BOD Meeting Minutes Approval

Based on something I read regarding Robert's Rules of Order our BOD uses the following procedure. A draft of the minutes (clearly labeled DRAFT) is emailed to each board member by the secretary. Any changes requested are emailed back to her and the final version is composed. It is then approved at the next BOD meeting. Only then is it signed by the secretary and becomes the official version of the minutes. What I found surprising (based on my inexperience)was that the minutes should not be signed by the secretary until corrected and approved. This eliminates the need for ammendments except in rare cases and takes advantage of email.

I would like to add a question about this same topic. Is it legal for the BOD to approve minutes at their special meetings? In the last few months I noticed the board does not approve minutes at the monthly meeting, they have their own special meeting unattended by homeowners and approve the minutes there.
If this is not legal, how do we stop it? We have an association attorney that doesn't seem to notice or care so it wouldn't do any good to talk to him.

More important than that, they wait until close to four weeks to distribute the minutes from the last meeting and then when we do get to see them, they have already been approved before the next monthly meeting. My concern is, I attend every monthly meeting, I feel the board waits for a very long period of time to publish the minutes so you tend to forget what was said at the meeting and therefore can not make any corrections. OR am I wrong, are the homeowners not allowed to make any correction to the minutes? This is why I think they approve before hand so we can not say anything different.

RogerB:
What would you do if your MC (who take the Minutes) conveniently leave out crucial information, but put in ridiculous personal character attacks by members just to appease the president and vice versa? For instance, when I was on the BOD, I asked at an annual meeting why the secret written ballots had been opened prior to the meeting; the MC agent said they were not, then returned from the room where the other votes were counted and said "oh, I forgot, I lied, they were opened at our office (all along). This was left out of the Minutes, yet a disgruntled member who attacked a director for warning members of the association of how their monies were being spent (wasted) (this appeared to be an orchestrated event between pres. and MC agent) was spelled out in entirity in the Minutes. The Minutes also falsely stated that the membership had chosen four election judges. The election judges were pointed out by the MC agent and the president when they asked for a show of hands of who wanted to monitor--the membership didn't choose. A qualified, trained election judge volunteered and was ignored, BTW. Now the agent will not correct the Minutes--isn't this grounds for dismissal and of course, the colluding directors don't force the matter?
EdR

RogerB:
You know you would be a hero if you told us exactly how to do that! I am no longer on the board, and have written a letter to the Board from me as a member giving them reasons why we should interview other MCs--both times a suit was threatened against someone for pointing out the MC's incompetencies (against a former employee, against a guy on the board for asking another MC if they'd like to bid, etc.). If anyone would just establish a law out there in this country which made the MC "on their own" instead of indemnified by the board's insurance, we could do something. Maybe even having the assn. vote on the MC would help, because it would take the president out of the "conflict of interest/being in bed with" situation that seems to be the boxing ring that we always have to deal with. Any ideas along the lines of realistic approaches would be helpful. Again, I know all MCs aren't and can't possibly be like this one.
EdR

RogerB:
Removing bad directors is also easier said than done. I agree it is the answer. Unfortunately, a slate of directors (pres.) signs the MC contract in end of Dec. or first of Jan. and election is in Feb. The MC is already in there NOW by signature of previous pres. and I cannot get a copy from them, but have heard it is for 18 months--don't know about the 30-day termination. The other very bad thing about our assn. is that there is no one who wants to be on the board anymore. The present board does not have control of the assn., the monies or the MC. The MC has control of all of that now. That wouldn't be such a bad thing if the MC had appeared to work unbiasedly and maybe had taught the pres. some ethics if they knew them. They would not have an 18-month contract if the pres. hadn't been in collusion with them and now she is replaced by a three-year termer who seems to be in the same wave length. We just have a corrupt majority and I have little hope of it turning around unti the assn. sees that their money is gone and the outsiders have more rights to their amenities than they do (and this is true!). We get turned down to use our own tennis courts, pool, and clubhouse because someone has booked it for an outsider. I cannot have a pool party for my child's class because a the swim team needs to practice and almost half are from outside, and of course they hold the calendar open for that, so never a chance of getting on the calendar before they do. The former pres. and now new one are ST advocates, so the pool still doesn't belong to the owners. I understand this is happening other places--do you know how they handle it?
EdR

I don't think any of the posters from this thread are still active on this forum.