open board meetings....

Open board meetings are a good thing. Is it sometimes frustrating to have homeowners interrupt? Yes. Is it time consuming to explain things to them? Also yes. But those inconveniences are not justification for a board to operate in secret. The membership should absolutely have access to the boards decision making process.

Sorry to report it to you Wendy but having an online meeting is tough to administer - unless the participants are well trained and technically competent... been there, done that...lol.. I would expect online meeting to be more commonplace in the future - and i hope they do - but it's gonna take a while for things to settle in.

We're lucky to have an ITT guy as prez of our Board during the pandemic and he helped set up our Zoom meetings capacity. The Board now holds hybrid meetings that are a combo of Zoom and in-person. Our Board has no trouble controlling the Zoom portion as owners are muted used unless during open forum when owners may ask questions, make remarks, etc. During the business portion of the meeting, only board members may participate.

As a board member I wanted to be present in person, but now retired, I attend via Zoom. We have had no issues or problems with Zoom.

Open board meetings are required in CA and must be publicly noticed with an agenda 4 days before the board meeting. I think they have many benefits including that meeting attendance helps educate owners and has encouraged some to become board candidates. Open meetings help develop a sense of community and belonging, at least in l our HOA. We are 200+ condo Units, about 25% absentee owners and about 15% owners who live here part-time. About 30 owners attend a month.

What is required in NC, Wendy?

Personally, I could care less if meetings were open to the membership with the strict requirements California has. I am more concerned that the associations and the boards that govern them are transparent with their membership. While I was president of a 317-unit HOA, a good turnout in Al Capone's old recreation room was maybe 4 people.

I'm a huge believer in open meetings - as Barbara noted, you may need to spend a little time explaining sone things, but you can also publish an overview of the format, along with the agenda, so people know what to expect.

You can do the same with virtual meetings. The ones I've attended at work and through my church have someone who will mute and unmute attendees when they want to speak. If you act crazy, you'll stay muted. you can announce the rules before you begin and even make the chat available if people wish to talk among themselves without interrupting the meeting. You can have a moderator keep an eye on the chat if people start getting agitated, although they may be less inclined to do this because everyone will see who wrote what.

Take a look ar your documents to see what they say about open meetings - if they're allowed, that's what you do. That doesn't mean free for all - establish a code of conduct and a resident forum. After the resident forum, people can stay and watch, but don't take questions or comments so you can address everything on the agenda. People can contact the board with additional questions or comments, or you can add a brief resident forum at the end of the meeting before adjournment.

Hi Michael - great information. Would love to speak with you about your use of Zoom in Board meetings. I am working on the technical side of that now....and participated in Zoom meetings before but have never set one up. Are you available to talk and share? Thanks!

Jim,

Since your Association has just transitioned from the developer to the membership, you will likely have more members who might want to attend board meetings then other HOAs that have been under membership control for awhile.

Technically, those members are just observers but, it's always nice to bring them in to the discussion if appropriate.
You should let them ask questions, make comments or voice concerns at the end of the business portion of the meeting.
If there are a lot of them, the board can limit the time each one has.

I usually found it useful to have members at the meeting.

Jim,

As I mentioned in a different thread, Iowa does not have open meeting laws for HOAs. The Iowa Horizontal Property Owners Act for condos does. I previously lived in Iowa in an HOA without open board meetings. The Iowa Nonprofit code addresses owners requesting documents from the HOA. This is supposed to satisfy owners because they don't have access to open board meetings. Owners can get access to their HOA's meeting minutes among other documents. I began requesting meeting minutes. It was an endless process of requests and getting delayed responses. Once I got them, in the beginning, the minutes were fairly detailed, and I learned about what was going on in the neighborhood. Particularly since the HOA provided our sanitary sewer service which I was most interested in. As time went on, the minutes got less and less detailed. I believe this was purposeful because the board knew I would ask for them.

The HOA canceled their annual meetings 2 years in a row due to Covid. I understand that but it seems to me like it was a convenient excuse. Therw was some tension going on at the time that coincides with Covid. When my husband phoned the HOA president to let him know we were moving, he stated that he was not running for the Board again. His wife had recently resigned her position as board president and he took over. It must not have gone well for him either.

My suggestion is to be as open and transparent as possible without breaking any privacy laws on individual property owners. Follow your HOA docs in regards to meeting protocols. I can't imagine you behaving as my previous board did. I remember how respectful you were when you actively participated on this forum a while back.

pretty sure anyone can dial a phone number and enter in the meeting pin. yeah it's that simple. most people don't care to share a video feed of themselves and dial in anyways.

but i agree with others a 25 door HOA freash off the block should have in person meetings. put a sign at the entrance of the community, it will get read more than an email or flyer in my experienc.e

our HOA does virtual meetings several times a year that I setup. Youtube has several easy to follow tutorials. it's really not that hard, but again with your size HOA in person would be best. Setting up a hybrid meeting is very hard to do well due to sound/video issues and I woudlnt' recommend it.

Allow me to play the Contrarian here. Making it to easy to attend a meeting, via say Zoom, can bring out the worst type of people as in sitting home sucking on bottle and half drunk. I am not saying make it difficult to attend but at least make it so one has to expend some effort not just make another drink and turn their computer on. At least make them get dressed and walk to say the clubhouse.

Now I would be all for broadcasting a meeting so one can view but not participate.

Tho' I now attend our hybrid meetings via Zoom, I agree that in-person meetings are better. We've discussed the body-language part in the past and it's missing. Our set-up is, though, so all directors can be seen. In-person attendee can be seen and heard too since they must approach a little podium & speak into a mic.

But JohnC is completely wrong, about 15 owners attend via Zoom every month and some are regulars and some only attend occasionally. We have rules of behavior and a jerk would be immediately muted. The chat feature would be disabled. But that hasn't happened in the couple of years we've been doing this. Our overall attendance is about the same at 30 or so/mo as pre-hybrid.

It's excellent for our absentee owners & part-time owners, not to mention shut-ins, those with disabilities, those with child or elder care responsibilities. In JohnC's SC, no notice of open meetings need to be posted and the board doesn't meet on a regular schedule. JohnC's board does NOT post meeting notices and agenda, which is a clear signal that owners actually are not welcome.

As with any meeting, the meeting chair must do her/ his job and keep the meeting on track, etc.

zoom no longer offers free phone dial in abilities. anyone know if google meet ups or others provide that option for free?
I might have to break down and recommend we pay for it as it makes a lot more people participate.

Your last post, Wendy, is so important IMO. The more owners participate in meeting attendance, social events, committee volunteering, the more likelihood owners aren't merely members but feel a sense of membership and belonging. The more owners have that sense or feeling, the more likely they'll follow the rules and come up with positive ideas for improvement. The more likely it is that they volunteer as committee members and board members.

The sense of membership & belonging, though, is NOT sought by bullying, abusive, secretive, ignorant boards. And such boards do all possible to keep members from having any sense of unity or true membership. The reason, of course, is that such unity can lead to owners banding together to get rid of rogue boards and participants would volunteer to lead such activities for change.
Abusive boards will not discuss much in the open at "open" meetings. If open meetings are not required, they won't hold them. If required, they'll schedule such meetings at odd times and irregular intervals. They'll not post meeting times & agendas timely unless forced to by law. They'll not permit owners to speak at meetings unless forced to by law. They'll hinder open communication among owners as much as possible. Our first abusive board went so far as to remove the notice holders in our elevators so that the Soc. Comm. couldn't easily publicize social events. The latter, after all, brings folks together.

I'm in Texas. We have open meetings, but is it really considered open when the board makes the decisions previous to the meeting in e-mails and then "ratifies" it in the meeting? Does seem fair to me. I do believe everything should be open, except the confidential legal matters, given we are all paying our dues.

Trista

I meant doesn't seem fair to me.

In Florida we are required to have only open board meetings. There are special rules for budget meetings (have to have 14 day notice instead of 72 hour). While it may not seem fair to have the board communicate by email before going to meetings, unless you want to sit through marathon meetings or have a weekly board meeting, it's really tough to just wait until the board meeting to have any discussion at all.

We do discuss by email in advance, but every agenda item, like signing a contract or voting on a budget, does get discussed at an official board meeting and we allow owner comments.

The other problem with no outside discussion is that it's impossible to get things done in a timely manner. If we have a pool leak and need to sign a contract to get it fixed immediately, are we supposed to wait three weeks until the next meeting?

I agree that some boards probably do most of their business behind the scenes. I know that it's easy to fall into that routine.

Good discussion - i learned lots - thanks to everybody for your responses! oljim, in texas

Trista

My recommendation is that your board learn the terms, conditions, and requirements of your governing documents, including changes mandated by the Legislature, before delving into the laws which may affect your association.