Posting information in preparation for Board meeting

Our quarterly Board meetings include an "Open Forum" part of the agenda where residents can directly address the Board. The problem is that the residents don't have specific information on the agenda items the Board will take up later in the meeting. I plan to propose that our management company post (in electronic format) the information given to the Board members so interested residents can come prepared to address specific topics. I'm aware that part of the packet sent to the Board is confidential and cannot be made public. However, the vast majority of the information is not confidential and will be discussed during the Board meeting. My idea is to have management, 7-10 days before the Board meeting, organize the material sent to the Board to be grouped as confidential and non-confidential. The Board would receive all information while the non-confidential information would be posted on our website. Can anyone tell me if this kind of thing is done elsewhere? Are there legal barriers that need to be respected? I'm located in California. Thanks!

Dave

Thanks for your helpful reply. Let me try to answer each of your questions:

First, are you on the Board?
No, I am not on the Board.

Next, are you aware that by per CA's Open Meeting Act, agendas must be posted in a public area 4 days before open board meetings? The agenda items listed should be detailed enough to be understandable to Owners.
I did not know about CA's Open Meeting Act. The agendas for our Board meetings are distributed ahead of time, but the agenda items are very short with no background information provided.

Can you give an example of what kind of detail you'd like owners to see prior to a meeting?
I'd like to have whatever non-confidential information is being sent to the Board members. The Board members have printed binders provided to them before each meeting. I'd like that information posted on our website for review by residents.

Our confidential materials are for discussion in Executive Session which we, as is legal in CA, hold at a different time than our open meeting.
Right. Our Board conducts their Executive Session immediately prior to the open meeting.

We don't post on our web site the entire open board meeting packet for Owners to review. I have heard that a nearby HOA does make the entire packet available for Owners to sit down & review in the managers' office. But that is an exception. Your HOA's manager wouldn't make this decision, the Board would. need t have this as an agenda item and vote on it. I can't think of any legal issues involved in publicizing th entire non-confidentail package.
Thanks! I was thinking that if management organized the Board packet separating confidential material from non-confidential material it would not be difficult to post the non-confidential material on our website.

I guess care would need to be taken to stamp the draft minutes, DRAFT, and ditto the draft financials for the period since the Board will not approve them until the meeting. In c any case, in CA, draft minutes must be available to Owners 30 days after an open meeting.
Yes.

In case you're not familiar with it, some CA HOA attorneys have a website called davis.stirling.com that has a fine Main Index. Scroll down it to meetings to learn a lot about agendas and you'll see some sample ones there too.
Yes, I'm aware of the Davis-Stirling website, but didn't know about the section on meetings. I will follow your suggestion.

Do recall that Open Forum need not be held at the beginning of the open meetings only. Our Board, for instance, voted some time ago to have an Open Forum at the beginning and another one at the end. Owners in the second one forum actually have asked the board to reconsider decision it's made and the board has agreed and overturned perhaps 2 a year (we have monthly meetings.)
Interesting idea! Our Board moved the Open Forum earlier in the meeting, but it's hard to know what input to provide since the residents don't have all the facts. Have a second open forum might help.

The meeting agenda is distributed 7-10 days before the meeting. Here are some examples of items on a recent agenda:

A. LANDSCAPE TURNOVER WALK 4/13/16 - FRONT YARDS
B. CARD ACCESS - LODGE BALLROOM SIDE ENTRANCE
C. PARKING RULES - AD-HOC COMMITTEE APPOINT MEMBERS
D. LAKE - CHERRY TREES
E. PALM TREE - POOL AREA
F. LODGE DRAPES/BLINDS REQUEST

Those labels tell me the subject of the discussion, but they don't tell me much else. There is no other information provided either at the meeting or beforehand so I can go to the meeting prepared to comment on any of them during the "Open Forum". If the Board is provided with information so they can discuss each of those items, why not provide the same information to the residents so we can knowledgeably comment if necessary?

These look pretty transparent to me --without living there. I suppose your board could flesh them out a little. For example, what is the palm tree topic? Remove it? trim it? Plant one? Ditto the cherry trees. You might try asking the PM is that would be OK.

But, as mentioned above, the board would have to vote to approve making the entire (non confidential) directors packet available to Owners. Make it an agenda item & see what happens! In your "F" example, it looks like that might be an Owners request.

Sue is saying what I tired to state in one of my aboves, David..

David

HOA's have two different types of meeting, Member meetings and Board meeting. At the Member meetings, its actually the Member ultimately making the decision, such as elections, etc. Board meetings, on the other hand, are meetings of the Board to make decisions for the Members. Generally, not always, the Members made the decision, if they bothered to vote, who was going to make the decisions on their behalf. The Members generally DO NOT have any input into the decisions made by the Board at their meeting. They are to be given time to speak during Open Forum, which may be at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of the meeting, at the board desecration.

If the Members are unhappy about how the affairs are being run, they have the option to vote for their choice or run themselves.

There is no legal barrier for what you are striving, but IMO, it will never happen.