Extreme Code-of-Conduct Provision

One of our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Unit Owners Association policy resolutions contains a provision that I consider to be extreme and overreaching.  I told the Board of Directors of my concern about that provision before the Board adopted it, but they included it anyway.  Now that two of the four residential Directors are about to be replaced, I hope that unfortunate provision can be deleted.

The offending provision is paragraph C10 of Policy Resolution No. 10-14, "Code of Conduct for Condominium Leaders".  It prohibits members of our Board of Directors from speaking with any of us non-Board-member unit owners regarding certain topics.  Those forbidden-to-speak-on-the-issue topics are “Association matters that are currently, or that should properly be, before the entire Board.”

That prohibition flies in the face of the usual idea that an elected representative may—and SHOULD—talk with constituents about matters of interest that are or may come before a legislative body.

Also, might not that prohibition violate Section 55-79.75:1 of the Virginia Condominium Act, which requires that our Board of Directors establish a reasonable, effective, and free method, appropriate to the size and nature of our Condominium, for unit owners to communicate among ourselves and with our Board of Directors regarding any matter concerning our unit owners association?  In my opinion, our Board has never adequately complied with this requirement, and this prohibition appears to exacerbate that insufficient-communication problem.

That shameful paragraph C10 also includes this sentence: “If a discussion is unavoidable with said Unit Owner and an interaction does ensue, the Board member should attempt to get a second Board member or other witness to be included in or to overhear the discussion if at all possible.”  I ask, why would a conversation between a Director and a constituent be viewed as so threatening?

If all of this isn’t bad enough, here is the last sentence of paragraph C10: “Afterwards, the Board member should prepare a memorandum of the conversation and submit same to the Board for review at the next scheduled Board meeting, as well as send a letter to the homeowner memorializing the conversation.”  I ask, sarcastically, how much chilling of communication between Unit Owners and Board members was the Board trying to achieve, and why?

The Policy Resolution (link in second paragraph) also contains a sentence near the end that is of concern so long as the offending paragraph C10 remains in effect.  That sentence is: “Existing and future Condominium Leaders, including persons running for the Board of Directors, will be given a copy of the Code of Conduct and will be asked to sign that they have received it, have read it, and agree to abide by it.”  I would prefer a Director who would refuse to sign the Code of Conduct so long as it continues to include that offending paragraph C10.

There is one more sentence in that Policy Resolution that also is of concern until the offending paragraph C10 is removed.  That sentence is: “Materials describing the candidacy of persons running for the Board of Directors shall note any situations where the candidate has not signed this Code.”  That sounds to me like pressure to sign something that a Director candidate of the highest principles shouldn’t sign until it has been corrected.