Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Blocking frivolously

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 2 Oct 2011, at 1:30 PM, Racheli Gai wrote:

> An example of frivolous blocking:
> At some point, there was a proposal to raise our association dues by  
> roughly $5 per household, and an alternative proposal not to raise it.

We don't have completing proposals under consideration at the same time. 
Proposals come from teams and are written and circulated for comment before 
meetings. Something like tabling a proposal for discussion later or adding a 
discussion but not a decision to the agenda, would be done at the meeting 
unless there was an objection.

Secondly, if someone objected to an increase in dues, they would have to 
present an alternative budget. We go through about 3 budget drafts before we 
finish so it is an evolving process. Objections are surfaced during that time 
and have always been resolved — so far. (One never knows.) We had dues 
increases as high as 10% and above 5% for three years running when we first 
moved in. The initial estimate by the developer was ridiculously low, because 
we didn't start the reserve study before we moved in — which one should do.

The community comes into play here too. We don't have anyone who is so 
alienated from the community that they would make an unreasonable objection. We 
have people who don't participate in meetings and they grumble but they mostly 
just don't like rules at all. We have people who will stand aside on principle 
— our living standards are already higher than 2/3 of the world's population, 
pets shouldn't be allowed outside at all, etc.— but they don't try to veto.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines, Washington DC
"Logic will get you from A to B.  Imagination will take you everywhere." Albert 
Einstein