How do members communicate interests to Board?

My husband is on the Board of our HOA and I am a committee member. Our monthly board meetings are open and I understand owners are allowed to attend but are not supposed to comment during the meeting except for the owner discussion during the opening minutes of the meeting. My question is- how is the board supposed to know what the owners want if they are not allowed to talk? Is that what the annual member meeting is for? We use that meeting as an election meeting and we don't normally discuss other topics.

I understand that the owners vote for the board members and they are supposed to act in the interest of the HOA, but are we supposed to flag them down in the hallways? I know I can always talk to my husband and he can represent our interests in board meetings- but what about the rest of the HOA? Recently our board meetings are getting unruly primarily for this reason (the board is not responding to the interests of the members). I attend meetings and bring up observations and ideas to the board and generally get snubbed along with the rest of the members.

Here is an example: Our Solarium was rented out for a wedding, and during the wedding a boom box was stolen. Following the theft there was confusion about the procedure for 'events'. I went to the board to ask about the process. Does the victim file a police report then notify the Mgt Co? Does the victim notify the M.C. and the MC files a police report? How is the HOA notified of such events and resolutions of events? I was told by the President that we don't have a process and we don't have a theft problem, then he moved on to the next agenda item. How can members get the board to respond? This example is a minor one that I have first-hand knowledge of, but the owners are getting unruly as we have all had similar experiences. Is voting in new members the only solution?

RT4. It helps me if I know a little more about the HOA's. How many directors? How many homes? Detached, or? On-site P.M.? Does the P>M. attend Board meetings and participate much/

What Committee are you on? What is its purpose?

When our Board was unresponsive we got things done via our very active committees and their monthly written reports and recommendations to the Board. Committee reports should be on the Board's agenda each month and the Board needs to take action on the committee recommendations.

Now I'm on the Board and we actively solicit member suggestions and input. The problem with only bringing up topics during the open forum portion of the Board meetings is that in Cali, agenda items must be posted 4 days ahead of the meetings, so some kind of action can never be taken on the spot. All a member can do is request that the item of concern be on the next month's agenda.

So a better approach is to send a written agenda item request to the Board via your P.M. several days ahead of the monthly meeting. Your husband will know the deadline. In you agenda item request, state your ration for wnating the Board to deal with your topic. In other words, why should the Board be interested?

Re: the stolen boom box. I'd say that whether it belonged to the HOA or to a members, the police should have been notified and then the P.M. the next time she was on the premises. If you have on-site security, they should have been notified immediately. Or do you mean that your HOA rented out the solarium to someone who's not an HOA member?

In this case, you can send a written agenda request to the Board requesting that they set a procedure to deal with such"incidents." Doesn't your M.C. have experience with such matters?

RT4,

Each Board may establish their own procedure for allowing members to speak.
For us, if a member shows up to speak, we adjust the agenda to make that the first item after establishing a quorum.

Annual meetings should also include an "open forum" where the membership may bring up issues important to them.

In your example: any theft should always be reported to the police by the victim. The Association typically isn't responsible for security of personal items. Theft is a crime and all crimes should be reported to the police. There is no requirement to report such an issue to the Board or management company as they typically have no authority to respond to the crime.

As for a member of the Board that refuses to acknowledge things that happen, the best thing to do is vote them out at the next election.

Jeanne- I agree that we would have more participants if the observers felt welcome. Civility is greatly needed in our group right now.

CarolR11- Our board is made of 9 directors, we have 150 apartments in a 12 story Mid-Rise, and onsite PM attends every meeting. I am on the newly created Welcome Committee that was created to improve the move in experience for new residents. What is your procedure to actively solicit member suggestions and input? And then- act on the suggestions? I guess our situation is really two-fold: getting the board to listen to member input, then getting them to react by implementing a change.
My point for bringing up the theft was really to illustrate the non-responsiveness of the board. In the meeting I suggested the need for a system or process to identify and track events such as thefts or dangerous situations. I was thinking a log of such items would be useful for making decisions. For example if laundry is stolen one time no action is required, however if it happens 15 times in a month then some action might be needed. A log of this kind could also be useful for seeing trends over time. The board could use it to show how their actions have had a real effect on the HOA, and could use it to justify spending decisions. I think they have paper incident reports right now however there is no tracking or ability to see trends. I am not educated in matters of running buildings or HOA’s so I could be off base and if the President could at least explain to me a valid reason it is not a good idea I would understand.

RT

Our By Laws state that ‘Members who are not Directors may not participate in any deliberation or discussion at such regular meetings unless authorized by a vote of the majority or quorum of the Board.’ I understand the reason and have no arguments. I have searched through our governing documents and I can’t find a statement about a formal method of members communicating member interests.

The section in our By Laws that talks about the members meeting does have two items listed at the end of the meeting called h)unfinished business and i) new business. I guess I could point this out at the next board meeting and request this to be added to our next Member meeting (assuming 'new business' means member interests).

Melisa P1- We (non-director members) have talked about a suggestion box. We have not asked for one because the members generally felt the suggestions would be ignored, or selectively addressed. Does your HOA have one? Is it effective?

RT

Again, RT4, I suggest you try submitting a written topic for the monthly agenda to the Board via your prop. mgr. Don't you think that would work? See my previous post. So, for example, you could write to request that a suggestion box be installed. (Ours got very little use & we stopped using one) Or you can write suggesting to the Board a protocol to be used for incident reports; how to file them, etc. I, again, am surprised your P.M. does have a system that s/he could suggest. I don't know how our staff does it, but they do have a file of incidents, dates, unit #s involved, etc., that also is used to send calls to hearing, etc.

State civil code trumps your Bylaws and says that the Board must let owners participate during a required open forum. The Board may limit the time that you speak. Your Bylaws are correct in that the board does not need to allow you to speak while they deal with the agenda, i.e., conduct business. We have open forum before we start the biz. portion of the meetings and then another one at the end.

No, as stated in my earlier post, in CA, by statute, items cannot be added to the agenda DURING the meeting. Agenda items must be posted 4 days in advance of the meetings. So no one, not a director either can add something to, say, "New Business."

You, and it seems your husband too, should go to davis-stirling.com to learn a lot about HOAs in CA. There's a wonderful Main Index that covers just about anything you'd ever want to know!