Committee meeting and accountability
Our community is suffering greatly under our current HOA. Each year since 2020 they have increased dues 10, 11, even 20%. I am paying 1030 a quarter and do not see where it is going. We are a subdivision of Power Ranch and have a landscaping vendor who is inadequate of its service. We have attended meetings, spoke to the vendors and we are getting no where. We have no grass anymore, it’s literally just dirt and AAA comes and mows the dirt, edges and trims dirt. This is what we are paying for. In addition, they claim we need new irrigation and how much it will cost. According to another vendor our irrigation has a warranty and can replace all parts for free. We would just pay labor. I. Addition they make financial decisions without checking to make sure it truly needs to be done. We are hemorrhaging money because of the financial irresponsibility! Recently they scheduled a meeting less than 48 hours advance notice. My understanding is the AZ law says all committees need to give 48 hours. Is this correct? Our bylaws say no less than 10 days.
My questions are where do we go from here with the lack of landscaping that is being done and we pay for and what to do about the less than 48 hour notice?
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Amber,
I’ve done a lot of work with both members and board members from your community. So, I understand many of your specific concerns. Most of the problems in your community stems from the bad performance or advice from the community managers and attorneys that advise your boards. Your boards have two fundamental duties to the members of your community. To preserve and manager the common property and to act prudently in the use and protection of your financial assets and secondly to comply with the law and enforce the governing documents. From my discussion with many different members of your community it is my opinion your association has failed miserably in the performance of the primary duty of the board to all of the 4000 plus members of this community. Your master community has succeeded in replacing the majority of your board and it is everyone’s hope that this new board will take a better track to both understanding and living up to their duties to the community. Time will tell.
The most that I can do with the help of this coalition is work on revising the laws of this state to clearly define exactly what those duties of the association are and how board can spend the money they raise from your assessments. I’m also working on legislation that will allow the homeowners in every community to ratify any budget proposed by the board beyond an established threshold before they are assessed to all of you. While inflation has hit everywhere nothing justifies 10,15 or 20% assessment increases on the members of the community without any say from those members. The communities can never be allowed to write their own checks using your money without some oversight and review by the members themselves.
All of my proposals for this legislative session will work to help all the members of your community and every member of the greater than 10,000 communities in this state, but I need all of your help to write and call the legislators in your respective districts and demand that the legislature work with me to make these communities better places to live and to empower the homeowners in these communities to have more of a say in the operation of the communities that they live in.
Your community is in LD14 so get in touch with your legislators and ask for help. Your Senator is the current President of the Senate and as such is extremely influential in the work of the Senate, One of your Representative is Chairman of the House Regulatory affairs and will have direct influence on the hearing of any HOA related legislation in the House.
It is extremely costly and frustrating to fight an association board that has no idea of their obligations to all of you and the only way to affect meaningful change is to get the legislature engaged to help their constituents.
The last point of your question was about the application of open meeting laws to committees of the board. Current law includes committee meetings in the scope of the open meeting law but it uses language that limits that to “regularly scheduled” committee only. What does the schedule of a meeting to do with the significance of what is conducted in that meeting? I’ve seen communities that have committees scheduled to meet monthly but then define in their charter that those committees are “not regularly scheduled”. This is the work of unscrupulous attorneys trying to circumvent the law. So right now, very few committees’ meetings are being considered as subject to the open meeting laws. If they are the 48hr prior notice supersedes and other provision in the bylaws.
Dennis