Open Meetings

We live in a 100-lot Arizona planned community. The HOA is well funded and the Board is fully staffed. Lately, the Board seems to be acting to deliberately circumvent Arizona’s rigorous open meeting law (ARS 33-1804). Decisions are made between meetings and approved at the following meeting. Example: The president fired our landscaper and entered into a new contract with another landscaper; then, the board voted to approve the decision at the next meeting. Another example: the president purchased very expensive entrance monuments for the common areas; then, the board voted to approve this decision at the following meeting. We are reasonably certain that the president is not acting alone and is meeting with other board members before taking these actions – but we have no way to prove it. We have scoured the community documents and scanned the statutes, but can find nothing which either allows or disallows these actions by the president and the board. Do the forum members know of any possible documents, statutes, or rules of law which may have been violated by the president and the board by acting as they do? How do your community documents address this issue?

It appears that you may need to gather support and oust the current board members at the next election.
Then replace them with others who will be more transparent (perhaps you).

If I recall correctly, AZ's open meeting act is relatively new and many have problems with change.
Once you get a set of Directors committed to the open meeting law, then that should become the norm.

LarryB, thank you for your blunt assessment of our situation.

We’re still hoping that other posters might identify language in their documents, or references to state statutes, which require the entire board to approve a vendor BEFORE the vendor is hired. Such references might help us draft amendments or resolutions to prevent individual board members from acting unilaterally in the future.

Yes, I agree with Larry & Richard, Brenda. Apparently the board has conferred all hiring & firing and major purchases authority to the Prez. I hope the board realizes that each of its members are responsible for such decisions even if they've opted to not act like HOA board members, i.e., play an active role in the HOA.

I just read this yesterday at HOAleader.com: "I think part of the problem is that board members, especially the presidents of these boards, forget that in a not-for-profit world or at the association level, the board president doesn’t have any privileges or rights over any other board members. It’s the board as a collective body that makes decisions." (complete citation available)

But I also agree that there's most likely no statute that prohibits the prez/Board behaving in this way.

But, your Bylaws (or some other HOA doc) might say that using reserves funds requires the signatures of two directors or a combo of directors & officers for every reserves expenditure over a certain amount, say, $300. I'd think you reserve for entrance monuments. So you might have real concerns on this activity.

Small day-to-day matters are one thing, major contracts and expenditures are another, imo.

In addition, in CA, contracts in formation can be discussed in executive session vs. open meetings. But I can't remember if that's the case in AZ.