BYLAW PROPOSAL: Ban Simultaneous Spouses On HOA Boards

In an odd and convoluted process at the 12/5/23 Annual Homeowner’s Meeting, President Ballweber’s spouse, Jeff Ballweber, was elected to the Board unopposed. He self-nominated, then withdrew his nomination, and then later changed his mind and renominated himself before the vote was taken. While there may have been 39 votes in the room, only about 15 households were physically present. There was no indication in advance of the meeting that such a brazen political power-grabbing maneuver was likely to occur.

In full context, the issue was, once again, me. I had self-nominated, but had left the meeting early. I requested electronic access as I needed to be across town at a fundraiser for the homeless, but the Board in typical fashion ignored my request made by email in advance of the meeting.

As predicted by the collapse of the Special Architectural Committed for “no interest” which I described in this prior article, DESPERATE RECRUITERS, there’s now an enthusiasm gap among Poudre Overlook Homeowners which HOA Industry folks like to label “apathy”. I’d like to say its risk avoidance. Participation now comes with the threat of retaliation from this Board, and you are likely to have your neighbors invent complain violations to intimidate you into moving.

So, the easy solution for keeping me off the Board is simple. And, John Tunna voiced it out loud at the meeting: Have any 2 people run, and resign after the election. It’s truly that simple.

But, these folks are SO desperate, they spent 2 months since my October 14 declaration of candidacy trying to recruit people to join the Board. They couldn’t find a SINGLE PERSON.

Now, they were unsure of how to handle the fact that I had resigned, and that the Amended Bylaw trying to ban me could not be legally enforced. So, I anticipated two people running and resigning. I anticipated the kangaroo court, where President Ballweber would find some excuse to let the ban be effective anyways. She did that by punting the decision back to the homeowners’ intent (which isn’t a thing).

What I didn’t anticipate is that her husband would join the Board when they couldn’t find ANY other person willing to serve. But, with everyone from Poudre Overlook Advocates (POA – Walker Flanary and Irve Denenberg’s political party in the HOA) in the room, and the 8-9 households who have controlled the HOA for the past 8 years holding more proxies than people in the room, the die was cast.

Was this reviewed by our HOA Attorney? Slim to no chance. They didn’t even get a review of their last policy change.

Did they even Google it? Don’t make me laugh. This Board is so brazen that it no longer even considers the implications of what they are doing.

I found the following on this site: https://www.hoaleader.com/public/What-Know-About-Spouses-Running-for-Your-Condo-HOA-Board.cfm

So, yeah, technically you can, but you probably shouldn’t. The same article opens with: “Overall, this might be permissible, but it might not be wise.”

Altitude Law, who we’ve used repeatedly for legal advice, commented in the article.

A key point, made by one of the attorneys quoted above is that most new HOA documents (including document revisions) include a clause that prohibits not just spouses, but also more than 1 person from the same household (spouse or not) serving. We have homes in POHOA where there are multiple adults who are serving at the Committee level, and we have seen Gloria and Clay Jones serve simultaneously in various ways in the past.

Our rules are clear on voting as a homeowner. Each home gets one vote. In the odd circumstance that two owners wish to vote differently, their votes are proportional (and effectively cancel each other out). So, the principle of one home-one vote exists in our documents.

But, nothing in the Bylaws currently stops spouses or two people from the same household from being on the Board at the same time. This means that we now have one household controlling 50% of the Board, which is a dangerous precedent. Unwise, as the article points out. And, with stacked up drawbacks, also as the article points out.

There’s yet another problem. The Colorado Open Meetings Act which Colorado HOAs are obligated to comply with all aspects.

The law prevents any two persons who are on an HOA Board from meeting and discussing HOA business outside of an open meeting or AWAM (which has specific procedures). While proving that such things are occurring between spouses may present privacy issues, we openly observe the current Board having impromptu “street meetings” all the time. Those that are now outcasts (former Board members who became disfavored) have first person recollection of this collusion being a regular part of POHOA governance.

Having spouses serve creates that atmosphere of impropriety and distrust. At a time when we already see literally the entire community avoid HOA meetings and participation on committees.

But, as a practical matter, there’s another cynical thing at play here. President Ballweber has contended that a President cannot vote unless it breaks a tie. It’s not true, but that’s her “board policy”, which, again, isn’t a thing. By having her spouse on the Board at the same time, their household now has an extra vote, and instead of her being the tie-breaker between Clay and Walker, now she can create a tie when her husband is outvoted by Clay and Walker to defeat certain motions.

Do we want a single household to have even the potential for such powers?

Therefore, I advocate that we create a Bylaw that addresses this issue so that we don’t have to contend with it in the future. In all other HOAs where such things have been tried, it turns out badly in the end. We don’t need another experiment in POHOA to see if the inevitable occurs.