Board set to vote on the proposed changes ... later
July 20, 2023
October 12, 2023
Meetings are still being held virtually.
Amendment information will be sent 30 days in advance for the community to review.
The board could not vote on earlier presented amendments. Jean Paul from the management company told the board that communication to residents ahead of time was only required before the amendment is enforced and not before the vote. HOA documentation states the following:
The Board of Directors or the Architectural Review Committee, as applicable, shall mail written notice to each of the Members of the Association setting forth the proposed rule or regulation at least twenty (20) days prior to its adoption. Such notices shall be mailed to the address of each Member as shown on the most current membership roster of the Association.
Because of the oversight, the board moved on to the next topic and a fine policy was discussed. The board plans to send out the policy, a 2-3 page document full of 'legalese' which is supposed to mimic other communities and 'enforce' the guidelines with punitive efforts.
The board is going to lean on the management company to do 'assessments' and make sure people are complying. On the one hand, the board wants people to comply with the rules, under the assumption that following the rules will make the neighborhood valuable. On the other hand, what is the point of an HOA that leaves a management company (people who don't live here and have no vested interest in the community) to blindly enforce fees and implementation. Not to mention how incapable this management continues to show itself to be.
Kira, from the board, said that consistent enforcement is important. She gave the example of a house with a purple door (which isn't allowed by our current guidelines). In one area, neighbors may be fine with the door color while in another area, neighbors may not be. Allowing the purple door in one area just because the affected neighbors don't mind, is unfair to the neighbor in the other area. True... but... The real question is how does door color even affect real estate value enough that neighbors should decide what is appropriate for other people's houses?
I attempted to ask in the chat if there had been consideration for altering guidelines to make them easier to follow vs investing effort into additional punitive actions for not following a set of builder set guidelines that are disorganized at best.
You'll get more bees with honey than you will with vinegar
My assumption is that people are going to do what they want to do so why not align the guidelines with what people want to do... Which would mean there is less need to enforce.
In my question I used the term "positive reinforcement" which apparently was very triggering for Delwin, from the board, who seemed to become immediately agitated as he came off mute.
Despite a community member prefixing their earlier comment in the chat with 'this is shit' alongside their reasoning - my comment was the only one met with what felt like a lot of aggression.
Delwin asserted that 'we were adults' and 'not everyone gets a participation award' for following rules. The benign question did not match the rude response on any level. It should be noted that no one attempted to calm Delwin down or check his extreme response.
At the end of the call, we stayed on to talk to the board, and specifically Delwin about it. We continued to stay kind and calm as we attempted to address how over the top and rude he was being. Delwin refused to back down. He went on to state his address and said if there was a problem, I could go see him and talk to him in person. It certainly felt very threatening. There's no world where I would go speak to someone that unhinged and even more concerning that they are a board member.
