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New HOA president faces problems
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Q: As the newly elected president of our homeowners' association board, I find myself with a couple of disturbing problems.
The first is with the past president; I will call him Bill. Over the years, Bill has asked individual homeowners for their email addresses. He has about 75 percent of the homeowners' addresses on his personal email list, and dispenses board/community updates and information to them. He has made it clear that the email list is his and that he will not share it with other members of the board.
I have two concerns. First, because he does not want to be in charge of the monthly newsletter or write any articles, some homeowners may not get the information. Second, I am concerned that information is not reaching all the HOA members.
There is another board member who is a problem. I will call him Sam. Since I took over the presidency from Bill, Sam has begun to disrupt meetings by making snide remarks to me, talking out of turn and/or just under his breath. He refuses to conduct himself in a proper manner under Roberts Rules of Order. It is very obvious that he strongly dislikes me personally. Sam is an 82-year-old man who has been on the board for many years. I am not sure how to address this problem. The meetings are becoming difficult, volatile and divided, making it hard to accomplish HOA business.
Are there any state regulations regarding conduct of board members that could help resolve this problem? I find him to be very disrespectful to me and the other volunteer board members. I talked with some of them about what I see as a problem and they are hesitant to come down on him because of his age and longevity.
A: First, it would not be very difficult for the current management and board to obtain email addresses from the membership to become part of the official records of the association. This is the path of least resistance, as it would cost more time, money and possible litigation to try to force "Bill" to provide this information based on the assumption that he acquired this information on behalf of the association.
Second, in your official newsletter, you need to inform the membership that your newsletters, emails, flyers, etc are the official voice of the association, that when in doubt, homeowners should contact current management for clarification on any issues that may be stated in any third-party correspondence.
SB 204 section 42 states that meetings of the association must be conducted in accordance with the most recent edition of "Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised" unless the bylaws or a resolution of the executive board adopted before the meeting provide otherwise. If your association's governing documents already state that your meetings should be run according to Robert's Rules, or if your board decides to approve Robert's Rules per SB 204, then you would be able to have your disrupted board member removed by the "sergeant of arms."
Regardless of Robert's Rules, you, as president, have a number of choices. You can call for a short adjournment and tell the director that if he continues to disrupt the meeting, he will be asked to leave. Second, you can adjourn the meeting. Third, you, as an individual, or by the board (by vote at next meeting) can begin a recall of this director. Finally, your board could establish rules of behavior at your meetings, following the guidelines of Robert's Rules, whereby any member who disrupts the meeting could receive a warning notice for the first offense and for the second offense, a hearing/fine letter. You will definitely want the assistance of legal counsel as homeowners and board members have the right to speak even when you do not agree with them.
Snide remarks or talking under your breath may be annoying but not necessarily would allow you to remove a director.
Barbara Holland, certified property manager, is president and owner of H&L Realty and Management Co. To ask her a question, email support@hlrealty.com.
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ABADREAD...The property manager?????have you noticed those are the one's tied in with the Attotneys, construction companies and every other crook involved in the corruptoion investigation. The Board hires the management company, then for some reason the management company stiffles the Board as much as possible to enforce their own agenda.
One board member should NEVER be allowed to communicate with homeowners without CC'ing ALL the board members! This could result in serious conflicts of interest. Barbara, you more than anyone should know this! Better yet, all communications with HOA members should be through the property manager.
Barbara...Why are there not Laws that protect a Board member from personal attacks by another Board member attacking the honesty and credibility of a Board member by using the e-mail system of the management company to get his or her personal attacks to home owners out. Our Attorneys say the Board member should get his or her own personal Attorney at his or her own expense to address the problem, then you run in to the old "freedom of speech" excuse that only serves to run up Attorney hours and costs that our Attorney says the HOA is not responsible for, in short it is open house on an honest Board member by a radical Board member who for whatever reason can use the e-mail system with immunity. The newer NRS 116 regulations have a retaliation law, but not to protect a Board member. On the Roberts rules or the Boards right to manage the Hoa using the rules or using common sense to manage the HOA Boards authority using the sound business judgement rules, LOOK OUT for your management company and the Boards own General Counsel, they can give you a whole new meaning to that regulation from what you may have lived with if you were in a management position out side a HOA. Hopefully the good news we finally received this week
that the Justice department has gone into action will result in far less radical and over bearing management companies that attempt to over power Boards with their own version of the NRS 116 and CC@R'S. Perhaps you can run your thoughts on this in a future article, this comes from more than one discussion with other Board members. Thanks