I Can’t Believe Manager has done it again.

In a previous post here I posed a question regarding setting a new board meeting date because the manager’s (blaming her assistant)) neglected to send out the notice and agenda in time. Well, we have a meeting scheduled for Friday and the notice and agenda have still not been posted or sent by email.

Question: if the meeting is rescheduled for Monday does that meet the four day requirement (I.e. are they supposed to be business days?)

If the notice were to go out in the morning would we be able to slide it by? I don’t think it would be a good idea but the other board members may.

What do your documents say? Do they mention business days? Dont guess- pull them out and read them. You're on the board and should already know this.

If not, I suppose you can count Monday Saturday because there's no mail on Sunday. But which Friday are you talking about- March 3 or 10? Do you only send notices by email or email and snail mail?

If you do both, you should remember mail delivery everywhere is taking longer (because the current postmaster general is a jackass), so you should always allow 5-7 days (Sunday doesn't count and you may need to add a day if a holiday is approaching)

If your meeting is this Friday, you'll just have get it out tomorrow morning - with an apology for the late notice. If it's next Friday, send it now so people get it in time. Then have a serious conversation with the manager about the importance of sending notices on time.

Another way to resolve this is to have the secretary send the email notices that shouldn't take long if you already have the addresses set up. By the way, the secretary often oversees association communicatio - did he or she get the information to the manager on time? If not, why not?

If you have a website, why aren't you posting that information there? If it's the same day of the month, people can use a calendar to get the next date, and you can simply update the agenda. Is ths meeting at the community clubhouse? Post a sign a few days in advance.

I recently looked into that for a 28 day notice. Unless your CC&R's specify a different time period then this should apply:

California Civil Code section 10:
"the time in which any act provided by law is to be done is computed by excluding the first day and including the last, unless the last day is a holiday, and then it is also excluded."

California Civil Code section 4050:
(a) This section governs the delivery of a document pursuant to this act.
(b) If a document is delivered by mail, delivery is deemed to be complete on deposit
into the United States mail.
(c) If a document is delivered by electronic means, delivery is complete at the time
of transmission.

So the way I understand it, if you mailed the notices this morning and they were postmarked 2/28/23, then your four days would be Wed, Thur, Fri and you could hold the meeting on Saturday since you skip the first day and exclude the last unless it falls on a Sunday or major holiday

(This matches up with Max's answer)

Thank you, Max.

I took a look at section 4920 (b) (3) of the California Civil Code and it reads “If the association's governing documents require a longer period of notice than is required by this section, the association shall comply with the period stated in its governing documents. For the purposes of this paragraph, a governing document provision does not apply to a notice of an emergency meeting or a meeting held solely in executive session unless it specifically states that it applies to those types of meetings.”

So back to my first question – we know the state requires a minimum of four days advance notice, so do your documents specify a time (e.g. seven days) or not? If it doesn’t, what's wrong with planning for, say seven days, sending the notice with a TENTATIVE agenda, and telling everyone the final version will be posted on the website 24-48 hours in advance? Post the final cut on your notice board in case someone doesn't check their email or doesn't have one. If you send some notices by snail mail, you may want to extend the advance notice to 10 days because shit happens.

I know your board is voluntary (virtually all HOA boards are), but if you can’t trust the manager to do this, you’ll have to figure out how to do it yourselves. I’m not a techie, but couldn’t the secretary post the agenda and send the emails – if you already have a distribution list, it would think it wouldn’t take all day to attach the agenda and hit “send.” If you have a separate webmaster, perhaps he or she can take care of this.

As for the manager, you're not happy with another mistake, but now what? Do you want to fire her, issue a verbal or written warning, or set up a performance improvement plan where this and maybe a little more can be addressed? Y'all need to make up your mind and do it. You didn't say how long the assistant has been around - if he or she is new, there may have been a communication breakdown (it happens), so talk to him/her and make sure the assistant understands what has to be done and why. Maybe you can also make one board member a point of contact where he/she can call to review the agenda before it's sent - that shouldn't take all day either.