California SB 563 Property Management

The new year brings new legislation for community associations in the State of California. I'll touch on many of these through-out my blogging, but will focus this post on SB563 (Committee on Transportation & Housing) Open Meetings. The Open Meeting Act was adjusted in five areas to create more transparency by having board business discussed at open meetings. I'll list the five changes with a brief summary below, but will focus my attention -- animosity may be a better word choice -- on no longer being able to make decisions via unanimous written consent.

Effective January 1, 2012: Five Changes to SB 563 Open Meeting Act

1. No more unanimous written consent. This equates to boards no longer being able to make decisions via e-mail. You must notice and call a meeting to make decisions.
2. Telephonic Meetings. Regular, executive and emergency meetings may be held via teleconference. However, there must a physical location where a board member is present for the meeting, and for members to attend in person. This was initiated as a replacement to the unanimous written consent/e-mail meetings.
3. Notice. You must post notice and an agenda for regular and executive session meetings. The plus side of this is it provides for notice to be delivered electronically, but proper consent must be signed by each member first.
4. Agenda. If the topic is not in the agenda sent out before the meeting - you can't discuss the topic at the meeting.
5. Delegation. The board can delegate certain actions to a managing agent, member/person, officer or committee of the board.

Analysis of SB 563 Open Meeting Act Changes:

Let me start out by saying I always encourage transparency, and understand why a lot of these changes were initiated. And since I'm committed to transparency, let me dovetail my understanding with utter disappointment in these legislative decisions. E-decisions (electronic decisions) are made every day in most every type of business environment. Problems are vented through an e-mail, discussions proceed, and an e-decision is made.

Do you remember the dial-up connection process to the Internet? Remember how slow it was and the irritating fluctuations in noise and connectivity? This bill puts managing an association and the e-decision process on a dial-up connection. Actually, it eliminates the Internet, and rewinds time to 1876 when the telephone was invented. Seriously? All these smart legislatures and the solution to transparency was a phone call? I'm disappointed. Shame on you, Sacramento. Shame on you.

I can provide information to anyone that wants to get involved, but a good starting point is http://www.clrc.ca.gov/.