KarenS11 (Florida)
Posts: 148
Posts: 148
Posted:
An excerpt from Donna in esponse to another post:
"Board e-mails are actually an infringement on your "open meeting laws" There should be no decision making from any Board members without having the membership present at a meeting."
My question is this- often our board will want to discuss items in between meetings. This had been done by e-mail, but I have set up a private forum on our website to bounce ideas around. We have not used the Board-only forum, but continue to use numerous e-mails to discuss things.
What constitutes "decision-making"? If an expenditure has been agreed upon in an open meeting, may the board decide on the details- red, white, green; Home Depot VS Lowes; hot dogs or hamburgers at the party; etc. via e-mail?
My thinking is that anything having to do with money, including setting automatic thresholds for liening property, contracts, a budget for the Christmas party, etc. gets brought up in the open meeting. But the minutia of carrying out those decisions is open for e-mail or message board "discussion".
If these discussions ARE subject to open meeting requirements, could we get away with having an open forum on our website and send a mailing that anyone without a computer wishing access to this information should contact the secretary?
Most of the details that we discuss should really be taken care of by committees, but we have to beg folks to serve on the board and just now have a handful of folks willing to serve on a landscape committee.
I am all for total transparency, but when you have a board that will hardly spend an hour a month at a meeting and a membership that does not attend meetings, to require that every discussion be held in a noticed meeting would have a detrimental effect on the business of the association.
"Board e-mails are actually an infringement on your "open meeting laws" There should be no decision making from any Board members without having the membership present at a meeting."
My question is this- often our board will want to discuss items in between meetings. This had been done by e-mail, but I have set up a private forum on our website to bounce ideas around. We have not used the Board-only forum, but continue to use numerous e-mails to discuss things.
What constitutes "decision-making"? If an expenditure has been agreed upon in an open meeting, may the board decide on the details- red, white, green; Home Depot VS Lowes; hot dogs or hamburgers at the party; etc. via e-mail?
My thinking is that anything having to do with money, including setting automatic thresholds for liening property, contracts, a budget for the Christmas party, etc. gets brought up in the open meeting. But the minutia of carrying out those decisions is open for e-mail or message board "discussion".
If these discussions ARE subject to open meeting requirements, could we get away with having an open forum on our website and send a mailing that anyone without a computer wishing access to this information should contact the secretary?
Most of the details that we discuss should really be taken care of by committees, but we have to beg folks to serve on the board and just now have a handful of folks willing to serve on a landscape committee.
I am all for total transparency, but when you have a board that will hardly spend an hour a month at a meeting and a membership that does not attend meetings, to require that every discussion be held in a noticed meeting would have a detrimental effect on the business of the association.