Communications with Residents

We have a large homeowner association in Florida that has a Board of Directors (BOD) and many committees made up of volunteers. Two of the newer directors have become completely out of control and have been systematically attacking each committee (including each others). Their goal is to disband all committees and only have a BOD. Many of our volunteers are quitting because of these directors. Since the beginning of this year they started with our (Community Relations Committee) newsletter and even though our governing documents state that the newsletter is not a board document they tried to take it over and turn it into a publication of just board news. This failed miserably for them (however we lost 2 long time writers) so they moved onto another committee to start trouble. That committee was the election committee, from there it was deed restrictions from there the modification committee and now they are back again to our Community Relations Committee. Our committee is also in charge of our web site and our forum. You have to be registered in order to use the forum, it is for residents seeking help or information from each other, just generalized things with several different topics to choose from. It came to the attention of our webmaster that one of these directors has been on the forum, stating that she is a BOD and a Chairman of her committee and answering questions from this point of view. Our committee had a discussion on this and we felt that this is for residents to talk AS residents and not for a BOD to act as an individual and post their comments. We sent a motion to the BOD for them to adopt our position that the BOD of directors are not to speak as BOD's but as residents. If someone living in our community has an issue it should be brought to a meeting and not posted in the form. Also, the BOD comments are to be recognized as a group and not as an individual opinion. The board accepted our motion (not them though) and it was voted on that the forum is not a place for Directors to be communicating with residents. Now, they are stating that we are not allowing them to exercise their 1st Amendment Rights. I have been researching all over for information on this subject and really can't seem to find anything which supports the way that the majority feels. I would also like to point out that they keep running to our lawyer and even when the lawyer sends a written answer to us they then want clarification of the written statements. Because of much of the nonsense and turmoil they have been subjecting us to we did have a BOD meeting at the lawyers office in March. There were approximately 25 residents in attendance, and when they stated to the attorney "what do we do when we can't get our committee to agree with us and the board will not agree with us either", he told them to resign.

Last year our entire legal fees were somewhere in the $30K bracket and this year we have already surpassed this. A recall would be a massive undertaking, we have over 8,000 property owners and would need 800 signatures. A massive undertaking for a small group of people.

So, does anyone have any information on BOD's posting on forums?

You should also host the forum in another country who doesn't have to follow USA laws. Russia, Romania, India, China, etc.

The problem is what the users might post. Problems such as slander, libel, defamation, etc. Spammers might post illegal items as well.

If its in another country its much safer from the US Court system, lawyers, etc.

You cannot find anything because their claim is bogus. I'm serious about this. The first amendment does NOT apply in this case. In fact, there are much fewer situations where the first amendment applies than most people realize.

They have NO first amendment rights in an online forum.

In fact, as Steve mentioned regarding issues like libel or defamation, anyone posting such and claiming first amendment protection to cover their butts has found themselves in deep doo-doo.

One HOA resident in Colorado found out for herself that online forum speech is not protected when she was found liable for libel and defamation and had to pay upwards of $40,000 for the lesson.

You can make (pretty much) whatever rules you want for your forum (as long as you don't libel or defame anyone) and if someone wants to post there they have to follow them.

IN fact, Cathy, you can make a rule on your online forum that every single poster has to end his or her posts with the sentence "CathyM is the goddess of the Universe" and if they don't, you can ban them.

Tell people to stop letting these bullies "win."

Keep your forum -- enforce your rules (if the board members can't play nice and post the way your have established posters must post, then restrict their posting privileges) -- and let them know you will stay put.

Cathy I know it's easy to get overwhelmed but with a large HOA and a vast pool of volunteers it should be easy to find people to run, instead of just ceding the election to the twits. If you do then you deserve what you get. Since Florida HOA's can't ban recordings, get someone to sit in the audience and tape the pairs idiotic comments. That is what YouTube was made for, to make people look like the idiots they sometimes are.