Community Insider Spring 2020 | Page 12

Director, don’t apply to her. And, in doing so, she has now created a situation that the rest of your Board must absolutely deal with. In fact, it’s not untrue to say that unless it’s dealt with, both swiftly and with great care, your entire HOA’s financial future could be at serious risk. At this point, the question becomes “now what”, in trying to resolve the situation. First and foremost, your Board needs to make sure that you document every act taken in attempting to correct the situation. This creates an invaluable paper- trail that illustrates your desire to rein-in the rogue Director. Next, and as dreadful as the situation may sound, there are several options for correcting it, ranging from simple in executing 12 | SAN DIEGO COMMUNITY INSIDER SPRING 2020 with minimal consequences, to having to, in extreme cases, invoke the “nuclear option”. In most cases however, the former is the one that more often than not actually works. That option is sitting down with the rogue Director, and (suggested) with the HOA’s legal counsel in attendance, and explaining thoroughly why what she’s done is, in fact, “unlawful”, according to State statutes, and your governing documents. If it’s just a case of her truly not understanding the governing documents, in many cases your action of being willing to “educate” her on them will allow her to hopefully see the error of her ways, and her rogue actions will cease. The next option would be to public censure her at an upcoming Board meeting, and attended by members. The censure is a formal and public rebuke of her rogue actions, and is entered into the Minutes for the association’s records. The Board could, in addition, ask for her resignation at that point, even though she’s not bound to honor the request. But asking for it adds to the paper-trail that shows you tried to mediate the situation. The next option is to consider a recall election. Based on how your governing documents are written, this could be a challenging route to take. Some governing documents require that the entire Board be recalled, in order to remove just the offending Director, while others