Paul Lavigne Running for the Board of Directors
The California Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act permits boards of directors to establish committees. The Act allows boards to delegate responsibilities and authority, or not, to its committees, but not accountability. The committees consist of homeowners appointed by the board of directors, and assigned Board Liaisons.
Our Board has ten Committees: Access Control, Architectural Review (ARC), Bistro, Emergency Preparedness, Facilities, Finance, Landscape, Library, Social, and Capital Improvements. Eighty-four (84) homeowners, not including Board members, currently serve on these Committees; they are listed on p.35 of the Hemet Herald. There is also an ad hoc Budget Committee not listed.
These Committees are the backbone of our Community. They evaluate our Community’s needs in their respective areas of responsibility, develop plans for meeting these needs, prepare specific spending items with their cost, and recommend them to the Board. Only the ARC has authority to decide on proposals that come before it.
The Board approves a Committee Charter for each Committee. The Charters vary considerably in their level of detail, and lack consistency, e.g. the ARC is required to submit a monthly article in the Hemet Herald, others are not, but do so. All the Committees are required to report at each monthly Open Board Meeting except Finance.The Charters are only available on request of Management.
Management notifies homeowners when there is a vacancy on a Committee. Committees typically interview applicants who applied after Management screens all applicants and recommends finalists. Committees recommend their preferred applicant to the Board for consideration and approval at an Open Board Meeting.
The Board assigns two Board Liaisons to each Committee. The Liaisons are expected to attend every meeting. Their purpose in being there is to help the Committee follow the directions of the Board and the Committee’s Charter. They are expected to be seen, but not heard. As an ARC member, I have observed varying participation by Directors, from none, to occasionally, to very often. Committees rely on them to communicate with the Board.
Liaisons may communicate messages from the Board and carry messages back to the Committee. Board Directors have reported that they are expected to report highlights of the Committee meetings they attended at Executive Sessions, and that their reports are not included in the minutes of the Executive Session.
Committees contribute to and participate in the development of the HOA annual budget by the Ad Hoc Budget Committee. However, the Committees don’t have a budget to work with during the year based on the budget approved by the Board. They are the drivers of much of the HOA’s spending. Their proposals go to the Board for consideration and action at an Open Board Meeting.
Each Committee has an assigned member of Management to answer Committee questions and prepare minutes which are approved at the next Committee meeting. The minutes of all Committee meetings are provided to the Board. With the exception of the ARC, homeowners are welcome to attend Committee meetings.
Our HOA has a website, https://portal.connectresident.com. This site has numerous documents. But Committee Charters and Committee Minutes are not included. The Board recently approved a new Charter for the Finance Committee. But a homeowner, or even an attendee at the Board meeting, would not know what it was because it wasn’t shared.
Committees, with the exception of the Finance Committee, are asked to report at each monthly Board Open Meeting. The purpose is to inform the Board and attendees. But the Board knows everything that is reported; they have heard from Liaisons in Executive Sessions and received meeting minutes. The content of the reports varies widely; there is no required format, except for being brief.
Some Committees don’t even report. Very few homeowners benefit from the reports, an average of only 30 homeowners attend the meetings. By comparison, Four Seasons at Murrieta “zooms’ all their monthly Open Board meetings to all homeowners, if interested. Jon, our HOA Manager, at a Coffee with the Board, said there would be no point in doing this based on his experience.
If elected to the Board, I will propose that the Board consider:
1. Updating all Board Committee Charters for consistency
2. Developing an Annual Budget for each Committee based on the HOA Budget
3, Tracking recommended Committee Spending vs. its Annual Budget
4. Strengthening Committee Reports at Open Board Meetings
5. Relying on Committee Minutes and Board Reports, not Liaisons' reports
6. “Zooming” every Open Board Meeting to homeowners
7. Posting Committee Charters and Minutes on our website
Implementing these additions might increase homeowner interest in and knowledge of the conduct of the Board’s activities and encourage them to remain more involved.