A PLACE TO BE
Sunday, March 29, 2015
TRANSPARENCY, ENTITLEMENT, and TEXAS LAW
As a Villager, which event
would trouble you? Knowing executive meetings have increase five hundred
percent? Learning that executive meeting discussion topics are exclusively privy
to Directors? Or finding out that your Board President has for months ordered a
halt to the decade’s old record keeping of what’s being discussed in executive
meetings? If you say no one particular event alarms you, how about collectively?
On the first event, Regular
Meeting Minutes show the last forty-two Regular Meetings had forty-one Executive
Meetings plus one that was cancelled to appease a Director wanting to curtail
of all things, you guessed it, “Executive Meetings”. To date no reason has been
provided why five times more Executive Meetings are needed than the Boards
needed from 2002 through 2008.
On second event the
Minutes shows that since January 1, 2012, our Board has not announced to owners
the general nature of all executive business and that’s against Texas law. By
Texas law the Board is absolutely not allowed to be the only ones in the know to
the general nature of any business being considered in executive meetings? I’ll
explain this Texas law in three steps.
First, it states in our LIV’s
Bylaws that Bylaws exist in compliance with Chapter 81 of the Texas Condominium
Act and Chapter 81’s Subsection 81.0011(part b) reads that our condominium
regime is also governed by an additional item, Section 82.002 that’s found in
Chapter 82 of the Condominium Act.
Second, Section 82.002 (part
c) considerably broadens this governance on our Village by saying Sections
82.005, 82.006, 82.007, 82.053, 82.054, 82.102(a)(1)-(7), (a)(12)-(21), (f),
and (g), 82.108, 82.111, 82.113, 82.114, 82.116, 82.118, 82.157, and 82.161
also apply.
Third, in that mix is 82.108
Section (part b). It clearly states “Meetings of the association and board must
be open to unit owners, subject to the right of the board to adjourn a meeting
of the board and reconvene in closed executive session to consider actions involving
personnel, pending litigation, contract negotiations, enforcement actions,
matters involving the invasion of privacy of individual unit owners, or matters
that are to remain confidential by request of the affected parties and
agreement of the board. The general
nature of any business to be considered in executive session must first be
announced at the open meeting.”
Advocates say the main
purpose of these revised 2012 Texas property laws is to provide Texas
condominium association members more transparency by demanding that meetings be
open to members while laying down specific rules and limits as to what a board
is allowed to do behind closed doors.
So here’s the rub. Even
though Texas law requires it, our Board is not obeying it. LIV owners
are not being told before an executive meeting every piece of business the Board is going
to consider in that meeting. The Board is also not keeping all their business that they consider within the six categories allowed by Texas law.
The Minutes show the Board
has been mostly announcing the vague categories of Personnel and Legal Matters as
“ business to be considered” instead of the specific business topics within those vague categories,
which allows the Board to choose any business topic they wish to discuss without the
knowledge of the owners. It’s also necessary to note that Legal Matters “is
not” even a legitimate category described in 82.108(b), probably because it’s so vague it
can mean anything.
So as it stands today the
discussions the Directors have in Executive Meetings remain clandestine unless
they see fit to tell the owners afterward.
This third event was exposed
last December at the Coffee Meeting when it was disclosed that our Board
President for months has kept the Board Secretary from recording Executive
Meeting Minutes.
Now it’s possible one may
feel there’s no reason to continue the decades long recording of executive
minutes because while in session the board can’t vote on issues or that we
shouldn’t have a record of interactive conversations within executive session
because they can be of litigable use against LIV. While that makes sense to a
certain point, there are owner’s interests and more executive rules to think
about here. Such as while in executive session a board may not vote to pass
issues, the Board may only consider the items announce prior to their executive
meeting and that those considerations can only involve six allowable
categories. So how does one insure to the owners their rights by law and all
rules are being followed when executive meetings have no owner audience or there
is no record of spoken topic? Plainly, the only way is the recording of executive
minutes.
So how can we change our current
Executive Meetings from being view by owners as anything other than secret meetings
that intrude on owner’s rights and break Texas law?
Here is how. I’m sure most
would agree the Board can have as many executive meeting as it wishes if the Executive
Minutes are reinstated but only to reveal in writing those who are in
attendance and what topics are being discussed. There is no need to record
verbal discussions between directors.
In addition if the Board
also follows State law in telling owners before the Executive Meeting the general
nature of any business they are going to consider and that this business
involves the specific categories described by law. Problem solved. Will our
Board relent to these simple solutions?
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2 comments:
Well Joe it seems like you should be thanked by the BOD for solving this issue for them, I hope they take your advise before one of our owners with deep pockets and a lawyer on retainer decides to MAKE them come out from behind the veil of secrecy and stop the backroom dealings and end up costing us another law suit. These kinds of dealings need to be brought to everyone's attention. I heard we have a Building Committee member who is employed by David Evans Reality to do repairs to the rental properties here that Evans is renting that should be making $ for the LIV owners! They asked Ken Waller to resign from the Building Committee because of his conflict of interest, why is this person still on it?
So Joe, the beat goes on, those who profit from the backroom deals continue to point fingers at everyone else to deflect from their own dirty dealings. Some try to convince the community they are open and up front about everything while all the time profiting and protecting their special interests.
Blessings to you and all who try to do the right thing for ALL OF US in spite of the lies and attempts to discredit that the back room dealers engage in. The TRUTH will win, keep the faith!
Pray for LIV!
Evans Reality has 52 places that he is renting out and there is 2 on the building Committee that are doing repairs on them for Evans . So that's what you call a backroom deal that is costing all of us. So this is the TRUTH lets see if it well win.
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