Over the past several months, homeowners at Poudre Overlook have been asking a straightforward question:
Who is actually making decisions for the Association — the Board, or one person acting alone?
That question matters more now than ever, as the Board has announced a Special Members Meeting scheduled for January 14, 2026, yet has not provided the basic procedural foundations required for such a meeting to be legitimate.
What Prompted This Concern
Recently, an email was sent to homeowners announcing a “speccial members meeting.”
The message was informal, poorly formed, and contained errors — suggesting it was sent hastily.
More importantly, nothing accompanied it:
- No calendar entry on the HOA website
- No posted agenda
- No ballots
- No explanation of voting procedures
- No meeting location or time
- No supporting documents
As of today, there is also:
- No Action Without a Meeting (AWAM) posted authorizing the meeting or its agenda
- No Board meeting announced where such decisions could have been made
- No response to emails sent to the official HOA email address asking for clarification
This raises a serious governance question:
How were these decisions made — and by whom?
Why This Feels Familiar: The “Unitary Executive” Analogy
Many homeowners will recognize the term “unitary executive” from national politics.
It describes a theory where executive power is concentrated in a single individual, rather than exercised through collective decision-making.
Whether one agrees with that theory at the federal level or not, it does not exist in HOA governance.
HOAs are not designed to function like executive branches of government. They are designed to function like nonprofit corporations, where:
- Members elect a Board
- The Board acts collectively
- Officers (including the President) carry out Board decisions
- Officers do not govern unilaterally
When decisions appear to be made by a single officer — without Board meetings, votes, or documented actions — homeowners are right to ask whether the Association is drifting toward a unitary-executive style of control that the law does not permit.
What the President Can — and Cannot — Do
The President of an HOA:
- may preside over meetings when properly elected as chair,
- may sign documents approved by the Board,
- may act as a spokesperson for Board-approved positions.
The President cannot:
- unilaterally decide what issues Members may vote on,
- unilaterally control the agenda for a Members’ meeting,
- unilaterally assign herself the chair role for a meeting about her own actions,
- substitute personal judgment for Board or Member authority.
Those are not stylistic preferences. They are structural limits.
Why Agenda Control Is the Central Issue
Whoever controls the agenda controls the outcome.
For a Special Members Meeting, the agenda is not discretionary. It must reflect the purpose for which the meeting was requested. If even one homeowner properly requests that certain issues be addressed — particularly issues involving assessments, contracts, or Board authority — those issues must appear on the agenda and the ballot.
Neither the President nor the Board has the authority to simply ignore those requests.
At present:
- Homeowners have suggested specific items that must be on the agenda and ballot
- Those suggestions have not been acknowledged or addressed
- No agenda has been posted
- No Board action approving an agenda has been disclosed
Without an agenda adopted by the Board (or mandated by the Member request), there is no legitimate meeting to notice.
The Missing Piece: Board Action
Under Colorado nonprofit law, the Board can act in only two ways:
- At a Board meeting, properly noticed, or
- By Action Without a Meeting (AWAM), properly documented and posted
As of today:
- No Board meeting has been announced
- No AWAMs have been posted since 2023
- Yet significant decisions appear to have been made
This strongly suggests that no collective Board action has occurred.
If decisions about:
- holding a Special Members Meeting,
- setting its agenda,
- determining ballot items,
- and controlling voting procedures
have been made without a Board meeting or AWAM, then those decisions are not Board decisions at all — they are individual decisions.
That is not how an HOA is supposed to function.
Why Silence Makes This Worse, Not Better
Emails pointing out these deficiencies have been sent to the official HOA email address, which the President has stated is shared by all Board members.
There has been no response.
Silence does not resolve ambiguity.
Silence preserves it.
And when silence follows specific, documented concerns about process, homeowners are entitled to draw reasonable conclusions about whether proper governance is occurring.
What Must Happen Next
To restore confidence and legitimacy before January 14, one of the following must occur:
- A Board meeting must be noticed and held to approve:
- the agenda,
- ballot items,
- voting procedures,
- and meeting logistics; or
- An AWAM must be properly executed and posted showing:
- that the Board collectively made these decisions.
Until then, it is difficult to see how the January 14 meeting can be considered procedurally valid.
This Is Not About Motive — It Is About Structure
This article is not about accusing anyone of bad faith.
It is about how power is exercised in an HOA.
An HOA cannot operate as a unitary executive, no matter how convenient that may feel in the moment. Collective decision-making, transparency, and documented process are not optional — they are the foundation of homeowner governance.
Homeowners deserve to know:
- who is making decisions,
- how those decisions are made,
- and how they can meaningfully participate.
Until that clarity exists, questions about legitimacy will continue.
This post will be updated as additional information is provided or posted by the Board.