Cohousing-L Mailing List: Closed Meetings

[O3C11N6G (normangauss]

We in California Cohousing groups are putatively required to adhere to our 
CC&R's, much of which is based on California Civil Code, California Corporation 
Code, and the Davis-Stirling Act covering common interest developments.  The 
latter measure was enacted by the California legislature and applies to all 
condominium organizations.  I find it difficult to apply the law in certain 
aspects of our cohousing organization, because we do things in different ways 
than those described in our CC&R's and Davis-Stirling.

One of the assumptions of this act is that all decisions are made by the Board 
and all committees are subsets of the Board.  Assuming this structure, meetings 
of groups are to be open to anyone wanting to attend.  Generally, there must be 
no closed meetings, except for some executive session Board meetings.  In 
addition, according to California law, free speech is protected so that 
comments on any political issue affecting community policy cannot be censored 
or prevented.

However, here at Oak Creek Commons on the Central Coast of California, there 
are committees and teams that do not feel comfortable having their meetings 
open to anyone wanting to attend.  This is especially true when there is a fear 
that visitors may interfere with the goals and agenda or that statements about 
certain people are meant to be confidential.  According to our CC&R's and 
Davis-Stirling, the Board is authorized to meet in closed-door executive 
session for the purpose of treating only certain items listed in the CC&R's and 
Davis-Stirling.  Other than these items, all meetings, according to the "Open 
Meetings Act", are required to be open.  

Does anybody in cohousing land have any perspective to provide on the 
prevalence of closed meetings among cohousing organizations?  One alternative 
that comes to mind is for groups wanting confidentality to declare themselves 
independent of the Board and are just private clubs.  Any group whose purpose 
is narrow, not affecting the membership at large, and without a 
community-provided budget should be able to control who attends its meetings.  
Declaring the group a club would accomplish this.  Of course, no community 
funds would be available to these clubs.

Any thoughts on this?

Norm Gauss
Oak Creek Commons
Paso Robles, CA