The President & Secretary are going off the Board & NO ONE else is running. ??

Started by DuaneW1 • 9 replies • 1559 views

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DuaneW1 (Georgia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

Next Monday, we are having our annual HOA meeting and we already know that the President & Secretary are going off the Board and no one else is running. We have a
Vice President, Treasurer and 'Member At Large' (he's the head of the ACC as well.)

I'm the Treasurer, and I don't know what we are supposed to do if no one else runs. Can you make due with just three people? Who takes on what? The head of our MC told me if no one runs like this next year which is when the three officers we have to run again, if no one runs then, we all HAVE to stay. Is that even legal?

HELP!!

JC3
Posts: 290

Posted:

How old is your association? Maybe it's time NOW to look into dissolving. What do your CC&R's say about terminating the association? You have time to do it right, or at least look into it.

DuaneW1 (Georgia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

We are just now starting on our third year. Wow, it hadn't occurred to any of us about dissolving the Association. I wouldn't think that was an option.

Part of our problem is a thirty percent rental out of 106 homes. Then apathy among another 25% doesn't leave much. For two years, we have had only the ACC as a committee, no one else would come forward to make any other one. And even for the ACC, two of their members (including me) are already Board members.

It's depressing.

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Duane,
Are you required by your Documents to have 5 Board members? If you are, then if no one is willing to run, the 3 remaining members may APPOINT 2 members to fill in the empty positions. Do some homework and find a couple of members who would be willing to take an appointment. Many people are not willing to run for a position but if you do some sweet talking, you might be lucky and find someonw.

I do not know if the State of Georgia works like it does down here in Florida but if an association fails to fill the positions on the Board, the membership(a certain percent) can petition the Courts to act as a receivership and will run it for you. But it is not cheap and the membership would go crazy when they find out the cost of having the State run the association. So I would get everyone willing to go out and find 2 willing members.

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

First, good luck dissolving the association. If you own any property, double good luck. It isn't likely to happen.

Second, best of luck finding someone to appoint to the board. You may get lucky, and indeed find someone who is willing to serve, but not run. DOuble check your by laws to make sure you can legally appoint board members (some HOAs forbid it, for example).

lastly, read your rules carefully. I doubt that the advice you got that you MUST serve forever is the exact and complete truth. There may be ways to leave the board, if you read around. Of course, that won't help the association, but you should read all the rules before you proceed anyway.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

Don't you have a Standing Committee for Nominations? It's that committee's job to seek out Board members and find people to run for the Board and/or Officers.

GeraldT4
Posts: 1,022

Posted:

DuaneW1 - Do not consider dissolving the association because of 2 Board vacancies that may occur. If no one else runs you still have a quorum of Board members (3) to conduct business. You have a lot of work to do before the upcoming election and the next election after that. You need to do some serious PR to the community seeking members to join the Board, form committees, schmooze the residents, etc. You and your fellow Board members and Management have to turn things around and make joining fun and exciting. Remember, even numbers of Board members present the chance of a tie vote so shoot for getting 2 people to join and some members willing to be alternates.

Look to your docs. and see the criteria for serving as a Board member, and as an officer. Some docs. allow non-Board members to serve as an office in the Secretary and Treasurer roles, and for existing Board members to appoint when there are vacancies. So while you may not get people to join the Board, you may be able to appoint officer positions from qualified candidates that meet the membership requirements.

Serving is on a volunteer basis. No one, or law can force anyone to serve. Whoever tells you otherwise is feeding you a pile of garbage, for whatever reason.

DuaneW1 (Georgia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

First off, thanks for the replys.

Donna, we are required by our CCR/by-laws to have five members on the Board, and yet it makes allowances to the contrary that other members may have double billing except the President and Secretary. It is the idea of how we decide say if I am chosen this time to be the President when I already hold the Treasurer position for the next year, what happens at the end of next year, when my slot is up and yet I still am the President which would go on for another year. The Management Company is the one who told me that I'd have to remain in place for as long as it took, barring me moving, which apparently is the only way to get out of it!

Brian, the only officers that may be appointed according to our docs are if a member has to drop out during their regular slotted time.

Susan, we only have one committee, and that is the ACC which already has two Board members on it.

Gerald, you know, this is when a social committee might have been really helpful. Me and my wife helped with a cookout a year ago, and it did seem to get people excited, but it just didn't seem to 'take' much after that. We did 'You've Been Ghosted' parties, and cookie swaps, we even made Christmas bows for all the mailboxes. People seem to like it, but it doesn't go anywhere. We then did a 'Litter Brigade' to pick up trash, and we had a couple of people help. We decorated the front entrance with 'fall themes' planting flowers, and no one showed up. We had an ice cream social to introduce the idea of a Neighborhood Watch, no one came. True, we just got stuck with a lot of ice cream, but it is what it says about our neighborhood that is the real concern.

I have since sent out more notices left on doors the last two days, reading that no one is running with two slots being open. I'm paying for baby-sitting on site, snacks to celebrate the 'out-going' President, HOPEFULLY, that might encourage some people if only to show up for the meeting itself (which has been a problem in the past when the people 'said' they wanted more meetings, we had quarterly meetings where no one but the Board and their wives showed up anyway.).

We are also going out this afternoon getting people to sign a 'going away' card for the President, and maybe that will also be an encouragement, but who knows.

I'll be sure and write back if it just ends up being the three of us, since that opens up, how do you divvy up the duties between the three of us? The only forbidden is the one I've listed, the President and Secretary have to be separate people. I'm the Treasurer, the other slots that are filled is Vice President, and 'Member at Large'. Which is supposed to be the liason to the neighbors and do the newsletter. He's also the Head of the ACC.

Keep your fingers crossed for us!

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

maybe i am not reading right, or maybe you do thing differently, but i d not believe positions on the board serve for more than one year at a time.

If you have a 5 person board, then you have 5 people elected to be on the board. Then, they meet, and among themselves, elect a president, VP, treasurer, secretary, etc. ad naseum. A single board member can have one, two or ten positions on the board.

Typically, board membership runs one, two, three or more years. usually, they are staggered, so some members are up for election any single year, others are still in their terms. However, every year, the "new" board meets, elects officers, and so on.

So for me, a President is an office, filled by a board member, for a single year. Then, it can be filled again, and again, and if that board member wins re-election when his term is up, elected again.

So how does your president serve for multiple years?

DuaneW1 (Georgia)
Posts: 34

Posted:

In the beginning, the first Board three positions were set for one year, which allowed them to have it ultimately at two year intervals. You're right,Brian, it is set that each officer would be for one year, and then the others would 're-set' and they could be some other office than the one they've held. It's just that it hasn't worked out that way. The President for the past two years WANTED to be stay being President, and so everyone else continued in their original spot too.

You're bringing up a point that has probably hurt in advertising this too, that too many people think the empty offices are the ones that they are 'running for' and they don't want to be president or secretary, so they just stay silent. Everyone is supposed to have read the By-laws and CCR's, but how many actually do, is anyone's guess. So they are just running for a position, not as that officer.

My question was, if you have a three member board, which offices take precedence. It would seem to be the President, Secretary and then the Treasurer. The duties of the other offices divvied up between those three people. Next year when the three of us from last year are all up, if no one wants to run, is where the MC said the President would have to remain in place until a replacement was found.

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