The Big Budget Meeting

!. Evening meetings: keep them to 2 hours, especially if any of the board members work during the day. (Our attorneys actually recommended holding board meetings during the day because they're so much more productive.)

2. Set proper expectations. Create a short list with Rules of Conduct for the meeting and announce them at the start. For instance: stick to topics on the agenda, no interrupting unless the building is on fire, time limit for speaking (3 minutes - if you can't say it in 3 minutes, prepare a handout and give an oral summary), etc.

3. No motions from the floor. You have a good excuse if you're in an open meeting state because of notice requirements. This also helps keep the meeting on track and limits opportunities for people with agendas to hijack the meeting.

4. Assume they wouldn't pay attention to "this is not a democracy". Remind them that the board won't respond in real time to any of their comments because all topics need to be researched. Practice saying "thank you for your comments". :-) Remember CathyA3's motto for avoiding turmoil: Brief, Bland, Boring. Also, if things should get out of hand, take a 15 minute time out so that people can cool their heads.

5. If you don't make quorum, adjourn and try again. That's probably the law. (At least it will give your treasurer more time to get his act together. OMG, does he not realize he's making things harder??? Among other things, putting the figures side by side like in a spreadsheet makes it easy for everyone to see which costs are rising more than others. It also makes it easier to re-allocate dollars to high priority items - ie, insurance - from lower priority ones. Also, tell Mr Treasurer: "bad debt allowance".)

I'll think more about your vocational dissidents...

Good luck!

Bill,
What does the agenda say about the meeting topics? This should have gone out last week. That is the only items that should be discussed. I personally think putting anything other than the budget on this type of meeting was an error. The agenda should have a segment for open comments or suggestions. Once it ends the board should be the only people talking about the budget. I personally have also placed a section at the end of my meeting giving owners an additional 2 minutes to make comments. Thats it they are not part of the board and should not be involved with the detailed discussion. If your family was discussing your family's budget, would you invite a stranger into your home to give suggestions? I doubt it. The owners have nearly none of the facts at hand.

Personally, I do not like to see you throw your treasurer under the bus. The community did not elect a CPA to be treasurer. Giving this person the title did not make them one either. Your PMC and PM should be doing this work, and they should have the professionals on staff to give the board a working document. Blame should be on them and them alone.

This is where you prove you should be president. You should take charge of the meeting and direct it in the proper way it should go. Do not let others try and grab the wheel and if you do your board will all end up in the same ditch.

Remember the HOAs money is not your money. It is every members money. If you keep this running in your heads when developing a budget it can help sort out the noise. Good luck.

Well, I wanted to be a wee sympathetic to the treasurer because you said he/she was new. I won’t completely back away from that, but some of his statements do suggest you had a point about the treasurer’s skill set – or lack thereof. This guy definitely needs some training – go to the CIA website and get him a book on association finances and the duties of the treasurer, then tell him the board’s expectations, if he doesn’t already know them.

Association numbers should be based on fact, not fiction, so if he can’t or refuses to enlighten himself, the rest of you should consider if he should remain in the position. A chat with the property manager on budgeting would also help.

I’m a former board treasurer and of course, you should start your budget based on the actual number of units you have. That said, one of our former presidents and I attended a CAI seminar on budgeting and it was suggested that communities with a significant number of delinquencies (like ours at the time) should consider basing the budget on the number of units that were actually paying regularly. Not to let the others off the hook (we absolutely didn’t do that), but to be more realistic about how much money was actually available.

I don’t know if that’s what your treasurer was thinking, but it doesn’t appear you have a high percentage of delinquencies to warrant this, so tell the man to use 587. By the way, if the amount of delinquencies is significant, changing the bad debt line item should be considered. In fact, you usually take the number of homes, multiply by the assessment, then subtract the bad debt from that, and you get the income the association will be working with.

Not comparing the old budget to the new is just stupid – people want and deserve to know which line items have gone up and why. The rest of the board should veto him on that as well.

As for the rest of your questions/comments

• I think a two-hour meeting for a budget meeting (assuming that’s all you’re doing) is enough. Two and a half hours may be pushing it, but I wouldn’t go beyond that. Zoom or not, I think homeowners should be strongly encouraged to send in questions so they can be addressed in front of everyone. Hopefully that prevents rambling or tirades (or both) and keeps things on track so you can go home at a decent hour

• Before the open forum, review the ground rules (no cussing, threats, interrupting, etc., one or two minutes per person so everyone has a chance to say something. Normally, I say any subject can be addressed during the open forum, but if most of this meeting will feature the budget, I think questions or comments should pertain to that – nothing else will be discussed. If people have questions or comments on other issues, they can send emails to the board or bring them to the next open meeting.

Tell everyone violations won’t be discussed because those are usually addressed in appeal hearings, so if people have questions about their letter or appeals process, send them to the property manager – or their attorney, if things have escalated to that point. Once a violation has been elevated to the association attorney, the board no longer answers questions about it, but defers to the attorney for the appropriate response.

• Your documents don’t mention floor motions from owners, so instead of getting into a circular argument as to whether they should be allowed because the documents don’t specify they are or aren’t, I would proceed as if it’s not going to happen. If someone has a suggestion, he or shee should save it for the owner forum. Explain that some suggestions warrant further review before action should be taken and major issues should be decided on the fly via a floor vote.

• Of course Dragon Breath Lady’s landlord doesn’t want to pay the fine – treat that the way you treat others who refuse. Pile on another fine or refer it to the attorney. If it goes to court, you have the video and hopefully testimony from others who’ve witnessed her wilding out, and then he can explain why he cannot or refuses to keep her in check. If he wants this to drag on and end up paying far more than $50, it’s his money. You make sure you have all your evidence in order should you end up before a judge.

Unfortunately, you can’t control what others say or do on Facebook or anywhere else. People have been talking about you for the last few months anyway, so you should be used to that by now. It is disheartening and discouraging to see and hear because you have done your best, but this is when you have to be focused on your resolve. The folks who are trying to stir things up will eventually back down, especially if those Facebook comments are screenshot and reviewed by the judge if this goes to court.

• No, the current board doesn’t have your back and you know what I feel about the lot of them. This is why good board members get frustrated and quit and then everything goes to shit and no one knows why. In the end you have to do what’s appropriate for your well-being – and I wouldn’t blame you if you resigned from the president’s position and told all of them to fuck all the way off. If they don’t develop a backbone, maybe you will have to threaten to leave the board itself. I understand if you don’t want to because no one wants to think they were run off, but sometimes you have to show people what time it is.

Have fun at tonight’s meeting – and please try not to drink several bottles of bourbon before and after! Getting tore up from the floor up won’t resolve anything either.

I feel for you. This treasurer does not realize that the assessment is based on total expenses (which include payments into reserves) divided by the number of owners (or multiplied by the percentage interest yada each owner has). I expect this "treasurer's" approach is violating either a covenant or bylaw and also possibly state law (if only via not complying with covenants).

I am sorry the board will not replace this person.

And assuming applied math is a subcategory of math: No, he is terrible at math.

My reply to BillD's post on another thread:

"With MarkM, do you really allow renters in your "MEMBERS?" (owners) meetings, BillD? I guess I've heard of a scant few HOAs that do, but my HOA certainly does not and Mark's current and I bet past HOA didn't either.

Yes, of course, immediately shut down any "questions" about violations. There are any question you can say needs further research by your PM or board.

This is very important, BillD. MarkM probably knows the answer to this: Must any item for a vote be listed on the agenda that's posted in advance of the meeting of the members ? (or any open meeting?) Put another way, can any owner raise their hand and say "I make a motion that the pool be open year round 24/7?" If not sure, make quick call to your attorney. VERY important.

I take only ratification of the budget is listed on the agenda?

.... But, oh, oh, does the written notice of this meeting, which I;'m sure must be given out xx days in advance actually invite renters???? ...

Probably too late to ask, but in your situation with the DL, etc., I'd have asked the Board to approve the attorney's attendance. Where do you meet for in-person attendees? Or is everyone remote???"

Mark replied as others have suggested that NO motions may be made on topics not on the agenda.

Please revisit my "Virtual Meetings" post of very recently for more, e.g., how to open th meeting. Gotta go.

Oh, but is it really true that your MC has given your Board NO help with crafting a budget??

I trust reviewing the above bylaw clarified or confirmed that owners (who are not directors) cannot make motions from the floor during a board meeting.

I find that people quit listening after 45 min and start falling asleep after an hour.

Well - the meeting{0} adjourned, and to make a long story short, 3 of the 4 Board members voted to remove me as President.

I had an inkling this might happen based on some of the pre-meeting chat that went on.

No pity, please! I know I'm a screwball but at this moment I'm oddly amused. A bit saddened that one of the Board members that I trusted was almost frothing at the mouth denouncing me.

Actually, I hope you aren't disappointed with me that I essentially let the budget go through, crappy as it was. I thought about delaying but I really just wanted to get it over with.

The other Board members pounced on me right after the budget was passed: "I move that Bill be removed as President because [yadda yadda]". And there's an immediate Second followed by a unanimous - well, 3 out of 4 - vote. Followed a short but inconclusive argument - y'all may or may not have been impressed, but I managed to not lose my cool.

Our poor PM was probably more taken aback than I was. I sent them a text message afterwards saying "look, I don't hold any of this against you" and he responded that he had no clue this was in the offing (and I believe him).

I guess the only thing I'm truly unhappy about is that almost all of the "previous administration" was there and of course they're full of helpful advice and offers to "help". It would be a bad thing for the neighborhood if they got back into power. I know I'm biased, but it's true.

I'm still on the Board, mind you. They need to get a 51% majority to kick me off (which is extremely doubtful)(although this meeting drew something like 55 attendees, which is I think a record for COVID-era ZOOM meetings). I guess I'll just be a vanilla Board member until the next Annual Meeting in June / July / August. It occurs to me that I could float some kind of deal ala "I'll resign if you _____". But I'm not prone to trust these people{1}.

I know I sound like a jerk saying this, but - I don't think they realize just how much of the heavy lifting I've been doing these past 2+ years I've been on the Board. It's probably going to come as an unpleasant surprise (I know, I know - *everyone* thinks they're the most important person on the Board) but - have you ever seen Will Ferrell do his GWB imitation, dancing and singing "do ya miss me *now*?!" - I'm envisioning something like that{2}. They could have been nicer about it - but they chose to do it publicly, with lots of invective, in front of almost everyone I know in the neighborhood, friends and enemies alike.

Arguably, I may have to do some adjusting of who I consider a "friend" ... but I'd rather know they're backstabbers, honestly.

Oh, and yeah, I sat through an unpleasant 20 minutes or so of "Owner Forum" where everyone shit on me. Sometimes they even came back for a 2nd or 3rd round. Probably the worst of it is that I'll think of choice comebacks I could have made, but didn't. I've dealt with worse. Oh - we had several 'crashers', which is a first-time experience for me; when they spoke they asked something about "is this the tidy bowl discord server?"

I'm not going to be malicious about it such that it hurts the neighborhood, but - I'm planning on kicking back and relaxing rather a lot and watching what happens. I'm sure it will only be a few days before one of them grits their teeth and asks me to do something for them.

This next part is purely optional - but I feel like I know some of you well enough that I know you enjoy splitting these kinds of hairs:

1. If I do indeed want to stay on the Board as a mere "member", what do I need to be careful about to avoid getting kicked off? Feel free to tell me that I'm being an unethical jerk by not resigning. *chuckle* ElleN pointed out awhile back that Texas has a (possibly unique) provision about "Sec. 209.00591.(b) If a board is presented with written, documented evidence from a database or other record maintained by a governmental law enforcement authority that a board member was convicted of a felony or crime involving moral turpitude not more than 20 years before the date the board is presented with the evidence, the board member is immediately ineligible to serve on the board of the property owners' association, automatically considered removed from the board, and prohibited from future service on the board." I'm happy to say that I'm positive I don't have to worry about that.

2. It occurs to me that they might not have followed proper procedure in "de-Presidenting" me:

a) they did it during a Texas Property Code 209.0051{3} Open Meeting where the only item of business was adopting the budget. It might be shell shock plus the lateness of the hour, but I thought we could only discuss business that was on the agenda (which had only the budget as a work item)(which was properly distributed 144+ hours ahead of time and posted to the website)? It is unclear to me whether or not this was a 'special' meeting.

Our bylaws say "Special Meetings ... the notice of any special meeting shall state the time and place of such meeting and the purpose thereof. No business except as stated in the notice shall be transacted at a special meeting."

b) Our bylaws again: "Removal of Officers ... upon an affirmative vote of a majority of the votes available to be cast by the Board, any officer may be removed, either with or without cause, and his successor elected at any regular meeting of the Board, or at any special meeting of the Board called for such purpose." Essentially, is it:

(any officer may be removed, either with or without cause, and his successor elected at any regular meeting of the Board, or at any special meeting of the Board) called for such purpose.

or

(any officer may be removed, either with or without cause), and (his successor elected at any regular meeting of the Board, or at any special meeting of the Board called for such purpose).

?

Yes, this is petty BS, and if they want to take away my Presidency{4}, they'll find a way. But I'm sure word of this has spread throughout the neighborhood, and I wouldn't be displeased if they got it wrong and had to publicly back up.

3. (last thing) Any thoughts on how to avoid retaliation? Like, 9 months from now I'll be off of the Board entirely. "But Bill," you say, "why would they retaliate?" Some of these people are ***un-freaking-believably*** vindictive.

Best regards, and thanks for reading.

Bill

{0} Per one or more other recent topics here: the PM and I disabled chat and muted everyone on entry, and it worked extremely well.

{1} It *did* occur to me that I could say "when DBLady's landlord pays his $50 fine, I'll resign". I'll spare you the details but that entire situation is still happening (and probably had much to do with the carp that happened tonight).

{2} I'm not endorsing GWB - it was just funny as hell.

{3} https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PR/htm/PR.209.htm#209.0051

{4} Referring to it as "my Presidency" etc is so pretentious that I think it's funny. I do not really take it that seriously.

Oops; I meant penalizing the owner whose renter assaulted you et cetera.

Well, if the vote to remove you as President took place in a meeting at which the budget was the only agenda time... yeah, probably invalid.

I'm sure it will smart for a while, even if you agree that you want a break. However, from what you've said, the other board members badly need some "real world experience", and they're about to get it. Not immediately, and not quickly, but they will "reap the rewards of ill-considered action".

When I was dealing with a board member who thought there was nothing to learn and that she could do whatever she wanted, I stepped aside, grabbed a box of popcorn, and sat down to enjoy the show. The thing is, you have to let it play out. I totally understand the feeling that the community will pay for this. But the membership elected these other people, or they ignore what's going on - they're not blameless. Too many people only learn things the hard way and have to get smacked in the face by consequences - sometimes repeatedly. And sometimes they never learn. You can't save them from themselves, and you can't single-handedly save the community. In the long run, you may end up with a slightly more informed membership.

In our case, we ended up in a pretty good place, but it took a few years of drama and flirting with receivership to get there. Lessons were learned, and I fully expect the lessons to be un-learned as time passes. It's the nature of community associations. If we think this is a bad thing, we need to convince lawmakers that associations should be run by paid professionals (which has its own issues).

Grab the popcorn, memorize the phrases "gee, what do you think?" and "thank for your comments", and enjoy the realization that next year's pool drama is Not Your Problem to Solve.

Thanks, y’all. I take it as a good sign that I slept well and woke up feeling fine. I may go to the HEB later and buy some popcorn

> ]Hate me (or the post herein), but another reason not to fight this, IMO: You as President had the right to point out
> that this was not on the agenda, so no discussion or vote could take place, since discussion and a vote would violate
> the statute and the bylaws

Hate you?! No way! But I’ll respond that I did indeed attempt to shut it down by mentioning how it wasn’t on the agenda - but I got shouted down. Our PM was running the ZOOM session and he was kinda freaking out and so he did not (for instance) mute everyone and carefully allow one person to speak at a time.

I feel petty about it, but I’m sure they were up late last night saying calling people and saying “did you hear about what happened?” and so the thought of them having to publicly step back and admit they were wrong appeals to me. *shrug* I dunno.

Bill

Got it. Good for you for continuing to promote the importance of notice and the agenda.
The PM aside, what bums.

May the next President have to deal with such disruptive behavior early and often.

I would be taking a lo-ong bike ride today and trying to stay alert to my emotions causing me to say things to others in the HOA that likely would not help and that I might later regret. It sounds like you are at a similar point.

"Irresponsible" is the word I would use, but far be it from me to correct
someone who can point out the illegitimacy of illegitimi non carborundum.

Oh, I dunno. Businesses conduct Zoom meetings all the time without people acting up, and people occasionally bring firearms to in-person meetings. I don't think you can generalize.

The only thing I fault Bill and the manager for is not trusting their hunches that things could go badly and planning how they would deal with it (such as muting people when it was not their turn to speak). My rule of thumb is that I spend twice as much time prepping for a meeting than I expect the meeting to last, and I increase the prep time when I anticipate trouble.

The one advantage Zoom has is that it's much easier to prevent anyone from hijacking a meeting. In this regard I think it's superior for HOA meetings because so many homeowners think they're entitled to speak whenever and wherever they choose. In other words, it's the participants who are the problem, not the platform.

I get that some people are just not comfortable with the technology, and for them in-person works better. On the other hand, virtual meetings provide access to people who are ill or who are unable to drive or are housebound or elderly and scared of covid or whatever. Reasonable accommodations, in other words. The other benefit is that meetings can be recorded for listening later, so that also takes care of the folks with schedule conflicts.

Hybrid meetings are a bit harder to manage, but I think they provide the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. And you won't have to scramble when one of your residents requests that reasonable accommodation.

Think of "est" as the equivalent of Captain Jean-Luc Picard's "make it so". Or in this case, the "non est" becomes "don't make it so".

Why yes, I do have some work to do. I'll just be showing myself out....

Oh, they KNOW what you've been through this year, but it would appear they think canning you as president would make them look assertive to everyone else. I say enjoy your time off - whoever insane enough to take on that position will like run into a similar situation sooner rather than later. If he/she dies a better job, congratulations, but based on what you've said in previous conversations, I doubt it.

So you have a budget that isn't perfect. I would have preferred you expressed your concerns and let the treasurer explain his logic for all to hear, as well as voted against it. It may have given the others another reason to dump you as president, but you knew that was coming anyway. May as well go down swinging. Now,, all of you will have to hope nothing crazy happens that will reveal how crappy it is, because if that happens, all of you will be responsible.

I understand you're not wanting to resign - why give Dragon breath lady and all those alley cats on the board the satisfaction (I'm still refraining from using the P word!) I do think as long as you're there, continue to speak up, but be sure to pick your battles carefully. You don't want to yap about trivial stuff - things like the budget and reducing future mayhem at the pool is more important. I don't think this board has enough balls (I will say that!) to do the work to get 51% of tbe homeowners to sack you anyway. I think you have far more allies than you know, but it's time for THEM to speak up. We'll see what happens. In 9 months, probably less you'll know what you want to do about re election - if you decide not to run, do it and don't look back.

In my state, appointed board members are treated exactly like elected ones: they serve out the remainder of the vacant term and only the homeowners can remove them.

I prefer this since it gives the appointed director the same independence enjoyed by the rest. Otherwise, the appointed director may feel pressured to vote a certain way so that he's not removed. He'd just be a rubber stamp - and in this case, why bother to fill the position at all unless it's a quorum issue?

JohnC is right, and I *am* trying to take a break. I quit the neighborhood FB page (although people still ping me with “hey, did you see that out on FB?”) but I’m basically ignoring it. A number of people seem to want to see the video (which I haven’t seen myself) - our PM says he’s not sure how to export it past the PMC’s security. The helluvit is that I probably come off pretty well - I stayed calm and rational (and I was even having a Good Hair Day). I gather that the people who watched it live found it “compelling”. Someone posted that meme of Jon Stewart eating popcorn

Cathy is right{0} that I should have spent more time prepping for tech aspects of the call. But I was lucky to get the time I got with our PM{1}. I could have run the call and the meeting on my own, I think - but the optics would have been very bad.

The latest on this, if anyone cares. Because I’m at that point where yes, I’m taking a break, but I haven’t yet figured out what I want to do in my spare time:

If you think of Rejoov of Austin as a spinning top, it’s already beginning to wobble: the Board email stopped working and nobody knows why, or has any clue how to fix it. *I’m* not going to touch it. Our ACC system is acting up just as everyone is beginning to submit requests for roof repairs due to the recent hail storm. Me no touchee that, either. One of the people who was blowing me grief out on FB emailed me and asked for help{2}. One of the p… one of my fellow Board members wrote a hilarious (to me, at least) letter to our attorney yesterday describing how I’d been voted out of President … but maybe not … could the attorney please look into it and if they didn’t do it right, please tell them what they need to do to make it stick? “A prompt response would be greatly appreciated.” I have no idea what the attorney thinks about this. The PM sent out the initial meeting minutes - yeah, the PM takes the minutes and passes them to the Secretary, who will theoretically write up a final version sometime in the next year - and they’re “lacking” in many, many ways. Whether or not the Secretary will fix them - or even bother to look at them in the next week - I have no idea.

I do have a question: in HOA situations like this, where the Board votes the President out of office, but there’s doubt on both sides as to whether it was properly performed - what typically happens while everyone is waiting for a lawyer to weigh in? I feel like Schrödinger’s President.

I woke up this morning wondering about striking some kind of bargain. Like “I’ll step down from President when DBLady’s landlord pays the fine”. But right now I’m cool with just waiting to see what happens next.

Bill

{0} Mental note: now that the writer’s strike is over, consider a sitcom titled Cathy is Right: “Cathy was *done* with HOA matters, she just wanted to settle down and teach Latin … and then she moved into a condo that desperately needed her help …”

{1} But she really is right. Back in corporate I was tasked with supervising an internal simulcast of our new CIO from HQ to 10 locations scattered throughout North and South America. We started 2 months ahead of the event - this was at a time when ZOOM was the popular choice, but we also had to consider using a “corporate-directed” platform as well as an in-development internal platform. None of the three was particularly stable. Someone asked “why 2 months?” - do you have any idea how difficult it is to get 10 groups of people together just to *test* such a thing? BTW, everyone was an amateur who got ‘volunteered’ by their mgmt. And it’s not enough to just say “okay, if A drops we’ll just switch to B, and if B drops we’ll just switch to C”. We *drilled* on it, and practiced: “okay, we’re on with B” (pause) “B dropped, let’s go to A” (pause) “A dropped, go to C”. We did it over and over and over, with different scenarios. It was like freshman calculus: you could skim the HW assignment problems and think “okay, I got it” or you could actually get paper and pencil and work through the problems. Guess which one got you an A? I got an A in every class that I took in college. And my team pulled off the simulcast for the new CIO - it was flawless, we had to switch from A to B in the middle *and no-one noticed*. Alas, the CIO turned out to be a massive jerk, but that’s another story.

{2} She’s a li’l old lady who walks with a cane and needs ACC approval for a handrail. I helped her with no snark and not a single word about the FB junk. I mean - what else could I do?

Bill asks:

I do have a question: in HOA situations like this, where the Board votes the President out of office, but there’s doubt on both sides as to whether it was properly performed - what typically happens while everyone is waiting for a lawyer to weigh in? I feel like Schrödinger’s President.

Typically a BOD does not/cannot vote an Officer out of office. What they do is a majority of the BOD calls for an election of Officers (at any time) and as a result the Pres. may no longer be the Pres. but s/he its still on the BOD

As much and as lengthy as Bill posts I get the feeling he does not understand nor accept his association's docs. I could be wrong.

I do not mean to be argumentative, but it's really more the other way around: I'm on a Board with three other active members - none of whom know the bylaws or the law or the CCRs. It's a bit like Lord of the Flies: I've got the conch shell, but if the other kids choose to ignore the "conch rule" - what can I do about that? Our HOA lawyer hasn't weighed in yet (and might simply not do it at all. I don't know, but it's gotta be uncomfortable (and possibly some kind of conflict) to be in that position).

Keep in mind that they voted to oust me during a public meeting. I told the Board "you can't do that!" but they shouted at me and I didn't want to get into a loud public argument. A fair number of people who were watching think I'm off of the Board completely (not true) - or that I'm not President anymore (which I also believe is not true). But if I tried to do something "Presidential" like appoint someone to be a committee chair - I feel like the other Board members would go straight to "You can't do that! You aren't President anymore!"

Oh well. I'm actually content to just sit here and watch things happen.

Bill

Yeah, I agree with you, JohnC.

Jeezuz, BillD. "No business except as stated in the notice shall be transacted at the special meeting." That's exactly what we stated and MarkM, a seasoned board member & president IN Texas informed you." So it's state code, too. I'm guessing you'll see the same language in your Bylaws about regular meetings of the Board.

When a little batch of us in my HOA campaigned hard & got elected as a minority on the Board (3 to 4), we got a lot of good things accomplished because we , as a group, deep-studied the Bylaws and state law on meetings, the Board's authority, etc. A year later we were in the majority and were the first "knowledgeable" board this HOA had ever had in is by-then 7 years of life. You might want to find a few good people who may want to serve at your next election (May? June?) and y'all learn your docs & relevant state code.

Whe a Board here '17/'18 became more & more abusive & were going to make a huge stupid reserves-spending mistake. I didn't seek reelection and on my year "off," '19, I gathered support and campaigned against their "decision, and called for new ideas and fresh voices.

The three incumbents were so wishy-washy, vague, "maybe we won't do all of it," about their grand scheme at a Candidates Night attended by maybe 50 owners that ALL three were defeated for reelection. Their plan, chichi was being inning was dumped.

EDUCATION

.

Yes, ElleN, but that language does not specifically preclude additions to the meeting agenda once the meeting has begun.

Sure, BillH, I know laws in Texas may be different than in other states. I relied completely on MarkM, a long-time Texas Board member, who wrote no items may be added to the agenda at the open meeting. I should have asked him for a citation.

But, BillD's Bylaw very clearly states: "No business except as stated in the notice shall be transacted at the special meeting."

Are you saying, BillH, that at any Texas open HOA Board meeting, directors can simply add whatever they want to an agenda thereby blindsiding other directors and owner attendees?? And that's also the case in your own HOA?