Open HO Forum

I just left the monthly meeting of our HOA. I live in a 40 unit townhome development in California. At one time I was president of the HOA and I studied our governing documents and the Davis-Stirling Act carefully; if questions arose, I consulted these documents and consulted with our Manager to be sure the response was correct. Fast forward three years and we have a new board of directors and a new manager.

Today I raised a subject in open forum that was on the Agenda. I was quickly interrupted by the president who told me the subject was being handled etc., etc. I tried to continue and was interrupted again by another director who tried to explain what was happening with that topic. I tried to continue and was told again to introduce another topic or 'move on'. I asked if he was shutting me down and was told again the subject was being handled. I reminded him that this was HO forum but he just asked again if I had any other topics I simply said, 'no'. As it was a zoom meeting I left the meeting.

I am furious being treated this way. I know the rules and I should not be interrupted and responses from directors are not required. This is the second time he has treated me this way and not the first time he has trampled other home owners' concerns. It appears he takes any complaints from Home Owners personally. Before I speak I carefully rehearse what I will say so as not to come over in the wrong light. For goodness sake, it's only three minutes they have to listen to!

It would seem our current board of directors, and new manager, have not put the same amount of study into this subject as previous directors have.

If anyone has advice on how to handle tis type of situation in a calm and diplomatic manner, I would be appreciative. I do not intend to let it go - I felt it was rude and disrespectful.

Thank you, Augustin,

It was none of those items. It was an issue regarding landscaping around my town home.

As a manager, I have always told boards that during Open Forum, let a member speak their piece and when they have finished, have the board interject that they will take under advisement. It should never become confrontational.

What Augustin posted was just one attorney's opinion, not law. The actual wording of the attorney was:

Open Forum Topics. The Open Meeting Act allows the board to establish reasonable time limits but there is no limit on the number of topics members can raise. (Civ. Code § 4930(a).) Boards cannot create unreasonable rules that would stifle a member's right to address the board. Boards can, however, place reasonable restrictions on some topics. For example, personnel issues should be addressed privately with the board or in writing to the board, not publicly. For example, topics should not:

involve a matters outside the board's authority,
be defamatory, indecent, abusive, or involve personal attacks or threats, legal or otherwise,
involve personnel issues,
involve the disclosure of confidential information,
maintenance issues can be raised during open forum but are often better addressed in writing with the management company.
If the board has a lengthy agenda, it may ask members to limit their comments to agenda items only so everyone has an opportunity to speak to those issues before the board addresses them.

Answering Questions. Boards are restricted by statute in the answering of questions. This is false!

Civil Code § 4930. Limitations on Meeting Content.

(a) Except as described in subdivisions (b) to (e), inclusive, the board may not discuss or take action on any item at a nonemergency meeting unless the item was placed on the agenda included in the notice that was distributed pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 4920. This subdivision does not prohibit a member or resident who is not a director from speaking on issues not on the agenda.

(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a director, a managing agent or other agent of the board, or a member of the staff of the board, may do any of the following:

(1) Briefly respond to statements made or questions posed by a person speaking at a meeting as described in subdivision (b) of Section 4925.

(2) Ask a question for clarification, make a brief announcement, or make a brief report on the person’s own activities, whether in response to questions posed by a member or based upon the person’s own initiative.
(c) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the board or a director, subject to rules or procedures of the board, may do any of the following:

(1) Provide a reference to, or provide other resources for factual information to, its managing agent or other agents or staff.

(2) Request its managing agent or other agents or staff to report back to the board at a subsequent meeting concerning any matter, or take action to direct its managing agent or other agents or staff to place a matter of business on a future agenda.

(3) Direct its managing agent or other agents or staff to perform administrative tasks that are necessary to carry out this section.

Actually, I don't think you understand what is a attorney's opinion and what is state statue. I posted the relevant statue, where is the word "restricted'?

When we had open Board meetings the agenda was limited to the overall business of the HOA. If a person in attendance had a complaint that was specific to their home we instructed them to contact the PM or a Board member outside of the meeting.

Speaking from a Board member's perspective, landscaping was the number one complaint in my community and the hardest to deal with. Roofs could be falling in and no one would say a word as long as the landscaping looked nice. What made this topic hard to deal with was that many of the complaints were a matter of individual taste and opinion. It's a subject I hated dealing with.

LmT, I am not implying that you shouldn't be able to bring your concerns to the Board and be heard. At a minimum they should have let you speak for 3 minutes before doing what I suggested above.

You have much to learn!

I think your approach of addressing this with the Board or manager is very wise instead of immediately turning this into a legal issue as AugustinD is prone to do. This speaks well of you. Many of the posts that we read here are communication and personality issues. In my opinion it is beneficial to the homeowner and the HOA to try and work these issues out first before even pondering a legal solution.

At each Annual Meeting we have an open Q&A session. Most questions are landscaping issues as our HOA does all the landscaping. If a question is specific to one owner and as we cannot see it nor do we want to hold up the meeting on one person's issues, we ask them to provide the BOD with more information such as Email, pictures, etc. and we will review it. Granted some might think we are cutting them off short but if we listened to each person's description and issue, we could be there all night.

John, in California we are required to give each homeowner the opportunity to comment on items either on the agenda or not. That is the law. The amount of time can be limited and in our case it is three minutes because there are usually only a few homeowners present at the meetings and of those only two or three have anything to say.

As I understand, deciding what is an acceptable topic is not the responsibility of the president or board members provided it does not break the rules as quoted by Max and Augustin. Granted there are sometimes the repetitive topics of dogs off leash, coyotes, pool heating or speeding neighbors but, as I see it, each home owner has the right to his/her 3 minutes without interruption. Lord knows, I've listened through plenty.

Perhaps a home owner wants fellow home owners in attendance to hear his/her topic which an email to management or BOD would not achieve.

My beef here is not the rights and wrongs of which subjects may be brought up; rather, the disrespect shown by a board member to a home owner. Fortunately we are a small HOA of mostly gentle people but I now see how HOA meetings can turn ugly.

I agree with JohnT and as I noted above. See if you can take talk with the PM about this topic. See if you can meet privately (not my "ripely") with one or two board members about their meeting interactions with Owners.

But you have a nice opportunity since a director has invited you to do a walkaround with him to identify needs, best of luck! It might help to offer him a nice professional handout of drawings of the areas involved with your suggestions for improvement in them. Do sign it as a Master Gardener.

An additional approach might be to ask him if he thinks the Board would like the help of a Landscaping Committee? If he thinks so, write a charter and see if you can find a couple Of other owners to serve. Ask him if would put such a proposal on an open meeting agenda. Or, Our board permits owner contributions to agendas, does yours?

Also ask him if he thinks there's a way to encourage the two other directors to be patient, kind, courteous & civil with Owners at Open Forum.

We do have open meeting attendance of about 30 every month so our open forum is just two minutes per each topic and has been for several years. No one seems to run out of time or is rushed. Most comments and questions are less than one minute each. I can't imagine an owner rambling on about coyotes, speeding neighbors or pool heat for 3 minutes. Our Board does allow owners to speak more than once after every one else has had a turn.

I think the best practice we have is that directors & our PM take notes about every comment/question, but do not reply until the presider closes Open Forum. Then they respond to each seriously & thoroughly (if possible). The treasurer might respond to one or more, the director in charge of se special projects to some other, etc. There are, indeed, a few topics that will go on the next month's agenda after the PM does some research. This approach avoids the back-and-forth that can make Open Forum tedious, contentious, etc.

As I wrote above, after a couple of years of a rude, abusive board majority, some were voted out at an election, and civility, kindness and courtesy prevailed once again.

What do owners in your accounts do when there are rude, nasty directors & boards? Or have all the boards in all of your accounts been civil & courteous to owners at open meetings over a dozen or more years?

Don't you have any advice for LmT? Or do you just like to lurk to snipe at Augustin and now at me? Perhaps you need a different hobby.

As a matter of fact, they have. It's one of the reason I got into this business and also why I won't ever live in another HOA.

Actually she doesn't need advice, it is the board or PM that needs it, BUT, you knew that right?