HB 2270 & 2262
Good morning Dennis,
Under current year Legislation there are 2 House Bills: HB 2262 & HB 2270 in varying stages within the legislative process. Both house bills address the same ARS, namely open meeting laws.
HB 2262 reflects very little in actual revisions, However HB 2270 contains considerable language additions as well as some language deletions. I know that you have previously mentioned working hard on improving the clarity of ARS 33-1804 which is reflected in HB 2270. I also noticed the proposed deletion regarding the requirement that the BOD identify the paragraph that authorizes them to meet closed session.
It seems logical to me that with more new proposed choices under the closed meeting section that not identifying which paragraph would authorize BOD to meet in a closed session could result in total lack of transparency for association members.
I was hoping that you could help bring some clarity to these back to back HB proposals and specifically the closed meeting issue noted above. Thank you for any information that you can provide.
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Robert,
HB-2270 was drafted by me while HB-2662 was not. The key point in 2270 is that executive sessions are for discussion only of specific topics and issues that are privileged or confidential. That no-action can be taken in executive session for any reason. I expanded the subject matter to address legitimately protected discussions. With that premise all action by the board must be taken in open session to protect the transparency for those actions. With that point clearly established, there is no longer any need for the notice of the conduct of executive sessions. I actually put that provision in statute in 2017 to force association to consider the five legitimate subject matter for these executive sessions. But like everything in statute the HOA attorneys found ways to circumvent the law instead of simply complying with the law. Community after community notified executive session with identification that they would consider all five exceptions in that meeting. Which was absolutely and intentionally false and then did what they wanted in executive session to hide their actions from the community. I’ll also point that existing law does not allow any actions to be taken in executive session but does not specifically identify that it is prohibited. A loophole capitalized on by HOA attorneys to claim that board can take action in executive sessions. HB-2270 did made several other significant changes but will have to be addressed in future years as this bill was held from consideration in committee and died for this year.
As for HB-2262 that bills focus is simply on providing advance agendas for both meetings of the board and meeting of the members. While this is a good thing that we support it is very focused and limited in its scope. I tried to convince the sponsor to include many of the additional changes that we lost in HB-2270 into this bill but he was not interested in complicated the issue he wanted to address.
Dennis
Dennis,
Thank you for the clarification regarding those two HB proposals. It appears to me that the more unambiguous the ARS become, the easier it will be for homeowners to recognize and challenge those issues when association boards and community management companies ignore or abuse their positions.
Also I wanted to ask that when SB-1432 & HB 2141 were signed into law on 3/29/24. what is the date that the laws become effective?
Thank you once again for the valuable information that you provide.
Bob
Robert,
All laws become effective 90 days after the legislative session ends. The Legislature is working hard to complete their work by the end of April, so if that happens then the laws will all become effective around the 1st of August. Last year the session did not end until June 30 so that year’s statutes all became effective on October 30. Some laws are classified as emergency measures and become effective upon the signature of the Governor. Those bills must be designated as Emergency measures and require a 60% approval of both chambers. Even if a bill like HB-2648 gets unanimous approval of both houses because it was not designated as an emergency bill it still has to wait the 90 to become effective.
Dennis