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I read about the government’s
open meetings act about every other week.
Government entities have very strict requirements about what can be said
and done outside of a meeting. Why? Because the state of Texas wants the public
to hear what is being considered and how the issues are being handled. They don’t want decisions being made in
secret or behind closed doors. It is a
really important part of our democracy.
In fact, local politics are, at least in my opinion, are the most
important process in our democracy. But,
I digress. Do HOAs have the same
requirements? The short answer is no.
HOAs
are not governmental entities. We will
talk more about this in the coming weeks, but some people think they should
be. HOAs are generally nonprofit
organizations. The members and the board
of directors (along with some vendors) are the only individuals that are
showing up to meetings. For governmental
entities, the meetings are open to the public.
Under
Texas Property Code §209.0051, meetings where “deliberation between a quorum of
the voting board…or between a quorum of the voting board with another person”
must be in an open meeting when discussing very specific subjects. For example, if the board wants to apply
special assessments or wants to discuss and consider the budget, they must do
so in an open meeting. The complete list
of subjects or items that must be discussed in an open meeting (15 subjects
including subjects to be considered in an open meeting during the development
period).
The code section does not mean
that every discussion must be done in an open meeting. If that were different and the board was
subject to the same rules as governmental entities, it would be very difficult
to conduct business for those HOAs that only have quarterly meetings. If the
discussions don’t involve items on the list in 209.0051, they can discuss them
without a meeting. Some board of directors then at the next meeting ratify the
decision on the minutes. What that
means, is that they discuss it and tell the members what the outcome was and
include the vote on the minutes so that it is documented. But they only do this when they are
discussing subject matter that is not listed in the open meetings statutes in
Chapter 209.
It
is a good idea to discuss ideas with the membership in general, but there are
situations that it is not convenient to do so.
It is always important to refer to the Texas Property Code and consult
an attorney when issues arise as it pertains to HOA meetings.