Excessive number of people wanting to make decisions

Started by MichaelT21 • 11 replies • 383 views

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MichaelT21 (Arkansas)
Posts: 200

Posted:

Right now, we have an abundance of people that want to make decisions for our HOA. I'm counting about 10-15 who seem interested.

There are a variety of reason for this:
- The HOA has done an effective job of inviting people to attend meetings
- The Board meeting format, including a comprehensive slide deck, is engaging to homeowners and lends itself well for a homeowner formulating an opinion about the item

Thus, there is growing concern in the community that the Board is not listening to the homeowners since we do not allow homeowner participation during meetings.

What is not happening, however, is any interest in doing volunteer work to carry out the decisions that we make. Thus, I'm still the lone ranger for about 80 - 90% of HOA tasks, and the remaining 10 - 20% are done by others.

I'm not sure what to do? Making decisions is fun and carrying out decisions is work. People want to do the fun stuff and don't want to do the work.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

I am confused. You don't allow owners to contribute to your meetings? How else is your board to do what the membership wants? A board member is elected for the purpose to REPRESENT the voters who elected them. Board members do the day to day work on the behalf of the majority of owners. The owners who are not interested in doing Board work or day to day operations.

You are also assigning your perception that what is going on is due to the "success" that less people want to be involved. It doesn't sound that way at all. In my case, the problem was that I was doing such a "good" job that many people thought I had it "handled". That did result in many people being less interested in being involved outside of helping me or volunteering to do things. That basically was the role that I left them because of my doing the majority of the workload. This was also due to the fact the last 6 months I had lost most of my board members and were down to 2 officers. We had to wait till next elections to build back the board numbers. So it wasn't like I was trying to be a "micromanager". It just I was basically the last one standing.

My suggestion is to start having OPEN dialog with your membership. Organize a "Volunteer day" activities that people can particpate in sans anything that takes a licensed professional. You are trying to grow new potential board members. Time to let that happen. There is always a bigger fish!

Former HOA President

BillD16 (Texas)
Posts: 971

Posted:

Typically if anyone approaches me with an idea for the Board, I'll ask them what role they're going to play. If they say something like "well, I don't have time etc", then usually I'll tell them "I wish we had the time and resources for that." It's kind of a self-limiting problem.

Bill

HOA Board ex-President
Austin, Texas USA

“You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor”

JackieB4 (California)
Posts: 398

Posted:

BillD16, Excellent and useful information. Thanks
Jackie

MaxB4
Posts: 3,513

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MichaelT21 on 03/21/2023 9:38 AM
Right now, we have an abundance of people that want to make decisions for our HOA. I'm counting about 10-15 who seem interested.

There are a variety of reason for this:
- The HOA has done an effective job of inviting people to attend meetings
- The Board meeting format, including a comprehensive slide deck, is engaging to homeowners and lends itself well for a homeowner formulating an opinion about the item

Thus, there is growing concern in the community that the Board is not listening to the homeowners since we do not allow homeowner participation during meetings.

What is not happening, however, is any interest in doing volunteer work to carry out the decisions that we make. Thus, I'm still the lone ranger for about 80 - 90% of HOA tasks, and the remaining 10 - 20% are done by others.

I'm not sure what to do? Making decisions is fun and carrying out decisions is work. People want to do the fun stuff and don't want to do the work.

RESIGN, TODAY!

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Nice response from Bill!

You've asked roughly this same question previously, and received several replies. Among them was the obvious: Form committees. I think we noted that in aa HOA of 270 homes and many parks, but only an offsite, very part-time PM, you need the committees.

BUT ask the "interested" Owner(s) to write an outline of their tasks, a "charter." Ask if it should be an "ad hoc committee" temp, for one specific task-- let's say analyze your HOA's ARC guidelines and come up with advice for changes or improvements, or permanent committee. Let THEM do th research and sent written recommendations.

Let the volunteers know that the charter must contain that the committee takes minutes and writes a monthly report to submit to the board. Let them know that the board appoints members and the chair. The board authorizes the committee's formation with its votes at an open meeting, and may disband it. Let them know that the committee would have NO decision-making authority. That is the board's job as possibly in your bylaws and certainly in WA corporations codes. The board, after all, is ultimately responsible and liable for committee's conduct. Committees advise and make recommendations in their monthly reports. HOA boards often require that each committee has a board members as a liaison to help members stay on track &, often, to to explain budget limitations. The liaison has no vote on the committee. Some times a board member is on a committee.

The above is a brief outline and you can find examples, I'm sure online. Now, in the past when you were advised, this, I think you ended up with one committee with one member, your wife. Make a policy like our HOA's that committees must have three members minimum and must meet.

You also, Michael, have worried about dissension when ironically everything is better in your HOA. I believe you. BUT, I speculated, in some social situations, when improvements do occur, participants start wanting even more (In big societies, this theoretically leads to revolutions of "rising expectations.")

You don't have an open forum during your board meetings? Not required in your state, WA? (Can't remember). There probably is plenty of good advice about how to manage open forums so that they don't become gripe sessions. Boards here for the past 3+ years have been masters at managing these while remaining cordial and act as listeners. As Shelia has been saying lately: google is your friend.

WendyM5 (North Carolina)
Posts: 1,522

Posted:

just state at the beginning of meetings that the HOA board can't do everhything, but welcomes volunteers that are self motivated to carry out ideas and tasks mostly on thier own with little supervision. I've got several people making suggestions, but none of them want to serve as an officer or even on a committee, I politely tell them that unless they follow up with their ideas I dont' have time to implement it.

vis ta vie

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

Wendy reminds me, and to illustrate his & others' points:

I moved in to my condo here in 1/05 and became friends with a couple of other new Owners. We had a very tech-helpless onsite PM at the time. The Board had kept adding new tips and guidelines on different issues since the building opened in 2001. The PM sent new Owners and lessees a huge 11 X14" envelope stuffed with many pieces of paper with board resolutions, tips on moving in, blah blah. They weren't even stapled together. What a mess. (We'd also rec'd the CC&rs & Rules & Regs, which were just fine)

At an open forum, I suggested the board put together an organized packet for new residents. Directors chatted among themselves for a moment & the president said that yes, with all of these new materials, that's a good idea. He & I met for coffee. He asked that I & the two other new Owners prepare a charter for an ad hoc Welcome Package Committee with our vision & a plan in it. We did and submitted it to the Board, which approved our status as an ad hoc committee and approved us as members.

We met maybe 5 times, and brought them a very nice Welcome Packet to a subsequent open meeting. The Board made some minor tweaks and approved it. It's had topics added and a couple deleted over the years, but our HOA benefitted and still does from the work, which involved almost no time by the Board.

RW4 (Texas)
Posts: 1

Posted:

I'm glad you had a positive experience. My background - I've previously served on the Board as Treasurer, and am currently on the Board in a non-officer capacity.

I've been working to update our R&R and possibly By-Laws since last year. There are many obstacles as I'm sure you know. Overcoming apathy amongst the owners and Board members has been a tough hurdle for me. I've asked / solicited input for changes and have heard nothing from 6 of the 9 Board members. The few that have gotten back to me have only provided one- or two- sentence responses. My requests are not nebulous or open-ended, I present specific rules and / or changes - and I'm deafened by the silence. I definitely do not want the final documents to be solely my input. I'm fortunate that there was a base document with updates that were never recorded with the County Clerk.

It's time-consuming, and it's been a huge learning curve. I'll probably miss the deadline for this year's annual meeting. I prefer to submit proposed changes are accurate, as much as they can be, when they are sent out for review to legal and owners. I do not want owners to think the Board is trying to force a rule change, or do something underhanded.

I enjoyed your anecdote regarding the ream of unorganized paper you received. My HOA provides a bound document with the Declarations, By-Laws - As Amended, Rules and Regulations, and the Assessment Collection Policy, to name a few. I separated the documents from the binder to find there were 3 copies of the same document, verbatim, categorized as separate docs. Once I sorted through that binder - the task of updating R&R and By-Laws seemed less a Sisyphean task.

I do see a light at the end of tunnel - I've complete a few documents. Like I said - your comments / anecdote / positive outcome provides me with some inspiration and hope I'll get the documents completed by month-end !! Thanks again.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

RW

I hope your BOD is planning on running your suggested changes by an attorney otherwise you could be in for some protracted legal battles.

KerryL1 (California)
Posts: 14,550

Posted:

I'm curious as to why you're doing the R&R and the Bylaws simultaneously since their deal with such different subjects and since the latter relies so much on state statutes?

Rules & Regs are, imo, much easier because, at least in CA, they don't require a vote by the owners. Do owners vote on them in TX??? And they are recorded with the County?

There's a board of 7 here and 2 have given feedback on the Rues & Regs that I've been working on as a now-retired director. As a high res, we hav plenty! The trouble is some of their suggestions are so trivial. One, for instance, is that "Workers in condo Units may not have meals in the common areas." Well, first, there really is nowhere to sit and I doubt such workers would actually take their lunch poolside! 2nd there is none of that behavior at all. Take a look at a list of Do's & Don't's put out by CAI that on my "New Rules & Regs--Appropriate?" posting.

(In CA proposed rules are sent out for a 28-day comment period, which the board considers at a subsequent meeting before voting.)

WendyM5 (North Carolina)
Posts: 1,522

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By RW4 on 03/22/2023 9:02 PM
I'm glad you had a positive experience.
I enjoyed your anecdote regarding the ream of unorganized paper you received. My HOA provides a bound document with the Declarations, By-Laws - As Amended, Rules and Regulations, and the Assessment Collection Policy, to name a few. I separated the documents from the binder to find there were 3 copies of the same document, verbatim, categorized as separate docs.

OMG 3 copies of the same thing? talk about cutting out the fat. It's like the 100 pg plus montly financial info I get from the Mgt co. bloat!

anyways try this book:
Creating Home Owner & Condo Association Documents: How to Protect Your Con-Dough
Goldenberg, David I.

It has lots of useful info and templates so you dont' have to piss away money on a lawyer. Also check and see if your local TX bar association publishes any law books on HOA's. Mine in NC does and we used to it update our Rules and Reg. due to several court cases that forced us to change rules on solar panels, poltiical signs, flags, etc.

Anyways good luck. I too get zero feedback from other board members, they just dont' care. our bylaws are soo bad a rental corporation could easily take over the HOA and easily misuse it for their gain.
In fact I'm surprised I haven't read a news story about this happening. Well actually I did about a condo that bought out all of the units except 1 and then forced the remainging owner to sell. but i mean more generally in SFH HOA's.

vis ta vie

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