Changes to Agenda During the Meeting
Our Board recently held a meeting in which they made additions to the agenda and voted on items not originally on the agenda during the meeting. Doesn’t this go against the whole idea of providing an agenda before the meeting if it is going to be a fluid document changed during the meeting.
I understand many interpret ARS 33-1804 as stating like the notice, the agenda must also be sent out at least 48 hours in advance.
What are your thoughts on changes to the agenda and voting on new items during the Board meeting?
Thanks
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Jimmy,
The open meeting laws for Common Interest Communities are intentionally substantially different from those for public bodies and municipalities. While the public body open meeting laws mandate that those bodies cannot consider any issue that was not posted on the agenda prior to the meeting. There is no such provision for common interest communities. In fact currently there is no provision requiring the posting of the agenda prior to the meeting at all. Many board and their useless attorneys have used the concept of “if it’s not on the agenda the board cannot consider the issue? to suppress question and issues raised by homeowners in the meeting. While I’ve been trying for several years now to get legislation to mandate that a draft agenda be published prior to any board meeting to give the homeowners an opportunity to decide if they wanted to go to the meeting of not. If the only time you find out what will be discussed at the meeting is at the meeting itself. This suppress public participation which is what the board and management companies want but not what the homeowners need. We need to keep flexibility in this process so that homeowners can bring up issue and have them dealt with by the board at that same meeting, while still making sure that anything the board is considering is brought to the attention of the homeowners prior to the meeting and along with the notice of that meeting.
When reading the law one must be very careful to read what it actually says and not what your would like it to say.
Dennis