open competitive bids for landscaper

If you have membership meetings and members actually attend these meetings, you can bring it up at the meeting. You can talk to other members and try to encourage them to attend meetings. You should also try to get BOD candidates for the next election and encourage members to attend and vote.

The BOD has a duty to spend the association funds wisely. Giving contracts to a favored contractor without bidding is questionable at best. On the other hand, it's difficult to quantify "landscaping" without being very specific on what, when, how often, and with what materials. There's usually someone around who can give a lower bid by cutting corners.

I actually was in your exact situation a few years ago. The first year I was President. The former president was a pretty good "con-man". He had a habit of hiring "friends". One of those "friends" was a resident/member who he hired to do the landscaping. When I got elected, I decided on doing an "open bid" process. Made ALL the contractors (except bookkeeper) submit bids and their original contracts.
It was during my discussion with the current landscaper that I had found out what the previous President had been up to. The landscaper had come up to me and gave me a "list" of general improvements such as planting of trees, plants, and flowers etc... he wanted to do. Sounds right doesn't it? However, when I asked about how we were to "Finance" these additions, he told me that "Jim" (Ex-President) simply had written him a check in the past! A little "fishy" if you ask me. The President of the Association can NOT just "write checks". The board members or majority vote of members MUST approve any expenditures. Checks have to have 2 signatures. (Eitherone from the bookkeeper or one of the 2 officers). This sent up a BUNCH of "Red flags".
After that discussion, I brought up to the board that ALL major projects MUST have 3 bids submitted and we would VOTE on the best one. The contractors MUST also be Licensed and Insured. (For insurance purposes). Landscape companies had to have ATLEAST a million dollar insurance policy. I did NOT say that no one couldn't recommend a friend, relative, or their own company. I also did not rule out who could research and gather the 3 bids as long as board members and myself were given the oportunity to review them as well. However, 99% of the time it was ONLY me that did the gathering of bids.
Ironically, if there ever was an emergency situation. The members demanded that we went by the 3 bid rule regardless if I had picked out the best or even the ONLY contractor who could do the job. Turns out, the members REALLY loved the idea of 3 bids. It really did save us LOT's of money and sometimes gave us a different solution.
It just makes the best sense to get multiple bids. You most likely do that in your own home. You don't always except the first repair person's bill if you can "shop around". Should be NO difference with a HOA.
If your soo gung-ho on this 3 bid system. Don't be disapointed if your the one who has to do it. There are no "They or them" in a HOA. It's the person willing to do the job!

The BODs excuse is that they took a verbal survey and found that the residents are satisfired with the current landscaper. The can not back this up, just hearsay. Can the BOD be sued for spending our funds foolishly and not getting competitive bids, especially where they can save the residents at least $ 25,000.? This can be documented.

It sounds as though you have a bad situation with your board that will only be corrected when you get enough residents interested to run against them.

As you probably know by now running a competition can be a lot of work and you have to be able to specify exactly what is required in order to get valid comparisons. Even if they have no ulterior motives it isn't too surprising that a non-elected Board would take the easy way out.

Lowest price isn't always the best selection criteria. When I was elected as first resident director on our builder/developer board a landscaping contractor was in place who cost us very little. The builder was still selling houses and keeping our assessments low. Then the contractor went belly up in mid-season and we had to scramble to find a replacement. Fortunately, we had just put a resident operations committee in place and they and the property manager were able to find one - at over twice the price.

This contractor has worked out very well over the past three years and even though we periodically test the waters to see if we can do better it doesn't look like we will run a competition anytime soon.

Dave