open forum

The phrase is "open forum," meaning people should be able to talk about whatever they want to, and they don't have to tell you what they want to talk about. The board doesn't have to act on everything it hears at that time - some things will require some research and homeowners should be told that. Other things might already be on the agenda, so if the homeowner sticks around, he or she will hear that discussion. This is why it's helpful to distribute copies of the agenda in advance.

What, pray, are you and your colleagues thinking, trying to control an open forum like this??. It's fine to set some ground rules to keep things moving - no cussing, threats, or other bad behavior, comments are limited to two minutes to give everyone a chance to speak, raise your hand if you want to speak, etc. The forum usually lasts 10-15 minutes and after that, thank everyone for participating, encourage them to stay and listen to the proceedings, but no questions or comments will be allowed, as this is the business portion of the meeting and the board needs to address all agenda items. Simple, no?

Mark's pretty much correct for CA. But Boards decide a couple of thing. Ours, for instance, allows 2 minutes per owner, one remark at a time. We have no limit for Open Forum & actually have two--one at the beginning & one at the end.

Why, Sasha, does the Board or someone on it want owners' comments submitted in advance???

Do look up Open Forum at Davis-stirling.com, a site that's been advised to you many times. Its insights and legal citations pertain to all of CA.

There is no such thing as "freedom of speech" in a private corporation. A board could have a rule that each owner present to the presiding officer a speaker card on which they would indicate their name, unit number the topic for which they would like to speak on. Someone could be denied the opportunity to speak. If you search through YouTube, you'll find Board meetings in California that have this practice.

Your Board is probably within their legal rights to do what you are proposing; however, I don't see many positive aspects to doing this. And I assume that if someone who wishes to speak did not request pre-approval, then the plan would be to shut them down immediately.

If the Board wishes to give impression that they are dictatorial, power-hungry, and inadequate . . . then yes, go ahead and implement this practice.

But if the Board wants to give an impression of openness, honesty, transparency, and competence . . . then let people say what they want with the fair and reasonable sort of restrictions that others have already mentioned.

Would also be helpful to know what reasoning the Pres has for wanting to institute this practice. There may be other ways to achieve the desired end result that work for all stakeholders. Also keep in mind that this would be a decision for the Board to make and request of the MC, and not something the President alone can implement.

California Civil Code 4925 gives the Board only one right when it comes to open forum: The right to set a reasonable time limit. The statute says nothing about the Board having the power to refuse someone the right to speak because the someone did not let the board know in advance on what they would be speaking. See below. Turning away someone because they did not let the Board know in advance is a clear (and disgusting, IMO) violation of the statute.

Did your Board even read the statute? Do you have an attorney you all could have asked? If your Board does not understand this, they should run every single thing they do by the attorney until they get educated.

Civil Code §4925. Open Meetings; Open Forum
(a) Any member may attend board meetings, except when the board adjourns to, or meets solely in, executive session. As specified in subdivision (b) of Section 4090, a member of the association shall be entitled to attend a teleconference meeting or the portion of a teleconference meeting that is open to members, and that meeting or portion of the meeting shall be audible to the members in a location specified in the notice of the meeting.

(b) The board shall permit any member to speak at any meeting of the association or the board, except for meetings of the board held in executive session. A reasonable time limit for all members of the association to speak to the board or before a meeting of the association shall be established by the board.

Ditto everything Augustin wrote. And agree with Sheila & ND. How, Sasha, is the prez giving this order to the PM without a board vote?? You're on the Board, right?

what can i do to make sure any homeowners who shows up to the meeting and wants to speak gets that opportunity if they didn’t send in their name and topic they would be discussing beforehand to the management? do i quote the CA civil code augustin shared? i’m concerned about this new requirement for open forum.

Why do you still think this is even a good idea? Did the entire board actually vote to approve this idea????? If so, one could argue they didn't send in their name and topic before the meeting so they can't speak, but the entire idea in my view is ridiculous. You still haven't said how the rest of the board feels about this and I have a feeling you don't think it's a good idea.

What's wrong with quoting the civil code and then saying this homeowner doesn't have to sign up to speak or say what he or she wants to talk about, so let him/her speak? You're there to act in the homeowners' best interest, as much as possible, so if you can't speak up in favor of the homeowners expressing their views before the people THEY elected to run the association on their behalf, maybe you need to rethink if you should be on the board at all.

The OP's opening question was can the board require that homeowners tell them if and what they will speaking about during open forum. The association I belonged to and was president of required speaker cards to be filled out prior to a Board meeting starting and before Open Forum began. This was done for a couple of reason, one it was easy for the person taking minutes and second, questions that couldn't be answered were weeded out. Never had an issue in the 8 year I was a member.

A responsible PM should tell the Board that you can't have owners filling out speaker cards prior to the time an agenda is even posted.

Because of the pandemic, all the norms have changed. I'm not sure how you hold you meetings and what type of attendance from owners you get. I get maybe one or two owners attending a virtual meeting. Many times it is just the Board. I held 3 town hall meetings for a special assessment being voted on and got a total of 19 out 100 owners that participated. Because of technology, the same people who attend in person meeting don't attend virtual meetings.

I went back and re-read all your responses and then the responses you got from others. They pretty much read you the riot act without really knowing how your meetings are really conducted. These are not normal ties.