With appreciation extended to leadership for the abundance of enlightening information provided at the July 18th Town Hall meeting, we now know what many property owners have suspected all along. The board has, in fact, been conducting closed meetings or “work sessions” for some period of time that have not been publicized to the POA membership. (1)
The likelihood of “secret meetings” has often been speculated . . .
With the bulk of the Town Hall dealing with the results of the recent property owner survey, a selection of negative comments from the survey that pertained to leadership were also included in the presentation. The acknowledgement of these unpublicized meetings was offered by the POA president along with the current board’s decision to post “notes” from these meetings to the POA website (2) (3) (4) as an example of corrective action taken by the board to help restore property owner trust in the POA. From those notes, it appears that the current board has met on at least six different Mondays. One might ask if a schedule has been established for these meetings as it can not be determined if all meetings to date have been posted or when the next meeting might take place in the future.
Let’s avoid the perception that the regularly scheduled board meetings are nothing more than a dog and pony show . . .
And while the posting of these meeting notes could be construed as a positive step toward transparency, the board position lacks the most obvious and indisputable solution which would be to open all board meetings, work session or others, to the property owners. One might argue that the POA is not subject to the Georgia Sunshine Laws requiring open meetings, and that would be correct. But – the optics of the POA continuing with the practice of closed meetings especially considering the fact that prior meetings have been held in secret is both daunting and destructive to the board’s quest for property owner trust and approval. (And by the way, confidential discussions such as those pertaining to personnel and legal issues can always be handled in executive session.)
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should . . .
Most interestingly, an article published by a prior POA legal counsel addresses this very subject of closed board meetings. (5) A link to that article can be find here. https://www.nowackhoward.com/behind-closed-doors-can-a-board-of-directors-of-a-community-association-keep-members-out-of-its-meetings/
A golden opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to transparency . . .
Many thanks are extended to the members of the board for being forthcoming with the results of the survey along with their ideas for improvement, but they are urged to please take this initiative one step further and open all future meetings to the property owners, whether virtually or at some future point, physically. This one step will go far in establishing trust and openness while giving interested property owners the opportunity to understand what is taking place within our community as it occurs and in real time.
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Please feel free to share your comments on this site regarding these suggestions or contact me at thepcrosses@gmail.com for questions or further discussion. Likewise, should you like to see additional articles posted in the future, please subscribe for an email notification. Meanwhile . . . take care and stay safe.
Patricia Cross (10438 Big Canoe)
References:
1 Town Hall Meeting, July 18th, 2020, Video @ 16:00 (POAwebsite>login>POA>Meetings>Videos>)
2 Work Session Notes March and April (POAwebsite>login>POA>Meetings>BoardDocuments)
3 Work Session Notes June 29th (POAwebsite>login>POA>Meetings>BoardDocuments)
4 Work Session Notes May and June (POAwebsite>login>POA>Meetings>BoardDocuments)