Board Dialogue with Unit Owners

In the past, there has been an item on Board meeting agendas that I believe hasn’t been worded in consonance with the requirements of our bylaws and the Condominium Act. That agenda item is the one that, in the past, has read “OPEN FORUM: Dialogue with Residents.” One way to correct the agenda item would be to replace the word "Residents" with the words "Unit Owners". The resulting correct agenda item would then be “OPEN FORUM: Dialogue with Unit Owners.”

While I believe it is indisputable that the wording of the agenda item must encourage the unit owners who don't live in our building to nevertheless participate in dialogue with our Board of Directors, the question of whether tenants should also be encouraged to participate in that dialogue is a legitimate issue for debate. I encourage all Market Street at Town Center Condominium unit owners (resident AND non-resident) to email me or/and post opinions on this question on my forum at the below links. (You will need to be registered and logged-in with that forum to post there.)

rasmussen305@gmail.com

http://mstcuoa.proboards.com/


I hope our new Board of Directors will word the agenda item in question appropriately.

Here are the details regarding what our bylaws and the Condominium Act require on this matter. You can view our Market Street at Town Center Condominium bylaws at the following link: http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/BylawsV4.PDF Section 8 of Article III (on page 20) contains this sentence: “All meetings of the Board of Directors shall be held in accordance with Section 55-79.75 of the Virginia Condominium Act.” If you then look at paragraph D of that Section you will see that our Board of Directors is required to “provide a designated period of time during a meeting to allow unit owners an opportunity to comment on any matter relating to the unit owners' association.”

Please note that the statute says “unit owners”, NOT “residents”. Also note that our Board of Directors is elected by and is supposed to primarily serve the interests of unit owners, not residents. That unfortunate past wording of the agenda item suggests that resident tenants are more welcome to dialogue with the Board then are non-resident owners.

At the annual meeting 12 Nov 08, our outgoing Association President stated that 160 of our 333 residential units have non-resident owners. The past wording of that agenda item appears NOT to comply with our bylaws and the Condominium Act for those many non-resident owners.

Once our Board makes clear that non-resident owners are just as welcome as resident owners to participate in the Open Forums, it could also continue to welcome tenants to participate in the Open Forums. But my personal view is that the wording I suggested at the beginning is most appropriate: “OPEN FORUM: Dialogue with Unit Owners”. I believe the proper channels for tenants to use are their landlord or our On-Site Manager.