Conduct at meetings? Robert's Rules or something else?

It seems like the email explaining the issue explained it well.

RRO (roberts rules of order) are confusing except for parliamentarians.
More then likely, most associations uses their own interpretation of the rules or along the same lines.

No, our Bylaws do require RR's. My bad, I should have made clear that the citation is the proposed bylaws section

-- I agree with all your concerns.

-- Why would a Board want to remove Robert's Rules? I'd guess the directors are too lazy to become educated. To me, this Board even says as much in its email to owners.

-- For many college educated people (or people of meaningful experience, like many long-time union leaders), the basics of Robert's Rules are not that hard to implement. Even using just the basics of the Rules instantly lend order to meetings.

-- For laypeople, I think the biggest tripping point might be how the Rules repeatedly refer to "members." Laypeople usually do not realize this means the members of the "deliberative assembly," meaning, for one thing, those who have the lawful right to vote on motionse. In the case of board meetings, the "deliberative assembly" is the board. In the case of either the annual meeting or any special meeting of the owners, the "deliberative assembly" is the owners present either in person or by proxy, or possibly by absentee ballot.

-- I have never heard of a COA/HOA Board trying to remove formally the application of Robert's Rules.

-- Robert's Rules offers a few ways through which non-members of the Board can participate in Board meetings.

-- If people are challenging the validity of past meetings because Robert's Rules were not used correctly, then the solution is to make sure the President in particular understands the Rules for owners' meetings and board meetings alike. Alternatively the president or board might wish to seek a volunteer to be a parliamentarian consultant, whom the President can consult (without the President being required to take orders from the Parliamentarian).

-- The internet has a number of (crowd-sourced) sites that answers questions on many of the finer (or even not so fine) points about Robert's Rules. It's not like the parliamentarian or other board members or owners cannot go get answers to questions resolved. Though I grant some education is necessary. For the lazy and the 'anti-government' crowd, this may be a problem.

-- For owners' meetings, when the President is absent, the Secretary is in charge? This is dumb for a few reasons.

-- Ultimately I think the problem with a Board so ill-educated that it wants to remove the use of Robert's Rules is that IMO this is guaranteed to be a rogue board. The rogue Board may have little interest in abiding by any of its obligations as delineated in the the Declaration, Articles of Incorporation (Charter), the Bylaws and the Rules and Regulations. In other words, fighting stupid is hard. They are not interested in study as a means of learning. Their main approach to learning is by trial and error. They tend to learn only when they suffering the consequences of their own bad choices.

So this, Adam, is the proposed amendment? "Such meetings will be conducted in accordance with the procedure set forth by the Chairperson, or if no such procedure is set forth, in accordance with Robert’s Rules of Order. The “Chairperson” for any Member’s meeting shall be (i) the president; or (ii) the secretary, if the president is not present; or (iii) if neither the president nor secretary are present, the person selected by the majority of the voting power present at such meeting."

What's the current Bylaw section's verbiage?

Is RONR only required for meetings of the members?

Must members vote to amend the Bylaws or can the Board do it on its own?

Does Idaho require RONR for Associations or for non-profits?

Hm, I had a feeling the bees would come up again.

I remember your post about that, but Roberts Rules wouldn’t have prevented people from showing their behind. That includes you – just because people disagreed with you doesn’t make it a kangaroo court. In fact, a kangaroo court is “an unofficial court held by a group of people in order to try someone regarded, especially without good evidence, as guilty of a crime or misdemeanor”, so skip the emotional language.

The main problem with that meeting was that the board members let the thing get out of control. As soon as things got heated, the president should have done his or her job by calling order immediately and telling everyone to behave. Anyone who couldn’t or refused to should have been asked to stop – or leave. If that didn’t quash the matter, adjourn the meeting and reschedule it. In the meantime, a professional but frank discussion with homeowners and board members who crunked out would be appropriate

All of that said, the board can use Roberts Rules as a guide to develop procedures on proper behavior during association meetings (annual, regular board meetings and special homeowners meetings. If bad behavior is an issue, start with reading this for some ideas: http://www.rulesonline.com/rror-07.htm Robert's Rules aren't legally binding, although you're correct that some organizations adopt them in their bylaws. If you want to do that, it may be helpful for someone to get some training on parliamentary procedure so when weirdness comes up, that person can be consulted. Some organizations designate specific people for this - I'd suggest someone who's not on the board for more objectivity.

PS - here's the link to the national association of parliamentarians - maybe there's someone in your area you can talk to. Thanks to Zoom and email, you may not even need to meet in person.

Oh it very much was very much a kangaroo court, exactly as your definition reads. I've posted about this topic often, and honestly I'm a bit shocked you are still holding your ground.
A short summary: President added an adhoc unannounced agenda item trying to create an amendment to allow beekeeping. Before the meeting, the President privately solicited multiple negative letters about the horrors of and the danger to the neighborhood of beekeeping. During the meeting, the HOA President actively presented the topic as beekeeping = illegal violation of CCR's, actively shutdown any "pro-beekeeping" statements, refused to allow President of the local beekeeping society speak, refused to allow a representative from City Code Enforcement office speak, accused me of being a parliamentarian as I called out their behavior, held a motion and vote to "forever ban beekeeping", and then typed all of this up verbatim in the minutes while neglecting to include any aspect that did not agree with their goal.
quite literally a kangaroo court

And I know you're going to try to say something trying to defend this behavior, but the fact of the matter is that beekeeping is not restricted in our CCR's, is not defined as a nuisance, nor cannot be defined as a nuisance as a matter of law. The HOA simply tried to create new rules and definitions to fit how they feel. This is in writing. And in fact the HOA has dramatically backed down, taking a 180stance after being served with a cease and desist and notice of impending defamation litigation.

So, Shiela, let's please keep on topic. Meeting Conduct and Robert's Rules. The main problem with that meeting was that the President was actively creating and guiding the mob rule and conduct violations.

If a President was enforcing Robert's Rules, I do not see how you could claim this (whatever it means).

-- I see no "emotional language."

-- I do not know how anyone could call what transpired anything other than a kangaroo court.

-- For one thing, Robert's Rules would have stopped people from making motions that were not on the agenda and so not properly noticed to the membership.

Is there not a simpler version/writing of parliamentarian rules?

Yes to both, as well as the requirement to follow RR's. Not to mention the unannounced agenda item was literally "Vote to Amend ..." --> Amendments have a lot of statutory requirements about proper notice and reading.


Yes, absolutely allowed, per RR's, of which I reminded the President. Hence the President's ad hominem attack of "What are you, a Parliamentarian?"

That looks like a great Conduct bylaws....instructs RR's by default unless the membership decides to make a change to another generally accepted best practice Parliamentary procedure. Doesn't let HOA Leadership just change procedure on a whim to potentially silence or harass members that don't fall in line.

This is only if the assembly wants the agenda to be binding. If there is no vote to adopt the agenda, then per RR the meeting can still proceed, with caveats.

For this owners' meeting it appears a free-for-all occurred. Robert's Rules went out the window, probably before the meeting was even called to order. The President was making things up as he went.

Talking about Robert's Rules as they pertain to agendas, guest speakers or anything else seems to me to be a moot point. The meeting was not lawfully conducted. Little in it is likely of any legal value.

Under these circumstances I think the best an owner can do is make a motion to suspend certain Robert's Rules and try once to get things on track. If this fails, the owner should record the meeting with his/her cell phone and take careful notes of any allegedly "passed motions," collecting evidence of illegalities in preparation for lawyering up (if said motions are so offensive or injurious).

Augustine: "Talking about Robert's Rules as they pertain to agendas, guest speakers or anything else seems to me to be a moot point. The meeting was not lawfully conducted. Little in it is likely of any legal value."

I tried to point out way above that RONR wouldn't have helped since the board was violating higher level documents.

RONR does not permit a Board to suspend the Bylaws or state laws like posting advice notice of an agenda as Adam states Idaho and their Bylaws require. That's not the kind of "rule" it's referring to.

If this board will not abide by it's own Bylaws and state statute, it certainly will not abide by RONR.

With Michael of MN. I feel that it's good to have on hand as a default resource. I'm wondering if any community managers here have ad accounts where RONR is carefully followed.

In California, Civil Code §5000(s), states that membership meetings shall be conducted in accordance with a recognized system of parliamentary procedure or any parliamentary procedures the association may adopt. I have attended over 200 membership or annual in 13 years and I believe those associations followed the "or any parliamentary procedures the association may adopt", or as I would call it, the winged it, to the best of my knowledge, no one has ever been sued or taken to court.

I agree.

On the other hand, I feel MichaelT21's positive experience (and without using any formal parliamentary procedure) is largely a consequence of his superb preparation for meetings. IIRC he puts the agenda on multiple PowerPoint slides. Everyone is staring at the issue under discussion. I think it's harder to go off-topic. Of course it also helps that he reports having maybe one or two owners at most attending meetings and also, a pretty apathetic, rubber-stamping Board.

I commend this approach (putting the agenda, and then each topic of the agenda, on display). One does not even have to use PowerPoint. Just display each topic on the agenda on a Microsoft Word document, page by page.

I look forward to the "Committee Reports" section of the meeting where the guy advocating for a Bocce Court is called upon to make a full report, responding to all of KerryL1's and BarbaraT1's questions (perhaps as listed on a PowerPoint slide?) from the other thread. I think this (asking the newbie director to do research) is a great strategy and a great way to educate a newbie director.