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Posted By PaulS19 on 07/24/2013 3:20 AM
I tried doing this once. I got there early and set up my tripod and camera but when the board members came into the room they were aghast and questioned my motives. I explained that I am 20% hard of hearing and would only use this for personal use to review the meeting. Of course someone suggested that they have 'legal' look into it before allowing me to do this. The board spent several hundred dollars for the attorney to draft a document which stated something to the effect that a person would have to give a couple of weeks notice to the board beforehand. Seeing as these board members didn't have a clue as to which way the wind blew and let the property management company steer the ship and their pointed little heads, I let it be. But, later on I purchased a digital audio recorder which I began to use at every meeting. The first night I set it up and turned it on and announced that I would be recording the meeting, nobody said I couldn't. So, that's what I do now. Seems people have a problem with being video taped. Their egos big enough to allow that to happen but you would think so with they way they act sometimes, right? Anyway, here's the statute with the part that pertains to this subject. I liked the way they put it into a booklet form in a pdf file too. You might just get one of those digital audio recorders and march in the next meeting and set it up on a ledge somewhere and turn it on and see what happens. Just keep it off any desktops and away from people if possible. Desktops will give you a lot of noise and people will act like little kids with it and make dumb sounds on it to try and be cute.
http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/lsc/documents/CHAPTER720Booklet.pdf
720.306 Meetings of members; voting and election procedures; amendments.—
(10) RECORDING.—Any parcel owner may tape record or videotape meetings of the board of
directors and meetings of the members. The board of directors of the association may adopt
reasonable rules governing the taping of meetings of the board and the membership.
I have a small handheld HD video recorder that I use for video but for audio I have an handheld Tascam PR-10 digital recorder. I then go home and sync up the audio to the video. The first meeting I ever went to I brought a microtape recorder to record the meeting. I did that primarly for two reasons. One, so I can listen to it again and make sure I did not miss anything, and two, for my brother who lived out of state. What occurred at that meeting really surprised me. The BoD refused to allow homeowners speak - in particular one homeowner who questioned their actions and who happened to be an attorney. The president seemed to act irrationally and told the homeowner they were not allowed to talk because he chose not to acknowledge them. The president also mentioned in that meeting that he was friends with the code enforcement agent and that they know to leave neighborhood-endorsed signs alone. They also wanted to ban multiple non-residents from inhabiting a home because it was a single family dwelling (completely misunderstanding zoning).
I had been familiar with some laws prior and found all this wrong. After that moment I recorded
everything, especially because when I would tell other people what went down they did not believe it. A lot of times I was told that I must have misunderstood. I am grateful for recording because I have gotten some real gems out of it, like the time the president stated that they gave a list of members to the police officer who patrols the neighborhood and instructed him to only help members.