.

How many units are in your HOA? Self-standing homes, or?