Home Owner Discussion at a Board Meeting

Actually no, better to just ignore them.

Owners should always have a time to speak at a BOD Meeting. Typically there are 2 times. Before the meeting and after the meeting. Less common is being allowed to comment during the meeting. I say three should always be an informal question and answer session. Do not ignore your you fellow members questions.

By "open discussion," do you mean that the President would not determine and recognize who can speak and when, and instead owners are just voicing opinions randomly, possibly interrupting and/or speaking over one another throughout? If so, then no, California statues have no such requirement.

Put simply: Whether this is a board meeting or an owners' meeting, the president presides,. This means the president determines who speaks and for how long, consistent with board-created guidelines that in turn, are consistent with California statutes.

Let us also understand the relationship of the board to the rest of the membership/owners. The Board is elected by the general membership to represent them on a daily basis. The board should also be made up of owner/members of the HOA. (There are variants but keeping it simple). The board's job is to LISTEN and take in what the general members may want or need. They then are to budget properly based on that need/want of the community.

How is one to do that if they do not LISTEN to the consensus of their community? This is how bad HOA and boards are made.

I seem to post this about once a year and it might be helpful to some. I'm not saying it's the best guideline for open forum, but it can be tweaked to suit many different HOAs. The Board practice for many years is to have mgmt. set up a table outside the meeting room and provide waters, coffee and cookies to set a welcoming tone. To open the meeting, the presdier always welcomes owners. With hybrid meetings, we now get about 15 owners who attend in person and 15 who attend via Zoom.

It's important to keep the meeting orderly and informative. I'm not sure either what LmT means by "open discussion." If it means "conversations" between owners occurs, that's a very bad idea. It certainly is NOT required by statute. It is NOT a meeting of the owners, it's a meeting of the board. Conversations and exchanges between an owner and board members are not productive or informative either.

As seen in several previous posts over the years, open board meetings can become battlegrounds. This is NOT in the best interests of the corporation-- the community Our guidelines below are on the back of the Agenda that every in-person attendee has.

What isn't on it, which a board added a few years ago and which is really effective is: At open forum every owner who wishes to speak, does so as instructed below. Directors and the Asst. Mgr. takes notes of every comment & question. The presider then closes Open Forum. And knowledgeable directors or the PM respond to each and every comment. This shows that the Board "heard" all owners who spoke. Sometimes, of course, the Board, usually the PM, responds that he'd have to look into whatever the question is. Other comments or questions may be dealt with at a future meeting after research into the topic and to comply with CACiv. Code. See handout's last few lines.

BUT after Board members & mgmt have responded, the meeting is adjourned. So there are no exchanges or "back & forths" between an owner & board member. IF an owner feels their question/comment wasn't handled very well, they email the PM for further info.

In my HOA, directors and the PM & his assistant sit at the conference table except for directors who attend by Zoom. We originally wrote the handout due to a couple of attendees who constantly whispered about various things during the business portion of the meeting. So that topic opens the handout. Occasionally, the meeting chair will invite owners' input during specific topics, and always during the annual budget discussions before the Board votes.
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BOARD MEETING CONDUCT

We welcome homeowners as observers of the Board of Directors meetings. During the discussion and votes about agenda items, only those at the conference table may speak. Please remain silent so that we are able to hear one another and conduct our community’s business.

We invite your comments about the Board’s agenda items or other related topics at the beginning of every board meeting during our Open Forum. We hold a second Open Forum at the end of the board meetings for your additional input.

During Open Forum:

Raise your hand to be recognized.

State your name, unit # and tower.

Express your topic in concise, clear terms.

Convey only one topic each time you’re recognized to speak.

Limit your remarks to two minutes.

Never interrupt others while they speak.

As a Reminder:

Ideas for improving [my HOA] or concerns about Board policy are acceptable.

Berating any individual director, homeowner, or manager will not be tolerated.

We ask that maintenance items be reported to management outside of meetings.

Please realize that the Board or Management may not be able to respond to your Open Forum remarks without research. Board deliberation or votes on non-agenda items, per Calif. Civil Code 4920, cannot occur on the spot. The Board will consider these for a future agenda.

Thank you for your interest in our shared community!

Yes it is required.

Really. I’m surprised.

Really, I’m surprised.

Yes, I realize this. My question is more towards whether it’s wise or required to open it up for discussion.

Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. It could very easily turn into a free for all.

One at a time, not a discussion. Time determined by the board as a rule created by notice, etc. Would depend on how many members you have. Typical is 3 minutes. Limited responses allowed by board. Board has option to allow additional comment as agenda proceeds.

CIVIL CODE SECTION 4925. RIGHTS TO ATTEND OPEN MEETINGS; OPEN FORUM.
(a) Any member may attend board meetings, except when the board adjourns to, or meets solely in, executive session. As specified in subdivision (b) of Section 4090, a member of the association shall be entitled to attend a teleconference meeting or the portion of a teleconference meeting that is open to members, and that meeting or portion of the meeting shall be audible to the members in a location specified in the notice of the meeting.

(b) The board shall permit any member to speak at any meeting of the association or the board, except for meetings of the board held in executive session. A reasonable time limit for all members of the association to speak to the board or before a meeting of the association shall be established by the board.

Melissa, you always provide such good advice.

Thank you. This approach works best, I believe. Our problem is this angry member wants to debate an issue not on the agenda. We don’t want one angry member causing an ugly confrontation which I fear could easily happen.

KerryL1. On a different subject, where is Richard/Max these days?

You can just tell member it's illegal for board to hear, discuss, or act on any item of business not listed on the agenda posted with the notice of meeting and board can be fined $500. for doing so. What they bring up in open forum can't be discussed with the board at length.

Terri,
While I agree with you, I would not mention the $500.00 fine for discussing owners concerns not on the agenda. This does happen on occasions, and I would hate for the nay sayers to become the Fine Police.

Best advice is following the rules as best your board is able. We are all imperfect humans volunteering our time.

Open forums ARE required at CA HOAs open board (and Members) meetings. You may put a time limit on how long it is. For your board to not include Open Forum due to one disruptive owner is unthinkable. I agree Mark's approach is really good, and he's a very seasoned, active board member.

The presider or ANY Board member can interrupt a rant that doesn't follow the Open forum rules that your Board can establish & distrusted as we have very successfully done in our CA HOA. A two minute limit is best. The presider should keep order, but ANY director also can. Say, the member goes past 2 minutes. The presider or a director stonily orders: "You must stop now. We shall respond at the end of open forum." If the member continues, that director or presider or more than one should stand up and insist the member stop or the person must leave the ,meeting.

Imo, having attended nearly board meetings in my HOA for 16 years & having served on it for 14, the list of forbidden topics is unnecessary and unfriendly: In all that time, no owners has every made remarks about our staffers or asked about confidential info. It's not a bad idea to restrict comments to internal HOA matters. Over 16 years, one time an owner did complain about a mani-pedi shop across the street from one of our towers' main entrance actually being front for a brothel or some such. She only complained for less than a minute so no big deal. We do have the civility directive on our handout.

Saving the Board/Pm's responses to every single open forum comment/question until the very end neutralizes the member's ability to get in an argument. The Board's PM's responses should be honest and deal with the comment/questions. If necessary, of course, "we'll look into that," so often is true and adequate and often required by statute.

Re: Richard/Mark/Max. His count went to 0 a couple of months ago. He'd written often about his love of Tuscany & of buying a "villa" there, so one possibility is he's spending the summer there or has moved there. Max also has noted 2-3 hospitalizations in the past year or so; one, I think, was a heart bypass? So it's just as possible he's not well at all, or has died. He'd mentioned his firm is in the "Inland Empire" of Calif.

That has not been my experience. She can sometimes be way off in her responses. So I would not use the word ALWAYS to describe her advice.

I moved from an HOA that was not required to hold open board meetings in Iowa and I requested to attend a few times. The answer was NO. The only time members could attend a meeting was the annual meeting unless specifically invited. The Board did allow members to speak at the annual meeting and those meetings were mostly respectful and organized. The ones I attended were anyway. But I can see how those open forums can get out of hand especially if there are contentious issues. Some of the regular posters here have given suggestions on how to keep those open forums from getting out of hand. I would listen to them.

I was being facetious.

Thank you. This is very helpful.

Sorry I am not that versed in social media acronyms. What does that mean? I looked it up but I got different answers and some of them were kind of distasteful.

That is funny! Apparently I over analyzed it.

RUDE and that is no acronym.

I hate to continue with something that has also become off-topic (as are/Terri/Melissa/Laya). Elle demands to know "Where" I got that any board member may interrupt an owner in attendance who is breaking the rules of conduct at a meeting.

Speaking of Max, he often wrote that as a PM he frequently presided at "his" accounts board meetings. Cathy has noted that their PM presides at board meetings because no director is comfortable in that role.

I've mentioned that our Board loosely & occasionally follows Robert's Rules of Order when our Bylaws or Calif. Corporations Codes are silent. We do NOT follow it to the letter and it's NOT required for CA boards. In it, any director may demand that a non-board member cease uncivil or rule-breaking behavior. The director should consult with the president. But, we liked our version better.If not required to adhere to Robert's, any board may proceed with what is best for the HOA, which clearly in making the non-complying member shut up so that the board can conduct th business of the HOA.

Given the many burdens presidents often carry, the very suggestion that a Board would vote to remove one from the office of president because they didn't quickly shut down a meeting-rules violator seems extremely harsh. And, of course, the Board could take no such action in CA as it wouldn't be on the meeting agenda. There may be other waaaay more important skills that a president possesses.

When our board had a couple of sets of meeting attendees buzzing with each other, our Board considered getting a gavel for the president to shut them up. We also considered voting the approve the VP* be sort of a sergeant-at- arms or disciplinarian at open meetings.* Theses options were on an open meeting agenda and the Board discussed them. Out decision was to craft the Conduct handout that readers can see way above as a first step.

So LmT, these are additional options to keep meetings orderly. We have read on this forum of boards that have had to hire off-duty police officers or security people to attend meetings. We also have heard of Boards adjourning meetings and reconvening in a board member's home when a meeting gets out of control either by one member or several.

In my one year as president, an owner would not stop talking after we heard his side of the "story" at a disciplinary closed session hearing. I thanked him twice and said he'd get our written decision within 10 days. He just sat there and kept talking. I finally arose from my chair and, as an average height/weight person, walked toward him--a large man-- and sternly demanded he leave the room. He did. I would not have minded one bit if any other director had asked him to leave.

*That VP had been a career sergeant in the US Marines, and then 20 years as a police officer sergeant in a nearby town. He has a very commanding voice. He later became a fine board president.

Melissa wrote " I have no time for insults..."

You certainly have time to post insults to others.

This conversation is helping no one and I apologize for contributing to it.