BOD MEETING MINUTES

I live in a 55+ community which recently established an independent
web site. On this site the minutes of the BOD meetings for the past 4 months
were added. I requested to be placed on the BOD agenda to address a particular
issue. I had 4 pages of comments and questions which, for the sake of brevity,
I requested to be included in the minutes. I did not read my questions or comments.
The Secretary added my text to the official minutes but not on the web site.
It was stated by the Secretary in an email to me that, "Your comments are included
in the official minutes of the December meeting. I do not send attachments to the
website. I keep all official minutes in the minute book and if anyone has a question
or wishes to view the official minutes I make them available".

My question: If you are on the agenda of a BOD meeting and recognized by the
Chair can one propose a motion from the floor? To wit, "I move that the comments and questions I have submitted to the Board be placed in the
official minutes AND INCLUDED WITH THE MINUTES ON THE WEBSITE".

Would I have to read all comments and questions?

Mary is absolutely on target on both points, Daniel.

There is a distinction between the minutes of a meeting and a record of the proceedings. The record may include such things as written reports from committees, financial reports and so on that are not properly part of minutes which is, generally, a summary record of attendance, motions made and votes taken.

Mary, George and Kirk,

I have no exception to your determination of proceedings of the meeting in question. As the opinion of adviser and consultant I can see you at times want to stay detached and completely clinical. In this instance this OP is trying hard to get his opinions to be considered, and abides by the ruling of the Board. Is that the end of the Board involvement? A case could be made this is a fact. But if he follows the ruling as was explained here, where does that leave him if he receives no guidance from the Board. No thank you for your concern, your comments will be included in a reading file for all board members and comments will be solicited. No promise that the Board will respond to you personally and if you have additional comments or information the Board will be pleased to hear them. No your comments fall under the purview of our Finance Committee (or whatever) and you will hear a response in two weeks.

Isn't our OP supposed to be advised this is more or less the kind of response they deserve from the Board.

Also, an additional next step for his issues could be included in our response.

My concern here is for the OP, not a critique of your responses. I, personally would be very interested in reading where he should go from now, and also your opinions about Board responsibility to resolve issues brought before the Board.

Robert,

Common sense and courtesy tells us the Bod should act as you have stated. I was speaking to the accepted norm re minutes and not to the issue of how the board should react and respond. As you all know, this is not a topic you'll most likely find outlined in your gov docs and or state law. Everything cannot be addressed in those docs. Parliamentary procedure and common sense come into play; sadly many boards are lacking in both!

DanielL3,

I am new to our BOD, and I am also the President, (for lack of anyone else wanting the position). My first goal as President on our board was to get the meetings focused on action. We have lots of "issues" we are passionate about, but cannot allow one issue to take over our BOD meeting. We have had pages of material presented to us in the past. It was distributed to the board so we could research the issue and then it was added to the agenda for motion, discussion and vote or referred to committee if necessary.

From the research I have done on minutes, there is no place for 4 pages of comments and questions whether they were read aloud or not. I think they are following suggested guidelines by agreeing to attach your comments to the minutes. I can't begin to assume why they wouldn't include them on the website as well, but I doubt there are requirements.

In our BOD meetings, a board member can make a motion, then another board member would have to second, then the board members would discuss and call a vote. So, if you convince one board member, at least you could get them to make a motion.

If your "issue" doesn't get resolved, I'd do what I could to make sure it remained on the agenda. If the board votes on it and you don't get the result you want, don't give up. Run for a board position. Lay your issue out, without personal comments, with a proposed solution. If this is an item that other owners are also passionate about, get them involved. Work together to come up with a solution. Bring it before the membership at the annual meeting.

At our meetings, the secretary (under the topic of "communications",) will go over all received letters, mail, etc. with a quick overview.

None are "attached", but they can be acknowledged in the minutes as having been received, with no action taken. For Example, The minutes could state:

The board recevied a letter from Joe Blow, 1234 Happy Lane, in regards to the garbage cans being left over in the street. A reminder will be placed in the newsletter. No other action taken.

or

Letter received from Joe Blow. Discussion followed. No board action taken.

To all,
I like the direction this thread is taking. Some comments and suggestions clearly present reason for not including all this material in the minutes. But, it is also pointed out that is has been accepted by the board and no action will be taken. Is that the proper result from the Board concerning issues that an owners feels important.
Board judgment I agree. I posted on this issue above and was answered that it was only common sense to treat individuals with respect, etc.
Go to end of this thread and ask the question did it happen in this case? Answer stated they didn't really know how else the Board could have handled it. Should it be considered that a reading file for this kind of material be set up and maintained and there is unlimited access to this material by any interested member.
Maybe this answer would save a little face for both sides, and I don't mean different sides.

I am tuned in to "Boards" right now. Just came from our Board Meeting that is probably the 6 or 7th since the Board meetings were made open. All the predictions about free for alls, trouble, disruptions and prolonging the meeting are not happening. In fact there was a tone of stuff covered in out Board meeting, we had owner participation, like all boards the economic situation and the effects in the coming years have to be considered. They were discussed, pertinent HO comments were permitted, several constructive, and along range plan was well presented discussed.........and the meeting took 3.5 hours with a 15 minute break.................excellent compared with our track record of closed meetings.

But I want to start a separate thread and call it, "Board Proceedings, Good and Bad". I will tell you what happened, you tell us what you think. Personally, I expect worse goes on every day in many associations, is this kind of thing likely to lead to trouble.

Please comment there also.

LynetteB,
Your response here is perceptive, refreshing and thoughtful, you are going to make a good Board member.

First..........your "Baby Steps" recommendations took me years and years to come to grips with that one.......excellent advise.

Second: Refreshing. I was sure you were going to say you didn't realize how much time it would take, and etc, etc, etc.

Third: Thoughtful, the whole of your post makes it clear you have prepared yourselve and gained considerable knowledge.

And, an aside, we have a lot of people just like you posting here.

You will also develop a thick skin here, part of this site.

Glen,
Not sure why, if you are, suggesting the Board should not respond to this kind of inquiry by an owner.

I agree, the board made the right decision, I also propose the owners concerns may be legitimate and are worthy of inclusion in open an open reading file for the perusal of all members. I have over the years made written statements to the Board for consideration and they have not been accepted. Those statements are just as much a part of the meeting as anything else that is recorded. They do not have to be voted on, they do not have to be discussed, but they do have to be acknowledged and made part of the record. In some cases, the Board may elect because of their own reasoning not to include them in the minutes, but they can not erase the event. All I proposed is a open reading file be maintained for owners perusal, and the Board to announce, that the statement will become part of that file for that meeting, or, the board may elect to turn the correspondence over to someone for consideration and inform the member they will receive a reply after consultation with whoever (Lawyer comes to mind right now)

Robert, you must have been a politician in another life. I never said the Board shouldn't act on or respond to the letter; you said that they weren’t going to. I simply asked where you got this from since the whole point of Daniel's post was:

My question: If you are on the agenda of a BOD meeting and recognized by the Chair can one propose a motion from the floor? To wit, "I move that the comments and questions I have submitted to the Board be placed in the official minutes AND INCLUDED WITH THE MINUTES ON THE WEBSITE".

Would I have to read all comments and questions?

By the way Daniel the answer is no; it is not proper for an H/O to make a motion like you described from the floor at a Board meeting. Nor even if you read your entire letter from the floor would the information be reported verbatim in the minutes.

Mary,
Thank you for your input, it is helpful to me.

I am not so sure about our abilities to act as judge and jury about what some individual says or writes to the Board. If it is out of order the Board has the authority to over rule any proposal that disrupts decorum. But I am afraid, unless there are some very specific covenants that can draw the fine line, he can pretty much say what he wants, but he cannot make accusations unproven, he can not make personal attacks and I am sure there is more, but if he wants to bitch about the operations of his association, he pretty much has free rein. But he must behave himself. And I draw the comparison of the drunk causing a ruckus in the Board meeting and in public. Now in the Board Room the decorum is enforced by the president and he may elect to call the cops. But in public decorum is a little different and many times it comes down to John Q. Public calling the cops, or puching him out, or shooting him. Oh well, Thanks agaqin.

Robert,

As evidenced by the way you conduct yourself on this forum, I know you would never act like the member I spoke of in my former assn. That member was bent on destroying our HOA, whereas you are bent on improving yours. I was just trying to convey to you how some members conduct themselves and why a board would be justified in not reporting their comments to the membership. Surely your board members know what your real intent is. However, if you feel your comments should be made public and they are opposed to including them on the website you can make copies and distribute them throughout the neighborhood yourself.

OOPs, forgot to include all the "IMO;s", but of course you know these are my opinions. LOL

Thanks to all of you for your insight and opinions.

My four pages of comments and questions were concerning a lease agreement the
HOA made with the developer on a community center facility which originally was
to be conveyed to the HOA by the developer.
In the minutes posted on the web site it was stated Mr. Daniel submitted questions and comments concerning the lease and all his questions and comments were answered by the BOD during the meeting. This is not true. None of my inquiries were answered. If a resident was not in attendance at the BOD meeting and read the minutes on line they would assume Mr. Daniel had some questions and the BOD answered those questions. Let's face it, how many residents willtake the time to drive to the main office and request to see the minutes? Not many. Ask the BOD Secretary? She says go to the main office.
So, I emailed all residents my comments and questions concerning the lease.

Daniel, I would think that all you would have to do is request a correction to the minutes that were posted.

But perhaps is a question of connotation.

Did they not answer your questions, or did they not give you answers you wanted to hear?

In otherwords, did they simply ignore your questions and not give any response at all?

To them, whether the answers were ones that you accepted, if they addressed them at all, they may feel they "answered" them.

But regardless, you have disseminated your documents to the membership, which, as Robert pointed out, is your right to send anything (well, not something illegal or harassing or . . . you know) to anyone you want.

Perhaps the board will be more specific in the future.

It would be interesting to see if, by not addressing your concerns, they have opened a can of worms.

I wonder how many other residents, after getting your documents, will attend the next meeting with similar questions?

That would be interesting to know. . .