Need help understanding Florida DBPR logic

Recently our Condo Board was taken over and since then the new Board have been conducting business in unannounced private quorums and in chat groups. No business is being conducted at open meetings or closed meetings. Contracted vendors are being fired without meetings, discussion, or recorded votes. New vendors are being hired without transparent bidding, meeting, discussions, or recorded votes. All of these decisions are just being announced to residents by posted letters. All of what they are doing violates several state statutes, Florida Sunshine Law among them, as well as amendments in our documents. DBPR has turned down a complaint from a resident and recommended they go to arbitration.

What can be arbitrated about direct violations of state statute? What "relief" can be sought in arbitration? It's not like being in a pre-lawsuit stage because the association isn't fixing damage that the documents states they are responsible for.

Years ago when the association was late on an audit they were fined by the DBPR due to a resident complaint, why wasn't that arbitrated? Last year DBPR investigated the association for how they hired (friends) contractors (much like the situation above) as well as not providing documents to a homeowner, no arbitration, but they let the complainant withdraw the complaint when the complainant became part of the new board's private meetings.

I thought the state was supposed to be tough on Sunshine Law violations.

I just don't understand what we would arbitrate as neither side is dealing with a personal loss or gain. It's a state statutes and declaration violations, but what is my personal standing in that argument? What does the state do, tell them to apologize and never do it again?

I understand the need for closed board meetings, but as you say the must be properly noticed. Also, committee meetings and workshops involving a quorum. In this case though these meetings have been the majority of the board locked in the association office and overheard yelling at each other, commandeering the clubhouse and locking residents out, and participating in messenger chats that involve select invited residents. These select residents always seem to know what the board is going to announce well before they do it, and no one is even trying to make it a secret of the fact that the board is in the chat making decisions.

Kerry - yes, we have to allow comments on each agenda item, and we can only vote on items that are on the published agenda. At our meetings we usually ask for comments before we vote on the item or at least after we have discussion. Most HOAs say on the agenda "owner comments limited to X minutes". We don't do that because for the most part we don't have issues. I'm pretty good at controlling the meeting and moving the conversation along. I will say that since we have allowed open comments like this, we have a lot less contention in the community. People just want to be heard sometimes. One of the reasons I became involved in my community was because we had a president who acted like a dictator. He hated whenever anyone spoke up at meetings. He got in a screaming match with an owner (who I will admit was a difficult person) and kept saying "you're out of order" to her and pounding on the table. Not the best way to treat your neighbors.

Chris - as a member of the HOA, you do have standing. Your arbitration would be between you, as a member, and your board. You are accusing them of not not following the state statutes and violating your HOA documents. They would have to come up with some defense or explanation. Ultimately, you are looking for ways to force them to comply. They probably want to avoid a lawsuit, which you have standing to bring against them for the violations. An arbitrator would ask you what you think they have done and what you want them to do. They could have a defense that says they didn't do anything, but if you have proof (dates and times of meetings with no notices, no agendas posted) then the arbitrator could get you both to make some kind of agreement.

Is this an ideal way to handle the situation? No. But your alternative is to band with your neighbors and either remove them from office or hold out until the next election and get yourself or other good candidates elected.

Even if DBPR had the resources to handle disputes like this, you would still have to come up with hard evidence. In effect DBPR would be acting as the arbitrator.

This Board just took over because they did a recall, and now there's already rumbles of residents that were against them AND people that signed the recall to have ANOTHER recall. The way it looks I'm thinking the it's the previous Board pushing it the most to get back on. So now we have two warring boards, a community divided, and not a lot of people are going to want to be that "third" board bridging the gap.

At this point I think a lot of people are looking at the pros and cons of having the state take over.