The 2009 board met prior to the 2010 annual meeting for the final open board meeting of its term at 5pm. I arrived about 10 minutes late and missed the "homeowner forum" portion of the meeting; the board was discussing regular business when I arrived. After general board business and discussion of delinquencies and liens, the board moved on to adoption of the rules.
Prior to making a motion to adopt its new rules, the board distributed a two page piece of paper to the members present detailing comments made by homeowners regarding the rules changes. It appeared that only about 6 total homeowners had made comments regarding about 10 different rules. (Not all homeowners commented on all rules.) Many of the rules that drew comments had been part of the association's rules since at least 2003 and were not actually being changed. For this reason, the board elected to adopt those rules as distributed to the membership. [I, personally, agreed with many of the comments made by homeowners regarding the rules in question, though, I had a hard time arguing with the board's position that these same homeowners did not complain about these rules when they were previously adopted and re-adopted.]
I did speak up against the adoption of a rule that homeowners must notify the association of all dogs kept in homes and prove that they are licensed. I explained that keeping an unlicensed animal was already illegal, and there was no reason for the board to interject itself by demanding proof from members. The board felt that it was protecting itself from legal liability and that the threat of fines from the association would provide further incentive to members to properly license and care for their animals. The board said that it did not intend to go door to door enforcing this rule but rather would only use it as a tool against members who do not properly care for or restrain their animals. At this point, I asked about the wisdom of having rules that were not intended to be enforced and also raised the issue of legal liability for unequal enforcement.
At this point, another homeowner spoke up, made some references about how the association is not a "gestapo" [funny how Nazi references seem to go hand in hand with HOA's], and explained that the board was using its rules to notify people of their obligations and not necessarily for punishment. I again raised the issues of unenforced rules and unequal enforcement but eventually had to cede that the board was going to adopt the rule regardless of my arguments.
Finally, the board did relax the rule regarding play equipment so that it could be used in cul-de-sacs so long as it does not interfere with traffic. (See actual verbiage in the forthcoming notification of adoption of the rules.) The board then adopted the rules, as amended.
The board adjourned at approximately 5:50pm.
Friday, January 22, 2010
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Regarding the rules that were adopted in 2003, at that time, there was no requirement that the rules be sent out to the membership for review or comment. The board at that time could simply change the rules without input from the membership. Therefore, the 2009 Board's attitude may not have been entirely appropriate. (At the same time, there was plenty of opportunity for comment when the rules were revised in 2006 or 2007...)
ReplyDelete...may not be entirely appropriate (emphasis mine).
ReplyDeleteOne of the people making the comments was serving on the board during or around the time of the original adoption of the rules. In addition to being able to comment in 2006/7, [s]he was in the position to shape or repeal the rule(s) even earlier. While the board arguably could have given more weight to the other 3 or 4 homeowners who objected, it's debatable whether those people would have done so without the prompting of the person in question.
I objected to many of the same rules (in person, which goes a lot further than a letter or fax, in my opinion), but we used the same argument when changing the rules in 2006/7 that silence has to be regarded as assent. I realize there's a fair amount (read: a LOT) of apathy toward this kind of thing, but I think that the board can appropriately filter for that. Even though there are 159 homeowners with a stake in the outcome, as few as 10 to 15 (less than 10%) are usually enough to give the board pause.