How to add something to the Annual Meeting agenda

I Googled this question - here's part of what one website said

"New business is usually discussed near the end of a meeting. Often, after participants finish with planned topics, the meeting leader allows anyone with a new business topic or idea to present it. If brief, these new business items may be finished or resolved quickly. If not, they may be tabled for the next meeting."

So, new business could be almost anything - the board can then decide if the matter should be assigned to a committee for further review, ask the homeowner to do some additional research and bring it to the next meeting, have the property manager investigate the issue and bring the findings to the next meeting, etc. Who decides if it's new? Well, if it wasn't listed on the agenda and no one had discussed the matter until that moment, that would make it new.

In this case, I'm not sure why the membership would be able to cancel a contract if it's already been signed. I would think this would mean the association would have to eat the cancellation costs, which might be rather hefty? I suppose that's a topic for another thread, but in the meantime.....I take the above to mean the president or whoever's presiding over the meeting would ask if there's new business, someone stands up and lists his/her objection to the contract for whatever reason, followed by some discussion and then the president asks for a motion as to what happens next. In this case, cancelling a contract is a big deal so I would move that the matter is tabled until the next meeting. Between the annual and next meeting, some research could be done to bring to the next meeting for further discussion.

The contract in question has a 30-day cancellation clause already.

We normally populate New Business agenda items at the Agenda Meetings prior to the Board Meetings. But this is at an Annual Meeting of the Members where there's usually no ageda meeting beforehand. The sample agenda in the Bylaws is normally followed. If it's allowed for any Member (homeowner) to bring something up during the New Business portion of the meeting then that would answer the question.

The Board entered into a contract with a maintenance man. The second paragraph says the contractor shall maintain his own worker's compensation insurance. The third paragraph says he will have a county contractor's license which must be presented to the board.

He has neither insurance nor a license. The Board has seen fit to ignore these breaches. If the members vote to cancel the contract, we'd ask our attorney about how to go about it seeing as there is a 30-day out clause. If the members voted to not cancel the contract we'd move to have the contract sent to the attorney anyway to get his opinion on the hiring of uninsured and unlicensed contractors. We'll be electing 4 new board members in January (out of 5) and want to prod them into what many of us think is the appropriate course of action here.

Just making a motion - allowed by state law - to cancel the contract (for good reason) would stir up some interesting discussion and debate, if nothing else.

Not yet, but I will if other efforts on this front fail. There are a couple of board members who are appalled that this has been going on for several years. The rest are aware of it but for whatever reasons don't seem too concerned.

When is your annual meeting? If you have a regular meeting beforehand, why not attend and bring this up at that time? Hopefully that meeting agenda includes some sort of open forum where residents can bring up suggestions, comments and criticisms on any subject. The board might debate and take care of this at that time or at least do some sort of review and present a report at the time of the annual meeting. That said, boards don’t have to take immediate action on new business or issues raised during open forum. Depending on the issue, they might ask the property manager to investigate or take up the matter at the next meeting.

Otherwise, I stick to my original suggestion – bring it up at the annual meeting under “new business,” but you might not get a vote on it right then and there. You will have brought up the subject and since other people would have heard your concerns, that may be enough to put the board on notice this has to be addressed sooner rather than later.

If you’re going to present this as new business, I don’t think proxies will help unless you get it on the regular agenda where it can be discussed and the homeowners can get a copy of the agenda and details on the issue so they can make an informed decision when voting. If there isn’t a regular board meeting before your annual, I stick to my first suggestion – bring it up at the annual under “new business” and see what happens. At least you will have raised the issue and other people will know your concerns – that could be enough to put the board on notice that it will have to address this sooner rather than later.

You said the contract stated the man is supposed to maintain worker’s comp insurance and present proof of the county license to the board. Is there a start date on this contract? If so, someone should make it clear that these documents must be presented on or before the start date (I’d suggest at least a week before he’s supposed to begin his work). You might want to ask the board what the man has done thus far to be compliant with the contract that HE signed and note the risks if they allow the man to work on association property. And are you sure there’s isn’t some sort of out clause on this contract if the man doesn’t provide this information? That may be all the board needs to cancel the contract on its own and not need a vote from the homeowners.

I hope you do prod, poke and do whatever you need to do to educate the board members on the importance of doing their due diligence in hiring quality contractors to handle association projects – however this ends, I’d tell the newbies I’d like to see some sort of formal resolution to that effect (e.g. proof of worker’s comp insurance and current license must be presented before the contract is signed.) I’d also add a requirement that the contractor releases the association for all subcontractor liens. This way if he/she hires someone to do the work and that person doesn’t get paid, they won’t be able to come after the association for payment.

The Annual Meeting is in late January.

The contractor had a medical issue at the beginning of the month and was only here a total of two half-days the week of September 3rd and for 2-and-a-half days the week of September 10th. On Friday September 14th he was given a check that was the same amount as every other check he received this year. Protests were met with, "He's an independent contractor and we can't manage or control his hours." Well, according to his contract he shouldn't be paid for holidays or sick time, either, so why did we pay him for 2 weeks worth of work when he was only here for 3.5 days? There was no response to that at all. They ignore that question and continue on as if the question was never asked.

Exhibit A to his contract lists over 100 tasks he is contracted to perform. He might do 10% or 15% of them. We recently hired an additional cleaning service to clean the clubhouse every couple of weeks. That's only one example. There are others too numerous to mention or bore you with.

I was mistaken about the paragraph numbers above. The requirement to have a contractor's license is in paragraph 1 and the insurance he is supposed to carry is in paragraph 6.

I triple checked my redactions in the attached pdf file.

October will be here in a few days, so it would seem you have some time to bring this up at a regular meeting. The board entered into this contract, so you need to press THEM on this issue. You have good questions, so ask them and keep asking until the board responds. Take some neighbors with you to that meeting so they can also hear what's being said. Or not, if there was no response.

Which is why if this board is ignoring you, this should provide even more incentive for people to get involved and vote the current bunch out. Then you can address the contract if you have to. Contracts can always be renegotiated and if this guy hasn't completely fulfilled his obligations, you should be able to cancel it for that reason. He may squawk and threaten to sue, but if you do your homework and can demonstrate what he hasn't done, you may stand a good chance of winning.