2014 November Minutes and Closed Meeting

Some More In Your Face, by Our Players.

Let's see: lying to the county; lying to the residents of SLR; ignoring SLohA's attorney's advice; knowing they've broken laws--but don't seem to care--hell, I don't know why anyone is surprised since this is just "business as usual" for this board and manager...

From the 'ever so much more entertaining' UNOFFICIAL Minutes of BOD Meeting Nov 19th:

Dang!  Here I have been worried about those Martians and Meteors!  So far this year, we have had lightning strikes to the Access Gate (elevation 3'); now, a Flow Meter (elevation 1') was damaged by a lightning strike! 

Why isn't lightning striking KCN's 50+ foot tall communications towers?

Posted by pestcontrol1

The board has hidden behind the pompous-sounding Robber's Rules on at least one other occasion in my memory.  In almost humorous fashion 2 years ago, a cH allenged Board officer appeared to be panicked and started waving the book in the air while loudly protesting that RR proved their interpretation of an election ballot count!  (Remember last Ballot?  Seems to be a common problem ie. inability to count and assess results according to bylaws.)

Board--Please Read Robber's Rules!  (Maybe also trying reading SLohA, non-profit Corporate and Florida Homeowner governing laws.)  Robber's Rules has NO ROLE in modifying the the intent or application of any private, corporate or statutory governing documents.  

When the Board used RR to defend their flawed, self-serving interpretation of a ballot result--which was cH allenged by an attorney--I knew that this was a group of dolts.

To back up slightly, Robber's Rules is a guideline of parliamentary (i.e. "talking") procedure and refers to the practices used in meetings to keep things orderly and give everybody a fair chance to be heard.  Robber's Rules is generally regarded as the systematic arrangement of these procedures.   It was supposedly adopted as an SLohA Rule; one always wonders about the legitimacy of SLohA Rules since the Rulebook has been tampered with, however this RR Rule is standard in most HOA Rules and only affects the conduct of meetings.

The point is--RR is intended to Fos ter order and inclusiveness in conducting meetings!  It is not meant to be used as a battering ram and tool to confuse members as the Board is attempting.

The fact is that Robber's Rules defines 3 conditions under which meetings can be adjourned 1- when a pre-scheduled time is reached, 2-when the agenda business is finished or 3-an emergency.  There are, of course, qualifications of the above adjournment conditions and the chair generally has wide latitude to waive a rule.  Remember--RR is a guideline to maintain orderly conduct of business!

Preventing Owners' Comments from being entered into the Association's Official Record would fall under #2.  There is no law that requires HOA's to include member input into the Board's meeting business--it is the Board's meeting!  Thus, BOD need only omit Owners' Comments from the Agenda and can then properly adjourn a meeting according to RR.  After adjournment, they can conduct an Open Forum for owners to speak.  The Right to Speak is statutorily protected by FS720 with a few reasonable conditions as to time and relationship to the business at hand.

Some attorneys state that Boards have a fiduciary duty to record owner concerns related to business discussed but this is not codified in the Florida statutes.  The purpose of corporate recordation is to disclose to ALL owners the concerns of the more vocal, knowledgeable or involved owners through the publishing of Minutes.

The Board decided to ADD this business to the Agenda at the last meeting--ie. to adopt a resolution to adjourn the meeting BEFORE hearing Owners' Comments, thus relieving the Secretary of logging a line or two of owner input into the Official Record.  However, this nasty item was never brought up for discussion, moved or passed/failed.  They did not even bother to discuss it during their own meeting despite putting it on the Amended Agenda.

The disgusting part of BOD behavior is using any and all available excuses--such as Robber's Rules--to marginalize member input into the business of SLohA and make legitimate owner concerns invisible to other owners.  We do not yet know why transparency and inclusiveness is so threatening to this group.

Anyone have any ideas about what happened at the "SPECIAL PRIVILEGED BOARD MEETING "?  Would like to know how many more SLohA  dollars were spent on legal fees.  Looking over just the September  budget, we as an association  have maxed out the legal fees part for the whole year and still have October  through March to go.  And still no trial date set for any of the outstanding lawsuits.  

jimherbst posted:

Actually, I believe that notice was sufficient to fullfill the minimal requirement of law.  The only "flaw" in the notice is using the word "privileged"--there is no such meeting "type" referred to in statutory law as "privileged".   It appears to be a wish of the board to be regarded as "privileged".  There is simply a board meeting that is closed to member attendance for TWO reasons only--litigation (pending or actual) and "personnel matters".  

Further, there is NO law that requires any board to post any agenda--at any time--for members to review prior to the meeting.  The notice does not even have to refer to one of those reasons as the purpose of the meeting.  (However, this must be disclosed in the Minutes.)

Here is what the Florida statute says 720.306 (2)(b)


This was written in the context of Open Meetings and the requirement to provide notice to members of ALL meetings of the Board. 

The statute further states that Minutes must be kept of that meeting as usual and identify votes of directors on any matter.


As you can see, the law was written to give maximum latitude to Associations to conduct legal and personnel business in secret.  Members are only allowed to know the planned meeting date and that it is closed to member attendance.  Thereafter, the board must produce Minutes that state the date held, the general statement of purpose, the attendees and any vote taken.

In general, it appears that because contracts with Associations and their members are voluntarily entered into, the government does not get too involved until the situation enters litigation.  Florida is one of the worst states--some say it IS the worst--as far as over/under regulation of CID's i.e. many many rules but no regulation or enforcement.

Yeah I agree with your evaluation about superior law interpretation through caselaw decisions.  But, someone has to have sufficient funds and temperment to hire an attorney to start a legal conversation.  When you look to Non-Profit Corporate law for guidance on certain procedures, many provisions specifically defer to the HOA statute or generally defer when there is any conflict in the two statutes over procedure.  Back to square one--a poorly-constructed HOA statute that lawmakers refuse to fix even to the level of consistency and par with condo law.

Eventually, the issues discussed at the "privileged" meeting will be revealed by followup actions by the Board (or, I should say, by the Management company.)  Secrets are impossible to keep in this information age--details will "get out" at some point to shock and entertain owners for years!

Amazing misinformation in the Draft minutes of the November 26, 2014. According to the minutes, the Board met with two attorneys from two separate law firms to discuss the lawsuit against SLohA. Strange, technically it is a countersuit to the SLohA lawsuit. And it was originated by the firm represented by Terror BearIt. With the additional attorney representing the Tower Hill Insurance people.
REMEMBER, SLohA FILED THE LAWSUIT. THE RESIDENTS OF 66 SILVERSIDES ARE ONLY PROTECTING THEIR RIGHTS BY WAY OF A COUNTERSUIT.