ex-board member revises Board minutes and then sends out to membership

We have an ex Board member who requests the minutes from every Board meeting and we have to provide them to him as stated in the Virginia Property Owners Act. He comes to every Board meeting and records the session as allowed by law. He will then take the minutes, revise them and add his comments and then distributes them to the all the membership that he has an E-Mail address for which is about 2/3 of the lot owners. Most lot owners that don't pay attention to who's on the Board think this revised minutes E-mail is coming from the real Board of Directors. And then the real Board of Directors receive flack from his interpreted minutes.
What can we do about this situation?

We had a corporate stamp. Which I may use on official HOA documents. May want to have a statement added onto the "real" notes that these are official records and stamp them. If electronically distributed, put in some kind of special statement with a HOA sign off that is official. Kind of like the "NFL" merchandise. It's not official unless it has that flashy seal...

Good advise from TimB4 and MelissaP1...PitA... not so much. He doesn't have the authority to change any minutes even if there were accurate. If he were on the Board, he could make additions, but the rest of the Board has to agree that his statements are accurate.

I think your best option has already been advised, but...

At your next meeting, ask the note taker to place the follow or something like it in the minutes: "The Board wants to make it clear that the only minutes that are official and recognized in a court of law are those written and approved by your Board of Directors."

You might go on to state that official minutes are available in draft form to members xx days after the meeting (per whatever VA law says), and approved minutes xxx days after the meeting where they are approved. "Any other so-called minutes may not be accurate and and not sanctioned by your Board of directors." Whatever you come up with could also be posted in a public place if you have one.

Btw, we now post the minutes online with our monthly newsletter. About 75% of our members receive these online.

It doesn't matter one bit if his "minutes" are "accurate."

let the actual RECORDINGS prevail.

A lot depends on what his annotations say and what form they are in.

There is likely nothing that legally precludes him from distributing unannotated minutes. And if his notes and annotations are clearly such and could not be misconstrued as being part of the main body of the minutes, then again there is likely nothing that legally prevents him from distributing them.

If he's so concerned about accurate minutes, this guy should run to regain a seat on the board and then volunteer to be secretary (there's probably a reason why he's an ex-board member).

I'd also like to know if his recordings are available to anyone who wants to hear them, including the board - in fact, does he offer them up to the board after every meeting? Probably not, so I would go with the suggestions posted so far.

That was answered in the first post


Then the question becomes is it clear that these aren't the official minutes, and are the additions, comments and annotations clear as such.

The Board doesn't distribute the minutes to the membership. If a lot owner wants them, they can request them and they are sent. But for the 3/4 of the membership that doesn't pay attention to anything think they are receiving the official minutes. I think the best solution is when he asks for the minutes to be sent to him, I'm just refuse based on what he does with them. If he takes it to the State Property Association Board to say we are refusing him his right to the minutes, I'm sure the State will understand our position when we explain what he is doing with them.

I would think not. Don't expect the state to "understand" why you are breaking the law.


Maybe the board should distribute the original minutes to the members, instead of complaining about what this guy is doing.

Say's who? That would be the call of the court, and nobody else.


There are many reasons the former board member would want to do this, and they all do not revolve around being a jerk.


You keep on mentioning "court" and power. The minutes have no power, why do you keep bringing this up?

The other notes should be marked as personal, yes. What the court accepts is up to the court. Minutes can be edited before they are officially distributed to the whole.

Libel (auto correct bit you?) is a tough one to prove, because you have to also prove damages.

Gee, I wonder why there is a problem. One side speaks and the other side remains silent, wondering why the on-lookers are listening to the only speaker. Duh!



Are you now blaming the members because they cannot tell the difference between the unofficial minutes distributed by an ex-board member and the official minutes that you refuse to distribute except by request?



Sure, open the door for a lawsuit. Refuse to comply with state law and give the ex-board member all the ammunition he needs to sue your dead ass for all you have.



Oh, yes! I am so certain that the State Property Association Board will agree that you have the right to violate state law in order to prevent the ex-board member from exercising his First Amendment rights.

Samuel,

Let me make this clear: You are quite possibly the stupidest person to ever post on this forum. Your association has a problem with communicating with your members and you show no willingness to solve that problem. Instead, you have created a new problem by focusing your attention on the one member who does communicate because you do not like his message. Your solution is to violate state law and First Amendment rights. You are an irresponsible person who has no business being on a board. Do the right thing and resign; let someone else make the grown-up decisions.

Any homeowner can offer any opinion to any other homeowner pertaining to the accuracy or misrepresentation of facts recorded in the board's minutes of their meetings. The only possible harm I could see is if this homeowner were putting these minutes out to homeowners without acknowledging they were rewritten by him. You could easily ask him to simply put "unofficial" at the top of his distributed document and that would solve your issue.

But if his version of the minutes more closely reflect what recordings of the board meetings reflect, I can see why that is a big problem for YOU.

I personally record every meeting in our association. Why? Because the people in power will say or do damn near anything to stay in power. They seem to be drunk with power.

The minutes of our board and committee meetings are an absolute joke. They often purposely misrepresent facts or change them altogether to fit whatever reality our president wants to conjure up. Other times board members will argue a position in a meeting, but learn after the meeting their point of view was off the charts crazy, or their actions illegal. But when the minutes are produced, they conveniently reflect a new version of a board member's point of view. At other times homeowner comments are purposely taken out of context and deliberately misrepresented in the minutes to paint that member in a bad light to the membership at large. I've even seen in more than one version of our board's minutes the board altering votes cast by board members. I'm not making any of this up Samuel.

If your board behaves in a similar manner Samuel, in my opinion, you are inviting trouble. Your minutes should be short and sweet and reflect only actions or actionable items of the board without much dialogue or embellishment. If a homeowner wants more than that encourage them to come to your meetings and "record" them.

In this thread I wholeheartedly agree with PitA.

Yep, also agree with most of what Larry says. Just don't like it when insults are used. We can all get our points across without going that route.

Sammy,

Just because you heard the truth, even though you don't want to hear it, doesn't mean that this place is populated with sociopaths. You can't break the rules by not sending the minutes to the individual who requests them and expect the state to "understand". You were given several ways to aleviate this issue, chiefly for the board to send out the official minutes and to demand that the individual make clear his notes are not the official minutes. Easy peasy, but your board seemingly wants easier and laziers methods, sorry you don't want to hear our opinion on your lazy board.

The truth sometimes hurts.

as per Mr. Simpson:

D'OH