Ideas needed....

Hello Everyone,

My community was granted a special meeting to fulfill our 3-position board (after all the board members resigned a month ago). To meet quorum, we need 51% - 38 homeowners. What suggestion would you have to get people involved?

What we've (me and a few other neighbors) done is put notices in the reader boxes, started an e-mail list and talk to neighbors as we see them outside or at the pool. We plan on going door to door to homeowners 5 days before the meeting, and designed a letter to mail to off-site owners.

Would anyone have creative ideas to get other homeowners attention?

Proxy voting may be your best bet. Make sure you have a list of candidates to put on that list and hand/mail out. Make sure there is a deadline for the proxy votes to be like the time of the special meeting end. That way the proxy votes will be in at the same time as the live vote.
Good luck in getting the participation. The number 1 issue with HOA's is owner apathy. Many just like to pay their dues and think the place runs itself. As you find out, someone has to be there behind the scenes doing the work! I find it "ironic" that there is always a group of homeowner's demanding the heads of their board members but NOT be willing to participate themselves. They want their board members taken out but don't have a clue on who's going to replace them. Then if they do have people willing to do the job, it's amazing how "those" new board members are terrible and have their own agenda too! Let the voting out go again...
You may want to find out why your board members all seem to resign. Be aware of those reasons, and try to address them. No one is ever going to be happy with their board and no one will ever be happy being on the board. So try to be "real" about the situation and not advertise this as an event to change lives. Tell the truth, ya need people willing to do the job. I would make this an event to help educate the members on the HOA so they may want to participate more in the future.

Tara:

Realistically I think we all realize that it will be virtually impossible to get 51% of the homeowners there. Proxies to me seem to be the only chance, if they are allowed.

The other thing to try, and if I read it right you don't have a board so am not sure how this would work, but bring up a controversial issue. I don't know how much dues are, but tell people there will be a vote on raising dues by 100% to help pay for a management company. People love controversy and that might help get them there. The issue doesn't even have to be real, just believable. I don't know, it is an idea, probably not a good one.

Hi Tara:

Do you have any candidates yet? If not, then I would try to round up some people who would volunteer to run for the Board. Check your bylaws, chances are that the terms will be staggered, so you can probably get someone to run for the remaining time until your next annual meeting, someone to run for that plus a year, and someone to run for that plus two years...

The other alternative is: let people know that if they don't show up, they are likely to get voted into office? Maybe they will come to make sure that they don't get voted onto the Board.

Was there a reason why the board resigned? Nasty homeowners, a thorny issue? You may face an uphill battle to get people to run if there has been a particular problem.

Proxies would be the best way to try to reach a quorum. If you have a management company, they might be able to give you some assistance; if not, then you're on your own on this. In the meantime, I'm not sure if your HOA has the ability to pay any bills (who would authorize payments or sign checks?) so if the landscaper, etc. just stop mowing and nothing gets done for a little while, people might get serious about the meeting.

An alternative would be to get a judge to appoint a receivership or trustee, until an election takes place.

Good luck on this!

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA

Thank you all for your responses.

I live in Arizona, so proxies are not an option. I do not know exactly why the board members resigned. I do know I do not have a good relationship with them. This association only has $46K total in all funds (the previous board spent money on useless item, at least $14,000 worth). We have private streets that are going to cost $50K (due now), a pool to maintain and common ground. We need money... bad! There is no threat of increasing dues I could use. There's somehting better. Before the board resigned last month, they voted to have a special meeting on 6/18 on a $1400 assessment! That has been 'ammo' for me to get participants.

I think the only thing I can do is pound the pavement and talk everybody’s ear off. At least, try to make them understand that this financial affect does make an impact on home value!