Re: Quorum
From: Muriel Kranowski (murielkvt.edu)
Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 16:30:41 -0700 (PDT)
We have no quorum in the usual sense for our plenary meeting. Decision-making authority is vested in the plenary, which we define as however many homeowners are at the meeting in person, using consensus. The only exception is the (very rare!) case of voting to override a block, which requires approval of 85% of our 33 households after 60 days of trying to work it out without resorting to this vote.

When we were updating our bylaws a lot of people did show up at the plenary, but it's common to have just a handful of people when the agenda isn't so consequential. I think this is a good self-regulating system where important or controversial issues bring out more households and items that seem low-risk bring out just a few governance-oriented folks or those who are particularly interested in the issues on the agenda.

I would hate to cancel a scheduled plenary meeting or not permit a show of consensus, and penalize the people who have made the effort to show up, because of the others who stayed away, nor would we enjoy calling around and begging people to come so we can proceed. As long as meetings and agenda items are well publicized, it's up to the members to be aware that something important is being decided and to come to that meeting. I'm very opposed to allowing those who are not present to prevent the ones who show up from making decisions, which can happen when you have a quorum requirement.

    Muriel
    Shadowlake Village Cohousing, Blacksburg, VA

At 06:32 PM 5/11/2013, you wrote:

Looking for info on how other groups handle quorum.

At RoseWind Cohousing in Port Townsend WA, we designate significant categories of decision as Class One. Examples are passing the annual budget, selecting Steering and officers, decisions to sell commonly-held real estate, financial items over $1000. For such decisions, we require 10-day advance notice, and the presence of someone from each of at least 10 households.

We have 24 households total, but now, for example, there are 4 units which are not occupied by owners, two households that don't choose to participate, several more that rarely do, an elderly member, an ill member, and several households that are away out of state on trips. Our monthly meetings usually have 10-11 households (many with two members present). These are regular participants and well-informed and thoughtful. Our decisions have seemed successful.

We still have a requirement for a higher quorum (13 households) for "amending the documents". The problem is that some changes to our Bylaws or CC&Rs are minor (like removing obsolete references), and most are no more momentous than stuff we do as regular Class One, with its quorum of 10 households. If we require 13 even for minor amendments, we might never get it. A few people are concerned that if we make amending the documents simply Class One, we might approve something drastic (majority rule??) without adequate support.

Do you have special requirements for making certain types of decisions?

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org
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  • re: quorum, (continued)

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