Nominating Commitees

Do you all use them? If so, what procedure (s) do you use? Are they advantageous in your eyes?

It is required by our bylaws, but in my experience they've been useless and just another set of hoops to jump through. The only time they've come up with some candidates, in theory anyway, the candidates were already waiting in the wings; otherwise nada. Our attorney recommended that we put the three board members on the committee, replacing someone if they plan to run for re-election. Or else amend the bylaws to make the committee optional.

Some states have outlawed them (Florida for condos?). This is because the committee can be used to game the system or to keep a particular clique in control. This can happen if your bylaws don't allow people to self-nominate or to nominate from the floor.

At the other end of the extreme, we recently had a thread where a board "amended" their governing documents to disqualify candidates based on ridiculous things. Left your garbage cans outside overnight? No board membership for you. (I put the word "amended" in quotes because according to what the original poster wrote, the amendment process was not done legally.)

So I'd say such a committee's usefulness depends entirely on how capable and ethical the committee members are. Otherwise a waste of time or downright counterproductive.

That's one way of doing it. Or the committee could collect nominees and check to ensure they're eligible (e.g. current in all assessments), OR collect their bios, have them published in the community newsletter or post on the website and then sponsor a "meet the candidates" event where each can make short presentations on why they want to be on the board, and people could ask questions.

That said, I personally think they're a waste of time and if the wrong people are running the thing, they may try to keep people from being considered for reasons that have nothing to do with the job qualifications. Our community doesn't use them - basically anyone who's an owner, can fog a mirror and is current in assessments is eligible (our property manager checks the assessment piece so there's no unauthorized disclosure of private information). Keep it simple - have the board call for candidates, set a deadline when people need to throw their hat in the ring (or cage), sponsor a meet the candidates' event and then people can vote during the board election.

When I was on the board, the Board would do the formality of a nominating committee.

We would appoint the Board as a whole as the committee and we would ask who wants to serve.
Since our governing documents also allow nominations from the floor, we see the committee as an annoying formality vs. any real help.

If there were a lot of volunteers, I would expect that a nominating committee would be helpful.