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FL HOA - IS SECRETARY FORCED TO REVISE MINUTES TO INCLUDE COMMENTS FROM BOARD MEMBER WHO DIDN'T ATTEND MEETING?

Started by LizJ1 replies • 1931 views

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LizJ (Florida)
Posts: 34
Posted:
I have just completed my first full year as Secretary and tonight I was unanimously re-elected by the board to serve again as Secretary. Not 10 minutes later during a vote to accept the minutes from the prior meeting as submitted, I was called a liar and accused of being biased by a board member who did not even attend the meeting! We had a board meeting that was re-scheduled due to lack of a quorum. The board member who wants the minutes revised asked us to call her when we all arrived because she is working on her house getting on the market for sale. The president called her, she walked in said, "You don't need me" referring to the fact that we had a quorum and said all she wanted to do was state that she would not vote in favor of approving the minutes because she hadn't had time to read them and she wanted to make sure a motion she had made a prior meeting was recorded correctly. Then she left without even sitting down. The president had not called the meeting to order yet and so when he did, he acknowledged that there was a quorum with the 3 remaining board members. I recorded comments made at the meeting in general discussion and I recorded how each board member voted when we considered each item. Her name does not appear anywhere in the records of voting on any action taken?!?!?! She was not there when the board considered the acceptance of the minutes. Just because the board voted tonight 2-1 that the minutes should be revised, what is my recourse? The votes in favor of approving the minutes were from the president and the board member objecting to the minutes. I really don't care if the minutes were approved tonight or not. And in fact, they weren't approved as submitted. In hindsight I see that I should've tried to make a motion that the vote be deferred until the next meeting when the only other board member who actually attended the meeting is there to vote, but at best that will only result in a 2-2 vote because the 5th member of the board was not on the board when the meeting occurred. As I understand it, 2-2 means no decision which is better than submitting minutes that are false.
RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067
Posted:
Liz, when a majority of the Board members voting approve minutes they are approved. If a Board member is not present when the vote was taken they can not vote. The Board should consider all requests to properly record a motion, particularly when the person making the request made the motion. As Secretary you can ask for motions to be made in writting if you think it is critical.

Your recourse is to record that you voted against the motion to approve the minutes or else not sign the revised minutes iff the item you think is false is critical. Also, if you believe the vote count was falsely reversed you could make a motion at a future meeting which could effectively reverse that item. Usually I would let it go unless I thought it was really important to the business of the HOA - not just important to me and my ego.

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