What level of detail should board meetings ninutes

Hi,

We have a proble at my HOA, when we make decisions and motions are accepted the details of how we would perfor a particular tas are los, should the detail of how smethis is to be done and who is responcile for doing it be placed in the meeting minutes. What level of detail sould be kept in the meetin minutes

Your post is a little difficult to read because of missing letters and misspelled words. Consider writing it in a word document to check the spelling and punctuation then copying and pasting it to the forum.

Welcome Mike,
Are you a Board member or on a committee? Usually your Secretary of the association takes the minutes or a Property Manager if you have one. Minutes should be just about like JC3 stated above. Any motion that is made should be noted as to who made the motion and seconded or denied and any important discussions into the matter. The word is important and not just small talk. Because minutes are considered a function of a meeting, they should be kept for a year in case of someone needing a reference to items covered at a meeting.

Mike, some associations summarize the action items - who will do which items which were approved during the meeting.

By a majority vote of the Members at the Annual Meeting, the Board can be directed to release their monthly minutes to the members. Motion and pass it.

Since the minutes should only reflect motions and ctions taken or to be taken, the Board should not have any problem with releasing the minutes.

MikeS6

There are two schools of thought on the content of meeting minutes. The first, and traditional, view is as described in prior posts. Only a minimum of information is included in the minutes, specifically the motions and votes often without voting by name (no accountability). The driving factor seems to be that the minutes cannot be used against the board or the association if the content in the minutes is limited.

The second and evolving view is that the minutes and supporting materials also provide the documentation that the fiduciary duties of the board members were met in the decision process. Without such documentation, the minutes cannot refute a claim that the board acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner without proper exercise of fiduciary duty. Voting records by name are important. A board member is not accountable for an action of the board that the board member voted against.

A comprehensive discussion of fiduciary duty and meeting minutes is available at
http://www.hoa-law.com/publications/fiduciary-responsibility-of-association-directors.html.

The board meeting minutes also provide the opportunity to keep members informed of actions and reasons, particularly by posting on the internet. Sterile minutes do a poor job of communicating to members. If other means of communications are used, then explanations are typically provided which become part of the association record. So, why not include the explanations in the minutes?

One of the leadership principles I consider very important is "Beware of what people want and do, but will not say and will not explain." That is exactly what sterile minutes do. Combine that with abuse of closed sessions and no recorded votes (by name). Then board members can't seem to understand why the members don't trust them.

I suggest a search of HOA Talk posts on this subject to better understand the many views and lack of consensus on this important issue. No wonder HOAs have problems.

Don,
That was a great post. After 17 years of condo living I can bear strong witness to what you are saying is the absolute way to go. I have never been able to convince any board we have ever had. "They just don't get it." Part of this is because they WILL NOT spend the time necessary to learn the positions. They would much rather copy the mistakes made in the past than learn the job. In my condo what I said is the absolute truth and I am positive none of our past Board Members would take the time to understand what you are saying, they would much rather rely on the manager or turn Turtle and hunker down.

Excellent job.

Susan,
Not sure I am with you on this one Susan. I believe Don was the one that posted about the vote of Board Members.

I believe he was inferring that if a Board member disagrees with the action of the majority, he can demand to have his vote recorded in the minutes. It make sense that there are bound to be differences of opinions on the Board and if you don't approve, how can you be charged with responsibility. If any board feels that the members believe that the board agrees totally on all matters, I would suggest they re-think their position.

The trick of being a board member is to accomplish goals under the rules of your covenants, and I don't remember seeing any covenants that require the board all vote the same.

I am at a lose to try and absorb that any board member would not want his voice on the Board heard.

Why is it important for the Board to speak with one cohesive voice?
Why take a vote at all if your vote means nothing. Our Board meeting except for annual meeting are closed. That is bad enough, now you are suggesting it is right that any action taken by the board be by what ammounts to a "Closed secret vote."

I understand perfectly that board members should not present a devisive voice as far as the solidarity or endorsement of the Board in general. But I will not let the Board be my voice if I don't agree with them. I do not believe the Board members have a mandate to agree and not display disenting voices, and to act in this manner is distructive.

Families don't agree all the time, yet this conflict makes the families stronger.

A good example is to try and elect odd numbers on boards.

I am not critical of your beliefs, just giving MHO.

One of our board members votes against the majority occassionally, but only one time recently did he ask that his vote be recorded. Interestingly, in that instance, though all the others voted to proceed, they did not. A different process for that situation has yet to be determined.
There are times when a member may feel so strongly about something, or see the situation is such a different light, that he feels it necessary to ask that his vote be recorded.

At the end of the day, the Board should come up with ONE decision. THAT is what is recorded in the minutes. The results are recorded, NOT the names of the voters and their vote. This is default parliamentary procedure, and it protects the individual board member.

Personally, I would not sit on a Board where my every vote was recorded individually.

There are some boards that DO have a roll call vote for each motion. Personally, I don't see a problem with that. It may actually make some board members more aware of what they are doing and the effects of their decisions.

According the attorneys I have talked with all vote(s) against a motion should definitely be recorded with the name of the Board member(s) recorded. This is important because if a law suit occurs those Board members are protected. Some may think that it is not necessary when the association has D&O insurance. However, some Board actions may not be covered by insurance.

You guys keep talking like this and you will never get anyone to serve on a Board!

COLLECTIVELY the Board comes to decisions. There may be individual opinions and differences in votes, but those are NOT stated in the minutes, unlesss documents say so.

I can site parliamentary procedures for protecting the identity of ANY voter.

And if you insist on Board members' votes being made public, then any vote at annual meetings should reveal the name of the General Member and his/her vote. See how THAT goes over!!

Anyone can ask my vote on ANY item. In fact, they can even ask me for an explaination why I chose yea or nay. If your voting record is not published, how can members make an informed decision as to whether or not or re-elect you? Like everyone else stated, ACCOUNTABILITY is everything.

Hi evreyone, thanks again for your input,I am grateful that a forum like this exists and that I am a part of it.