How to keep city manager out of our board meetings

You don't. You minimize the amount of contact by letting them speak at the beginning of the annual meeting, take questions (all limited to 20 min or so) and then thank them and explain that the meeting will continue to elections that they don't have to stay for.

Having a city official willing to speak and answer questions about an issue that may or may not impact your Association is a good thing. It can increase attendance at the meeting by the membership and it allows the members to become better informed and allows the city official to see if the membership would be open to the ideas or not.

Terri,
As someone who has had this same exact situation in Ca. about 11 years ago. We did invite City Council members in to speak at an event open to the owners which was not an annual election for question and answers. We did it in sperate 20-minute blocks for each of the 5 members. We were trying to see how they would answer questions one on one. It was well attended and was informative. We also had the person who was trying to build next door to our property give a informational presentation at our regular board meeting at the start of the meeting. After the 20 minutes allotted for this, he was asked to leave so the meeting could continue with only owners in the meeting.

Non owners should never be allowed to be present at an HOA meeting when our business is being discussed for the reasons that are already mentioned.

I would tell him we welcome him to all the meeting he wants to attend after he closes on his home. If he pushes back tell him, you would like to attend his next executive session of the council meeting. This would probably help him get the point.

Fair point. In that case, bring the litigation issue up at the board meeting and have the board consult an attorney on if they should be invited or not.