"personal agenda" versus "community agenda"

A dues reduction is not good when the reserve study says it is not good.

I didn't have an issue with this.

When voting as a board member, I made what I considered the best decisions for the community even if I didn't like it personally. Fortunately this didn't happen very frequently because IMO when benefits the community also benefits me personally - I can only think of one instance or two instances where this possibly wouldn't have been the case, but they were pretty low-stakes issues.

When I was voting on things as a homeowner, then I felt free to vote according to my personal interests - because board members don't lose their rights as owners. Again this happened seldom (eg. voting on proposed amendments to the CC&Rs).

I think what makes the difference for me is that in community living, I don't expect to always have things my way and others' viewpoints are as valid as my own. There will always be things I don't particularly like, and I don't get too upset about it. If I were frequently bothered by stuff like this, I would probably be reconsidering whether I was suited for community association living at all.

So I'm not seeing a huge dilemma here.

I usually start with asking the why, as in "you've seen our financial reports like the rest of us, and do you know costs in this and that area have increased dramatically. Youbsldo listened to all the conversations we've had on funding reserves, setting a new amount for bad debt, etc., etc. And yet you don't want assessments increased? Why is that?" Usually, they'll look stunned and then bluster, trying to stall to think of something intelligent before mumbling something crazy or just sit down and sulk.

You can also tell when people don't seem to know or care about anything except one or two issues they and maybe a few others want because they're the ones who will benefit the most. Especially those issues that have been debated ad nauseum, but they keep bringing it up. I guess they think if they do that enough, they'll eventually get their way, because everyone else will get tired of it and give in so they'll shut the hell up about it.

Longevity is a third factor. Sone board members join all fired up ready to whip things into shape, only to realize those pesky bylaws dictate what the board can actually do, the property manager u
Is limited to doing what's in the contract and the association warns everyone that a certain action will result in a nasty lawsuit that they WILL lose, and so that homeowner is outvoted on bringing the lawsuit.

Then you have to actually read the management report- you don't have time for that! You want to know when the board will discuss important things like planting certain flowers around the entrance or buying wicker furniture for the swimming pool instead of that ugly plastic! These oropke won't last a year on tbe board because they thought they'd get their way on everything. Life doesn't work that way, especially in HOA land.

I person with a "personal agenda" shouldn't be permitted on a Board. I know it happens far too often.

Wow, this 'triggers' me on several different levels. I apologize that I'll be repeating a few things that I've said before in other threads on this forum.

First: it's arguably a Good Thing for the PMC to offer training. On the other hand, I believe it is possible for PMCs and PMs to take advantage of a Board's lack of knowledge and experience and, instead of *following* the Board's direction, they may begin *providing* direction *to* the Board. I believe this happened in my neighborhood, and it was what led to me running for the Board.

Second: If they were truly attempting to present clear instances of 'personal agenda', I do not think 'dues reduction' is a particularly good example. (I think it's a good example of something that could go either way).

Third: I like what E, T, C, K, and S said about 'community' versus 'personal' interest. Especially Cathy:

> When voting as a board member, I made what I considered the best decisions for
> the community even if I didn't like it personally. Fortunately this didn't happen
> very frequently because IMO when benefits the community also benefits me personally

I'm reminded of the late, great US Senator from Minnesota Paul Wellstone: "We all do better when we all do better".

But I'm motivated to document a few specific examples of the 'personal agenda' / 'bad board member' behavior that I encountered with the previous Board:

- Voting or making decisions based primarily upon saving face, ie, it's all about not looking bad. One sign of this is that they never admit to making a mistake, and will go to great lengths to cover it up.

- Voting or making decisions purely for the purpose of screwing over an opponent.

- Voting or making decisions without knowledge, preparation, or research. I'm thinking specifically of a person who was chronically late, *never* prepared nor informed, and felt they were entitled and justified to vote whatever their opinion was at the moment. The result was like a coin toss but worse, because coins don't hold ugly, ignorant opinions.

- Making policy decisions without Board discussion or vote. This may be more a matter of idiocy than personal agenda, but still.

- Intentionally blocking or delaying the conduct of Board business. This is different from simply opposing a measure; I'm talking about people who throw up a constant barrage of trivial issues that prevents anything from happening. A specific case: forgiveness of an incorrectly assessed fine was delayed for *3 months* because the President decided to be a jerk about it.

- Voting or making decisions to minimize the amount of work they need to do.

- Voting or making decisions to support the agenda of a person or group within the community. This can range from "placating the neighborhood busybody" to "doing a favor for a friend" to "favoring a group of people in the community" (everyone who lives on Daisy Lane, or those who belong to a certain church or political party).

- People who lie are (surprise!) often not aligned with the best interests of the community.

- People who are on the Board purely for the power and/or fame. As pathetic as this sounds, I know someone who was exactly that.

- (Obvious) Anyone who stands to gain from the outcome of a vote or decision. Especially if the gain is in cash.

- Clueless people who simply go along with the majority every time.

- People who think "volunteer" means "it's okay to do a lousy job". This is a pet peeve of mine, and thus could be said to be a bit of 'personal agenda' of my own, oops.

I should stop now and take a lorazepam. But I'll close with a trick I learned from being a parent: there is a natural 'flow' to many things in life. If you notice an interruption or change in this 'flow', it's often because someone is hiding the details and trying to pull a fast one.

Bill

Sometimes it's hard to tell the board member's community agenda from personal agenda, so I'm not sure "good" or "bad" board member always applies.

For example, we had a candidate run for the board in January. She told us she was running because our dues are too high but she had never looked at the budget. She didn't like the color of the mulch the association uses. She wanted to opt out of the landscaping fee she pays for her lawn service (all the homes in her section have lawn service included). She didn't like all the rules. That's a personal agenda.

But we have a long-time board member who SEEMS to have a community agenda. He likes social events and likes to play host at them. But he doesn't like the activities to have a budget - the volunteers will say "Bob says it has to be nice" and spend twice as much money as they should. He also plays bocce. We needed new benches at the bocce court. We don't have a huge crowd that plays bocce, but the needed some benches. So he had the property manager order six custom benches at $2000 each (before my time on the board or it never would have gone through). Bob likes it nice! He wants to change the gate system for "traffic issues" but the big issue is that he lives close to the main gate and doesn't like all the traffic going by his home. He got a huge discount on a new roof because he convinced the board to give the roofing contract for the clubhouses to the same roofer. The list goes on - this is someone who actually has a personal agenda masquerading as a community agenda.

My experience is those that get on a BOD for personal reasons soon lose interest if and when their personal agenda items fall by the wayside for one reason or another. We have one BOD member though not having an agenda, she always brings up issues effecting her. We listeon to her then ignore her.

As a (somewhat dysfunctional) Catholic, this reminds me of issues that I (and many other Catholics) suffer: sometimes circumstances obligate a person to do something that they enjoy. For instance: not attending Sunday church services because of COVID. The resulting dissonance often manifests as guilt. The one big advantage of being raised Catholic is that you get a couple of decades to learn how to deal with it.

Simply an observation. I completely accept your call that "Bob" is attempting to mask their personal agenda. And whenever I see this happening in the future I'll be thinking "Bob likes it nice!"

I have to wonder what Bob himself thinks of this in his heart of hearts. What's that river in Egypt?

Bill

Say, Bill, I think repetition is just fine because you never know who is reading the posts, who's new, who suddenly has an issue similar to what you posted.

So, I was on 14 boards over 14 years. Almost every year, there were changes in member even if just one. Every time a small group changes, new dynamics emerge, new coalitions can form, old ones can disappear. Still, with a board of six* just one bad director has had little influence.

It's the little coalitions that form that have caused trouble here. For a few years, we happened to have 3 directors simultaneously who all were very interested in our hardscape--about 6,000 sf of raised planters. Every month our agenda seemed loaded with landscaping. These three had no other interests. So, though their personal agenda, while theoretically beneficial to the entire community, turned into a real hindrance to raising other topics. And they always sought additional funds. They sucked all the O2 outta the meeting room.

Similarly, the Board once had at least three members whose spouses were very active on the Social Committee. Their desire to please their spouses led to stupid $ increases for certain items related to social events. This personal agenda was not very bad for the corporation, but did take away funds from other, arguably, more worthwhile expenditures.

We did have a group of directors who blocked in various ways the initiation of approving and installing EV changing stations in our underground garage. This had been my initiative. It finally was approved but took two years to implement. One delay tactic was to appoint an ad hoc committee to "investigate," but they only found after several inept "work" for months info that I'd already submitted.

Clueless directors have been on every one of the 14 boards. They don't know what they don't know and don't care.

At the open board meeting Tuesday night, the Board chose a new director, who looks like she'll be a huge asset to our community. The rest of the board are all men on the north & south side of 70. At least two are worthless. I was worried that they'd pick the other candidate, an even older male with whom I'd served once on the board several years ago, when he quit after one year. Absolutely the worst!

The subject of a different post, the director who retired was very good, very diligent, learned a lot and burned out after 4-1/2 yers. a president for 3, imo, he tired tooooo hard to calm individual troublesome owners .

*A board of 7, we must per our bylaws have one director who reps the "commercial Owners" but she's in Canada and never attends, even via Zoom.

It may not be politically correct but I'd rather have a Board represented by people of different ages than I would with one made up of all 70+ members. If this was the message that Kerry was implying then I agree with her.

Thanks, JohnT & Cathy. Describing the composition of any group is not ageist, or sexist, or any other kind of" ist." My personal opinion is it's a good thing if decision-making groups contain a nice variety of people, which give it fuller, rounder, broader ways of thinking, i.e., potentially benefits the community.

I pointed out above that every HOA board I've served on had at least one worthless director. These were of all ages (well, over 50) and genders.

I forgot to mention the new director is an attorney holding a very responsible professional position. My deep hope is she'll interested in learning our governing docs and CA HOA legislation, which just do not happen to interest any other directors at present except one.

When I was on the Board we had several older people serving. Our reserves were terribly underfunded and the roads were in deplorable shape and I was pushing to raise assessments so that we could bank more reserve money. We also did not have enough money to fund future roof replacements. The older Board members were against raising the assessments and their argument was they wouldn't be around to see the improvements. They also went on and on about living on fixed incomes. This is a narrow minded view that is 100% self centered and contrary to how HOA's need to be funded.

I'm getting old myself but I still had the sense to understand that my age and fixed income was not the HOA's concern.

This follows my experience.

ElleN has a habit of drawing warrantless conclusions based on "motives" she ascribes to others. I noted above that, "Clueless directors have been on every one of the 14 boards." On 14 boards, the clueless, i.e., worthless, in my book, included all genders, and ages 50-80+. I'm guessing that any board of 5 or more will often have one "bench warmer," who's worthless.

All these boards on which I served pretty much match the demographics of my center-city 200+ Unit condo building. I don't know many of the 25% of Owners who're landlords, but among owner occupants, we're about 2% East Asian; and about 1% each Black, South Asian; Hispanic; Middle Eastern.

Luckily, as with the current Board, the other directors on almost all boards here-except 2-- for 14 years comprised an active majority of thoughtful, and rational directors, also from 50-80+.

Our 6, including one who just retired, who hover around 70yo, ALL are avid gym users. They, imo, have sometimes wanted to spend too much on new gym equipment--yes a personal agenda. They did not worry about our recent major rehab of two lobbies & all residential corridors even though these put quite a hole in our reserves. With them, I too gritted my teeth and we raised dues to bolster our reserves. So they do not fit John T & C's experiences.

Sooooo....Are JohnC & JohnT ageists by stating their lived-observations that the older directors had personal agendas of not wanting to raise dues? Did they go on to say, thus all older directors would behave in that self-interested way, and should not be elected or appointed??

The candidate whom I described as “the worst” was elected for a 2-year term, only “served" one, missed 3 open meetings out of 11 and was a constant cypher of ignorance and petty demands. I was on the Board with him, have every right to assess his performance, and am qualified to say that he was, indeed, the worst director at my HOA over a 15 year period. Over all those years, he was the only director who seemed to be ego-driven, and desires for well, prestige, if not power. (We had two others over 14 years, who were bullies and abusive to fellow directors and owners at open meetings.)

C'mon, you guys. I went back and re-read the thread, and if you want to take Kerry's remark as "age-ism", you're free to do that. Just as you are free to dine at a cheap all-you-can-eat sushi buffet. But it's obvious to me that K was describing a situation where the leadership was not representative of the represented. And Jackie and ÆlleN - you guys are just giving Kerry a hard time.

I'll rewrite her sentence:

At the open board meeting Tuesday night, the Board chose a new director, who looks like she'll be a huge asset to our community. The rest of the board are ***all*** ______s. At least two are worthless. I was worried that they'd pick the other candidate, a ______ with whom I'd served once on the board several years ago, when he quit after one year. Absolutely the worst!

You can fill in the ______ with just about anything{1}. The key word here is "***all***" (my highlighting). It's a stretch to interpret this as anything but "our BoD lacks the diversity to do a good job". If I'm not a _____, I'm gonna have a hard time believing that a Board full of ______s is really going to appreciate my interests and my point of view.

You may ask: "why do I care?" It's because I get really really freakin' tired of having to watch every word I write or speak to make sure it won't be somehow offensive to someone.

Bill

{1} and it's fun to do so: "soccer player", "nazi", "extraterrestrial", "tea drinker", "Adam Sandler fan", "jew", "person of color" ... okay, those last two probably require some delicate re-wordsmithing{2}. But I'm an old guy myself, and I have experienced age-ist prejudice directed against myself, and what Kerry wrote - that's not it.

{2} which, BTW, doesn't mean that it's an invalid statement. I don't care if it's PC or not: assholes exist in every and all ethnicities. You get a bunch of Rigelian lizard people on the Board? You mammals can complain all you want, but the building's thermostat is gonna be set at 90F all year round.

As shocking as it is to see this so plainly stated, I believe it, and I even think it is not uncommon. I’ve sometimes wondered if the practice of naming buildings, parks, etc after a person (Ie, “The Michael T21 Electrical Outlet and Charging Center”) is at least partially intended to counter this kind of thing. A fair number of people get real serious when talk turns to “their legacy”.

Bill

And you arrived at this conclusion based on 2% of the neighborhood giving you compliments. What about the 98% that dont' give a shoot and just want to pay thier dues and not be bothered? Comeon this is just you reaffirming what you always wanted.

there are ways to reduce costs like using growth regulator spray on grass which makes roots grow instead of the leaves, or by using free mulch from the city instead of beauty bark. drilling a well instead of usingn city water. Installing solar to cut down on electricty, etc. basically work smarter not harder type of things. but most people aren't smarter when spending opium also known as OPM other people's money

Kerry

I am an 81 year old ageist...LOL Sorry to say but many associations get into trouble as "their older folks" do not see their obligation to the future of the association.

Look Kerry, you wrote what you wrote:You have now repeatedly attempted to re-write this. It appears to me you agree the original version is problematic. What you posted subsequently is far from the greatest apology. But at least you are not digging in and continuing to assert the high probability of 'worthlessness' for old guys.

If you do not want to hear my observations on your posts, just say so. But then I expect you to kindly commit to ceasing to make any reference of any kind to myself or anything I post.

Bill yeah you and I are not on the same wavelength.

I believe by your reasoning, verbal reference to certain demographics never has consequences.

Employers, housing providers, the courts and other entities do not see this as you do.

If one more family member buys a unit, they'll probably have the votes to deconvert. Shoot, they may have them now depending on how a controlling majority is defined.

IMO, these really small associations are the worst. Professional management and other services don't make economic sense, which leaves the owners totally responsible for everything. The only thing that saves them is the lack of amenities - and state laws may have exemptions for associations below a certain size.

Whether a dues reduction or icnrease is good or bad depends on the financial health of the HOA. If the community agrees to a dues increase then the next question would be whether they really understand the finances of the community and does "the community who are fine with it" actually represent everyone or not? A majority might agree to an increase but there might be a percentage of people living on a fixed income who would struggle with an increase. If the funding level is adequate, then increasing the dues means fattening the bank account possibly unnecessarily and it might be a hardship on some folks. On the other hand, if funding is lower than optimal, then everyone really should tighten their belts and go for an increase at the level that the owners can manage. The dues need to be adequate to save for the long term. As for the good/bad director evaluation: If someone intends to sell in the near future, s/he might encourage keeping the dues lower than they should be because s/he won't be affected by the shortfall of funds in the future. So that person would be the bad director who is using up the funding today knowing that after s/he is gone, the remaining owners will face a funding shortage. The 'good director' is going to own up to paying the fair share in order to build up the funding to leave the community in good financial health when he or she has moved on. When a good person sells his/her home, a good person is not going to push off on the buyer hidden problems, wood rot in the attic, for instance. To knowingly underfund the HOA would be setting up the buyer to have financial problems dealing with the funding shortfall which could easily take a special assessment or a rapid series of HOA dues increases to build up the funds to an adequate level.

ElleN. I originally wrote that every Board (of 7) I served on-- 14 boards-- had at least one worthless or useless director. They varied by gender & an age window of 50-80yo. In this thread I later added that two current directors are worthless on our board of 6 appx. 70 old males. This is my opinion of our HOA's board. I personally know each member and the older male candidate with whom I served for a year. I do not promote that my opinion of this discrete case has anything whatsoever to do with all of society, or other boards or other HOA boards.

I made it uber clear that my board with some variety, diversity, differences, IMO is stronger for my community than a Board of the same demographic. My bias for, or prejudice against, is I'm pro difference and anti sameness in decision-making groups.

I usually value your observations of my posts, ElleN, but you were off base to term my observation "disgusting," biased, prejudicial, ageist. (But not sexist????) I do not see any others agreeing with your personal attack on me following your tortured "analysis" of my observation. Tossing in how "the courts" might see things, has no merit. Pretty sure we're done here.

Well, this is not my fight. I don't know either of you except for our brief exchanges here. I am always sorry to hear someone speak of another human being as "useles". We are not all alike, we do not have the same strengths or weaknesses but noone is useless.

In our BOD of five we have one utterly useless and another a close second. That said, they are not obstructionist so things flow smooth.